Coming from the "Land of Morning Calm", Korea, represents the culture of "Han". Han is a unique Korean interpretation of patience and sympathy towards your life. As some of you may know the song "Arirang" is one of the good examples of the culture "Han". As such, traditional culture of the country has been melted down in ones culture.
Korea, like many historical countries around the world, was an agricultural society. Especially, rice farming was a typical aspect of Korean agriculture. Rice farming, in the historical times, was a group work. Sewing seeds, irrigating, and harvesting was group work. It was a big physical challenge for those workers. This is when music was developed to express the hardship and relieve its physical challenges laying forward, in other words "Han". The tradition still lies among Korean old farmers and they sing usually same songs which can not be found in any song books.
How could music represent the "Han" culture? It is not so difficult to understand this culture if you visited Korea before. Not to mention in the cities, even in suburban and rural areas, it is easy to find "No-rae-bang", a singing room. Music was the best and very few medium to express your surpressed feelings in confusionist society. There are happy and joyful songs, but the origin of the singing culture was based on "Han" culture.
Music is one of the few common platforms we have in diversified cultures. Although it can be found in most of the cultures, it does not mean it has same background. Mostly, like the case of Korea, it represents the spirit and soul of the culture in its respective ways.