The other day, Hahn Dae Soo posted on his Facebook wall a link to this blog post about his September 1969 concert at the Drama Center on Namsan. I remembered an interview with him in Sunday Seoul from that time about the upcoming show, and posted a photo from it in a comment to his post, and before long I was posting the entire article and a translation, and then a few more articles...mostly because there was actually very little published about him back in the late 60s and early 70s.
I realized this five years ago after Jon Dunbar, who was planning to interview Hahn for The Korea Times, asked if I wanted to join (my response was brief: "Yes."). Having gone through years of weekly magazines from that time, I was surprised as I did some research beforehand to realize that Hahn was not really in them. I would eventually learn why while speaking with him. But one article I found was from fall 1968, right after he returned to Korea from New York City after years away. The background of that report can be found in the article I wrote based on our interview, which explains his time in NYC, his return to Korea, his visit to a dabang, a single show at the music room C'est Si Bon, his appearance on TV, and his interview by the Weekly Joongang. It was actually only we when were chatting after the interview that I realized that all of these events occurred in the space of about ten days. He was pretty shocked when I pulled out a printout of the 1968 article:
Jon: I’m sure this must be the era when people referred to you as Korea’s first hippie.
Matt: Um..
Jon: You have something about that?
Hahn: Hee hee hee hee – Matt has something. Oh my god.
Matt: I've gone through pretty much every weekly magazine from 1968 to 1976…
Hahn: Oh my god.
Matt: And maybe there have been more [articles], but that’s when you first came back in 1968.
Hahn: Oh wow, you’re right! That was a controversial – I remember that – that was a controversial interview. People went crazy: “What is this guy? Who is this, you know, long haired…” They considered me as demented.
Matt: I love the scare font: “HIPPIIIIE” It’s a monster…
Hahn on the picture: It’s a shot of a be-in or happening. And people sleeping together. That’s precious
Matt: You can have it… the part under the photo…
Hahn (laughs while reading in Korean): He didn’t have LSD because it was hard to get, but smoked marijuana – oh my god, that’s [perfect].
Here is the article (followed by a handful of others), from the September 15, 1968 issue of 주간중앙 (Weekly Joongang; translated by ChatGPT with corrections):
A Korean Hippie Returns from America
According to the authentic [hippie] Hahn Dae Soo
Eat, play, and sleep to your heart’s content
“Is someone a hippie just because they took their clothes off? They say it’s an ideology.”
Their ultimate goal is a “new religion”
Modern society “does not keep God’s word”
Greets his homeland with songs he composed himself
It is not a “pseudo hippie” who, with hair grown long and wearing strange, peculiar clothing, proudly roams the streets of Seoul, but a genuine hippie who has landed in Korea. Hahn Dae-soo, age 21.
His father went to New York, obtained permanent residency, and is running an offset printing business, and his mother lives in Jeonhwa-dong. She remarried to another man. At age ten he went to America, lived three years under his father’s care, returned to Korea to live three more years under his mother, then returned to the U.S. again and survived on his own for four years before returning on the 28th of last month. This is the abbreviated résumé of Hahn Dae Soo, the first “hippie” to take root in Korea.
A Baekjo [swan] cigarette hangs from the tips of his fingers. Cigarette smoke rises from the long, unkempt hair that covers his ears and neck. There is no vacancy in his eyes, and every word he speaks is logical and coherent.
Not a denial of society
He avoids talking about matters like Korea’s position on the Vietnam War or his own personal opinions. When gently asked why, he gave as a reason certain aspects of Korea’s unique international situation, which make hippie ideology unable to take root in Korea.
“There are societies where hippies can be tolerated and societies where they cannot. Korea, you could say, is a society where hippies cannot be accepted. Even if something called ‘hippies’ were to appear here, it would only be an outward form. For example, even if someone walked the streets naked, that would just be an external display - it wouldn’t be behavior emerging from hippie ideology. Hippie thought, in short, is something you can only attain if you are prepared to stake your entire life on it.”
