Korea: Korean HUG Lullaby

After the first two stops on our itinerary, I'm remaining faithful to my intention to write a lullaby for each country we visit. The latest lullaby is based on a well-known melody that every Korean parent knows. Like many lullabies and fairy tales around the world (think “Rockabye Baby, in the Treetop”) this one’s lyrics explore an unsettling dimension of parenthood and childhood: a mother, living near the sea, must leave her baby alone while she goes to gather oysters to eat.

Jan had the idea of changing this theme to one that specifies and celebrates the steps that a father might take to settle a fussy baby. She and I worked to make the lyrics fit the tune. A draft of the result appears below. Since HUG Your Baby concepts seemed to translate well in a Korean setting, hopefully our new lyrics will compliment the traditional melody.

I have been impressed by the radio music I've heard in Korea. I knew a little about Psy and the K-Pop movement, but I was not expecting the quality and variety, as well as the consistently high production values, that I've found on Korean FM radio. Koreans appear to love classical, jazz, and Latin (especially Brazilian) music, along with the pop stuff. Late at night (when I do most of my listening), I was surprised to hear many beautifully arranged, slow tempo songs with great singers and sophisticated harmonies—just my thing!

Perhaps trying to envision a lullaby in such a setting is reaching too far, but the lead sheet below gently points a performance or production in that direction! Let me know what you think of this draft. Maybe rhyming "me" with "kimchi" is a bridge too far!

Korea: "Korea House" Cultural Show

One of the highlights of our stay in Seoul was attending a performance of traditional music and dance at Korea House. This facility is a traditionally-built structure with an intimate theater. Twenty very talented performers present a program of music and dance here, of the sort that might have been seen at the marvelous Changdokgung Palace  during the nineteenth or twentieth century.

  

The hour-long performance at Korea House included eight, exceptionally well-rehearsed and beautifully staged pieces, drawn from both courtly and peasant traditions. 

Outstanding instrumentalists (including percussionists, string, and woodwind players), a truly great female vocalist, and 6-12 dancers, all fabulously costumed, filled the main stage and two platforms flanking and extending it.

The Fan Dance, a tribute to the peony flower,  was perhaps our favorite piece, although we also especially liked the male dancers/percussionists who wrapped up the show. It was surprising to see an energy and rhythmic complexity that was African in its power and subtlety. These dancers worked over, under, and around long streamers that they spun from anchors fixed to the tops of their heads. One of those ribbons shot thirty feet into the audience when it was introduced!

Korea: Seoul City

The main international airport in Korea (Incheon, outside Seoul) has been rated the “top airport in the world” for five years running. Everywhere you see the motto, “Exceed Expectations!” We went to Korea with an open mind--and because our friend Barbara Hotelling lined up some gigs for Jan here--but we are concluding our stay in Seoul with an exceptionally positive feeling.

Neither of us is really a “city person.” It’s been years since we lived in one. As we inched our way into Seoul in rush-hour traffic, seeing giant apartment blocks everywhere, I wondered if we'd be able to adjust to city life.

However, the place where we have stayed, Olympic Family Village (built for the 1988 Olympics, along with three other apartment complexes, each housing about 4,000 people), has been fabulous. Most striking is how quiet everything is. We look out over a peaceful, green courtyard. In the late afternoon and early evening we hear the sound of kids on the playground, but the rest of the day we hear . . . birds. We see green trees and flowers. Is this city life? It is certainly Seoul life, as we've lived it.

The apartment that has been our home is bright, airy, and recently renovated—four bedrooms and two baths. It’s the new residence of Dr. Heasook Kim, the nursing professor who brought us here, for Jan to teach in her post-partum center.

A shady, three-minute walk away is a 7-11, a bank, and a coffee shop. All are pleasant, bright, and clean. Another 50 metres and you’re at a multi-level Lotte department store, with the largest farmer’s market in Seoul just across the street. A beautiful city park is 5 minutes in the opposite direction. What a great location!

