The School Year Has Begun!

There are so many things I've started to write and haven't finished... maybe I will. Don't hold your breath. In the meantime, let me tell you about the start of the school year:

It's Saturday, the first week is done and I'm sitting in my office, listening to Karjam singing (unfortunately not live) and determined to finish a ton of class prep today.

Monday:
Intro to Modern Korean History (for majors)
Tuesday:
(5 weeks only): Intro to Korean Culture and Society (for majors)
(every week): Intro to Korean Studies I (for majors)
(teaching 5 weeks, attending every week): Intro to Korean Music: Pungmul Drumming (for majors)
Wednesday:
Contemporary Korean Culture and Society (for non-majors)
Thursday:
Modern Korean History (for graduate students in Korean Studies or International Studies)

This week was the first week, and usually first week classes are so easy-- you spend time on the syllabus and letting students know the expectations for the course and you try to get to know them and let them learn enough about you to suss out if they really want to take the class. But when it's your department and it's the same students on Monday and all three classes on Tuesday, it's very different... you really have to start teaching right away because you can't do introductory games and conversation for 11 hours! The students are not required to take all the classes--the required class is Intro to Korean Studies I and the rest of the classes are optional-- but of course they need a certain number of credits to graduate. So almost all of them are enrolled in all four classes (two students elected not take the history course and one student isn't taking the music course). They are also enrolled in various other courses that meet distribution requirements.

Next week I won't be teaching Korean Culture and Society, but rather Lyudmila will spend 5 weeks with them teaching them how to look at Korean culture and society through Korean literature. Then I get them, and at the end of the semester Lina (a friend from my MA at Yonsei University who is doing her doctoral dissertation research in Korea right now) will teach them about Korean Social Movements for 5 weeks. For the Korean Music class, however, I will always attend even when I'm not providing lectures on Korean music. On those days (about 9 or 10 of the 16 weeks) my friend Go Seokjin will teach them drumming on the janggu or hourglass drum. The style they will start with this semester is the style from Imshil Pilbong Nongak, also the style played here on campus by the student club. I am hoping to integrate my students with the club and then with attendance at the transmission center in Pilbong. An ideal outcome for me will be to find a way to give students credit for attending a certain number of weeks of classes in Pilbong during their vacations. I still have to figure out how that will work out, though. And my new chair, who I love in every other way, seems to be very nervous about the connection of pungmul drumming with politics and will NOT listen to me when I assert that the kids these days are not interested in politics and just want to play the music. I hope to get him to listen to common sense, soon.

So far I love the personalities and attitude of all my major students.

On Wednesday I taught my non-major class... that was stressful. First of all the classroom that was mine on the schedule was being occupied by another class. What the heck! Finally we started, at least 15 minutes late, in a different classroom, but it was NOT the way I want to make a first impression!!! Then the students included two students who spoke no English, even though the class is listed as being taught in English. These students (who are from China and from Uzbekistan-- it's not Korean students who are totally unprepared to use English) really wanted to take the class, and the students in the class really wanted to meet more foreigners and make foreign friends... this left me in a quandry over what to do. If I told the two foreign students to leave, we'd lose 2 out of 5 enrolled foreigners (only one is German and an obvious foreigner, by the way), but all my class prep was done in English, and I didn't want to redo my syllabus and spend all the extra time to prepare lessons in Korean (did that last semester and it easily was double the prep time, maybe triple).

Thursday was the hardest day. I got a bus at 6:05 and made it to the campus in Seoul by 8, finding the classroom by 8:20 or so. The class started at 9, and there were 12 students there, only one with a 100% Korean name, although several had diasporic Korean names (like Eric Lee). A student (sounded American and looked Jewish) was a bit abrasive and challenging of a couple of the things I said-- he took a hard-lined (Korean) nationalist perspective (which is kind of funny since he's not Korean), and his attitude in class really threw me off. I am hoping (for once) that my first impression made him think he did not want to take the class, because an argumentative ultra-nationalist will be hard to deal with considering that I was trained by the opposite of the nationalist camp and hence will say things a nationalist might not like over and over all semester.

Now I better buckle down and work on prep!

Sangmo Classes at Imshil Pilbong Nongak Transmission Center

Koreans tend to be jugglers. Not in the sense of juggling pins or balls, but in the sense of simultaneously being involved in multiple projects and pursuits. If someone told me that Koreans invented multitasking, I might believe them. The performing art that best demonstrates multitasking is pungmul, a type of traditional drumming performed while dancing. Amongst pungmul performers, this is best exemplified by those who perform while wearing the sangmo. Sangmo is a hat crowned by a whip attached to a ribbon. The ribbon is manipulated while dancing and playing percussion on any of the pungmul instruments, although most commonly it is the sogo a small hand drum that does not significantly contribute to the soundscape. The pungmul soundscape is dominated by the low, regular resonant beat on the large gong, the jing; the high staccato clang of the ggwaenggwari; and the variety of drum beats emanating from the buk (a barrel drum struck on its barrel as well as the hide) and the janggu (an hourglass drum struck on both sides, simultaneously or alone, with two sharply different sticks). The sogo is the preferred instrument of the sangmo because it encourages a more spectacular show—the drum is light enough to be frequently raised to head height or higher, and with one hand swinging the drum, the other the stick, dance motions, punctuated by drum beats, are accentuated. Sangmo specialists are a particular type of pungmul player—alpha personalities tend to gravitate towards the ggwaenggwari, as the leader of the performance will (almost always) be on this instrument, dictating the mood and eliciting the best performance through carefully circulating through the rhythmic patterns. The instrument that sounds good, alone or in groups, and is mostly widely used in all types of Korean performance is the janggu. Hence many of the most musical and most deeply interested in exploring all aspects of Korean performance become janggu players. Those on the buk and the jing are often those most comfortable with a supporting role, although in full-time professional percussion groups every member will be given time in the spotlight. Those who become proficient with the sangmo, however, are stubborn.

               I tried to teach myself back in the late 1990s, but after achieving no progress at all I concluded that the sangmo I had bought must be purely decorative and non-functional. In 2010, in Korea to do research for my dissertation, I decided to try again and ventured to a store I already knew was frequented by musicians (not people looking for an interesting object to hang on their wall). I bought a sangmo and enrolled in an intensive week long class at the Imshil Pilbong Nongak Transmission Center. On the first day a helpful fellow classmate helped me strap the sangmo onto my head, and learning to put the sangmo on was the only progress I made that week (leading me to believe that my previous sangmo had been completely functional).

