Aegukga

"That's Aegukga. Our national anthem. My village always sings this, because it's located in South Korea. We sung it together because I'm proud to be a South Korean."

--Su Ji-Hoon, Operation: Invasion Der Zukünftigen Akademie

"Aegukga," often translated as "The Patriotic Song," is the national anthem of South Korea. It was adopted in 1948, the year the country was founded. Its music was composed in the 1930s and its lyrics date back to the 1890s. The lyrics of "Aegukga" were originally set to the music of the Scottish song "Auld Lang Syne" before a unique melody was composed specifically for it. Before the founding of South Korea, the song's lyrics, set to the music of "Auld Lang Syne", was used as the national anthem of the Korean exile government which existed during Korea's occupation by Imperial Japan from the 1910s to the mid-1940s. The song has two verses, but in most occasions only the first one is sung when performed publicly in South Korea.