모기 보고 칼 뺀다
mosquito see-AND sword draw-PRES
See a mosquito and draw a sword.
This means to get angry at nothing important
I like googletranslate’s version, though: “Subtract mosquito looking knife.”
In the comic frame below, the phrase at left is a slightly more grammaticalized version of the same proverb (remember, grammatical particles in Korean are often optional), while at the right the character is saying 아까운 내 피를… 넌 죽었다! [my precious blood… you’re dead!].
Normally I don’t like to “follow up” on blog posts with related blog posts. I have a sort of aesthetic philosophy of “maximal divergence” that I try to follow.
But after my last post about Korean-Russian folk singer Yuliy Kim, I started exploring a whole fascinating world of Korean-Russian musical talent. I discovered Viktor Tsoi (Виктор Цой). This Korean-Russian, born in Leningrad in 1962 (and thus in the same cohort and generation as Medvedev and Putin, interestingly) was quite the phenom in the perestroika-era Soviet Union. One of his songs became an anthem for the protesters who eventually ended the anti-Gorbochev coup and thus ended the Soviet Union and placed Yeltsin in power.
This guy is awesome. He’s all 80’s angst and a master of all kinds of voices and genres adapted to the derivative late Soviet rock scene, Tsoi ended up dying at a very young age, in 1990. I like this guy so much I just downloaded two of his albums.
What I’m listening to right now.
Виктор Цой, “Песня Без Слов.”
Текст:
Песня без слов, ночь без сна,
Все в свое время – зима и весна,
Каждой звезде – свой неба кусок,
Каждому морю – дождя глоток.
Каждому яблоку – место упасть,
Каждому вору – возможность украсть,
Каждой собаке – палку и кость,
И каждому волку – зубы и злость.Снова за окнами белый день,
День вызывает меня на бой.
Я чувствую, закрывая глаза, –
Весь мир идет на меня войной.Если есть стадо – есть пастух,
Если есть тело – должен быть дух,
Если есть шаг – должен быть след,
Если есть тьма – должен быть свет.
Хочешь ли ты изменить этот мир,
Сможешь ли ты принять как есть,
Встать и выйти из ряда вон,
Сесть на электрический стул или трон?Снова за окнами белый день,
День вызывает меня на бой.
Я чувствую, закрывая глаза, –
Весь мир идет на мня войной.
Here is a tribute to Viktor Tsoi by a Korean group called 윤도현 밴드 [Yoon Do Hyun Band], where they sing that famous perestroika anthem translated into Korean.
윤도현 밴드 [Yoon Do Hyun Band], “Группа крови” (корейский вариант).
Yuliy Kim (Юлий Ким) is a rather famous Russian folk musician, who became popular in the 70’s and 80’s as a “subversive,” performing concerts and making music in opposition to the Soviet authorities. He is also, interestingly, ethnically Korean and was born in the Russian Far East. He worked for some years in the 50’s or 60’s as a school teacher in Kamchatka (the part of Russia across from Alaska, more or less).
There are several hundred thousand ethnic Koreans still living all over Russia, and an equal number in the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia (notably Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, to where they were deported by Stalin in 1937).
What I’m listening to right now.
Юлий Ким, песни об Израиле (Songs about Israel).
Like a lot of Russian folk music that was tied to the opposition in the communist era, it’s tightly intertwined with various Russo-Jewish traditions. So that’s how you get a Korean singing about Israel in Russian. The Koreans and Jews in Soviet Russia have had similar histories in some respects, not least in their having been persecuted on an ethnic basis for perceived congenital disloyalty. Kim’s father was executed by the Stalinists not long after his birth, for example.
Here is a picture of Kim with Yuri Koval in 1964, that I found on a Russian-language blog.