Seoul is extensive, and we've only seen a bit of it. You can drive for hours and see more and more--and more!--tall buildings. We are staying south of the Han River (in Gangam), but the older, north side is hillier. That’s where all the embassies are, as well as the Blue House (the Korean White House, now inhabited by Ms. Park) and the old palaces. (We particularly loved Chang Deok Gung Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage site. A photo shows us and Barbara Hotelling in front of one of the main buildings in the complex.)

Food in Korea is tasty, healthy, abundant, and (for us, thanks to Korean hospitality!) mostly free. Breakfast at La Belle Mere postpartum center is an especially healthy way to start the day!

Our hope is that through HUG Your Baby teaching (see me demonstrating "Broadcasting" for a Korean HUG class) and Ariel’s Way sharings, when appropriate, we will have a basis for authentic interactions with a few individuals we will truly get to know in each country. That has certainly proved to be the case here in Korea. 

We especially enjoyed getting to know Min Sung Kwon, who was Jan’s main translator. She is a person in her twenties, who has recently returned from Sydney, Australia, where she completed her master's degree in nursing. 

Min is the daughter of a physician, and she speaks excellent English, pronounced with an Aussie accent. She is a lovely person, bright, responsible, and fun-loving when work is through. She claimed to enjoy being “Jan’s mouth”—and we certainly enjoyed getting to know her and her translator friend (also Min Sung!),  Heasook, and Dr. Chong (the “natural childbirth” OB who came to Jan’s and Barbara’s classes, and who took them to his new birth center for a visit and then out to dinner). Sunny, the tour tour guide Heasook hired to take us around downtown Seoul for half a day, was also a delightful person.

We have been honored to meet so many intelligent, caring, polite, hospitable, and innovative people in Korea. Without a doubt, what we experienced (both in the airport and beyond it) “Exceeded Expectations.”

Hawaii: The First Recorded "HUGs Around The World" Lullaby

As we travel this year, Jan and I have decided to try writing lullabies. I study the music of the cultures we visit, and Jan studies their birthing and parenting practices. Then we write a song that joins these ideas with HUG Your Baby concepts. Our plan is to write a series of lullabies that celebrate babies and families around the world, that express and teach HUG Your Baby insights and strategies, and that make a record of our travels. Our working title is “HUGs Around the World.”

The first song in this collection, “HUG Hawaiian Lullaby,” is now finished! You can listen, and watch, at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXBNgrKIYKE

With permission, Jan used photos of her patients; she also purchased some stock photos, to make the slide show that accompanies the song.

The creative efforts of the talented Tony Bowman were instrumental in bringing this Hawaiian-style song to life. I wrote the music, and Jan and I wrote the lyrics, but Tony recorded, arranged, and produced the song in Chatham County, North Carolina. Tony and Ronda Bowman are the vocalists. Brian Dennis of Carrboro, NC, played guitars and ukulele. Our son, Jonathan Henderson of Durham, NC, added the upright bass part. Credit Tony with all other instrumental performances—as well as engineering, mixing, and mastering the track.

Next up for recording is the Australian lullaby. Songs based on Japanese and Korean melodies have already been written by Jan and me. In earlier stages of development are: a Malaysian/Indonesian “kroncong” song, and a lullaby featuring music by gamelan instruments and lyrics about Balinese ritual practices surrounding childbirth and child development.

Jan and I are grateful to Tony for all his hard work, and we look forward to making other HUG lullabies available as soon as they are recorded. I hope you enjoy the fruits of this labor of love!

Hawaii: Hawaiian HUG Lullaby

Hawaiians think they live in paradise. They’re right! These islands brim over with natural beauty. The language of the hula beautifully embodies the swaying palms, the mountains thrusting into the sky, and the easy ways of the sea turtles. Find a good snorkel spot—there are many here—and you enter a whole new world of wild color and gentle shapes.

I’ve made a point of listening to a good deal of Hawaiian music. It too captures the beauty of the islands. Tempos are generally as relaxed as the way of life is here. More vowel-rich even than Italian, Hawaiian is perfect for singing. And Hawaii boasts generations of great singers. Nothing is forced by traditional Hawaiian vocalists, but the best ones have a range that reaches from the bottom of the sea way up into the clouds. Effortlessly taking big jumps in melodies (octaves and sixths, especially), Hawaiian singers move seamlessly into their head tones or falsetto voices. They yodel, in effect, but nothing sounds pushed.

