Donghoon Gang is an artist, composer, and researcher.
[KR]
[EN]
A man named Bak Yeon (朴延) is a person from Aranta (阿蘭陀)[1]. […]
In the fourth year of King Hyojong’s reign, a drifted vessel washed onto the shores of Jindo County.
On board were thirty-six people; their clothing was strange, their noses high, and their eyes deep. Both sides found each other’s language and script unintelligible.
Some called them Westerners (西洋人), and others called them Nanman-in (南蠻人, “Southern Barbarians”). […]
Aranta was also known by the name Hwaran (荷蘭, Holland)[2], and sometimes referred to as Hong-yi (紅夷, “Red Savages”) or Hong-mo (紅毛, “Red-haired”).
Located in the sea to the southwest, the nation occupied Taiwan at the end of the Ming Dynasty but was later overtaken by Zheng Chenggong.
It is said that Japan traded with Aranta, relying on the latter as a source of external support.” […][3]
3 Years and 100 Million
Unfortunately, the first memory of my life was parting with my parents. The financial crisis that had wrought misery upon all of Asia reached even the southern islands, eventually tearing one family apart. Fooled by an admittedly creative deception involving a mysterious hot spring rumored to work wonders for weight loss, I waved both hands from my grandmother’s back as I personally sent them off to Japan.
Because they had provided an exact timeframe of three years working in a distant land to earn a reasonable figure of 100 million won, I was able to let those years pass by encouraging their laborious efforts, rather than waiting in vague longing. Instead, since I owed some degree of response to the pitying gazes and admiration of those around me, I performed a false despair somewhere between jest and bravado under the guise of an inflated cheerfulness.
Dragging a quilted comforter long enough to wrap around my body several times and tucking it into my chest as if it were a jeogori, I delivered the trot songs favored by those who looked at me with particularly pitying eyes. That the first songs I learned belonged to the popular adult variety was certainly not due solely to the head of household’s monopoly over the remote, but was more likely a matter of social maneuvering.
In the last letter sent to my parents, alongside assurances of my own well-being, I proposed a figure of 3.4 billion won. This amount far exceeded what we had agreed upon, serving as yet another reason to defer their return. Despite my generosity, they kept their original promise and returned.
The sight of them after three years was so strange to me that it took several months to soothe my parents’ disappointment. With the reunion of my utterly ordinary and unhappy family, the repertoire I had practiced for three years was promptly censored. My parents forced upon me the childhood of bygone days that they had failed to witness, as if offering compensation.
Road (路)
The character ‘路’ (road) originally signified individuals (各) walking on their feet (足), but over time, with the help of four-legged companions and technological progress, land trade networks formed over long periods eventually linked nearly both ends of the continent. Subsequently, the Age of Discovery and the invention of the airplane allowed for the traversal of sea and sky by vehicle rather than on foot, and collectively rather than individually, thereby expanding the sense of the word ‘open.’
If land routes made trade possible, maritime routes changed how the world connected through discovery, exploration, and the following expansion of hegemonic power. Air routes accelerated global movement, binding the world into a unified sphere while simultaneously intensifying internal fractures.
Before the opening of the airways—a history spanning little more than a century—Portugal, the nation said to have truly opened the sea routes, was a peripheral territory located at the southwestern tip of the European continent; its geographical location and an environment unsuitable for agriculture forced its people to turn toward the sea. Crossing Africa and India, the Portuguese ultimately reached Japan to engage in commerce. Those who arrived along these newly carved paths were collectively termed ‘Nanman-in,’ and their mercantile activities were naturally referred to as ‘Nanman trade.’ The term was born of a fearful gaze, one that projected a familiar sense of otherness onto the strange people from beyond the borders.
Nanman trade transported not only goods but also religious tension to the archipelago. The spread of Catholicism introduced via Portugal and the Kirishitan (吉利施端) who followed it left deep fissures in Japanese society, eventually leading to strict control over Christianity following the Shimabara Rebellion. In this process, the Portuguese were expelled. Only the Netherlands, a Protestant nation capable of minimizing religious influence, was permitted to trade from Dejima, an artificial island near Nagasaki, on the condition that they prohibit proselytizing. Their close exchange continued for about 200 years until the appearance of the ‘Black Ships.’
