Hwacha ~ 화차

Hwacha?

What? Hwacha? 화차? Whatcha? I don’t get it. What’s with the nerdy game piece on my blog?  Well that, kind and curious reader, is an ancient Korean weapon and the topic of today’s culture note. For the interested, those are fire arrows with attached, exploding gunpowder pouches.  The arrows even have their own special name, singijeon or shinkichon (magical machine arrows).

In other words....an ancient Multiple Rocket Launch System?

Though exact dates are unclear, the hwacha were built and put to use during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1897) and many historians suggest it was effective during the Imjin War, when the Japanese invaded Korea (1592-1598). Though like many if not most great events, inventions, things to come from the Joseon period, the watchful eye under whose command this was secretly developed was King Sejong the Great (ruled from 1418-1450) though the first is said to have been completed by a handful of Korean scientists in 1409. The concept being that these arrows would explode on impact. Frightening!

Under King Sejong the hwacha was further developed and produced in great quantities, however.  One of the improvements said to have been made under King Sejong was the increased capability to fire 200 arrows at one time.

Hwachas were essentially crafted like hand carts with a flat launch pad atop wheels, making it mobile.  The box had a number of holes carved out according to the number of singijeon to be fired.  200 is likely the max you are going to find as this is the most commonly considered number.  Accounts vary as to the distance the singijeon could travel, with the minimum and max ranges of 100-400+ fully dependent on angle of fire, weather and elevation.

In 2008, Mythbusters recreated the original design with modification and put the hwacha to a field test.  Once the machine was prepared, they set up a small-scale “army” to fire at as a test.  The results were truly amazing and can be seen in the following YouTube clip which describes the whole process and shows the end result.

Title: Hwacha.  Not about the hwacha

Title: Singijeon.  About the hwacha

So much is attributed to the hwacha that movie was made to show, according to imdb.com, “…epic tale of Korea’s creation of Singijeon…”. A couple of interesting things to note about this movie is the title is Singijeon (or The Divine Weapon for the English translation) while a movie actually called Hwacha seems entirely irrelevant.  Also of note, the movie was not about the Imjin Wars and repelling the Japanese but against the Chinese, instead.  Additionally, this is not the only historical inaccuracy in the film but it still may be worth watching (and the subject of a future movie review).  

The Divine Weapon (film)
Hwacha (film)
The Hwacha at Suite101
Hwacha at Wikipedia

Artist Spotlight: J Rabbit

                Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!  Welcome to our first Artist Spotlight.  And to kick off this segment, on this special day, is our Valentine’s Day artist performing a cover of the Beatles’ “All You Need is Love”.

                On March 7, 2007, Jung Hyesun and Dawoon Jung were classmates (not sisters!) at the Seoul Institute of Fine Arts and graduated in the same year. Hyesun studied vocals while Dawoon studied jazz piano.  Now, nearly six years later they have released three full albums and at least two tracks for OSTs along with their regular Youtube uploads, Dawoon in charge of writing the songs and playing instruments and Hyesun continues to sing.

                At first they were just classmates in the same MIDI course and were grouped by their professor for a project and they felt the project went well and from there they continued to build a good relationship.  Their professor, HCube, went on to become their producer and representative at friendz.net.

                It wasn’t always great things for the pair.  After college they tried to form a band but got rejected several times, being called “dull” or “boring”. At length they gave up and while Hyesun returned to college, Dawoon took a part time job at a Dunkin’ Donuts but realized this was not the way her life should be.  She called HCube, who had been looking for a female vocalist.  Dawoon recommended Hyesun and the three met at HCube’s officetel* where Dawoon picked up a guitar and started to play.  After a short time her and Hyesun decided to perform a cover which they posted to Youtube as “J Rabbit’s Pilot Video” which appears to cover SNSD’s “Gee” and Rihanna’s “Umbrella”.

The name J Rabbit came rather quickly as a café asked them to promote for a concert day and the girls hadn’t decided a name.  As both were born in 1987, the year of the rabbit and their family names both began with the letter J, they called themselves J Rabbit.  From then they recorded numerous covers and Dawoon started writing songs and finally in March of 2011 the duo released their debut album It’s Spring.  After nearly one year they released their second album, Looking Around, on April 27 with songs composed by the duo.  On November 30^th,  they released Merry Christmas from J Rabbit (from which the Beatles’ cover can be found).  Additional songs can be found on the Flower Boys Next Door and Operation Proposal OSTs. The pair also featured on Kim Jin Pyo’s song Ahjussi as well as for the MV.

J Rabbit continue to perform, record and upload Youtube videos from the friendz.net channel. Their latest was just 6 days ago.  I find there’s no easy way to stop listening to these girls perform.  I just want to keep listening to more as Hyesun’s sweet voice their aegyo brighten my bad days and make my good days even better.  In that light, it is difficult to conclude this first Artist Spotlight and so I will do what I often do when listening… just listen to another.

J Rabbit on iTunes

Sources:

theborneopost

Friendz.net

*An officetel is a “multi-purpose building” with both residential and commercial units that are found in South Korea.  It’s designed so that people can live in the same building they work from. - Wikipedia

North Korea and Gas Masks in Pop MVs

In light of North Korea’s third nuclear test, I've decided to pull up a forum post I wrote a few months ago. Keep in mind, this was posted to the Off Topic forum of a video game website… J

In 2010 I reenlisted in the US Army and requested assignment in S. Korea and in June began my 1 year in the country. From what I can recall geographically speaking, I was something like 12 miles away from the Joint Security Area (as in, the DMZ). Every week, almost, they'd try to drill into us the idea that if North Korea really and truly felt like attacking South Korea, our life expectancy was less than 15 seconds.