"Ganggangsullae", Korean Beauty

 

When Korean people think of "Ganggangsullae", they usually turn their time back to middle school history classes. Korean History teachers often teach their students that "Ganggangsullae" was orginated from Admiral Lee, Sun Jin's strategy in the war between Japan and Chosun. That's what I learned, at least.
But turns out that it's not. I found that out in the Korean New Years celebration held at my grandparents' neighborhood, GeoChang. It's famous for its rich land and agriculture, and is located at Geongsang-Namdo, by the way-which pretty much tells the fact that the tradition of "Ganggangsullae" has been passed on and on for a LONG time. Anyways, I just wanted to check out my knowledge gained from history class that "Ganggangsullae" was started from the war(1592). But the answer I heard from my grandmother was not what I expected.
"Of course not, JongMyong. It was definitely much before than that. But I don't really know when."
So that's why I googled on the way back home about this interesting topic. I researched further on, and I even recieved a prize in my school's "intro. of Korean tradition" presentation contest by this research.
Okay. So here's a brief summary of my presentation back then.
Ganggangsullae is known to have been demonstrated since the agricultural era in the Korean penninsula. Experts claim that <Haenam>(location: Julla Namdo) was the pioneer out of all regions, which later adopted this custom. Accordingly, it's true that it was used in the 1592 war.(Admiral's diary) It was held in celebrational days, mostly by women.
These are the info. that are introduced in any kind of website, like Google or Naver.
But my past presentation was not about this. It was about a topic that I was really interested in, about things "between the lines".
I think,
that
Ganggangsullae is a great example that exhibits "Korean beauty": Ambiguity.
First off, how exactly is does "weird" custom-holding hands, making a big circle, and dancing around-illustrates Korean beauty? And why is "ambiguity" a "beauty"? Let's start with the second Q. Not only Ganggangsullae, but many other traditional songs(customs) in Korea do not have a concrete format. Not only the lyrics, but even the melody evolves as time passes. But this process of "evolution" quite differs from place to place,depending on the unique spirit of each region. How ambigious is that? For ex, Geongsangdo's Arirang is about whining and overcoming hardships because the people were exhausted of taking of crops. But in Gangwondo, the melody and the lyrics are very different from that of other regions. That's because the villages were isolated from the cities, high mountains in present. From this, we can infer that each Ganggangsullae of each region represents the tradition and the spirit of the region. These cannot be seen in other things. With the unique traditions and spirits integrated together, the entire Korean spirit is reborn. While the aspects of seperate regions have nothing in common although it's the same Ganggangsullae, together; they have impact. They are beautiful. This is why I find Ganggangsullae a Korean beauty.
P.S. Here's the different lyrics of Ganggangsullae in different regions. Pay attention to how it resembles the spirit of the region itself.
Julla do's
Over there, under the mountains-Ganggangsullae~
Look at the girls, picking some camellia flowers-Ganggangsullae~
Turn the faces, let me see them-Ganggangsullae~
Look at their bodies-Ganggangsullae~
So afraid that others will take her-Ganggangsullae~
Still afraid that others will know me loving her-Ganggangsullae~
Two of us working-Ganggangsullae~
Then the sunset, who knows what will happen-Ganggangsullae~
The standardized(probably Seoul's or GyeongGi Do's)
Mountains, mountains, you are so lovely and pretty-Ganggangsullae~
Blossoming flowers and greeny leaves-Ganggangsullae~
When you fall, I will fall-Ganggangsullae~
I will always be with you-Ganggangsullae~