Korean Media Feature Psalter Hymnal

A Korean television team arrived in the Grand Rapids, Mich., office of the Christian Reformed Church this week to interview Rev. David Koll about his involvement in helping to include “Arirang,” a popular, traditional Korean folk song, in the 1987 edition of the Psalter Hymnal.

A longtime pastor, Koll is now director of the CRC’s Candidacy Committee.

He and his wife adopted two Korean children in the 1980s.

“I was really taken by the Korean song and its lament-like, Eastern melody,” says Koll.

In Korea, nearly everyone knows “Arirang” by heart. The ancient song is sometimes considered the country’s unofficial national anthem. It is not a specifically religious song and has lyrics such as these: “Arirang Mount is my Tear-falling Hill, So Seeking my love, I cannot stay still .”

Felix Kwon, one of the TV journalists, told Koll many Koreans are interested in the fact that “Arirang,” which is a haunting song about loss, has made it into a hymnal.

Kwon works for the Korean Broadcasting Company, the equivalent of National Public TV in the United States. They are doing a documentary series, he said, on ways in which Korean cultural masterpieces, such as “Arirang,” have been adapted.

“People in Korea have a shared emotional attachment to this song. We want to make sense how this song is being used outside Korea,” he said.

As the video camera captured the scene, Koll sketched the background of the adoption. He then told the journalists that he and his wife wanted to make sure that the children were familiar with their Korean culture.

In order to do this, the Kolls attended many Korean cultural celebrations and events during the 1980s in the area where they then lived.

Most of the time, they heard “Arirang” sung as part of a program or activity. Listening to it, Koll always was moved. The Kolls’ children – Michael and Sara — are now in their twenties and live in California. Both work in accounting.

Koll says he had the song in mind when he saw a draft of the 1987 Psalter Hymnal “and realized there was no Korean song in it.”

So he contacted Emily Brink, editor of the hymnal, and suggested she take a look at “Arirang.” She was glad to and then asked Bert Polman, who was also working on the hymnal, to prepare a new English text written specifically to be sung to the Korean tune.

As a result, the tune “Arirang” was included as #229 of the Psalter Hymnal, set to “Christ, You Are the Fullness.”

While they were in town, the TV team also spoke with Brink and Polman, both of whom now work with the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship.

“Actually . . . this is the second TV crew that has come for interviews in preparation for a documentary on this use of this quintessential Korean tune and our use of it in an American hymnal,” says Brink.

On July 11, 2010, a journalist from Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS) came to Grand Rapids with a crew.

“We actually were filmed singing it at Eastern Ave. CRC during that Sunday morning service . . . I never heard back about when that might have been broadcast.”