               The first hurdle to learning sangmo is that a brand new sangmo is stiff and unresponsive compared to how it will become after several months of use. Chaesang jaebi (sangmo performers) also utilize various hacks to improve the sangmo that the manufacturers apparently are unaware of. These include adding some weight to the jinja. The jinja is the key part of the entire sangmo, between the hat and the whip. Some also work to improve the flex and responsiveness of the whip by adding an additional layer of thread, or a coating of wax to the end of the whip closest to the jinja. The single most important part of making the sangmo easier to spin, however, is just rotations of the jinja. These rotations, of course, can occur with the sangmo on the chaesang jaebi but most people also rotate the jinja, off the hat, holding one end in their hand and rotating it (in both directions) whenever they have a free hand. 

During winter vacation I returned to Pilbong for a week, hoping to recover the sangmo ability I'd lost during the 2.5 years of dissertation and job search when I did not practice. Honestly, I thought of it often, but always kept putting it off. It's my personality-- give me a room full of people to practice anything with and I'll do it. Ask me to do it on my own and ... oh well. Back in July 2011 I had been getting pretty good, too! For some reason the week I went to the training center there were no independent learners. Or there was one, and she was in high school. We shared a room, and went to almost every meal together, but we had nothing in common-- or nothing except the fact that a graduate of her high school is one of my favorite people I've ever met at the training center. He's not a close friend, but he's just sweet as sujeonggwa (cinnamon punch) at the wedding dinner I was at last Saturday. I did, however, get to know my fellow sangmo students-- after all, we were enduring the same torture together. 

Yes, sangmo can be torture. 

You know that punishment (popular in Asia) where people put their hands behind their back (or on their ear lobes), squat, and then jump up and down? That was the first day. Our instructor, Yu Seonbo, was determined to prove to everyone that the sangmo spins because of your --downward-- motion when you bend your legs (no, it's not spun by your neck). By making it almost impossible to power on the upstroke, and showing us that the sangmo still spun, if we did it right, he felt he was imparting this important lesson. I felt he took it way too far. The punishment to the leg muscles of that first day (9-12 and then 2-5 followed by individual practice from 7-9) haunted the group for the rest of the week. Fortunately my regular instructor, Yi Jonghui, had told Seonbo that my knees were bad, so I was able to escape the worst of this torture. But what I had to do just to maintain face as a serious learner was enough to keep me for the next four days whimpering and mincing along as the pain in my knees was overpowered by the agony of my calves. At one point it was so bad I FB messaged a fellow student in the next room-- with an adjoining sliding door between the rooms-- to bring me "pas" the mentholated lotion that I knew he had but I felt too pained to stand up and go get it. 

By the end of the week I feel that I returned, more or less, to the proficiency I had in summer 2011, but I don't know if I will ever advance past that point.


Photos and explanation about how to improve the whip and jinja
My Sangmo Progress as of Spring 2011

The Weekend-- Dentist, Giant Ceremony, Seminar, Ahn Eunme

June 11^th, 2011

This is the definition of busy: to meet my really awesome friend 김월덕 Kim Woldeok and her new husband 주원 Juwon we actually went to the dentist. Juwon is getting an implant. This trip to the dentist ended up being very expensive. 750,000 won.

I left and headed home for a couple minutes and grabbed my camera to go to 경복궁 Gyeongbok Palace for a huge ceremony and spectacle. Not an actual performance per se. What happened was that France took these dynastic records 150 years ago and they were finally returning the records to Korea, so the government decided to add some pomp and ceremony, sort of Joseon Dynasty style.  

The important part for me was that 임실필봉농악 Imshil Pilbong Nongak, 고성오광대 Goseong Ogwangdae, 봉산탈춤 Bongsan Talchum and 송파산대놀이 Songpa Sandae Noli all had to parade out and dance around. It was a chance to do a favor by taking photos and bow to a lot of people. Curiously the Pilbong crew was all college kids, or even high school kids like Hyeonseok—I mean they were people I've studied with, not under. I didn't see one person I know to be an isuja even. This is in contrast to the people from Goseong who came even farther, all of them, even the really fairly elderly farmers.

Photos of Bongsan Talchum are ready first because they already asked me why I hadn't given them the photos yet...

Kim Eunju in the front

Sometimes the lion attacks and eats a hapless bystander. This little girl got away. 

June 12^th, 2011

I met this professor, 조경만 Jo Gyeongman, through FB (we have a mutual FB "friend"), and he invited me to a small seminar that he was presiding over. I went to the seminar not because I thought the topic would work well for me, but because I suspected some other members might be good contacts. It was really tough—everyone had read and prepared, and they were discussing very highly theoretical concepts (about eco-anthropology) in Korean. I mean, how well can you discuss the Panopticon in English? Okay, now try to explain it in Korean. No, I didn't do that, but Prof. Jo explained it to the rest of the people. If I wasn't familiar with Foucault, trust me I would have missed the entire point. It was all 75cent vocabulary with the occasional equivalent of "a" "however"  "if" etc. thrown in.  Okay, maybe I exaggerate a tiny bit. But seriously, if I'd done the same reading it still would have been tough for me to keep up (much less add to the discussion). On the other hand there was another member I've arranged to meet next Sunday.

After that I hurried to my neighborhood to watch Ahn Eunme company rehearsing Princess Bari. They'll be doing a 17 minute version later this week via-Skype. They have to do it in the middle of the night because the other side is watching it around noon in Toronto! It was really interesting and fun, especially the mix of 민요 minyo with 판소리pansori that they're using as the major auditory color of the piece. There are four singers- two men and two women, with one singer of each genre a man and one a woman.