Greetings are kisses and ‘peace’
This spring at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, more than fifty men and women appeared nude to welcome the spring in a festival called the “Celebration of Spring.” In London, the so-called “hippie dress”—strips of paper tape wrapped around a naked body—is in vogue. In April, a 17-year-old boy named Terry Kenney walked through downtown San Francisco stark naked, deep in thought. These are the images of “hippies.” They do not deny society; they live within it, working when they want to, eating when they want to, playing whenever they wish. That is the “hippie society.”
“In New York’s ‘hippie society,’ they sometimes rent out Central Park and, for a whole evening, do everything they want to do. They dance naked, sing, and even engage in sexual relations. Lately, because of charges of public indecency, when hippies rent the place the police come to monitor them, so sexual relations can no longer occur openly.”
In the hippie society the greeting is “Peace! Peace, brother!” and then a kiss. And they exchange “drugs” as well.
Floating away on hallucinogens
LSD, marijuana, opium, speed—these drugs, used by hippies, are also said to be a form of rebellion against society. Taking these drugs makes everything look, sound, and feel more vivid.
“But not every hippie habitually uses these drugs. It’s the same as with alcohol -there are people who like it, and there are people who can’t take it at all, right? In my case, LSD was hard to find so I couldn’t try it, but I’ve used most of the others. Once I smoked marijuana and listened to music, music I usually listened to all the time, it felt completely new. Thanks to marijuana I could find the ‘vision’ in that music that I could not usually find.”
Melody charged with stimulation
Since music came up, I asked about “hippie music.” Known as “underground” music, hippie music can trace its roots to the Beatles. Based on the conviction that rock-and-roll could have more depth than classical music, they attempted a new musical revolution; this too is “hippie.” These days “acid rock” is in fashion, in which both the singer and the listener take drugs together and enjoy the songs. One clear feature of hippie music is that its lyrics often criticize U.S. government policy.
“The melodies are very stimulating, and the lyrics strike directly at LBJ (President Johnson). These songs can’t be played on radio or TV, but among the public they are wildly popular. The hippies like McCarthy, but they dislike President Johnson, Vice President Humphrey, and candidate Nixon all the same.”
So they completely rejected the recent U.S. presidential election as well and instead elected a new president of the ‘Hippie Society.’
Undressing and sleeping on the floor
To live the life of a hippie, one must leave home. And one must enter a crash pad, a place where only hippies gather. The crash pads are financially supported by an organization called the “Digger,” formed from hippies who have achieved economic success. Therefore, hippies in crash pads do not work: they play and eat.
“I lived in one too. It’s filthy. A room has several wooden bunks, and if you miss your turn, you just sleep on the floor. There is no distinction between men and women. People throw off their clothes wherever… it’s chaos.”
Even in such circumstances, he said, new ideas continually sprout. One especially noteworthy fact is how deeply Oriental elements have penetrated the “hippie society” - particularly Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Eastern music such as Ravi Shankar’s sitar.
Enshrining Buddha statues, studying the East
“In the hippie society, the prevailing view is that Christianity has failed as a religion. For example, commandments like ‘Do not steal’ or ‘If someone strikes your cheek, offer the other’ are, they say, considered impossible to observe in our society. So they looked elsewhere for a religion and arrived at Buddhism. It is not that they plan to continue believing in Buddhism, but that after widely studying many religions, the ultimate goal is for the hippie society to have its own new religion. Some hippie friends even enshrine Buddha statues and incense burners and seriously study Buddhism.”
A firm resolve to return home
Hahn’s highest education is one year in the agriculture department at the University of New Hampshire, which he left. After that he studied photography for a year at the New York Institute of Photography. He has published works such as photos of the New York Peace Rally in Ramparts and other magazines. He said that his return this time came after a major resolution.
“I have been singing for a long time. Composing, writing lyrics, singing, performing… I want to express my thoughts among young people through my songs. When I feel that purpose has been completely achieved, I will disappear on my own.”
Laughs at the word “hippie”
On September 4 he appeared at C’est Si Bon and performed songs he himself wrote, and many university students gave him an enthusiastic welcome. He said it gave him confidence. As for what ideas are contained in his songs, he keeps his mouth firmly shut. “Hippie?” He laughs. One more lingering question: Having left the “hippie society,” can he truly abandon hippie ideology?