Record of Castaways from the West
(Seoyang-guk Pyoin-gi, 西洋國漂人記)
On the 24th day of the 7th month in the year of Gyesa (1653), sixty-four Western Barbarians (西洋國蠻人) came together on a single ship, were shipwrecked in the Daejeong County area, and washed ashore on the coast near the town. […]
When asked in writing, one man drew a cross (十)[4] three times and indicated the number six, then pointed to himself. Then he drew the cross twice, indicated the number six, closed his eyes, and leaned his body as if collapsing.
Their appearance was strange, and the make of their clothes was different. Although their speech was unintelligible, pointing to himself seemed to signify the number of survivors, and the gesture of closing his eyes and falling seemed to signify the number of the dead.
When the numbers of life and death were cross-referenced, it was indeed so.
Translators of Chinese and Japanese were mobilized, as were those who had drifted back from Ryukyu, but none could understand their language, so there was no way to ask about their circumstances.
Identifying them as Westerners, including those from Nanman, this fact was reported. Subsequently, Bak Yeon, a man who had previously drifted from Nanman, was sent down to interrogate them in the vernacular script, and the details were recorded separately and reported urgently. […][5]
[jaː]
Hendrick Hamel, a sailor and bookkeeper for the Dutch East India Company, left the Netherlands in 1653. After transferring to the Sperwer in Batavia (present-day Jakarta), the center of their Asian trade, he headed for Dejima via Taiwan but was shipwrecked on Gapado Island after encountering a storm. When asked where this was, a local replied "Gaepado," which Hamel’s party transcribed into their own script as ‘Quelpaert.’[6]
Gapado is known as the lowest island in Korea, at about 20m above sea level. The waves surrounding it are so fierce they are said to ‘cover’ the island; thus, it was originally called Gaepado (蓋波島), using the characters for ‘cover’ (蓋) and ‘wave’ (波). Those violent waves swept Hamel’s party in an instant to Daejeong-hyeon (now Sindo 2-ri, Daejeong-eup, Seogwipo City, Jeju[7]).
Their strange appearance called to mind Bak Yeon (Jan Janse de Weltevree), another ‘Nanman-in’ who had drifted ashore years prior. Sharing a dramatic reunion, the Nanman-in from across the world wept until their sleeves were soaked, asking for news of home in their mother tongue and discussing ways to survive in this unfamiliar land.
"Are you Kirishitan from the West?" they were asked. To which they replied, “Ja, ja[8]” (耶耶).[9]
Weltevree, who had drifted ashore 20 years earlier and naturalized in Joseon under the name Bak Yeon, warned Hamel’s party, who wished to reach their original destination of Japan, of the latter’s strict control over foreigners, claiming their lives could not be guaranteed there. He urged them to remain with him in Joseon.
Hamel drifted to Jeju in 1653, a time when Japan and the Netherlands maintained limited trade under the condition of prohibiting proselytization following the Shimabara Rebellion. Whether Bak Yeon sought to hold back Hamel’s party because of memories anchored in the Japan of twenty years prior, out of kindness to protect the lives of those who answered ‘ja’ to being Kirishitan, or as the sad ploy of a lonely exile in need of friends, we cannot know.
Thereafter, Hamel’s party was transferred to Hanyang and detained for about 13 years before successfully escaping to Dejima, their long-desired destination. They finally returned to their homeland and were able to inform Europe of their drift, which was in fact a report written to receive retroactive compensation. Intended to detail their 13-year absence and grievances, it was leaked during the submission process and published by three different publishers in 1668.
While the three versions show subtle differences, they all describe the stay of 13 years and 28 days after drifting to ‘Quelpaert’ as “detention akin to slavery.” Among them, the Saagman edition includes records and illustrations of man-eating crocodiles and elephants existing in Joseon, contributing to a distorted image of Joseon within Europe.
The following year, 1669, a merchant ship named Corea set sail to attempt direct trade with Joseon, but it was ultimately thwarted by opposition from the Dutch factory in Dejima. Joseon would face a forced opening of its ports only some 200 years later.
Flow (流) and Origin (由)
Until Europe and Joseon clearly confirmed each other's existence after the 18th century, Europeans were referred to as ‘Nanman-in’ or ‘Hongmo-in.’[10] Because those who were unfamiliar—with the exception of the Middle Kingdom and its neighbors—were regarded as beings from the southern periphery of what was believed to be the center, a long time passed before those who differed from the existing Nanman-in were clearly distinguished and granted proper names.
