Arirang

Launching Arirang

 There could be only a few who have heard of this word “Arirang”.

Arirang is the name of old Korean folk song. It has been sung by many generations, and we don’t know from when and where this song started. But Korean people have very strong feeling from this song.

The song’s title means one road running over a mountain.

I don’t know what other nations feel from thinking of a mountain.

Some people might think of greatness of nature, which does not easily permit humans to walk on, and some other people might think of forest filling up it, and going for a simple hiking on it. But it will be unusual to find what Koreans feel from hearing this name “arirang”, the path runs on mountain.

This small path means separation.

Look what the song sings to your ears.

 Arirang, Arirang, Arario

There is a man walking on ‘Arirang’, which goes over the mountain.

This man who is leaving me behind, shall fall on the road,

And shall get hurt, not reaching a few miles away from me.

Very simple lyric.

It’s not easy to understand why Koreans like this song much, and what kind of deep feeling and meanings stay in this lyric.

But let me go further with this song.

 In this song, the speaker is a woman. I can imagine she is trying to keep her tears in her small whisper to herself. Maybe she wants to cry out, punching at this man’s chest, begging not to leave her, but she can’t. The only thing she can do seeing her lover is leaving over the mountain is to wish that he might fall on the road.

I don’t want to say anything about feminism, or what was better way to stop him from leaving. This song is not for judging. But please, try to imagine what this song means.

Korea has a long history, but over many thousand years, our nation suffered lots of bad things. So, we know what sadness means, what separation means. Many mothers heard their sons are not returning from war, many wives saw their loved husbands are leaving for the war.

But under Korean culture, when a man leaves a woman, the woman is not supposed to say ‘no’. It’s not only for a man leaving for a war field, but a man leaving for another new lady.

From this song, we can basically think of two possible reasons for this man’s leaving. Maybe for war, or for a new girl. But this young lady just cries in her whisper. Sadness, frustration, all possible deep sorrow stays only in her patient tears welling up in her eyes, and she does not try to call him back. Just she is watching his back, walking away from her, and her bitterness comes in her mind with a small wish that he might fell on the road away from her.

Actually, the exact meaning of her wish is that he might have painful sickness on his feet. You may think of the pain he might have while walking over the mountain path, leaving her behind.

If he is leaving her behind, because he has another new love, then it will be the reasonable pain he should take, but if he is leaving her because he was called for a war, and now he is leaving his wife and several kids back, then what would be his pain in his heart?

We can not tell what was the reason for his departure. But anyways, we can read the pain and sadness moving around this song.

But all this pain, sorrow, bitterness is only expressed in a witty wish, that he might have pain in his feet. She does not curse him, regret over her destiny, and try not to express her inner pain out on her mouth. Only small whisper is the all thing she can do, and that is what she is now doing.

What do you usually do when you have big agony in your heart?

Have you ever be in a situation that you can not express that?

In this song, we can see that Korean people tried to scatter this difficult hardship by whispering this one witty wish. It’s very sad song, but also a very humorous song.

So, the name “Arirang” means something blocking you from your love, but your love is walking for it now.

If you look at the blade, then you can see black and red lines, which seem like mountain in Asian old pictures. Yes, they are. This symbolize a path thought a mountain, and also mountains where this man is walking on, leaving his love behind.

Here is two links you can hear the song “arirang”.

One is played by Orchestar in the street, another one is played by me with a piano.

Some of you might know that Nexy has tried three big changes.

I call it as the first wave, second wave, and the third wave.

In the second wave, I tried to maxmise the gap between absorbing force of the blade and the bouncing off speed in one blade. Because we need good control and short rebound when we defend or block, but in the other hand we need big power and speed when we make bit offensive shots. I don’t know what to call this function. But this function was the main concern for all of Nexy’s second wave blades.

So, I tried to apply this functional feature to many different kind of blades. And in result, second wave products are very large in numbers, and also widely different among themselves. Some are thick, some are extremely thin, some are all wooden, some are using artificial materials, some are soft and some are stiff.

While I keep on making those blades, I came to realize that there is a certain ideal blade I want to really make. It was not about abstract descriptions. I got to an island, where I can make clear about all these varieties. I coul get exact size and shape of the handle I prefer, I could be sure what size is optimum for my blade design, and what thickness range, what power and control and so on.

So, in my second wave, I tried to scatter the function I like into many varieties of different blades, but in my third wave, I now try to gather those varieties into something more central and harmonized one. Well balanced, but upgraded from all other similar kinds

I can say that I tried to decentralize with my second wave feature, and now I’m trying to centralize those blades into several optimal ones.