Imshil Pilbong Nongak Dano-gut

June 4^th, 2011

Karjam and I had to leave Bonnie and Curtis's earlier than needed to get to the performance, so we went very slowly to the bus station. Once we caught the bus I started running into my 임실필봉농악 Imshil Pilbong Nongak associated friends (인하 was on the bus with one of her friends). Karjam and I walked from 강진 to the training center and greeted various people, many of my friends were there, and of course I know the lion's share of the performers, too. The performance started slightly after 2. At first the group of performers was somewhat small (and a fair number of the afternoon performers did not do the evening, too), but they drummed up a storm in front of a group of tents set up to house a shop selling 파전, 김치전 and 막걸리 and several experiential activities (like making soap, which Karjam did, and making/decorating fans, which I did). After maybe twenty minutes or thirty minutes (long enough for the performers to already be sweaty) they started progressing in a parade across the road, over the small river and up to the sacred tree in Pilbong village (a little more than a kilometer from the training center). It was really beautiful as we walked through the terraced fields of rice seedlings to the tree, an old grandmother of a tree with a wide shade canopy next to an open-walled traditional building for village affairs or just resting on the way up or down the hill to the village. The tree was circled by braided (handmade) rope, adorned with slips of prayers, with an extensive altar set up in front of the tree. The drummers drummed, a ceremony was held with the village leader standing as a representative of the village as he read a long prayer (which was helpfully handed out to us!) then others took turns bowing in front of the altar and the tree. The drummers rested while everyone shared the ritual food and drink. Starting up again we proceeded down to the midst of the fields where many of our number were now engaged in planting rice seedlings into the mud under the layer of water in the flooded fields. Yes, you envy me taking photos of the drummers lined up next to the field as the rice planting continued. Awesome. Also they planted a fairly large field in very little time.

The drummers drummed back to the training center and up to the 한옥 hanok section of the village where the "Fantastic" group took over for a stage show. This group is made up of many of the younger members of the group and I've seen them perform as recently as last summer, but this time was different- there were five women featured as drummers and dancers, but they were not the best drummers and definitely not the best dancers. The show looked good from a photographic point of view, but trust me the moving image was, well, sad. These amazing male drummers (many of my teachers including 김동민, 이재정, 송하종 and so on) were back stage so that women could try to dance, although they didn't have the training for it. I was quite turned off, especially at some of the gestures towards sexual moves that they made in a clear pandering to an idea of what the audience wants.  The show also included some other non-Korean instruments- keyboard, violin—but nothing very expert or interesting.

After this show we all adjourned to a free dinner at the training center cafeteria. They did not waste much money on the dinner – small servings of side dishes, none including meat or fish and a large lump of rice, with a watery soup including some meat (obviously I didn't eat any) on the side. So after dinner Karjam and I enjoyed a snack from the snack selling tent—it was actually fried 떡 ddeok, which I had never eaten that way before, but it was very good. Then I decorated a fan while Karjam made a soap in a mold. The music started up again shortly after, with 이종휘 now part of the group. I took quite a lot of photos with flash, not sure if any of them are particularly interesting photographically, but I tried to capture things that are points in my research—including the audience dancing in the middle of the drummers at certain points in the evening and the audience taking over the instruments as the night grew late. Not to mention trying to get some good shots of the key people participating in their art, particularly the 상모 sangmo solos. I spent a lot of time dancing- in the center or outside the circle (when we weren't welcome in the center), often with my 개전연 Gaejeonyeon friends.

Karjam and I needed to get up early the next day so we went to sleep fairly early, around 1. 

Gaejeonyeon Performance

April 30^th, 2011

I had a performance with 개전연 (개인전수연합) Gaejeonyeon, my 임실필봉농악 Imshil Pilbong Nongak trained 풍물 pungmul group. The performance was in a sorry excuse for a park in 대학로 Daehangno (an area of Seoul). We met up at 11, changed, ate kimbap, etc. and then finally at 1 we started to play. I had told Karjam to come at 2 because we'd keep playing until 4, but he arrived at 2:30, about 10 minutes after it began to rain. Until the rain we'd been performing in the park proper, in various patterns with lots of room for the잡색 japsaek people to dance in the middle. I had thought of doing 상모 sangmo when we performed for all of 5 minutes, but I decided that with all the audience staring the white woman, I'd be more comfortable doing something I knew I could do well, and I dance well, so I was designated for the part of 화동 hwadong, a japsaek part that I think is pretty cool. After it began raining we performed under a roof that covered barely enough space for all of us (I never counted but approximately 40 performers) to get out of the rain. Our audience stood under umbrellas, mostly. 

Sangmo and a Performance

April 12^th, 2011

I went to 전통국악사 Traditional Korean Music Store and to 고려국악사 Goryeo Korean Music Store and picked up more ribbon for my sangmo and a fan for practicing the part of grandmother in 봉산탈춤 Bongsan Talchum.

In the evening, as usual, I had 상모 sangmo class. Hyeonseok, Rimhan and I were the only students in class and Rimhan was late. I didn't have quite as good a rehearsal as the previous week, I think that the difference was not setting things up enough. Basically 이종휘 Yi Jonghui's line for the day was that he'd taught us all the steps, this step, that step, etc. and we should just run through them as we spun. Except we were spinning 바른사 counter-clockwise circles and 반대사 clockwise circles instead of doing 사사 1 ¾ circle left 1 ¾ circle right. It was harder doing counter-clockwise and very hard doing clockwise, Rimhan could barely do anything clockwise as his clockwise spin isn't there yet. Even counter-clockwise I find the transition into one step very hard and another step almost impossible to maintain (although I can do it with circles on both sides). At the end of class I video-taped Jonghui giving a mini-lesson in the basics. I'll put it up on my video section soon, but I won't make it publicly accessible link because it's not like he prepared to give a perfect lesson, it's just an on the spot thing.

Here is the video excerpt of me, I'll upload Yi Jonghui later.

April 13^th, 2011

I worked at home and at Chans Bros.

In the evening we went to a concert at the 국악원 National Gugak (Korean Music) Center. The concert had been billed as being a new way to introduce Korean traditional music, and of course I wanted to see how they'd do it and if it would be effective to reach the audience. The article I'd seen had not mentioned it was particularly targeted at families, but apparently it was, as the audience was mostly families.

There were two distinctly different things that they did: they had an announcer that was a "scientist" complete with an Einstein wig. He did little magic tricks and spoke in a very funny and affected manner. He did things like introduce all the instruments in funny and memorable ways. For example he introduced the 해금 haegeum and next when he introduced the 아쟁 ajaeng he said it was the haegeum on steroids, the haegeum's big brother (both are bowed, but the haegeum is like a little 2 string violin in size and the ajaeng is 5 feet long with multiple strings). Each instrument played a little snippet designed to capture the audience attention. Most were children's songs or pop songs or Western songs, not Korean traditional songs. The other thing they did was they had three compositions which they introduced through a Korean genre painting and a poetic/story of historic Korea. The announcer for those had one of those perfect radio classical music DJ voices. There were a total of 3 ensemble pieces (one was the first piece then the two last pieces were ensemble) and they were introduced by Einstein and in the middle were three compositions for between 2 and 4 instruments. All the pieces were new compositions, not traditional music. The best part was the amazing 거문고 geomungo player. 

