[KS] " Chosun, Be Aware! " Ballad of a Shrimp Crushed by Warring Wales

[Roald Maliangkay]

Dear all,

The ballad resembles a folksongs included in a study on folksongs by Im
Tonggwôn (韓國民謠硏究, p. 180; NB: Im does not claim this was his
transcription, although he did, of course, claim the collections many
thousands of folksong transcriptions to be entirely his own...).

쏘련에 속지말고           
미국사람 믿지마라          
일본놈 일어서니           
조선사람 조심해라          
 
Unless list members recognise this song and can verify the claim that it was
“very popular”, I would be a little more conservative and just list it as
one among many songs sung in the late 1940s (at least). Unless there is the
association with (a version with) musical accompaniment, I doubt very much
that we can ever speak of folksongs becoming very popular.

Just my $ 0.02 worth...

Cheers,

Roald





On 1/07/12 11:07 AM, "Werner Sasse" <werner_sasse at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Just a little carping
>  
>  "the ballad rhymes perfectly in Korean line by line. " - I did not find the
> rhymes... What exactly did you have in mind? Rhyming does anyway seem to be of
> minor importance in Korean poetry. At least end-rhymes do not work because of
> the gammar endings, and I did not find any other rhymes in the text. Or did
> you read the verbforms in the last two line in the traditional sijo way 해자 -->
> 하이지, 될라 --> 도일라?
> By the way: 해자...? I need some help here.
>  
> "Also the 3-4, 3-4 pattern matches the familiar Korean Sijo(시조) form." You
> probably meant Gasa, not Sijo. A 3-4, 3-4 pattern is characteristic of Gasa,
> not Sijo, and so is the semantic parallelism in the list. And this kind of
> list is another characteristic feature of Gasa, and of folk songs (sic!)and
> Muga. 
>  
> Nice ballad. Do you know the tune?
>  
> Best , Werner Sasse
> 
> Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2012 04:46:52 -0500
> From: almakoreana at gmail.com
> To: koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
> Subject: [KS] " Chosun, Be Aware! " Ballad of a Shrimp Crushed by Warring
> Wales
> 
> Hello All, 
> 
> 
> This ballad became very popular among Korean children soon after Japan's
> surrender(August 15, 1945), Russia's advance to North Korea(August 1945) and
> America's march into the South(September 1945).
> 
> The ballad reflects the exact geopolitical situation Korea had been facing for
> centuries. 
>> 
>> 
>                  
>                                   "CHOSUN, BE AWARE!"
>   BALLAD OF A SHRIMP CRUSHED BY WARRING WHALES
> 
>                                       "조선아 조심해라!"   " Chosun, Be Aware! "
>             미국을 믿지 말고,    Don't Believe America,
>             소련에 속지 마라!    Don't Be Cheated by Russia!
>             조선아 조심해라,     Chosun, Be Aware,
>             일본은 일어선다!     Japan Will Rise Again!
>             조선아 조심해자,     Chosun, Be Alert,
>              중국에 중화될라!    China May Absorb You!
>              ( Last two lines were added later.)
> 
>> 
>> 
>> A few reasons for it's popularity may have been that, the ballad rhymes
>> perfectly in Korean line by line. Also the 3-4, 3-4 pattern matches the
>> familiar Korean Sijo(시조) form.
> 
>             
>                  
>        
> 

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