What I’m listening to right now.
I was listening to my mp3s on shuffle, and this song came around. I genuinely like it a lot. It’s 떠나는 님아 by 오승근 [Oh Seung Geun]. “떠나는 님아” [tteonaneun nima] means “O departing beloved…” – my intuition is that this is rather archaic Korean, which is of course quite appropriate for an old folksong. It took me a while to work out what seemed like an appropriate translation for the title. I won’t even attempt the lyrics, below.
This song wasn’t easy to find a video for – the only material available on youtube consists of noraebang (karaoke room) voice-overs. I was about to give up in despair (and/or make my own) when I found the above video on youku.com (a Chinese youtube-type site).
One shouldn’t be surprised to find Korean language material on Chinese websites – there are millions (maybe 5 million, conservatively) of Koreans living in China, including an autonomous region in the far Northeast, bordering North Korea and Russia’s Primorskiye, where Korean is the official language. I suspect the reason I had to go to China to find a video is due to copyright issues – the Koreans are pretty lax enforcing the copyrights of other countries, but work at it assiduously when it comes to their own cultural content.
Here are the lyrics.
오승근 – “떠나는 님아”
가려거든 울지말아요 울려거든 가지말아요
그리워 못보내는 님 못잊어 못보내는 님
당신이 떠나고나면 미움이 그치겠지만
당신을 보내고나면 사랑도 끝이난다오
님아 못잊을 님아 님아 떠나는 님아
두눈에 가득 이슬이맺혀 떠나는 나의님아
가려거든 울지말아요 울려거든 가지말아요
그리워 못보내는 님 못잊어 못보내는 님
님아 못잊을 님아 님아 떠나는 님아
두눈에 가득 이슬이맺혀 떠나는 나의님아
가려거든 울지말아요 울려거든 가지말아요
그리워 못보내는 님 못잊어 못보내는 님
못잊어 못보내는님.