Improving my Sangmo Whip

March 22nd, 2011
I woke up pretty early and went to meet 지수 Jisoo near her house. We drank two Americanos each while continuing to work on this translation project. 경진 Gyeongjin also helped me on the project, so great to have real friends.

Went home and looked through my Ministry publications until I had to run to 상모 sangmo class, arriving 7 minutes late. We took apart the whips on our sangmo and put them back together in a more flexible way.
1st: stripped off the brown threading

2nd: bent the whip to break it's spine, more or less, by pulling it across the head of a hammer

3rd: glued ribbon over the bottom 6 inches or so of the whip

4th: took thin white thread and wrapped it around the whip until about 8 inches from the end super super tight (we had to keep the thread tight enough to pluck it and get a string instrument sound as we wound).

5th: coated it with wax (paraffin)

6th: heated the wax and rubbed it in

And to make my sangmo even better(!!!!) 이종휘 Yi Jonghui also added a washer (more weight) to the beads on the whip mount harness.

It took more than two hours, and was just 현석 Hyeonseok, 진수 Jisu and I, but it was so worth it. I put it on at the end and it moved pretty well. The weight was different and I think it's not able to bend equally well in all directions and it definitely needs more wax but it was such a big improvement.

Watching Goseong Practice at KNUA

March 15th, 2011
I worked on the computer. Had lunch with Sarah. Worked on the computer. Went to 상모 sangmo class.

In class there was 현석 Hyeonseok, 지수 Jisu (who has not practiced since the fall), 성현 Seonghyeon and I. 이종휘 Yi Jonghui decided to loan me his really awesome whip part on the sangmo, and it is heavier than mine and spins SO SMOOTHLY. I looked in the mirror and partially because of the superior equipment, but partially because I really have improved a thousand fold, I was momentarily amazed that it was actually me making those perfect motions. Jonghui, as usual, was a hardass and made us repeatedly practice the same thing… I wanted to do 나비사 nabisa with his whip, but no, instead I did reversed direction circles for the second week—but those look almost as good as the counter-clockwise regular circles, now.

March 16th, 2011
I had lunch with Jan, a German guy studying Korean and interested in doing research on 판소리 pansori, worked on translation, and went to KNUA to see everyone practicing. First I met 혜미 Haemi and 경진 Gyeongjin for dinner. We just went to a little Korean-style fast-food place (a 분식 bunshik). But I bought their dinner and also bought some drinks for everyone while practicing at the market. During vacation they both worked at different kinds of drinking establishments, and they told me they'd been practicing three times a week, giving each other critical feedback. Classes started at the beginning of March and they're learning 양주별산대 Yangju Byeolsandae, 경기도 새남굿 Gyeonggido Saenamgut (a shamanic ritual, they learn the music and dance primarily), they have a lot of theory classes this term, too. They also mentioned that 창열 Changyeol was going to come to evening rehearsal. When we got to campus and the practice room everyone was there except for 기영 Giyeong who was at a funeral. I got tons of totally awesome hugs when I arrived. I scribbled six notebook pages of notes while watching, to summarize:
In addition to Changyeol, 안대천 Ahn Daecheon also came to practice, as he's a whole gigantic one year older than Changyeol, he talked most of the time and Changyeol was relatively quiet. Daecheon's wife and daughter (who's less than a month) also came to practice.

The students began with the basic motion set followed by 덧뷔기 deotbuigi. 재윤 Jaeyun played the 꽹과리 ggwaenggwari and Haemi played the 장구 janggu (because during the performance as well they'll be the primary musicians). As soon as they finished the basic motions then they moved directly into Act 1 (문둥북춤 Mundung Bukchum). 태환 Taehwan was playing the part and I thought he looked a lot more fluid, if a bit repetitive in his motions. But Daecheon criticized him intensely, particularly focusing on the fact that he didn't convincingly show his interest in the 소고 sogo before he came and tried to pick it up.

The students moved onto the second act, but after a couple minutes Daecheon stopped them again, this time with pointers that they needed to seem more excited to be "at play" than they were, how they should avoid 말뚝이 Malddugi's whip and so on. He said they didn't even look like they were worried they'd get hit. After a bit more criticism and an example of how several characters should be acting, the scene started again. As 민기 Min'gi entered the center for the Malddugi solo it was clear he was hesitant, he looked down at the floor and shook his head after small mistakes or to shake out the next move. Daecheon stopped them again, talked to Min'gi (but somewhat mildly it seemed to me) and criticized the musicians, saying they weren't connecting with the dancers. When 정우 Jeong'u had to do his solo for 원양반 Won Yangban he had the half smile that says "oh crap, I'm going to screw up." He also kept his head down a lot, biting his lip and faltering on his speeches. Min'gi lost his balance on a dance solo, to his evident embarrassment. While they were practicing next to me Gyeongjin was running through the monk's steps. It seemed obvious to me that the students may have been rarely practicing or not practicing at all and before long Daecheon announced that they were all worse than they'd been at Goseong (so does that mean he and Changyeol hadn't stopped in at all until the day I came?). Daecheon even questioned if Jeong'u was right for the part, asking everyone if they'd been practicing their individual dances, and asserting that everyone needed to practice special dance parts at least three times per day and then when rehearsing show some awareness of where the audience is, where the edge of the stage is, what angle to look at and generally to keep the energy level high, which it was not. The second time through Jeong'u looked more masculine and confident and he remembered all the dialogue, making me really think they just hadn't been practicing enough to remember stuff.

Act 3 went pretty smoothly and it runs out to the end, but Daecheon points out that the Yangban should move more like a yangban. Also they must choose where on the stage to do certain things and then keep doing it that way when they practice.

Act 4 is barely criticized, and Gyeongjin doesn't make any mistakes but the two women are told they don't look feminine enough and Daecheon points out a lack of intention in the mood- the old monk must seem like he's really into the women.

