Arirang Ringtone?!?!

While I was reading this week's material, I noticed that we are supposed to listen to Arirang, which is a very famous and common folk song in Korea. If you ask any child who has either grown up in Korea or grown up with a very Korean immersed background, I am sure that the child has either heard of or knows the song Arirang. Arirang might be as famous as the Korean national anthem, just as the Pledge of Allegiance is as common as the American national anthem to Americans.

One thing I remembered from a few years back was a gold-copperish colored samsung cellphone I purchased from T-Mobile. As most people know, Samsung is a Korean company that produces cellphones for many different American carriers. The most surprising thing happened after I purchased the cellphone. While scanning through the ringtones I noticed that Arirang was made into a ringtone for this particular phone. I asked many of my friends who also had cellphones made by Samgung, but had other carriers if they also had Arirang on their cellphones and most of them replied that they do not. Although it may seem common that a Korean company would produce a cellphone with a Korean ringtone, I found this very odd since American people might not even know that the song Arirang existed. I also noticed that around the time that the cellphone was produced, many other Korean products were making their way into foriegn markets (such as stationary products and food products). Clearly the addition of the cellphone ringtone was a form of globalization from Korea. By buying this cellphone and knowing what Arirang was, I enabled many of my American friends to listen to this very traditional and old Korean folksong.