Beth Salerno

Square Dancing in Korea

March 29, 2008 Author: Beth Salerno

After Saint Patrick’s Day parades, square dances are the next LEAST likely thing I ever thought I’d see in Korea.  But a Fulbrighter who plays banjo organized an “old time music” (Appalachian fok) concert through the U.S. Embassy and it ended with a square dance.   Since I love to contra dance in New England, I had to go.  Here are my  5 favorite moments:

1)  Listening to a fine guitar player belt out an Appalachian folk tune about drinking too much and living too hard.  I realized if you substitued “soju (rice liquor)” for “whiskey”, most Koreans would absolutely understand the point of the song.

 2)  Having a Korean student ask me if “old-time” music means it is older than Rock & Roll.

 3)  Watching the banjo player try to call his first ever square dance and immediately run into a basic problem.  When he said “take hands with the person on your left” he thought he was speaking to the men.  But everybody turned to the person on their left and held hands.  Then he tried, “take her hand in yours”.  Koreans do not use gendered pronouns and often mix them up in English (my nephew she is 8), so this was not much more help.  Plus many couples were same sex! (Koreans prefer to hang out in single sex groups).   So we spent much of the evening with women or men leading depending on who could translate faster!

4)  Realizing that once the music started, we had two dances going.  When the caller said “Alamande left” everyone who spoke English did it.  When the translator raced through “Please extend your left hand toward your partner, on the left for the person being a male, take their hand, and then turn in a circle” all the Koreans did it.   So if you were in a mixed-language square (or a mixed-language pairing) you danced to a very different rhythm than single language squares and pairs. 

5)  Curtseying automatically at the end of a dance, as is common in the contra dancing I do, and totally confusing my Korean partner.  At first he bowed stiffly and deeply, Korean style.  Then recognizing his “error,” he put one hand behind his back, used his other to execute a beautiful sweeping flourish, and bowed as if he had just been presented to Queen Elizabeth. 

I had no idea that our embassies across the world have cultural departments that focus solely on deepening foreigners’ knowledge of American culture.  For the Koreans it was a window into….yet more strange things Americans do.  For me, it was a totally unexpected piece of home in a far away place.   

Entry Filed under: Culture