Jo Feb 7, 2026
Wang San Ak, who is of Koguryo origin, was a proud musician of the Korean nation. He brought about the beginning of Komungo music by devising a national instrument Komungo in the first half of the fourth century, developing its execution and writing pieces for it.
Wang San Ak, who had an intimate acquaintance with music, decided to devise a new instrument with clear sound and great volume and at the same time convenient for playing and suitable for musical performances of national emotion. He, then, made painstaking efforts, finally succeeding in making a Komungo, an instrument with six strings.
He liked playing the Komungo as it has refreshing tone color and is suited to the musical performances of national emotion, and thus, he developed various execution skills and wrote numerous pieces for it.
As its deep and dull stirring tone color and vigorous and bold execution were congenial to the vigorous and optimistic emotion and temperament of Koguryo people and it was also convenient for playing pieces of national coloring, Komungo spread rapidly far and wide and became a representative string instrument of Koguryo.
Later, Koguryo’s Komungo was known to Paekje and Silla, and even to the neighboring countries.
A high-level Komungo solo “Komungosanjo”, which intensively demonstrates traditional Komungo execution, was written in the modern age.
After liberation, Komungo music further developed thanks to the correct policy of literature and art of the Workers’ Party of Korea. Komungo ensemble “Tapping” has been loved very much by the Korean people as it is rich in national color and its vigorous and powerful melody vividly reflects the struggle of the people in the Chollima era.
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Jo Feb 3, 2026
From olden times, the Korean people have celebrated Jongwoldaeborum (lunar January 15) as one of the great folk holidays, and they made it a traditional practice to make several kinds of dishes including ogokbap, yapbap, laver-wrapped rice, nine kinds of seasoned edible grass, noodle, etc. and enjoy them on this day.
Ogokbap is boiled rice admixed with four other staple cereals.
The ingredients usually included five kinds of cereal―white rice, hulled glutinous millet, polished millet, hulled barley and adzuki beans, but the five kinds of cereal were not fixed. Here is a recipe for ogokbap.
First, adzuki beans are soaked in water.
Second, hulled glutinous millet and polished millet are washed.
Then, white rice, adzuki beans and hulled barley are boiled together. After some time of boiling, hulled glutinous millet and polished millet are placed upon the mixture.
Finally, the fire is weakened for enough steaming.
What is important is to add less water for glutinous rice than for common boiled rice.
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Jo Jan 7, 2026
The games for training martial arts in the period of Koryo included archery, fencing, spearing, horse-riding, Subak, ssirum, stone-throwing, running, etc.
These games reflecting the martial spirit of Koguryo were the improvement of the ways of playing and competition of those days.
During the Koryo dynasty, many archery grounds were built and game rules were made so that warriors and archery beginners could practise archery and have a match, and awarding ceremonies for them took place.
Horse riding developed, too. High riding skills like riding into and out of the fire as well as performing various tricks on the horseback were displayed in this period.
Subak of those days which was a combination of fistic fighting with kicking and heading was very powerful. The fact that there was a military unit specialized in Subak and national Subak matches were widely organized suggests that Subak was more popular than ever before.
In Koryo, ssirum was selected as an important martial art and ssirum games were held at every opportunity.
How much ssirum was encouraged and popular in those days is well explained by the fact that a Koryo king watched ssirum matches with warriors.
The strenuous effort of Koryo people to train martial arts including stone-throwing and running brought brilliant fruitions in anti-aggression wars for defending the sovereignty of the country and the dignity of the nation, and led to the great feats demonstrating the spirit of the Korean nation thereafter.
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Jo Jan 3, 2026
Scroll and mounting belong to the precious national culture and art that the Korean ancestors created and developed together with Korean painting.
A scroll is a form of Korean painting with pictures or words that are mounted for hanging down or rolling.
A scroll is decorated on its border with thin strips or cloth that goes with the picture, and a horizontal bar is fixed to the bottom of the scroll so that it unrolls when it hangs down.
Korean paper is pasted to the back of the scroll for hardening, and paraffin is spread all over the back and rubbed for preventing folding lines.
A scroll amplifies the national taste in adorning pictures.
It also helps long storage and easy handling of Korean painting works.
Mounting is ornamentation of appearance of pictures including their backs and borders.
Vividly taking the national form from early ages together with Korean painting, the intrinsic national painting, mounting has developed, divided into scroll, folding screen, picture album, album of calligraphic works etc., according to the mission and purpose of pictures, individually with their own features.
Mounting plays an important role in enhancing the beauty of paintings and it provides an important guarantee for keeping painting works to posterity.
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Jo Dec 11, 2025
Saenap (a Korean brass wind instrument) is a peculiar national wind instrument.
Hard woods like paktal tree, date tree, etc. were used for its hollow pipe.
It is basically the same as a flute in the way of playing. It is characterized by bright and gorgeous timbre, fluency and strong appeal, and it produces great volume.
It is used as a melodic instrument in holiday amusements, instrumental music of peasants and dance music boasting of the pleasure of rich harvest, and in mixed orchestra it usually appears in the parts stimulating the national interest.
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Jo Dec 6, 2025
Our country was well known to the world as a land of silk fabrics from olden times.
According to the records, the Korean ancestors started to acclimatize undomesticated silkworms to raise mulberry silkworms in olden times, and they obtained raw silk from silkworms to weave fabrics for clothing in the ancient times.
In the period of the Three Kingdoms, silkworm culture further flourished and their high-level weaving techniques led to the production of several kinds of high-grade silk fabrics with beautiful and colourful patterns to be sold to the neighboring countries.
Korean silk fabrics were accepted to be far superior to those of other countries in terms of quiet sheen, smooth touch and delicacy and even more expensive than gold. In the period of Koryo, they were exported to the far Arabian peninsula as well as to the neighbouring countries, gaining fame as the best on earth.
The main feature of the Korean silk distinguished from those of neighbouring countries was not to boil cocoons enough and not to completely remove sericin when reeling raw silk off them.
The fabric woven from such silk was not too loose but a little stiff like starched and felt fresh and fine.
The Korean ancestors were also the first to devise dye printing for silk cloth.
As mentioned above, the Korean nation is a resourceful and civilized nation which created and developed the silk culture admired by the world people a long time ago.
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