Excluding the Nanman-in castaways, most of those who migrated to this island were banished criminals. The Yuan and Ming dynasties banished various figures to Jeju until the founding of Joseon. Even on the peninsula, from Goryeo through Joseon, those who held different powers or positions were pushed to the southern end. Because it was a place where those who defied the king’s intent were forcibly sent during the Joseon era, the island was called Won-ak-do (遠惡島), the ‘distant, wicked island.’ This was not a mere toponym; the distance and journey itself was a punishment that did not guarantee return, in other words, a complete severance from the peninsula.
Nearly 300 years after Bak Yeon’s arrival, the island harboring those physically carried by turbulent waters and those swept away by vast political tides became a waypoint for new rulers and a stronghold for victory.
When the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, the Altteureu Airfield in Daejeong-eup was used as an intermediate refueling stop for bombers departing from Nagasaki, Japan, and as a forward base for air raids on mainland China. By 1944, as the tide of war turned toward defeat, the entire island was transformed into a massive fortress. The plains of Daejeong-eup, once the landing site for strange foreigners and a place of confinement for the banished, became a frontline of war, packed with hangars and fortifications.
The approximately 700 tunnel fortifications constructed across the island for military purposes soon became a final refuge for the island's natives, as well as sites that would bear witness to massacre.
Fleeing Hardship (避難) and Fleeing War (避亂)
I met Jong-won for the first time in front of the old theater district in Eulji-ro.
Propelled by the hit Tears of Mokpo, Lee Nan-young was known as the ‘Queen of Blues’ during the Japanese colonial era. Prior to that, her name was Lee Ok-rye. I was in the process of tracing her trajectory, which was obscure from the time she dropped out of elementary school until her debut.
I had recently come across an article by Jeju-born poet and film critic Jong-won regarding Changsim-gwan (暢心館), the island’s first theater, and the story of Lee Nan-young’s mother, who fled from Mokpo to Jeju to escape her husband’s drunken abuse, eventually finding work as a maid for the Japanese theater owner. It was through his writing that I discovered the details regarding Lee Nan-young and her older brother, Lee Bong-ryong, who had sought refuge in Jeju by trailing their mother to escape the inheritance of violence from mother to daughter.
With the youthful eyes of a child outshining a crown of white hair, Jong-won handed me a bundle of photocopied papers along with the adventure of how he discovered Changsim-gwan. It was a passage on Lee Bong-ryong from A History of Entertainment Through Its Figures: Footsteps of Life, published in 1998 by the respected popular music composer and critic Hwang Mun-pyeong.
Jong-won recovered the name of Changsim-gwan by piecing together newspaper archives with records of the fire caused by Lee Bong-ryong, an assistant projectionist at the theater.
Fearful of the consequences of his mistake, Lee Bong-ryong fled to the mainland. Meanwhile, Lee Nan-young, who had often hummed along to the gramophone at the theater owner's house, was recognized for her talent and began singing during the theater's intermissions. On the day the theater reopened after having burned down due to her brother's negligence, Lee Nan-young formally took to the stage as a singer.
Instead of the liquor bottle responsible for her family's ruin, Lee Ok-rye grasped a microphone, joining the Samcheonri Opera Troupe to begin her new life as Lee Nan-young.
After meeting Lee Cheol, the president of Okeh Records, she received a composition by Son Mok-in, who was then conducting the Chosun Musical Troupe, instantly becoming an icon of the era with Tears of Mokpo. She later married Kim Hae-song, a fellow member of the Chosun Musical Troupe. They continued their careers as members of the Jeogori Sisters and Arirang Boys, respectively; Kim Hae-song, in particular, distinguished himself through new popular genres such as shin-minyo (new folk songs), jazz songs, and manyo (satirical comic songs), earning renown as a ‘genius of jazz.’
Following the death of Lee Cheol and the de facto dissolution of the Chosun Musical Troupe in 1944, the couple marked a new beginning by organizing the K.P.K. Musical Troupe just after liberation the following year. Thereafter, they focused on performing for the U.S. military, showcasing a diverse repertoire of shows and musicals. This included reinterpreting folk and popular songs through jazz and blues, genres that had been suppressed during the Pacific War. Yet their brilliant career in the Liberation Space, defined by absolute freedom as they crossed genres and expanded the boundaries of stage and drama, paradoxically became the very shackles that bound them.
Immediately after the outbreak of the Korean War, Kim Hae-song was abducted to North Korea on the grounds that he had led tours of U.S. military camps. Lee Nan-young, who searched through Seodaemun Prison looking for her husband, finally took refuge in Busan with her brother Lee Bong-ryong and her children during the January 4 Retreat. Though she originally had 12 children, five sons died young of illness; the remaining seven siblings later became members of The Kim Sisters and The Kim Brothers, continuing to sing on global stages far beyond Korea.