Hawaiian vocal harmonies are really cool too. There is a churchy quality to the sound, not unlike what Paul Simon heard in Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Male and female vocal groups both have that four-part sound, but there is often also a touch of the Andrews Sisters. Plus the whole cowboy (“paniola”) thing is there too. (Apparently a couple of Hawaiian cowboys won a big rodeo in Wyoming shortly after the turn of the twentieth century.) Christianity, Gene Autrey, and the US Navy—Hawaiian musicians took it all in, and made something enduringly beautiful of often unfortunate cultural conflicts.

Hawaiian music tends to be slow of tempo, tender of sentiment, and surprisingly complex of harmony. The best of it stretches out the country-style harmonies, perhaps because the ukulele is itself tuned to a sixth chord! My favorite Hawaiian songs have wide-ranging melodies, from-the-heart lyrics, tight vocal harmonies, ukuleles mating in the mix with lap-steel and slack-key guitars, and a polish on the product that shines like a koa wood oar.

As Jan and I travel around, I'm interested in hearing and perhaps collecting lullabies, particularly ones that might be sung by fathers. There is a pretty famous “Hawaiian Lullaby” that Iz and Keali’i Reichel did. It’s more about the island than a baby—so I took a shot at making one of my own. (See below.)

Jan wrote the lyrics (with a few tweaks from me). Wish I had time to stay and record it. Certainly I can’t do it justice as a vocalist, but I’ve heard several cats who could. Maybe I’m just not relaxed enough—yet!

Introduction: Jim and Jan Fly the Coop!

We are off on a year of teaching, travel, adventure, and, no doubt, some memorable mis-steps. After more than thirty years of our much-loved day jobs as a nurse and an educator, we've rented our home, packed a couple of suitcases, and are aiming to make new friends in our greater (world) community as we share our life's work along the way. We left June 15, 2013, for our first stop in California where we visited with my sister, Nancy, and her family, and then we joined them for a week of snorkeling and relaxing on the island of Hawaii. Right now we are in Honolulu for a few days, pointing West...and planning to keep going that way.

Jan has contacted lactation, childbirth and parenting professionals, as well as nursing educators, about HUG Your Baby. She is delighted by the enthusiastic response of professionals engaged in the important work of supporting new and expectant parents. Thus far, presentations are scheduled in nursing schools, parenting institutes, international conferences, lactation, childbirth and doula organization, and hospitals in:

Seoul, Korea
Tokyo and Kagawa, Japan
Melbourne, Sydney and Hobart, Australia
Chiang Mai and Bangkok, Thailand
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I am traveling with my musical, Ariel's Way. I plan to meet with international schools and producers who might be interested in his adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest. In addition, I'm entering retirement with a new (and, perhaps, not surprising) passion: educating and supporting new fathers. After years of editing Jan's HUG materials, and decades of being "Dad" to our now-grown sons, I think that I want to help new fathers become the good dads they hope to be. "Dad's Got The HUG" has been conceived and will be growing towards birth during our year of travel and study.

Jan and I plan to take you with us--in spirit and in stories. If our experiences with HUG Your Baby are of interest to you, you might take an occasional peep at The HUG blog found at http://givethehug.blogspot.com. Our more personal experiences will be documented here in our Tedder-Henderson blog (http://tedderhenderson.blogspot.com).

You are invited to take an occasional peep at either blog, or to receive our periodic postings by email. (To receive the posting by email, go to either blog, click "FOLLOW THIS BLOG BY EMAIL" in the top right box, and add your email address. Don't worry! Unsubscribing at any moment is always an option!)

We feel blessed by the people who have supported and encouraged us these many years, and who, in so many important ways, have made possible our own growth and development. If you are reading this blog, you are one of those people. Please let us know if you have international contacts who might like to meet HUG Your Baby or to learn about Ariel's Way!