'Jindallae Kkot' (Azalea flowers)
By Yun Chung
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I grew up in a small town in North Korea. It was nestled snugly amid hills, mountains, and a nice river. In the spring, those hills and mountains would come alive with pink colonies of azalea flowers or “jindallae kkot’’ in Korean. In South Korea, azalea festivals are in full swing in April.
Jindallae Kkot (Azalea Flowers) is the title of a poem by Kim Sowol (1902-1934), the most beloved poet of Korea. Maya, a popular K-pop singer-actress, sang Jindallae Kkot as the title song in her first album in 2003. Eleven composers, including the renowned Kim Dong-jin (1913-2009), have done classical renditions of Jindallae Kkot.
South Korea can boast almost everyone can recite a poem, sing it, or both. That poem is Jindalla Kkot.
Jindallae Kkot also has the distinction of having many English translations. Notable among about 20 versions I have seen are the ones by David McCann, professor of Korean literature at Harvard, and by Brother Anthony of Taize, emeritus professor of English language and literature at Sogang University. Like different music compositions, each translation of Jindallae Kkot is different from the other in not only sounds but also underlying emotions. My version is as follows.
Jindallae Kkot (Azalea Flowers)
When you feel disgusted looking at me
And if you feel like leaving me
I will let you go without whining a word
I will go to Yongbyon’s Yaksan (Mountain)
I will bring an armful of azaleas
I will lay the azalea flowers on the path you’d take
Softly, lightly,
take one step after another on the fresh flowers
as you’re going away
You may go away if you feel disgusted looking at me
I will not let a single tear drop fall
I’d rather die if you leave me, though
Robert Frost (1874-1963) said, “Poetry is when emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” He also said, “Poetry is what gets lost in translation.” Koreans love Jindallae Kkot by Kim Sowol because his words touch the underlying emotion of the Korean people: the endearment amid sorrowful feelings of regrets and despair that cannot be comforted with pessimistic hope, often referred to as “jeonghan’’ in Korean. Of over 150 poems by Kim Sowol, many are sorrowful, yet touching, like Jindallae Kkot.
Most English translators of Jindallae Kkot seemed to have struggled to find the right English equivalent for the Korean word “yeok-gyeo-wo.’’ Brother Anthony chose “sicken” and McCann “weary,” for example,
When you leave,
weary of me,
Without a word I shall gently let you go.
McCann’s Azalea would make a fine English poem. It does not, however, bring out the same intensity of emotion as the original Korean poem. This is probably because the word weary does not adequately convey the connotation of yeokgyeowo, which relates to strong indignation, close to disgusting or even nauseating.
The word-to-word translation is a minor problem as compared with the impossibility of bringing out the emotions of endearment in Korean expressions using English words. Throughout Jindallae Kkot, the speaker uses honorific expressions such as “gasilttae,” not “galttae.” Both can only be translated as “when you go or when you leave” in English. By saying “gasilttae,” however, the speaker is expressing his/her respect and endearment (jeong in Korean) toward the person who may be departing.
Jindallae Kkot has traditionally been interpreted as a farewell song of a woman in grief because her man feels the love has cooled. Conversely, the voice of Jindallae Kkot could be a man, still very much in love with the woman. The Korean word “sappun’’ in the third stanza has been translated as “softly, lightly.” Sappun is descriptive of light steps of a willowy woman. This would suggest that the person departing is a woman, not her man. Perhaps, the speaker of Jindallae Kkot is Kim Sowol himself.
Kim Sowol had a tragic life. He committed suicide at 32. When he was 14, his grandfather had him marry an older woman, not an uncommon practice then. He may have fallen in love with a younger girlfriend later. Like many (illicit) love affairs, they would have realized there would be no future for them together. The boy, probably 18 or 19, begins to wonder if his lover may feel yeokgyeowo (disgusted) of his incapacity to resolve the bad situation and may want to leave him and could have written Jindallae Kkot. Kim Sowol was 20 when Jindallae Kkot first appeared in the Gaebyeok (Dawn) magazine in July 1922.
I miss “sancheon chomok’’ (mountains, rivers, grasses, and trees), with azalea flowers in full bloom, of my old home town, only a few miles north of the 38th Parallel. It seems so near, yet so far away in a different world of the Kim dynasty.
The writer, a retired engineer, lives in California. He may be reached at yunchung2@comcast.net.