Act 5 was criticized by far the most. The blocking is off on the stage, the group hasn't practiced enough together, and Changyeol says it wasn't even funny, though it should be. Changyeol says it was "제일 보기 싫어" (the one that was the most painful to watch), basically all parts of it are wrong, even to the fact that the students hadn't brought props they need for the practice. They were told they looked like they didn’t want to be practicing. "Get your mood up! Don't depend on us to be here, figure this out for yourself." The students answer that they'll practice every day from April, but Daecheon and Changyeol want them to find places and ways to practice every day now, separated by act being fine.

Then Act 5 is told to practice again and again, until at least 11 pm but around 10:30 everyone else is excused worried about timing to get home, I left, too.

Bongsan Talchum and Sangmo Class

March 7th, 2011
I took Aimee to experience the heaven of the Korean bathhouse (찜질방). She agreed it was heaven.

In the evening I took her to 봉산탈춤 Bongsan Talchum class, mistakenly thinking she'd find it as much fun as me. She did not, however, join in, so I ended up feeling like I'd just dragged her along out of some pig-headed idea that it would surely be fascinating without stopping to think that she's not my mom (who even now is willing to find all my activities of at least moderate interest just cause they're something I like to do).

Class was non-standard as 김은주 Kim Eunju and the other Bongsan folks had a big important meeting going on, she stopped by once to see how we were doing, but we basically did it all on our own. 병호 Byeongho more or less led class, although 하연 Hayeon, 정현 Jeonghyeon and I helped out. 수미 Sumi did the accompaniment on 장구 janggu for the class, it was amazing how much harder it was to do with her drumming than normally, although she did get smoother during the class. Actually to be fair, Kim Eunju is known for being just an amazing accompanist for mask dancing, so perhaps what I was really experiencing was what a difference there is between someone beating out the 장단 jangdan (rhythmic pattern) and someone playing for dancers while producing the jangdan.

We went through each of the acts and then did the solos and the combined final dance for the eight dark faced monks. Of course I did monk 3. At the end of class we worked on the lion dance.


March 8th, 2011
After Aimee left I actually got back on track and did some serious writing/editing. It wasn't just having a guest that's more fun to hang out with than writing; it was also that until I woke up on Tuesday I hadn't felt fully physically healthy in an entire week.

I called 이종휘 Yi Jonghui to find out what time 상모 sangmo class would start and he said 6, but then when 현석 Hyeonseok and I arrived he said that due to the large number of college kids who were still in class until 6, we'd have to start at 7. So he taught just the two of us until nearly 7, when others started to show up, and kept class going until 9. Others were 지용 Jiyong (together weeks 3 and 6), 림한 Rimhan (last summer week 8 and winter week 3 and practicing all fall in Seoul), 효준 Hyojun (practicing in Seoul and at week 6 but not in sangmo), 성현 Seonghyeon (week 6). Class was tough. Partially because it was three hours, but partially because Yi Jonghui had us do the same motion over and over for almost the entire class. We were working on coordinating out 소고 sogo with the perfect sangmo motion, trying to get the hand motions right (not robotic) with the sogo is harder than it looks. We practiced almost the same sogo motion more than half the class, but we had different sangmo motions. One of which was to have us rotate counterclockwise instead of clockwise. My previous best was 10 rotations last night my rotations looked much better and I got up to 24, but I also pinched a nerve in my neck. Then the rest of the class was devoted to a sogo motion where you just raise and lower your sogo with the stick touching in the whole time. Sounds simple, I know. But I had to look left two (sogo down, up) and right two (sogo down, up) while spinning to each side and it was so frustrating. I never got it really right. At the end we switched our sangmo motion but kept doing the same sogo motion. I was pretty exhausted when we were done.

Fulbright Forum and More

February 25th, 2011
I took the 무궁화 Mugunghwa train back to Seoul. It was nice to be able to be at the station in 5 minutes from Georgy and 진홍 Jinhong's house, but honestly I don't like the trains unless they're the fast KTX trains (which are so expensive).

In Seoul I attended a Fulbright Forum because Professor Pai, Hyung-il was speaking about her research. I had heard much of her presentation in the past, but she is an amusing speaker (partially because she says some things that most academics, especially junior scholars, would never say—I guess that's the advantage of being a more senior scholar). Afterwards I probably should have hung out and socialized for longer, but I did at least manage thirty minutes of hang shaking and card exchanging. I met some interesting academics, and Jenny from my dissertation support group was there.

I left the gathering and rushed to 대학로 Daehangno, one of the big college kid hang-out zones and met up with 6 out of the 10 (besides myself) students of 상모 sangmo in week 6 of the 임실필봉농악 Imshil Pilbong Nongak winter session. They had already been together for a couple hours, I had one cup of 막걸리 makgeolli and then we headed to a 노래방 noraebang (singing room for karaoke). It turned out no one could sing worth beans (although I was still probably the worst) so we just laughed a lot. It was really awesome to see everyone, my favorite people 진영 Jinyeong, 범준 Beomjun and 지원 Jiwon were there. Beomjun leaves for the military in two weeks, so it was sort of our last chance to hang out as a group. Although I didn't have a chance to have any in depth conversations, it was good to sort of secure the connection by meeting back up in Seoul.

Despite the fact that all 7 of us are non-smokers, by the time we left the hof they had been drinking in we all stunk to high heaven of cigarettes. Ventilation appears to be completely unnecessary. Ugh. I had forgotten that really bad aspect of going out in Korea. I came home and stripped on the verandah then took a shower so I could tolerate being around myself.

Bongsan and Sangmo Practice

February 21st, 2011
I worked on the computer and then headed to 봉산탈춤 Bongsan Talchum class in the evening, just barely arriving before 김은주 Kim Eunju, my awesome teacher (who is always a couple minutes late). We had one new student, 나례 Naryae, who was sunny and bright, a perfect addition to our group. 수미 Sumi and 하연 Hayeon were there as well as 정현 Jeonghyeon and 병호 Byeongho and 허세준 Heo Sejun (sp?). There were a total of 10 students, but with four key members absent. We practiced all the monk parts, then proceeded to practice 소무 Somu, then 사상좌 Sasangjwa and finally 사자춤 Sajachum (lion's dance). In other words, we actually have a lot of things we know now. If we can keep a key group of people coming we may actually be ready for a performance in April or thereabouts (since the performance in January fell through).

