Desire speaks in numbers. I hope the rank is small and the amount is large. As my metallurgy rank went up and my wallet slowly opened, finally, in Chungmuro, ‘The Man Who Lives with the King’ surpassed ‘The King’s Man.’ Has the cloud of box office success reached Gwanghwamun? This time it is the story of ‘The Man Who Played with the King’.
Ten million is the magic number. It is both dangerous and fortunate. A million choices (sympathy) are a great blessing, but it is difficult to turn a deaf ear to a million words (disagreements). My first job was as a teacher. I taught Korean at my alma mater for two and a half years. His junior and student, actor Choi Min-soo, testified on a broadcast he appeared with (JTBC’s ‘Hang Show’). “The Korean language teacher wrote the lyrics of pop songs on the blackboard and sang them together.” I also have something to say. Even if you forget the rule of palatal pronunciation, don’t you remember the lyrics? I didn’t teach the notes, but conveyed the goal (topic). Even if we meet now, I sing in unison and my students sing in chorus. Music unintentionally takes us to ‘that day when there were no tears’ (the song ‘I Want to Go’).
It would be interesting to revive the feeling of the slightly noisy classroom and settle the Gwanghwamun performance of BTS (pictured). First of all, how did Sejong feel when he saw the BTS performance in first class? From now on, the mood shifts to the so-called ‘you are writing a novel’ atmosphere. Someone is offending the king. “I feel completely unfair to sing in full English in front of the person who invented Hangul.” The king responded, “This is outrageous. Stop right now.” Are you talking about stopping the music? That’s a million words. It is a lament to abandon such narrow-minded opinions.
King Sejong valued communication. Even if I couldn’t meet them in person, I wanted to read the people’s hardships in writing. However, even if they want to achieve something, they cannot write a document. “We are experiencing difficulties because our country’s language is different from China’s, so promote Chinese character education nationwide.” If this were the case, you wouldn’t be sitting there right now. The king gathered talented people and formed a dream team (Jiphyeonjeon), and over the course of three years, not only did he invent a new character, but he also took the lead in writing and distributing poetry using it. Not only did he write poetry, but he also composed music, so it was literally a series of dramatic moments where words became songs and poems. The title of the song that laid the foundation for the hearts of the people is Yeominrak (與民樂).
Is Wang really a singer-songwriter? Since it remains in the record (Sejong Annals), there is no way to overturn it. No, there is no need for that. This is because the purpose of writing a song is more important than the talent for creating it. The case of Admiral Yi Sun-sin, who watched the performance with King Sejong, is similar. Rather than making the turtle ship himself with a saw and hammer, wasn’t he the person who saved the country through the purpose (defense of the country) and practice (victory) of making and using it? Yeominrak originates from Mencius’s meaning of enjoying with the people. Isn’t this also beautiful that he regarded the people as friends rather than tools?
If we communicate only among ourselves, it is not communication, but communication. What happened in Gwanghwamun Square that day? People speaking different languages came together to create a cosmopolitan. On one side of the Earth, bullets are raining down, and on the other side, elastic waves are intersecting. Isn’t this truly the 21st century Yeominrak (the world’s prayer for rain) in which citizens of the world long for peace?
Since we started with a king, let’s end with a king. Hong Sa-yong’s (1900-1947) poem ‘I Am the King’ ends with ‘Every land of sorrow in this world is the king’s country.’ A true clown is not the king’s man (the man who charms the king), but he designs a festival where everyone becomes the king and enjoys (plays with the king). The festival is over. After the festival is over, homework remains. There is no need to go far. Let’s remember just the three letters of Gwanghwamun like a mantra. From darkness to light, from barbarism to culture, breaking down walls into doors.
Writer, producer, song collector
