Monggeumpo Taryeong

What it is

The song is a minyo, the Korean word for a folk song, and it belongs to the Seodo group, the minyo of the northwest. Its home ground is the Hwanghae and Pyeongan provinces. The words follow fishermen at work and paint the port, the village, the hills and the water around them, while the story at the centre is one of lovers left on shore. Singers use a nasal tone, and that nasal quality is what listeners hear as sorrow. The melody sits apart from other songs of the same region, which is part of why it is so widely known.

Origins and history

According to the sources, the song comes from the Hwanghae and Pyeongan regions, and its musical shape can be traced to a Pyeongan folk song called Anju Aewongok. Kim In-sook is named as its composer. It grew popular in the late Joseon dynasty as social conditions changed, and it entered the entertainment culture of the cities. The earliest printed confirmation of its verses is the Joseon Japgajip, a collection brought out by the publisher Shinguseorim in 1918. In 1944 Kim Seong-tae used the tune in a Capriccio for Symphonic Orchestra.

How it is sung

The song moves to a beat called Jungmori Jangdan, the same one heard in pansori and sanjo. A slower beat, Gutgeori Jangdan, also suits it. Verses take four jangdans, the refrain two. Its scale holds five notes, and D is the modal centre. One note is delivered in a descending line, another with vibrato that falls, a third with vibrato that rises. In the vocabulary of Seodo singing this arrangement is called bansushimgatori, and it is smoother going than the sushimgatori of neighbouring songs, which helps explain why it is easier to sing.

The harbour in the song

The harbour that gives the song its name lies in Jangyeon-gun, Hwanghae Province, close to the Jangsangot range. It opens onto a beach whose sand is described as fine, almost like silk, and it is hemmed in by hills where red rugosa roses grow. The beach carries several names, among them Baeksa, Geumsa and Myeongsa; one of the Myeongsa names refers to the sound the sand makes under a bare foot. Thin sand blows up into dunes. The water nearby is called clear. Yi I, a Korean philosopher, wrote about the place.

Today and change

Since the early twenty-first century the song has appeared in South Korean school music textbooks, where it is studied and performed as an arrangement for choir. Writers on the subject note that gugak pieces of this kind may one day be dropped from those books. Outside the classroom, present-day singers keep performing Monggeumpo Taryeong, and the sources put its continuing popularity down to how singable it is. Because no single text is fixed, words and refrain shift a little from one version to the next, and from one performance to another.

How Monggeumpo Taryeong is kept

A singer or a choir carries the words, and the refrain comes back after each verse. The song runs on the Jungmori Jangdan beat, or on the slower Gutgeori Jangdan. Verses are held for four jangdans and the refrain for two. A nasal tone shapes the delivery, and the melody rests on a five-note scale centred on D. Beyond performance, the song belongs to school music lessons in South Korea, where classes learn it and choirs sing an arranged version, and to the wider minyo repertoire that present-day performers still draw on.

When and where

The song comes from the northwest of Korea, the Hwanghae and Pyeongan provinces that are now part of North Korea, and the harbour it names sits in Jangyeon-gun. Today it is strongest in South Korea, where textbooks, choirs and professional minyo singers keep it in circulation, and where audiences hear it in gugak concerts.

What Monggeumpo Taryeong means

For the people who sing it, the harbour stands for something more than scenery. The words are about waiting: lovers on the shore, sailors out on the water, a return that has not happened yet. The nasal voice is part of that feeling, and listeners read it as sorrow and melancholy. The sea gives the song its mood as well as its setting, and the local naming of the sand and the hills keeps the place itself present in the music.

Questions people ask about Monggeumpo Taryeong

See also

TalchumA Korean mask dance drama in which masked actors sing, dance and mock the powerfulGanggangsullaeA Korean harvest dance where women hold hands and sing in circles under the full moonNamdo Field SongsFarmers' choral work songs from South Jeolla, sung through the rice field yearJultagiA traditional Korean tightrope performance that combines acrobatics with music and storytelling.

Good reading and sources

• Monggeumpo Taryeong on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-12.