Late American missionary honored for promoting 'Arirang'

Dr. Homer B. Hulbert (1863-1949) / Korea Times file

By Do Je-hae

Many Koreans remember the late American missionary Dr. Homer B. Hulbert (1863-1949) as the author of 1891 “Sa Min Pil Ji,” the nation’s first hangul or Korean-language textbook on world geography.

A local music festival organizer’s announcement Tuesday to honor him for spreading “Arirang,” a folk tune that all of the Korean Peninsula knows, is renewing attention to his pioneering contributions in promoting traditional Korean music.

The organizing committee for the Seoul Arirang Festival said that Hulbert will be the inaugural recipient of the “Seoul Arirang Award.”

“Hulbert, who came to Korea 129 years ago, had a special affection for Korean music,” said Yoon Young-dal, head of the committee, in a statement

The committee accredited Hulbert for transcribing Arirang, which had previously been transmitted among Koreans orally, with Western music notes. “He opened new horizons for Korean music,” Yoon said.

In 1896, he published an essay on Arirang in Korean Repository, an English-language magazine which he established after arriving in Korea in 1886. The committee said that local musicologists had recently discovered Hulbert’s transcription of Arirang, which he attached to a letter dated Oct. 17, 1886 to his sister in the United States.

The award ceremony will be Oct. 7 at the KT Olleh Square in Gwanghwamun in central Seoul. The festival was started in 2012 to celebrate Arirang’s newfound global status when it was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity program by UNESCO. The festival features concerts and a song contest revolving around Arirang.

Hulbert was awarded the Geumgwan Medal, Korea’s highest cultural award, in 2014.

He served as a journalist and political activist who protested Japan’s actions to annex Korea early in the 20th century. The Vermont native was one of the pioneers in spreading hangul when most of Korea was still using Chinese letters to write.

At a time when much of Korea was ignorant about global affairs, Sa Min Pil Jil (Knowledge Necessary for All) helped people learn of the outside world. The book is considered a crucial reference for researchers of early usage of hangul.