"Onara" (Korean: 오나라) is the theme song to the popular Korean television drama series Dae Jang Geum (2003). Im Se-hyeon (임세현 / 林世賢) composed the song in archaic Korean, and the lyrics are unintelligible to most Koreans today.
The song is in the pansori style, a particular type of Korean music that emerged during the Joseon Dynasty and was very popular in the 19th century. It utilizes the vocals of one singer, a sorikkun, and one drummer, a gosu, to tell a themed story. The refrain ("He-iya di-iya he-iya naranino") is called chu-imsae and, in traditional pansori, it is supplied by the drummer to give rhythm to the song in addition to the beat. Chuimsae consists of meaningless vowel sounds or short words of encouragement. Chuimsae is analogous to scat singing in jazz nonsense syllables such as "La, la, la," or "Shoop, shoop ba doop" in English-language popular songs.
Since the song is in archaic Korean the meaning of the song can be ambiguous. But one explanation is that the song depicts a girl who longs for a man that she cannot be with. So she accepts the way it is and moves on with her life.
The end of each episode of Dae Jang Geum features "Onara" sung by three Korean children, Gim Ji-hyeon (김지현 / 金智賢), Baek Bo-hyeon (백보현 / 白寶賢), Gim Seul-gi (김슬기 / 金露姬), who were elementary schoolers learning Korean classic music at the time. The Dae Jang Geum soundtrack album also features a slower version of the song sung by E Ahn (이안 / 李安) (real name: I Dong-hui [이동희 / 李冬熙]), a Korean traditional music singer who graduated from the Korean classical music department at Seoul National University.
Foreign versions
"Onara" has several other versions that were used with Dae Jang Geum’s release outside of Korea. "Hope" (希望 Hèimohng) was the version sung by Kelly Chen in Cantonese for the Hong Kong release. "Baby" (娃娃 Wáwá) was sung by Angela Chang in Mandarin Chinese for the Taiwan release. "Calling" (呼唤 Hūhuàn) sung by Tang Can and "Hope" (希望 Xīwàng) sung by five winners of the Super Girl singing contest were among those used for the China release. Faith Cuneta sang an entirely different Tagalog song titled "Pangarap na Bituin" for the Philippines release.