For the time being, with his mother
For the time being he will stay in “his mother’s house.” Until he settles again, he says he has no other choice. Still, although he is used to sleeping on the floor, this hippie Hahn does not eat breakfast. We will watch carefully to see how he will live in this society.
—Jeong Ran-ung
As Hahn told me, he was basically "tricked" by the reporter, who asked him all kinds of questions about hippies in the US and then wove his answers into a sensationalist article.
Hahn: This [newspaper story] had a great impact [. ...] So my mother reads this – at that time, this was a big article. Most articles are [small], but this is almost a full page. So she’s in tears, she doesn’t know what to do. So eventually, I didn’t last at the house more than a year – I got kicked out.
He went on to rent a small room and make money by teaching English and guitar. Photos of him in his room were taken and appeared in articles the next fall when he announced his first headlining performance, to be held at the Drama Center near Namsan.
Here is an article from Sunday Seoul, August 31, 1969:
Highlight:
Writing lyrics, composing, and performing all by himself
Expressing the emotions of people in their twenties in his own way
A hippie singer giving his first recital since returning to Korea
Hahn Dae Soo (21), who returned from the United States last August with long hair and flamboyant clothes and acquired the label of “hippie singer,” is holding a recital. It is the “Hahn Dae Soo Singer-Songwriter Recital,” which will take place at 7 p.m. on September 19 and 20 at the Drama Center. Though it is a small-scale recital with a total production cost of 150,000 won, it is the first “recital” since his return to Korea by this 22-year-old composer-performer who writes lyrics, composes, performs, and sings all by himself.
In a “program” lasting more than two hours, Hahn Dae Soo plans to present what he calls “the most experimental music in Korea.” After hearing it, people will either like it insanely, hurl curses, or else be left utterly bewildered. He intends to synthesize “guitar,” “harmonica,” jing [traditional gong], other possible sound effects, and his own voice. “If people sympathize with my expression, there is no greater honor, and even if they cannot and everyone gets angry and walks out, there is nothing I can do - such is this concert.” From both the performer’s perspective and the audience’s, it is clearly experimental.
For this performance, Hahn Dae Soo began intensive practice three months ago. “His practice space was a small boarding-house room in Myeongnyun-dong. He ‘gathered up’ lyrics as they came to him, and prepared fifteen songs composed just as they suddenly occurred to him while walking or while sleeping. To introduce one of them, the lyrics of a piece titled “The Last Dream”: “It rains, it snows, the sun sets, the sun rises. Last evening there was a fire. A shack on the mountain, look out the window, let’s watch an amusing film, you live, I live, let’s work hard and become rich, I hear a voice from the grave, Kim Satgat’s laughter, someone who has not yet gone, listen to this sound.”
—What does it mean?
“It is a scene of the human world as seen from a window. Suddenly it struck me that the sight of humans wriggling like insects was, somehow, amusing like watching a movie.”
—Do you think you yourself are merely a spectator, not included among the wriggling humans?
“I felt something like that last winter. An old man was crawling up a snow-covered slope, and it struck me that he was myself, and I felt an intense sense of righteousness. Isn’t the world bound to change anyway, and isn’t everyone going somewhere?”
—Do you like the title “hippie singer”?
“I absolutely hate it. The past is the past, and the person I am now is not a ‘hippie.’ When I returned, people strangely attached the label ‘hippie,’ but is everyone with long hair a ‘hippie’?”
He seems to have changed quite a bit. When he returned last year, he walked the streets of Jongno blowing a piri [fife], with loosely disheveled long hair and peculiar clothing. Even now his hair hangs down long. But unlike then, it is neatly groomed, and he dresses fairly smartly. “When I first returned to Korea, I planned to wander across the whole country with a guitar like Kim Satgat. But these days I want a stable life. A life where I can settle inside the music I love.”
His thinking seems to have changed a lot as well.
Around him now is a group of about thirty young people who form a like-minded “group.” “Group” does not mean any formal structure, but a free gathering of people who meet whenever they can to enjoy music. This recital too, he says, has been arranged by these friends.
The expectations he has for this recital are not small.
