Bongsan Class

October 11th, 2010
In the morning I went to meet Professor David Mason, a Korean culture expert who focuses on tourism related issues and teaches at 경희대 Kyunghee University. We had pasta and green tea and talked Korean Studies.

In the evening I went to 봉산탈춤 Bongsan Talchum, a former attendee showed up with plans to come again every Monday, and with his arrival the one month ago almost entirely female (except for 원 중 Won Jung) group has become mostly male. Won Jung will hear if he made the second round audition on Friday. Class was uneventful, I was exceptionally low energy and so it seemed was everyone else. I talked with 현철 Hyeoncheol who resumed Bongsan practice last week. He looks about 22 but is actually 27 and in graduate school for music education, even better, his undergraduate was in 피리/태평소 piri and taepyeongso, and he is focusing on Korean music education, not just music in general. He can only come on Monday because he has a grad class on Thursdays.

After class ended I had a strangely long and interesting research-related conversation with the front desk/security guy at the training center (there are two of them, the one that was there was the younger one). It’s great when I can talk through ideas with random people, unfortunately not enough people know about traditional arts to an extent that a conversation can really get off the ground (and that’s why I’m doing this research!).