Class has become increasingly dominated by people who are in the class to either add to their bag of tricks (as actors or some such) or to prepare for school entry. Of the people who are regularly attending now, of those whose employment I know (almost all), only 미행 Mihaeng (who is taking a break this month but text messaging me periodically) is not in the larger field of performance/preparing to be a performer.

February 22nd, 2011
I spent the day on the computer and in the later afternoon headed to the Seoul training center for 임실필봉농악 Imshil Pilbong Nongak to practice 상모 sangmo. We have been meeting at 6, but today there was a class in the space, so we had to wait. I talked to the 교포 gyopo (Korean-American) while waiting. Her name is 이 은 Yi Eun, and she graduated from Northwestern with a degree in music education, but is now spending this entire year in Seoul working on her Korean (she's in Level 4 at Yonsei KLI) and learning 풍물 pungmul. She had previously learned a little, now she's in the intermediate class. She has never studied at Pilbong, however. But I gather she's not been in Seoul for long.

Class was tough. As I get better 이종휘 Yi Jonghui becomes stricter—he more or less constantly corrects me these days, then constantly corrects 현석 Hyeonseok, then looks back at me and corrects me again. He was already pretty strict! Or maybe it's just comparison with 이재정 Yi Jaejeong's style of teaching. At any rate, sangmo is a challenge mostly because you have to coordinate a very large number of different motions which must be properly synchronized. Now that I have to use the 소고 sogo (beating out the rhythm as I step and spin) it is even more complex.
Potential mistakes, all mentioned today:
1. my chin is too low (too close to my chest)
2. when doing a high step, my foot looks like it's kicking rather than just be lifted
3. instead of doing 1.9 spins and then reversing direction, I'm doing 1.7
4. I'm minimizing my knee bends on count 2 and 4, but they need to be the same as the bends on 1 and 3
5. When turning to the side for a two count, I need to turn 90 degrees on 1 and 3, instead I turn 80 degrees on 1 and then 10 degrees on 2 (but funnily 3 and 4 are not a problem)
6. My beat is too early on the sogo
7. My beat is too late
8. I'm doing the move too fast
9. I'm using too much power to turn so I don't look fluid
10. My sogo is pointing down instead of out
11. My sogo stick holding hand is not bent enough at the wrist
12. I'm not timing the very first pre-move correctly
I think I'm probably still forgetting some mistakes I made.

After class I interviewed Jonghui. He started playing when he was in fourth grade, and began sangmo when he was eleven.

Sangmo Class with Yi Jonghui

February 15th, 2011

I got a lot of work done on the computer in the afternoon to the extent that every additional minute to type meant another amazing rush of words onto the page—bam bam everything coming together-- then rushed to 상모 sangmo class. And frustratingly 이종휘 Yi Jonghui was over an hour late (he's never been more than ten minutes late before and that only once). This was complicated by the fact that he had a new phone without any of our numbers in it and until I called him, he couldn't even tell us he was running late. When I got there 현석 Hyeonseok was already there, playing 장구 janggu, as was another woman, who turned out to be a 교포 gyopo (Korean-American) but no, I didn't talk to her. Maybe next week.

Before Jonghui showed up 구철회 Gu Cheolhoi (my first sangmo teacher) showed up. I was weirdly nervous. I think partially because I know I'm still not that good. But he was really surprised to see me. Probably thought I'd never spin a sangmo again after the week with him last summer. It was awkward to have him there, but fortunately a couple minutes later 진영 Jinyeong showed up, very happy to see her. When class finally started, it was such a weird adjustment to be back to Jonghui's style again. He forces us to take no breaks and do everything perfectly. He hassled me a lot to get some moves (more basic motions) right, but then praised my 나비사 nabisa (the most difficult motion I know).

Today after sangmo class when we were packing up our sangmo in our bags Hyeonseok started talking to me a lot more than he has in the past. His opening salvo was "I'm not good at this so I'm working towards being a professional – If I want to be professional I have no choice but to work, so (after much practice) I'm good at this." And "sangmo isn't fun at first. It's hard and frustrating and over 90% of the people who start quit it then. But if you get past that, then it's alright." We talked all the way to the subway and waiting for the subway and the stops until my transfer (he mostly talked and I listened and tried to follow along because he was talking to me as though he would another young person and young people have their own ways of talking these days. Most of the college kids I talk to sort of match the way I talk (a bit more formally) but Hyeonseok was talking with a lot of slang and full use of the habit of Koreans to not speak the subject and even the object of sentences if –they- think it's obvious.) He's getting more excited about his future prospects (I think he was really happy that I had complimented him on his drumming, which is frankly amazing) and really thinking about applications to university. He feels that students from arts high schools have a disadvantage when applying to KNUA, but he agreed with me that KNUA wants to see solid basics more than the most talented advanced performance. He went through a long list to me of which schools have better chances of sending their applicants to KNUA. The schools with good odds had two students accepted this year, so I don't see big difference from one (Hyeonseok goes to the same school 원중Wonjung was going to, and Wonjung was the only applicant that got into KNUA this year). It was really interesting to hear him lumping himself in with the professionals already, but he is performing (and probably earning money from it) already and he's definitely driven and hard working. Another subject of the conversation was that he is from a poor family and they don't have enough money for him to take lessons, not really, or not the number of lessons he wants to take. Instead of studying 봉산탈춤 Bongsan Talchum directly with 손병만 Son Byeongman he plans to start attending the evening Bongsan class, it's a lot cheaper. He told me he's planning to ask the teacher if she'll waive tuition for him. (And he's only planning once a week, which is around 30 bucks for the month- almost nothing!). So I sent her a message and told her that I wanted to secretly sponsor him to attend class. Among the many things Hyeonseok wants to learn is 바라춤 Barachum (the dance of the cymbals) it's a dance performed as part of the 영산재 Yeongsanjae ceremony (intangible cultural asset #50) by Buddhist monks.

From Sangmo to Songpa Dari Balpgi

February 11th, 2011
In the morning I practiced 상모 sangmo with the class until at 11:20 when everyone went outside and bowed goodbye to me. 이재정 Yi Jaejeong ran me to the bus station. Unfortunately just as I was leaving I realized that my hat (a green fleece hat my mom made) was misplaced. I couldn't find it again in my few minutes before leaving even though I checked the most obvious places. Frustrating!