Lee Nan-young, who believed until the end that her husband was alive, finally acknowledged his death with devastation only after receiving a piece of his scorched clothing from a fellow abductee who had escaped the North.
Battle Hymn
Before the joy of liberation could be fully enjoyed, 1,059 orphans with no choice in the massive tide of war were transported by U.S. Air Force cargo planes to the island where tragedy had struck earlier. As the fall of Seoul became imminent due to the intervention of the Chinese Communist Forces, Lieutenant Colonel Blaisdell carried out an operation to transport the children whom he could not bear to abandon in the midst of war. He loaded them onto 16 C-54 transport aircrafts in a mission later reported by the American media as 'Operation Kiddy Car.' It was just five days before the first Christmas since the outbreak of the Korean War.
The Seoul Municipal Children's Home, established with UN support to protect war orphans, moved to Jeju as its thousand orphans were relocated there, and changed its name the following year to the Korea Orphanage. Other orphanages also moved to Jeju, but their care was limited to children who had fled from the ‘mainland.’ Facilities for Jeju orphans, who had lost their parents in the tragedies predating the Korean War, were only established after the accommodation of the refugee children had taken place.
While brass bands similar to drum and bugle corps using signal trumpets and drums had existed since around 1937, it was the Korean War, which created countless orphans and separated families, that rapidly spread musical activities across the island. Major Gilbert, an educator and musician, arrived in Jeju in 1952 as the Jeju head of the United Nations Civil Assistance Command Korea. He met Hwang On-sun, the director of the Korea Orphanage, and expressed his wish to teach music to the war orphans.
Gilbert received instruments and scores from organizations and acquaintances in his home country, donating them to various schools on the island and providing touring guidance. Simultaneously, he organized a regular 40-member Korea Orphanage Band and implemented systematized education. Instruments instead of weapons were placed in the hands of orphans whose parents had been taken by guns and swords. They traveled beyond the island and across the country, comforting adults with their performances instead of seeking revenge.
Soldiers without Numbers
In the early days of the Korean War, the 1st Training Center, established through several reorganizations, was moved to the ‘Omura Barracks’[11] in Daejeong-eup following the January 4 Retreat. This move was based on the Rhee Syngman government's decision that Jeju Island, located further south, would be a safer place to train new recruits. Using this as a base, training centers from Daegu and Geoje Island were relocated and integrated here. The revised name of the 1st Training Center was Gangbyeong-dae (强兵臺), meaning ‘a ground for nurturing strong soldiers.’ On an island accustomed to defeat and tragedy, the last bastion for training the forces whose fate determined the nation’s destiny took root.
The procession of refugees was endless, as they believed the island, though avoided by many, was safer than anywhere else for its distance from the enemy. Among them were various artists who fled to Jeju, including Kye Yong-mook, Lee Jungseop, Chang Ree-suk, and Kim Tschang-yeul.[12] Despite their short period of refuge, they spread art across the island, centering their activities around salon-style tearooms. Kye Cheongsik, the first Korean to obtain a doctorate in musicology, was also among them.
Meanwhile, artists who had been active among the public since before the war also gathered in Daejeong under the name ‘Military Entertainment Unit’ to comfort the soon-to-be-deployed troops and the refugees. Park Si-chun served as the leader of the unit (later succeeded by Yu Ho), joined by Ko Bok-su, Hwang Geum-sim, Ku Bong-seo, Sin Canary, and Nam In-su, who drew his last breath in Lee Nan-young's arms. Park Si-chun and Nam In-su, in particular, were an enduring duo representing the popular music scene of the time, often referred to as the ‘Masao Koga and Ichirō Fujiyama of Joseon.’
While leading the entertainment unit, Park Si-chun also devoted himself to composition. He boosted morale at the training center through pieces such as the Army 1st Training Center Song and the Army 1st Training Center Officer Education Song. Hwang Geum-sim’s signature song, News from Samdado, was also composed during this period.
If Sea Were Land
Jong-won narrowly escaped the sound of machine guns that heralded the island's tragedy following liberation, surviving by hiding in a ditch. Later, as a middle school student, he frequented the Dongbaek Cafe, a tearoom that doubled as a haunt for refugee artists. It was there that he met the writer Kye Yong-mook, who mentored him in prose. He would go on to become the first Jeju native to debut as a poet.[13]
When asked if he had ever seen a performance by the Military Entertainment Unit, which toured the entire island, he replied that he had seen a performance by Sin Canary, who had narrowly escaped abduction to the North and joined the unit. Their performance took place in a site where the echoes of firing still remained.
