Practicing by the Ocean

January 26th, 2010
I forgot to mention that last night the instructors told the KNUA students which parts they were doing, more or less, for the performance in April. In some cases they are still deciding between two or even three people, but they told each who needed to practice for which role (although sometimes it's more than one person). For example, 윤만 Yunman has to practice the monk's dance, and 인선 Inseon will not be the old wife, but probably 준영 Junyeong. Which I completely approve of, because it really is a funnier scene when a man plays the role. 민기 Min'gi will probably still do Malddugi.

I decided to do 말뚝이 Malddugi for my individual dance this time, instead of the monk's dance. I wanted to observe (and video-tape) a different teacher's style of teaching, for one thing, but then the normal teacher didn't show up, and instead we had the assistant (in this case 대천 Daecheon). And then the video-camera ran out of batteries after thirty minutes. I have no idea why, I plugged it in yesterday and it was charging, perhaps it was knocked out of the socket a little during the charging process. Such are the snags in my research, and if that's all they are, no sweat. The dance itself is highly energetic, the most energetic of the lead characters in 고성오광대 Goseong Ogwangdae. Malddugi leaps and spins a lot.

After lunch we met Daecheon again, but this time, it was so amazing I won't be able to put it into words—he took us to the ocean and we danced there. Mind you, I'm from an island. I am definitely happiest next to the ocean. We first checked out this hillside park (on a jutting point) where we took photos and these awesome grandmothers shared dried persimmons with us. (The response from one of the other recipients was "Wow, I love Goseong."), then although I had thought Daecheon was kidding, we really did practice on this quay, concrete jutting into the ocean with islands in the distance and sun glittering on the waves. It was cold and there was a light breeze, but it was absolutely invigorating and beautiful.





After we learned the entire dance (not that I remember it, it's really confusing and I'm not used to manipulating the horse-whip which is Malddugi's main prop, yet) we went to the traditional market and I treated everyone to mini-bananas and Daecheon bought us all snacks from the snack stall (순대 stuffed intestine, 오뎅 fish/flour cakes boiled in broth, and deep fried battered veggies and squid). Everyone bonded and decided it was really awesome to be the Malddugi team. On the way back to the van I bought a box of oranges (which Min'gi helpfully carried) for the KNUA students.





During the afternoon I got a series of phone calls from SBS. This was not the same team at SBS who has been talking to me about potentially coming to 임실필봉 Imshil Pilbong training center in two weeks, this was a team who had interviewed me in Andong in the fall. They decided they wanted to come here, talked to the office, and will be here tomorrow. I guess I should figure out what I want to wear, but considering how little I have with me, there are few choices.

After we were back at the training center I tried to find some instructor to interview but everyone was busy teaching the music for Goseong Ogwangdae classes (which I had decided not to do), so I ended up taking a photographic walk on the hill covered with tombs above the Mask Dance Museum and training center. I got good shots of the tall dead grasses in the late late afternoon sun.



After dinner (which was really good) I went to practice Malddugi's dance, especially since SBS is coming to film me tomorrow, which makes me nervous and liable to make more mistakes than normal. Min'gi helped a lot, since he performed part last week, he really has it down, or at least the order of the motions. We practiced for more than two hours, totally sweating, before we called it quits. 전광일 Jeon Gwangil bought ice cream for everyone (of course I didn't eat it, but it was sweet).

성범 Seongbeom has to go back to Seoul, so he came to say goodbye to the students and have a last drink together. He's a pretty serious guy, however, and he ended up sort of chiding the students, first of all because they keep not saying anything about the problems we’ve had with the boiler and it's always me who's saying something. Then he went off about certain people who've skipped classes (sickness or because of drinking and 정우 Jeong-u even had to miss the performance last week to go to a friend's wedding, which he missed because he left too late. At any rate, he did point out (as he said in his interview to me) that they don't actually dance that well, and they're beginning professionals, so they certainly should do better. I love his honesty, and it's good for the students, but it's hard to hear, too. At about the time he was leaving 창열 Changyeol appeared, in high spirits and at least half drunk. He proceeded to drink with the students who had the stamina to stay awake until 4 or so in the morning. I went down at 2, but it was a really bad night of sleep with very drunk people coming in and out, cooking and receiving phone calls (all night phones were ringing, I swear).

Back to Seoul and Songpa Sandae Noli

December 11th, 2010
We woke up and packed and left for the bus station without either Jinhong or Georgy waking up. The ride back to Seoul was uneventful. However as soon as we got off the bus it was apparent that the temps in Seoul were well below freezing. When we got to our apartment and turned on the boiler, it said it was 7 degrees Celsius inside! Dang!

