die. One is tradition, and the other is education. A people
without tradition will fail. Tradition is the soul that allows a
people to continue; a people without a soul cannot survive. The second
thing of importance is education. A people will also fail if it does not
educate its descendants. Education gives us the power to live with new
knowledge and objectives. Through education, people acquire wisdom
for living. Anyone who cannot read will be ignorant, but once educated,
a person will know how to use his wisdom in the world to manage his
own life. Education helps us understand the principles by which the
world operates. To open up a new future, we need, on the one hand, to
pass on to our descendants the tradition that has been handed down to
us over thousands of years and, on the other, to also supply them with
education concerning new things. When tradition and new knowledge
are appropriately integrated in our lives, they give birth to an original
culture. Tradition and education are both important, and it is impossible
to say which takes priority over the other. The wisdom to integrate
the two also comes to us through education.
At the same time that I founded the dance troupe, I also founded the
Little Angels School of the Arts (later renamed Sunhwa Art School).
The purpose in founding this school was to spread our ideals to the
world through the arts. The issue of whether we had the ability to manage
a school was of secondary importance. I first put my plan into action. If the
purpose is clear and good, then it should be put into action quickly. I wanted to
educate children to love heaven, love their country, and love humanity.
I wrote my motto for the school as a piece of calligraphy that said
in Chinese characters, “Love Heaven, Love Humanity, Love Country.”
Someone asked me then, “Why do you put ‘Love Country’ at the end,
when you say your purpose is to show Korea’s unique culture to the
world?”
I answered him, saying, “If a person loves heaven and loves
humanity, he has already loved his country. Loving the country
has already been accomplished in the process.”
If a Korean can cause the world to respect him, then he has already
accomplished the purpose of letting the world know about
Korea. The Little Angels went to many countries and demonstrated
the excellence of Korean culture, but they never made any nationalistic
claims about their country. The image of Korea as a country of
great culture and tradition was planted deeply in the minds of the
people who saw their performances and gave them their applause.
In that sense, the Little Angels did more than anyone to publicize Korea
to the world and practice love for their country. It gives me great
satisfaction every time I see the performances by Su Mi Jo and Young
Ok Shin, graduates of Sunhwa Art School who have gone on to become
world-renowned vocalists, and by Julia Moon and Sue Jin Kang, who
are among the best ballerinas in the world.
Since 1965, when they held their first overseas performance in the
United States, the Little Angels have been introducing Korea’s beautiful
tradition all over the world. They were invited by the British royal family
to perform in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II. They were invited
to take part in the bicentennial celebration in the United States, where
they performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
They gave a special performance for U.S. President Richard Nixon, and
they took part in the cultural and performing arts festival that was part
of the Seoul Olympic Games. The Little Angels are known around the
world as cultural ambassadors for peace.
The following is something that happened in 1990, when I visited
Russia. The Little Angels gave a performance on the night before I was
to leave Russia, after having met President Mikhail Gorbachev. Korea’s
little girls stood in the center of Moscow, the center of communism.
After performing Korean dances dressed in their hanboks, the Little
Angels sang Russian folk songs with their beautiful voices. Shouts of
“Encore!” from the audience made it impossible for them to come off
the stage. In the end, they completely exhausted their repertoire of
songs. First Lady Raisa Gorbachev was seated in the audience. South
Korea and Russia had not yet established diplomatic relations, and it
was very unusual for the first lady to attend a cultural performance
from such a country. However, Mrs. Gorbachev sat in the front row and
applauded enthusiastically throughout the program. After the performance,
she came backstage and handed the troupe flowers. She repeatedly
praised the greatness of Korean culture, saying, “The Little Angels
are truly angels of peace. I did not know that South Korea had such
beautiful traditional culture. During the entire performance, it was as
if I was dreaming a dream about my own childhood.” Mrs. Gorbachev
embraced each member of the troupe and kissed them on the cheek,
saying, “My Little Angels!”
In 1998, the Little Angels visited Pyongyang as the first purely private,
nongovernmental cultural exchange program and gave three performances
there. They danced the cute “Little Groom Dance” and the colorful “Fan
Dance.” The eyes of the North Korean people watching the performance
were filled with tears. The image of a woman sobbing uncontrollably was
captured in the lens of a newspaper photographer. Yong Soon Kim, chairman
of North Korea’s Asia–Pacific Peace Commission, praised the Little
Angels after their performance, saying, “They have opened a narrow path
through the dark forest.”
That was exactly what the Little Angels had done. They demonstrated for the
first time that Koreans from North and South, who had turned their backs on
each other for such a long time, were capable of coming together in one place
and watching each other’s performances. People often think that politics
moves the world, but that is not the case. It is culture and art that move the
world. It is emotion, not reason, that strikes people in the innermost part
of their hearts. When hearts change and are able to receive new things,
ideologies and social regimes change as a result. The Little Angels did more
than just advertise our traditional culture to the world. They created narrow
paths between worlds completely different from each other.
Each time I meet the Little Angels, I tell them, “You must have beautiful
hearts to perform beautiful dances. You must have beautiful hearts
to have beautiful faces.” True beauty is a beauty that wells up from
within us. The Little Angels have been able to move the hearts of people
throughout the world, because the beauty of Korea’s tradition and spiritual
culture that are imbued in their dances are beautiful. So the applause for the
Little Angels is actually applause for Korea’s traditional culture.
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