By Jon Huer
Korea Times Columnist

Someone once called Koreans the "Irish of the East" for their sense of humor and gaiety.

On the surface, Koreans resemble the Irish for their fondness for drinking, singing, and dancing, all impromptu style. On a deeper level, however, Koreans do not possess the refined witticism or romanticism of the Irish, who are world-renowned for their literary sophistication and romanticization of their folk heroes.

Korea's sense of humor, one of its greatest tribal gifts, is not of the witty or sophisticated kind. It is utterly coarse, ribald and lowbrow. By being so unrefined and vulgar, Korean humor is perhaps the most precious window into Korea's true soul.

Their humor, whether expressed in traditional storytelling or displayed at a modern company party, is straight from gutter sources: Generally, it is about sex, farting, feces, urinating, drinking, and other low-level, daily experienced, child-like, sophomoric human processes.

It is this primeval, gutter humor that reveals the true, honest heart of Korea, untouched still by the advent of modernism and postmodernism. This tribal gift should be designated as one of Korea's national treasures. Too bad the language barrier keeps most foreigners away from this great discovery about Korea.

But even in body-language communications, foreigners can sense the delight that Koreans take in their unfettered, unadorned, unpolished expressions of humor that only an ancient tribal heart can cherish and express. And the playful laughter it generates, the guffaw it ignites, and the great commotion in the crowd it evokes, is Korea at its purest and most endearing. A foreign visitor has missed everything if he has not witnessed a scene like this while in Korea. May Korea keep this treasure forever!

Pasonri Lamentations

Loosely translated into English as ``traditional Korean narrative song'' or ``classical one-person dramatic opera,'' this pansori or shortened often as just sori, requires a bit of Koreana to really enjoy, appreciate, and, at the same time, recognize the genre as Korea's greatest folk treasure.

It is nothing like what we know of Western music where rhythm, harmony and melody are composed according to the rules of sounds and counterpoints. My friends who are otherwise Korea-philes shake their heads in utter incomprehension when they are forced to endure a pansori performance on the tourist program.

The voice seems too husky or harsh. The melody seems monotonous and repetitious and the words, even when translated, seem to lack the dramatic punch that we normally expect from an operatic drama or dramatic opera displayed as a public performance. As part of the repertory for modern tourists, this pansori is not exactly a popular item among casual visitors to Korea.

Its true value, still waiting to be discovered among foreigners, is in its great power of lamentations. According to a typical pansori text, the words sing of the unspeakable sorrows and pains of life, both individually and together as a social class, mostly the lower.

The life that is sung in pansori is so powerfully lyrical and resonant that one is almost certain that only the deepest of human sufferings (perhaps common among the Jews, American Indians and Blacks, and others of similar historic experiences) can find comprehension in it. It sings of the days that are gone now, the lives of those who endured the pains and sorrows, and the longings of a powerless sufferer, that is truly heartbreaking.

Pansory predates the lyrical songs and hence it is with greater primitive power and truth that is virtually incomprehensible to even the Korean contemporaries. That is a shame of the first order.