“You may say my music isn’t even music, and that’s fine. But since I’ve expressed the emotions of people in their twenties in my own way, young people will sympathize with it. In our country, there is no creative work by young people. It’s hard for a writer in their fifties to express the emotions of someone in their twenties exactly. I’m giving it a try. Even if it’s bad, it will at least be a starting point for progress.”
Two weeks later, 주간여성 (Weekly Woman) published a short interview with him on September 17, ahead of his performance:
A Singer Who Isn’t a “Hippie” but Has a Hippie Style
Hahn Dae Soo, holding a Lyric-Writing and Composing Recital, on the 19th
“Why am I a hippie? I’m not. I’m just me, you know.”
With a smile on his lips, the 21-year-old Hahn Dae Soo answers a question with a question when asked, “Do you have any thoughts about the buzzword ‘hippie’?”
His hair is long - over 30 centimeters, probably even longer. You almost never see him deliberately comb or smooth the hair that hangs loosely down to his shoulders.
From the outside, the only clear feature is the long hair; otherwise he is simply an ordinary, tall young man (about 174 cm). He makes music - unusual music that most people do not readily attempt.
“My music doesn’t follow any particular form. It’s not psychedelic. I just put it together as it comes out of me.”
If one insisted on comparing it to existing musical patterns, it would be somewhat like folk-song.
He mostly sings while playing the harmonica and guitar, but he also uses a saw, a gong, and tape-recorded sound effects. It’s also a bit removed from what people call “avant-garde music.” He simply expresses what he feels through music—that is what he is doing.
He previously studied animal husbandry in the United States, but it didn’t go well, so he attended a photography academy. To earn tuition, he played guitar and sang in the evenings at a salon, and from that he began to study music in earnest. Hahn Dae Soo will present that kind of music in a recital held on the 19th and 20th at 7 p.m. at the Drama Center - a showcase of his own lyrics and compositions. “Twin Folio” and Kim Hong-cheol (the yodel singer) will make special appearances, and Lee Baek-cheon will serve as MC.
“Aside from music, I don’t really have any special skills or distinguishing traits,” Hahn says. These days he spends nearly all his time practicing in a small room with just his guitar, microphone, gong, a pipe, some cigarettes, matches, and an ashtray—doing little else.
–How do you manage your living expenses when your income can’t be much?
‘It’s still okay. Well, I don’t eat very much, so… I just get by.’
On October 1, 주간여성 (Weekly Woman) was the only magazine to write about and show a photo of the performance (the first line of the title is cut off, and lyrics for 'To the Happy Land' follow; the rest uses some guesswork at the missing words):
[...] Clutching his guitar... Hahn Dae Soo recital
Pull back the curtain,
With my narrow eyes
Let me see more of this world.
Open the window,
So I can once again feel
The dancing breeze.
On the evening of September 19, at the Drama Center, there was a rare 'happening.'
"What on earth… this is strange…. At times it feels like a shaman, and at other times like the sound of someone starving and going into a fit; anyway, in some way it seems mad…" - that was Hahn Dae Soo’s Singer-Songwriter Recital, his debut concert. With the audience erupting in cheers, the singer clutched his guitar.
When he howled like a beast to the rhythm of poetry, he [expressed] all of this and the world with his whole body.
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As the folk music scene began to expand, solo singers were joined by male-female duos, which became quite popular (Toi et Moi had a top ten hit with '약속 (Promise)' in mid-1970), but Hahn was in the Navy during the early 1970s and missed out on these developments, though Kim Min-ki included a cover of Hahn's '바람과 나 (The wind and I)' on his debut LP (soon banned), and Yang Hee-eun, who sang many of Kim's songs and scored a Number 1 hit with '아침이슬 (Morning Dew)' in 1972, also covered 'Land of Happiness.'
Despite Hahn recording two albums in 1974 and 1975, at the height of 1970s youth culture, I have not found any appearances in weekly magazines after the articles in 1969, with the exception of this commentary article (part 8 in a series on folk singers, then rising in popularity) in 일간 스포츠 (Daily Sports) on June 11, 1971.
Korea’s Folk Stars (8)
Too original a realm, leaving a distance from their fans
Prefer melodies over lyrics
Do not imitate foreign folk styles as they are
Singing only self-written songs...