In 전주 Jeonju I had lunch at a vegetarian buffet with my awesome friend 월덕 Woldeok who has gotten engaged (and chosen a wedding date) since I saw her a month ago.

I reached Seoul rather later than I wanted to and scrambled to go meet a friend who was on her way from one country to another and only in Seoul for about 15 hours as a layover. She spent the night. I'd say who except she doesn't want other friends in Korea to feel dissed because she only saw me. It was really awesome to see her, but I'm afraid she was so jet-lagged I did most of the talking.

February 12th, 2011
I had to wake up at 5:30 to prepare a very light breakfast and walk my friend to the airport shuttle, and surprisingly I stayed awake afterwards and got some work done. At 1:30 I arrived at 서울 놀이 마당 Seoul Noli Madang, the home of 송파산대놀이 Songpa Sandae Noli for rehearsal of 송파다리밟기 Songpa Dari Balpgi (Songpa Bridge Crossing).

Songpa Dari Balpgi is registered for protection by the City of Seoul (Songpa Sandae Noli is registered by the nation). Dari Balpgi is a perfect example of a reenactment. The life of the ceremony is gone, it's just motions that people (we) are going through because it has some historical significance and has been chosen (somewhat arbitrarily) to be labeled "important heritage" that should be protected. It is taxidermized culture. On the other hand, if you openly admit something is a reenactment, and don't pretend that people in the modern world actually do march around Seoul guarding and escorting local governmental figures as they survey the region on important days of the year, there isn't any harm in it, right? Ceremonies, like Songpa Dari Balpgi, tend to be quite openly reenactments and acknowledged by participants and observers as non-living culture. There are some other reenactments that are not clearly taxidermized; chief among these is National Intangible Cultural Asset # 1, 종묘제례(악) Jongmyo Jerye(ak). This is a ceremony for honoring the ancestors of the Yi (former ruling family) line and the associated music (ak). The participants include professional musicians and college students BUT they also include a large number of Yi descendants holding tablets with ancestral names. To those people it's a pretty big deal to be part of the ceremony, and they (maybe not all of them) do feel a real connection to their ancestors. So –that- ceremonial reenactment is in much more of a grey area.

As I explained last summer when I performed in Songpa Dari Balpgi, most of the performers are members of Songpa Sandae Noli with a group of about 8 singers (who manipulate 소고 sogo) who sing 선소리 Seonsori (standing songs) during a key part of the reenactment. These singers and about a half dozen other people are not Songpa Sandae Noli members, but the rest are. And on Saturday we prepared for the big 대보름 Daeboreum (first full moon of the lunar new year) event first by filling small bags with roasted in the shell peanuts while others made bundles of cloth for torches, then by rehearsing Dari Balpgi. We had to rehearse outside, of course, and it was -10 celsius which made it so we really rushed through practice.

Cell photos of An Byeong'in directing us and a bunch of us milling around the 마당 madang practicing.



Afterwards 김영숙 Kim Yeongsuk, my friend and the office manager, asked if I knew one more person we could get to perform with us (someone had bailed out). I agreed to contact some people and she clarified that she wanted as many young men as possible to show up on Sunday morning at 10:30 to rehearse Songpa Sandae Noli. I contacted friends from KNUA and by the end of the day had a good response.

The rest of the day I just worked on some computer stuff and went to bed super early.

Last Full Day of the Winter Sangmo Intensive

February 10th, 2011
I had a frustrating morning. After a bit of work on the 나비사 nabisa move (which is getting very fluid), I was assigned to work with 범준 Beomjun on steps. I got stuck on the second step we tried, I just could not get the timing right and it frustrated the heck out of me the rest of the morning. REALLY frustrated me. It seemed so simple, and I understood what I was doing wrong, yet… After lunch all the students with high enough skills met and had a mini group concert in the dirt expanse between the two main teaching buildings. I joined in and learned how much harder it is to do nabisa when you are timing it to the music and the other 상모 sangmo people, while being too close to each other so 지용 Jiyong's ribbon kept smacking me, with a pesky wind that kept trying to snatch the ribbons and take them out of the course we'd set them on. It was not easy. Nor were the other spins that I did, or combination spins, but the challenges I've named here are pretty much what challenged with all of the moves. Fortunately 진영 Jinyeong was at the front of the sangmo group and she knew what to do with each musical cue.

In the afternoon after everyone stopped playing it was starting to snow (it never really got going) but 이재정 Yi Jaejeong had been promising us all week that he'd cook us a bunch of chicken (it took people various amounts of time to realize he meant eggs). So we boiled eggs over an outdoor fire, spinning while waiting. Jaejeong taught us this really interesting way to peel an egg. You take a bit off the shell at each end; then you blow really hard in one end. The whole shell just slips right off. Totally wild. He's very sweet but he's also quite Korean in his teaching methods. When students are roughhousing for just for fun, he'll hit them. That sounds bad to American ears. Hmmm, how can I explain. It's funny, for one thing. Everyone laughs a lot, even when he's slapping their wrist with two fingers as hard as he can. None of it really truly causes any physical distress (except possibly the wrist slapping when it happens too much, but it only happens too much if people have been losing games and stuff like that. Today's games included a relay race while spinning the sangmo. Things like that. It's sort of affectionate.

Photo of Jiwon and Jeonghwa from the Hallym University team and of course, me. Not sure I like the treatment i did on these photos though.


Jiyong

Awesome instructor Yi Jaejeong

Uiyeong (yes, this is a woman)

Beomjun

Jinyeong


My afternoon practice was MUCH more successful, I immediately nailed the steps from the morning, and started working on hitting the 소고 sogo while doing nabisa. Jaejeong definitely teaches people really fast. He doesn't make anyone perfect a move before they can move to the next move. I think this is because he feels that teaching us the basics of a lot will let us have more to practice on our own later, when we can polish things. But of course I worry that people don't realize how different their move is from someone like Beomjun's move—we don't have mirrors in the room we're in. I also think Jaejeong gets bored and wants to avoid student boredom as well. But I could be wrong. Anyway, when I had class with 구철회 Gu Cheolhoi last summer he didn't teach people more than two moves in a week. And in Seoul with 이종휘 Yi Jonghui he definitely nitpicks each move before he allows anyone a chance to try something new. In 5th week of the winter session Jinyong was studying with Yi Jonghui and he studied the whole week and only worked on 양사 yangsa and 자반 jaban (giant jumping spinning move) but I suspect he worked on the latter without Jonghui around. He's been learning that move since last summer. Jaejeong keeps saying "it has to be interesting! This class has to be fun!" Jinyong thinks this is different than the way he used to teach, that he's mellowed out a lot and lets us goof off a lot. Of course there is also the factor of the space (size of space for the number of students) and the total number of students the teacher has to divide his (her) time between.