I quickly changed and rushed to 송파산대놀이 Songpa Sandae Noli for our last rehearsal of 2010. The KTV guy, contrary to my expectations (but true to his word) came back. We had a full turn out of all the folks at rehearsal, but first 이병옥교수님 Professor Yi Byeong’ok gave us a short lecture on Songpa Sandae Noli. Increasingly as he talked you could see that 함완식 Ham Wanshik (the National Human Treasure and dominant personality, while Yi is the rank below) wanted to butt in, he had things that he thought needed to be explained. Fortunately since he’d set up the agenda after awhile he was able to take center stage, first he began by filling in what he perceived to be needed gaps in Yi’s explanation (principally he talked about how the area changed with the flood in the 1920s and so on). Then he went off, like last week, about how 삼현육각 Samhyeon yuk’gak music includes 가야금 gayageum and what not. After a long explanation he asked the music experts in the room if he was right, at which point one of them was brave enough to try to say he was not, but Ham only partially listened to his opinion. I think this situation was complicated by having the KTV guy filming everything. Bad enough to object to something privately, worse in front of the group, even worse to be caught on camera objecting to what someone has said.

We then had basic exercises with an almost full musical accompaniment, followed by a rehearsal of scene 4, 북놀이 Buk Noli. The scene was rehearsed twice, first with sort of the standard group acting out the parts, then 양흥기 Yang Heunggi and 함승훈 Ham Seunghun played the main roles for a second run through of the main parts of the act. Ham Seunghun needed to hold the 대사집 script book in his hand as he rehearsed. Next they rehearsed 말뚝이놀이 Malddugi’s Scene, but didn’t really switch things up so we could get done and leave (Ham Wanshik had told people we’d be done at 4 but we weren’t and people were starting to get restive).

We all went to a restaurant for dinner, it was just a short walk away and I walked with 서병무 Seo Byeongmu. I really like him when he’s not drunk and trying to speak English to me, when he’s sober his English is not that bad (but he doesn’t speak it to me when he’s sober, only to Karjam). Koreans are often very reticent about their English ability until they get drunk, thinking that their English is better just because they’re not so embarrassed to try to speak. Sad, really, because no one speaks better after they’re drunk than when they’re sober.

I arrived before “my” crowd which was a bit awkward, but after 김영숙 Kim Yeongsuk arrived she moved around where everyone was sitting until I ended up with 탄종원 Tahn Jongwon, the videographer (안석재 An Seokjae), and the 해금 haegeum player (윤지희 Yun Jihee), with Kim Yeongsuk, 이연순 Yi Yeonsun, 전경희 Jeon Gyeonghee and 장규식 Jang Gyushik next to us. We toasted the end of the year and to Songpa Sandae Noli’s success in the next year.

Yang Heunggi drove me to 용산 Yongsan since he had the night shift at the hospital.


Photos of rehearsal 1st Tahn Jongwon rehearses Buk Noli, 2nd Ham Seunghun with the script book, 3rd Malddugi (김명하 Kim Myeongha) drives out the yangban (Jang Gyushik is the last in the line of yangban)




At the restaurant:

KTV at Songpa Sandae Noli

December 4th, 2010
Saturday was the day for KTV to come to 송파산대놀이 Songpa Sandae Noli but that didn’t work out as planned. 김영숙 Kim Yeongsuk had not told others they were coming and 함완식 Ham Wanshik and 안병인 Ahn Byeong’in did not find it appropriate for the TV camera to be suddenly there without going through channels. Principally they wanted Songpa to look better than we do when it’s only the 전수자 jeonsuja practice. They wanted to see more musicians and more people in the room. Before long Ham was planning for the TV station to come back the next Saturday and he’d call out to all the members of the preservation association to show up and we’d even wear the masks… which is exactly the sort of thing I’m trying to avoid. Kim Yeongsuk understood that, which is why just a regular jeonsuja practice was fine. Sure, Songpa Sandae Noli wanting to look great is understandable, but we’ve never worn masks in rehearsal –ever-. Who knows if the TV folks will come back or not. At any rate, Ham sat the jeonsuja down in front of the white board and gave us a mini-lecture on Songpa Sandae Noli, which was also fake. Any real lecture will go into depth that he didn’t touch, leaving aside the fact that he’s never used the white board for teaching before. Then we had to do the motions but with no teacher in front of us, with Ham just calling out the motion names (I’m used to getting the visual clue to be able to fall along, the motion names are usually hard to hear because they’re said by someone over the sound of several instruments on the far side of the room from me). It was kind of frustrating. After the TV guy and Ham left Kim Yeongsuk and I talked for awhile about what to do to improve Songpa Sandae Noli’s future direction.