But with this functional factor, I tried to do something further than this table tennis things.

I came to think of this idea.

Ok, now I made many blades already. Then with those blades, what I have done for people? All things were only about function. Yes, that’s enough. No one expects more from a blade. But is it all? Is it all I can do with a blade?

Before starting this table tennis business, I was one of crazy amateur table tennis player. Newly bought blades used to sleep on my chest or beside my pillows, the first night in my house. I could not cover the blade surface with rubbers, so I kept on looking at the blade several days, until I cover it with rubbers. When I covered it with rubbers, I could still see the blade title and several sentences the maker wrote about the blade.

Yes, they are not only about function, but also about some emotional attachment. I gathered money to buy them, and after buying them, I wanted to make them play like what I dreamed of. I wished that they could understand what my wish was. I wished I could insinuated what I was into the blade, pretending that they have soles.

Was I the only crazy maniac?

I don’t know what else other people are doing with their blade. But I was that way.

In 2006, just after becoming the agency of Tibhar in Korea, I had some talk about blade with the president of Tibhar. I asked whether it was possible to insert one gem onto the blade. But he could not understand me. He explained if I make a blade feminine way, then women will not buy it, nor men either. Because women wanted to play like men, and men did not like to show like women. But I could not agree with his explanation. It’s not about woman or man. It’s about how to deal with a blade. I wanted to eulogize it with something shinny. It was not about adding weight, making less functional. It was about how I can decorate, how I can make it look special, unique, and different.

So, after 7 years later, I put gems on Tibhar’s “INCA”.

This is huge thing. It was only small gems, but it meant that I did not want to show the blade only a sports material. It has to be more than that.

Ok, some people might now say that one or two gems don’t make big change.

Yes, it’s true.

But it’s a symbol of what Nexy is trying to change.

I now try to show NEXY’s philosophy through nexy’s blades. And Arirang is one of them.

In 2013, what falls on my mind is “hope”.

With Peterpan, I wanted to make people recall back their old days, as young children, what they used to dream of. With Inca, I wanted to symbolize what I lost. Lost dream, lost hope. What we have to take care, in order not to lose our valuable hopes. And with “ARIRANG”, I want to think of the lost and oppressed dream we have in us. We call it they are not possible to get. There are something we can not reach at all, and they should stay only in our deep lost thoughts.

I became talkative, with my third generation blades. And I don’t know this is good or not.

People from different country have different feelings and ideas. Something practically exists in me related with this blade will not affect on some other people from some other country, I know that. Yes, I know that all these writings will be regarded only a marketing tool from one Korean company for some people. Maybe now I’m gathering people who don’t understand what one Korean man is trying to say.

Any ways, with all these possibilities, there are something I have to say.

I want to explain what I’m doing. It’s not only about a functional factor. You can read more than that, if you like nexy.

Now I try to relate this feeling with the function of “arirang”.

As a third wave blade, Arirang uses “burnt wood” in it’s center. And raw wood is covering the surface. But the composite material, “aramid carbon layer” stays under two wooden layers, because I want to keep the function of this layer deeper than the second layer, as the woman is oppressing her deep sorrow in her whisper.

This blade symbolize what people, who lost their beloved ones by war or by betrayal, might have gone through. But we know we can not stay there for a long time, because that sorrow will do no good but to kill us. Therefore, we need to overcome it, by twisting it with witty wish, as the woman wishes in her mind, singing “get hurt on your feet on the way of arirang”.

So, the composite layer, still remaining on the third layer, has to exert it’s full power through two other wooden layers. I had to find the optimum thickenss in those two layers. It had to be dealt with depth, not thickness. I carefully decided with what thickness in all, this composite layer will generate it’s full power when used for attacking, and this composite layer will stay calm when it needs to absorb the power of coming ball. It took long meditation and testing.

After two years of research, now I got the final answer.

And Nexy is now proud of this result.

I don’t know this article make sense or not. My writing is too much Korean. And I’m not sure it’s good for marketing or not.

But I don’t want to be international in my writing. I want to do what I can do best as a one man. I don’t want to pretend I’m more than what I am. Emotionally bounded one man, under one culture and history.

But we are not very different in the end.

That’s what now people are realizing little by little.

There is no nation to be enlightened, no nation to be thought little of. Culture have many faces, and all faces have their own value.