All Around This World loves music that appears in places one may not expect. We ask, Why did this particular genre of music traverse the globe and lodge in a new land?  What in it resonates with people far away? How does it blend it with local styles to create something new? What tale does this new music tell?  

We start our lesson in South Korea, where three musical strains fused in the late 1940's to form the first Koran Pop music -- Korean folk music, Japanese "enka" -- a genre of Japanese songs with traditional poetic lyrics and vocal styles, often called the "Japanese blues" -- and, most unexpectedly, American big band jazz. The 1-2, 1-2 rhythm of the popular big band ballroom dance, the fox trot, gives this genre both its rhythm and its name:: TEUORTEU or "TROT." 

From Korean fox trot we travel far and wide to find other genres of music that appear in places one may never guess -- calypso in Sri Lanka, Western swing music in Hawaii and, most joyfully, both the tango and, it's true, the Bunny Hop, in Finland.