Egg party:


Our entire class (except Minsu who left on Wednesday). Click on the photo and it'll get larger





After class we had a special 민요 minyo session. The minyo teacher was very young, she taught us 성주풀이 Seongju Puli. Or rather she taught the chorus and one verse, the shortest one. After leading everyone through the song, she started calling people out to sing it on their own. 박주동 Bak Judong was practicing the song starting last night, so he volunteered to sing right off the bat. At the very end she called on me, but I flat out refused. I will do a lot that makes me look silly (like the sangmo move with my hair last night) but I will not sing absolutely horribly in public.

After dinner we had one more sangmo practice. Everything I'm doing is getting pretty smooth and nice, but I have a long way to go before I will look good in performance. I ran out of energy half way through the practice, though, and didn't even get on the case of the other people who were talking instead of practicing.

We're getting visitors today. 다원 Dawon from week 3 came, and then later after the last practice 태강 Tae'gang showed up. They both brought food and presents for the group. 뒤풀이 duipuli was pretty normal, just drank a bit of 막걸리 makgeolli and tried hard to circulate to have a last few minutes with each groups of students that included someone I'd gotten close to during the week. I try hard to talk to everyone, or give everyone a chance to talk to me if they want to take it, and I think I did an excellent job, socially, during this week. On the other hand I'm physically exhausted after battling a cold for the whole week while practicing sangmo which is intense and sweat-inducing.

Day 3 of the Winter Sangmo Intensive

February 9th, 2011
It stayed warm all night. Or should I say seriously hot. But the good news was that in the morning the video camera was working properly. I really think it just hates to get cold. I was able to shoot the entire morning class.

We began class on time, with me leading the beginning exercises, then practiced on our own stuff until the teacher arrived (all in all, though, this teacher is much more prompt than most of the teachers I have had here). He had everyone who could do 양사위 yangsaui do 150, but at just past 100 there was a mistake and he made us start again. So we certainly got a work out. Then I was assigned to walk and do 나비사 nabisa at the same time!!!!!!!!! Wow! And I was able to do it (with sort of tentative steps at first but I got better). That was great.

In the afternoon, as usual on Wednesdays, we had a game day. I was in team 8, and each team began by making a name and a song/chant. We named ourselves 원래 골찌 "have always been last" more or less. I could probably translate that better if I spent time thinking about it. I think in Korean, so I don't always know how to translate things. Anyway, it was a joke about how the team I've been on has always been last every time I've done one of these camps at 필봉 Pilbong. And the song was pretty funny, too. It went more or less "There's no denying I'm always last, that 막걸리 makgeolli over there won't be mine, even coming here four times, always last, this time I'm sure to be last again." We had four rounds of games. First we played a charades type game, where you relayed the acting through the whole team (pair by pair) and the first person in line had to guess what it was. We lost totally unfairly because the other teams subject was movies, and all the movies were major blockbusters, then our subject was animals and the animals were like "water skater beetle" and "gray bearded baboon" and things like that. Really hard to guess! Two times our team just had to pass the animals because the first guy had no idea what they were. The only one that compared with Titanic and Matrix was giraffe. The second round was the best. Totally fun. We had to lock our arms to our legs and then scoot on our butts and knock over the other team with our feet until we got their queen. I was a total killer. It was great. We won twice and so there wasn't a third game. Which almost made me sad we had won both times. The third round was horrible. We had to do three legged races to the 장구 janggu and then one person played each side of the janggu. After you'd randomly drawn the name of a 장단 jangdan (rhythmic pattern). Of course I don't really remember any of the jangdan names, so I was a total handicap to the team. We lost royally, because it was a race to get through all our pairs before the other team did, and they won by miles. The last round was actually four games, we won the first and third, but then the judges said the first game was a practice game. Game one was where you say a number and the people on the other team stand up or not. If the same number stand up as was named, then the team loses. Game two was a really complex Korean rhythmic syllabic game and I bowed out. You had to say a four syllable word or phrase four times, accenting a different syllable each time, as fast as you could. Then the next person did it but they couldn't go in the same order as you. The third game was another speed game with guessing the word, but this time the person who knew the word described it to the next person in line. We had to get through as many people as we could in the allotted time. We got through nine people, I did fine. Our subject was "bathroom" I had to guess "plunger" and had to describe "bidet." The other team drew the subject "Korean TV stars" so if we'd had that then my team would have been screwed. The final game was a game of true or false, the last team with players who were right would win. It was so sad, it ended up me against two girls from the other team and on the last question I went true, with one of them, the other went false. It was false. So close…

Then we all reassembled and my team had come in seventh (out of eight). We got 4 bottles of makgeolli as our prize, but then there was a big true or false game and my team was the last standing and we won 5 more bottles.

Photos of our team:




After dinner we had sangmo practice again. Everyone was doing well, except 의영 Uiyeong still can't really spin even once. This guy 진용 Jinyong who was with me in Week 3 arrived the evening of the 8th to do sangmo, too. In the morning he wasn't able to do nabisa and worked with 정화 Jeonghwa, but by the evening he exploded into really doing it well, which sort of frustrated me.

The 뒤풀이 duipuli for the night was according to the teams of the day. We had our 9 bottles, with 8 people, but we were having fun and decided to go begging off other groups. We got one from our neighbors, then three from one group by doing my arm trick, and three from another group by using my braid like a sangmo ribbon. So we all ended up with at least two bottles each. I was sitting next to 문형 Munhyeong, another individual participant, and 형진 Hyeongjin, a future acupuncturist. It was a lot of fun, especially when we started playing this huge selection of games. I'm almost getting good at those with so much practice. Fry pan game, strawberry game, image game, makondo, one where you have to do the multiplication tables, etc. I went to bed at three after two and a half bottles.