December 5th, 2010
On Sunday I spent about 4 hours at Starbucks busting into article editing and working on the Chushyeoyo review. In the evening Karjam and I went shopping for envelopes and had dinner in a very authentic Japanese restaurant 지수 Jisu introduced me to.

Foreigners on Korean TV

I have been one of these foreigners, and I will be again. But I have a few things to say about the Korean practice of sticking foreigners on TV doing/enjoying Korean traditional things.

In the past Korea bought the whole idea of the West as superior (partially because of a belief that acceptance of Western culture, ideas and technology was a major reason why Japan was able to overpower Korea at the beginning of the 1900s). Koreans considered Western things advanced and superior (and the West agreed) and in an attempt to succeed (particularly after achieving independence) they swallowed the baby and the bathwater (to screw up a traditional saying) hook, line and sinker. In an effort to become economically advanced they also accepted Christianity, fell in love with Monet and decided to start sleeping in a bed. Not everyone, of course, but I guarantee you that use of beds (instead of sleeping on the floor) will be higher in Christian households. Seriously.

This also meant that Korean music was discounted in favor of “art music” (whoever came up with that term should be shot—shouldn’t all music be considered art?), the misconception that Korean 판소리 pansori would be better if staged like an opera or musical (창극), the assumption that Korean instruments should be adapted to use of a 7 note Western scale, etc. Parents discouraged their children from learning Korean traditional music, dance or drama and this only got worse as the years went on. (This is partially because making a living from Korean performance traditions has been difficult and actual economic success amongst those practicing traditional arts has been exceedingly rare, and partially because of the status (low) associated with performers in the traditional mindset). During the pro-Democracy movement the protestors utilized Korean performance traditions for two reasons 1) they could cloak themselves in Korean tradition, casting themselves as the true patriots 2) they could use performance to attract people with the cops helpless to stop them, then once they had a critical mass they could engage in political speech-making and so on until enough cops gathered to break up the gathering. However this brought a backlash, where some people thought of traditions (like 풍물 pungmul drumming) as something that was just for loud, aggressive protestors to use, not for enjoyment.

In the years since the pro-democracy movement associated surge, interest in Korean traditions has dropped off. Some performance forms have been more popular, some forms have even regenerated interest to some degree, but most have lapsed back into relative invisibility. Of course some people are really concerned about this and doing whatever they can to try to reverse this trend.

One tool that has been utilized to try to get people to look at Korean traditions again and perhaps become re-interested in them is to show (frequently) on TV or in other media how much foreigners love Korean traditions. Since I speak Korean and attend a lot of festivals and performances I have been interviewed countless times and been spotlighted on a lot of TV shows, too. In 2003 I’d had the same cell number for 6 years living in the same town. I got phone calls up the wazoo just from news reporters who wanted to make sure they could interview a foreigner at such-and-such event. Who knows how my contact info got around, but it was really out there. I was even asked to come to the inaugural “Talks with Beauties”(미녀들의 수다) (which I’m not, but neither are all the women on the show). I’m so glad I said no, that show is one of the most annoying and embarrassing things I’ve ever seen. This is a sort of mellow taste. I have seen clips from this show that make your hair stand up on end.

To get to the point, I’ve been used a lot by the Korean media to make traditions seem more attractive to Koreans. But since I actually believe Koreans should take another look at traditional arts and think about having their children learn 해금 haegeum instead of violin, or 공중무용 court dances instead of ballet, I figure they can use me, and I hope it works. They have their agenda, I have mine, but they are complimentary. However, as I’ve gotten older and wiser I’ve noticed how often they try to make foreigners on shows with a focus on traditions look like idiots. Or, to put it another way, I think they’re not comfortable with foreigners actually knowing too much about something Koreans might feel embarrassed to see a foreigner knowing more about than they know themselves. Temper the introduction of an aspect of Korean culture through the eyes of the enthusiastic foreigner with a little superiority (well, even I could do that! The viewer says as he watches the foreigner fumble his or her way through some task or another). But what the viewer might not know, and I certainly do, is how often these shows will spring something on you “You need to do this, it’ll be so interesting!”