Hahn Dae Soo・Kim Min Ki
Because the overseas pop scene is so vast, there are all sorts of people, but the common point that folk singers of star status share is that the lyrics of the songs they sing deal with themes that can give universal sympathy to all and thus are global in scope.
In the case of Bob Dylan (born 1941), who was introduced and debuted at the 3rd Newport Folk Festival in 1961 by the female folk star Joan Baez, the one song of his own - Blowin’ in the Wind, which lamented, “How many wars must a man go through before he regains peace, and how many years must pass before a person becomes truly human?” - was enough for him to become a standard-bearer of modern folk singers.
He not only used acoustic guitar but even attempted accompaniment with electric guitar, spearheaded the emergence of folk rock, and though recently he has focused quite a bit on love songs, in any work whatsoever Bob Dylan sings his own thoughts through lyrics that anyone can sympathize with, and thus reigns as a star.
Among domestic singers, however, there are many who, having become infatuated with the profound realm of these overseas folk stars, imitate them poorly(?) and, despite their high musical talent, they are unfortunate because they fall too deeply into a highly individual realm and thus cannot gain much sympathy from others—.
Hahn Dae Soo (27), who was once a topic of conversation as a “hippie singer,” and new face Kim Min Ki (20), are representative cases. Of course, there are also many fans who, valuing their musical level highly, prefer the songs rather than the lyrics.
In Hahn’s case, it is only that his lyrics are quite difficult because he assigns his own meaning to clusters of abstract words like “sea,” “wind,” “justice,” and so on. Rather than saying he was poorly influenced by overseas pop stars, it seems more accurate to say that he is forming an independent music of his own, just as modern jazz does.
Having lived in America for a long time and associated with hippies, and even after returning home three years ago maintaining his own style of life despite others’ scorn, his representative songs such as ‘내사랑아 (My Love)’ and ‘The Wind and I’ exude Hahn Dae Soo’s unique charm in their melodies and accompaniment, whatever the lyrics may be. Particularly, his original piece ‘과부타령 (Widow’s ballad, apparently an early version of 고무신),’ written in English employing his extensive English ability, well contains his “eccentric” artistry. Because his music is too unique, perhaps it cannot become a profession; singing is his side job, and advertising photography is currently his occupation.
Kim Min Ki—having graduated from Gyeonggi High School and presently in his second year in the Western painting department at Seoul National University’s College of Fine Arts—initially debuted as a duo called “Dobidu,” but became a solo singer starting early this year.
He is highly popular among female students, and he makes it a point to sing only his roughly twenty self-written songs such as ‘아하 누가 그렇게 (Aha, Someone, in that way)’ and ‘Morning Dew.’ Judging only by his musical “appearance,” he is the most reminiscent of Bob Dylan and a promising talent. His guitar skill and compositional level are extremely high, but because he tries to put his unorganized thoughts into his songs, they become complex works that fail to narrow the distance with the public. ‘귀하에게 (To You),’ which depicts a thieves’ village, is a fairly successful protest song, but his other songs sound overly complicated in their lyrics, perhaps because he tries too hard to write them in his own difficult way.
There is of course the case of the unknown American folk singer John [SIC Tom] Paxton*, who took the lead in the antiwar movement with the ironic expression “Teach Me How to Kill,” but the lyrics dealt with by most modern folk songs generally make it a principle to contain unvarnished life, higher-level philosophy, or love, rather than short-sighted political opinions. The song itself is the purpose, and once it reaches a realm where it can be used as a means for some social movement, it is no longer a song.
Among domestic folk singers as well, there are at times those who, having misunderstood this difference in concept, receive resistance from fans - an error characteristic of the early folk-song era.
【Reporter Kim Yu-saeng】
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Well, that closing sentence was the reporter's opinion, but it's pretty clear which folk singers from the early 1970s have stood the test of time.
* Tom Paxton is best known for his anti-Vietnam War song "I Got A Letter From LBJ." Ironically, going through 1960s and 1970s Korean magazines isn't a bad way to learn about more obscure or forgotten Western music from that time.
