culture

National music is widely sung among the DPRK people as they have continuously carried on the soul and tradition of the nation.

But no other song is known by everybody and sung frequently like folk song Arirang.

The song truthfully reflects the sorrow of separation between man and woman and the joy of their reunion, joyful working life and the desire to live happily in a bright world.

Many stories about the origin of the song have been handed down, but a typical example is the folktale “Songbu and Rirang”.

Once upon a time a young man named Rirang and a young woman named Songbu worked as servants of a landlord in a village. Then the whole village had a bad year. The cruel landlord deprived the peasants of everything. Peasants staged an uprising against the oppressors and there was a fierce battle. After breaking through the encirclement by the oppressors, the young man and woman decided to set up a home in a remote mountain. But the man made up his mind to go back to the battlefield at the thought of the villagers falling at the bayonets of the enemy. So he left the woman with a promise to return home three months and ten days later. One hundred days passed since they parted, and the day of their reunion came, but they had to part again because of unexpected misunderstanding. Overwhelmed with grief, the woman saw him off in tears and the pass resounded with her voice as she shouted, “Ah, Rirang!” anxious to follow him. His feet refused to take him over the hill of separation. And he came back down the hill to soothe her as he could not forget her, his beloved. It was really a sad separation.

Later, the pass was called Arirang Pass and the song the woman sang in a choking voice, missing her beloved, was called Arirang.

Thanks to the song’s zestful verse of Arirang arirang arariyo and its lyrical melody, the folk song has widely been sung as Sodo Arirang, Tanchon Arirang and so on in different parts of the DPRK.

During the anti-Japanese armed struggle organized and waged under the leadership of General Kim Il Sung, the building of a new country after national liberation and the historic years of socialist construction, the folk song was newly adapted and widely sung as Arirang of Prosperity, Arirang of Army-People Unity and others reflecting the aspirations of the times and the people.

The melody of Arirang played in the prelude to the multi-part feature film “The Nation and Destiny” well known to the DPRK people is quite impressive.

In 2014, the folk song, an intangible cultural heritage element of the DPRK, was put on the Representative List of ICH of Humanity.