My grandfather, who inhabited the same place and time as Jong-won, and who taught me his favorite song instead of my distant parents with a remote control in hand, passed away on April 3rd of this year.
His favorite song, unfortunately the first song engraved in my mind thanks to him, was Kim Jeong-gu’s Tear-Drenched Tuman River, released by Okeh Records in 1938. The record was banned from sale in 1943 on the grounds that it inspired national consciousness. In the same year, his other song, Three Thousand Falling Blossoms (Nakhwa Samcheon), moved the last Crown Prince of the Korean Empire to tears in Tokyo; it was later banned in 1964 because the composer, Kim Hae-song, had ‘defected to the North.’
Donghoon Gang
May 1, 2026
Daejeong-eup, Seogwipo-si, Jeju, South Korea
Trans. Joan Lee
[1]
Aranta is the Hanja transcription of ‘Oranda’ (オランダ), which was the Japanese transliteration of the Portuguese word ‘Holanda,’ in reference to the Netherlands. The name was introduced to Joseon through exchanges with Japan at the time.
[2]
Hwaran is a Hanja transliteration of ‘Holland,’ a principal region of the Netherlands. The name was introduced to Joseon through exchanges with the Ming and Qing dynasties at the time.
[3]
‘Bak Yeon’ (朴延), Haedong Oesa (Unofficial History of the East, 海東外史), in Seokjaego (Collected Works of Seokjae, 碩齋稿), vol. 9.
[4]
Although recorded as the Hanja character for ‘ten’ (十) in the original text, it is presumed that this was actually the Roman numeral ‘X.’
[5]
The sum of the indicated numbers is 62, creating a discrepancy of two people from the recorded total of 64. This aligns with a distinct passage in the ‘Record of Castaways from the West’ (西洋國漂人記) within the Jiyeongnok (Chronicle of Jeju, 知瀛錄), where two deaths from illness are recorded separately. Therefore, the 26 individuals described “gesturing as if closing their eyes and collapsing” refer to those who drowned at the time of the shipwreck.
[6]
Existing theories regarding the etymology of this name suggest it originated from the Quelpaert de Brack, the first Dutch galliot, and that the place name was formed after the vessel discovered the island prior to Hendrick Hamel. However, since no historical records exist to substantiate this, it seems more plausible that the name is simply a transcription of ‘Gaepado.’ This view, held by Jeju local historian Kim Woong-chul, suggests the name of the initial landing site was merely adapted to their own linguistic system.
[7]
Yongmeori Coast, currently known as the site of arrival, is not identified in any ancient documents; rather, Jiyeongnok clearly records the location as ‘Daeyasu-yeonbyeon below Chagwijin’ (near the present-day Dogurial in Sindo 2-ri). This also aligns with the perspective of the illustration left by Hamel, in which Mount Halla and Noknambong Peak overlap. Accordingly, the residents of Sindo 2-ri and the Committee for the Investigation of Hamel’s Arrival Site have requested a reinvestigation by Jeju provincial authorities, but this has remained unexecuted for 15 years.
[8]
A repetition of ‘ja,’ the basic Dutch expression of affirmation corresponding to the English ‘yes.’
[9]
Hyojong Sillok (Annals of King Hyojong), Vol. 11, August 6, the 4th year of Hyojong (Mujin).
[10]
Regarding the detailed classification and formation of perceptions of the Nanman-in (“Southern Barbarians”), refer to Dylan Yoo, The Strange Adventures of White Chicken the Navigator, Padre, and the Orange Rebels, Chapter 3, “The Appearance of the Nanman-in.”
[11]
This site housed Japanese troops deployed to fortify the island against an anticipated U.S. invasion of the Japanese mainland. Its name derives from Omura Shu, the chief of ordnance for the 58th Army, who was primarily stationed at this location.
[12]
Kim Tschang-yeul differs from typical refugee artists in both the nature and circumstances of his stay, given that he was dispatched to Jeju as a police officer after graduating from the National Police College.
[13]
For further details, see Kim Jong-won, The Spirit of Poetry and the Path of Cinema (Han Sang-eon Film Research Institute, 2023), "Gwandeokjeong Square on March 1, 1947," and "Master Kye Yong-mook, Who Nurtured My Literary Dreams."
Score for Light for 影없는 聲音, 2026