Back in 2005 my friend Georgy and I were spotlighted on the same 10 minute slot in a TV program a couple of weeks apart from each other. She always made 김밥 kimbap and I always made 김치찌게 kimchi stew, but when she did her show they asked her to invite a Korean friend for lunch and make stew (she got the recipe from me) and when they came to my house (to film me making 김치 kimchi) they brought a bunch of kimbap makings from the market (like already cooked carrot strips) and insisted that I assemble the kimbap and take it to school to share with my friend. Even if I was going to make kimbap (which I almost never do), I would make it very differently, and with their ingredients I was making the most basic kimbap of all. It was SO FAKE. I didn’t even have a good kimbap rolling bamboo slat thing. But I hadn’t learned to be really assertive and direct with these TV people yet.

I have now learned my lesson, and I’m super direct. I will not be a performing monkey. I will not be made a fool of. I will not accept them filming something that’s not real, nor will I allow them to screw up my regular activities. I have to constantly re-assert these points, but it’s possible. I really believe it is.

There is just one thing that is holding me up this evening (and in recording the segment I started working on today): do I stay all academic and speak softly in my interview Q&A sections (which today meant I ended up getting all tangled up in the words I was using and really frustrated--I'd already had a day with over 5 hours of very careful use of Korean), or do I speak the way I normally speak Korean when I talk about protection of Korean traditional arts (directly, passionately and in a way that is kind of challenging in that it doesn’t mince words about how serious this situation is)?

Oh, and a last point in case you think being in the newspapers/magazines will make things easier—you get misquoted. Happens so often, I should seriously learn to keep my mouth shut. One time in 2005 or 2006 I found myself quoted as saying things that were back-ass wrong and offensive to a mask dance group I love. Jeez, that was hard to smooth over. I found this article by googling the search terms “mask dance” and “American” in Korean. It was the fifth result and you have to know that’s a pretty general search. My first time to see the article, and yes indeed, I am misquoted. It really pisses me off. I had a very sincere and important point, but they've basically taken my photo and put the words they want to make their point next to an image of me. I'm even quoted using a word I don't think I've ever spoken in my life.

52 Sangmo Circles!

September 14th, 2010
We went to pick up our thanka (it looks amazing) and then went to meet a woman who’s the advance prep person for a Singaporean TV show. They are doing a show on Korea with six segments, focusing on the Andong Mask Dance Festival. In typical Korean fashion, the people in Andong just supplied my phone number. Of course our love story (our ten year anniversary of meeting falls during the festival and Karjam will perform a short set) is what attracted them. To me, this is an opportunity to get people familiar with Karjam’s music from a different area, since they plan to film his set and feature his music. However, what cracked me up was that during the meeting I mostly just taught this woman who else she should contact, including a lesson on what mask dances exist, where their offices are located, how the Cultural Property Protection Law works (and hence what the titles mean) and so on. She even sent a follow up email asking for more phone numbers.

Ironically on my way to meet her Arirang TV called, I told them to call back and they did and sent an email. They want me to function as a guest announcer who can introduce the festival to the viewers. They also want exclusivity.

I made it to the Seoul practice center for 임실필봉농악 Imshil Pilbong Nongak later than I would have liked, just ten minutes before class was to start. Once class began 이종휘 Yi Jonghui kept us moving for 45 minutes non-stop. First for 15 minutes everyone (not just beginners) had to turn from side to side, bending their knees, so that their ribbon went swish-swish. I hadn’t noticed before that everyone had to do this, not just me because before I didn’t have any thought of doing anything else, but after my success the previous week I was eager to get back to spinning. The one difference between what I was doing and the advanced students is that they also hit the 소고 sogo drum as they turned from side to side. After the 15 minutes were up, we were given the instruction to begin spinning the one type I’d done the previous week. I set about doing just that, and by the time I was instructed to change had managed 12 consecutive circles. My new assignment was to prepare me for 양사위 yangsaui, which is turning your head to each side, one clockwise, one counter-clockwise. I was rather surprised he was already having me work on this, and my form was not so good (the clockwise side was rather forced and awkward). Before the break ended I began spinning again and did 22 circles, crowing to Jonghui elicited a command not to talk to him again until I’d done 50. I managed 52 (yes, a lot of 2s I don’t know why) within 5 minutes, but never exceeded that number for the rest of the class (although I got into the 40s several times), I expect I was just too exhausted. I had to consciously remember to breathe as I spun the 상모 sangmo. It was an absolutely intense workout, and after class ended I didn’t have the energy to leave, instead I sat down with 태강 Taegang and some other students to make 꽃갈 (not sure that’s the right spelling but flower hats). When I got up again, twenty minutes later my knees were so stiff I lurched and almost fell over.

The photo is a crappy photo in low light off my cell phone.