Impressions of Pansori in Guyre

When I first received the invitation to go to Guyre as a journalist to report on the pansori festival, I was very hesitant. Although I am an anthropologist, I am not an ethnomusicologist, and have had little interest in defining people’s culture by their music. I had previously visited Guyre and the attraction to it was based on other cultural interests: Guyre is a key path to the phenomenal beauty of Jirisan, and I love hiking. Guyre is famous for mountain vegetables, I am particularly interested in nutritional anthropology, and Guyre is the most famous of the four cities in the Longevity Belt where centenarians are listed as assets to the city, and I have done research on aging and society. But to go to Guyre as a music journalist, particularly on the traditional music form of pansori, really made me feel uncomfortable as I had little knowledge on it to draw from.

I accepted through pressure of the visiting American photographer for Korean Quarterly, Stephen Wunrow, who continually said he was not a writer but a visual artist and, though I was limited in knowledge, I would just be reporting on the facts of the occasion. I was grudgingly persuaded, and am very glad that I was. Music certainly is a driving force in society, a force I had little paid attention to in the past. In Guyre it is part of the pulse of the city. Samulnori and pansori were both birthed in the precincts of Guyre. They are dynamic music styles that need an audience to interact with, and with the audience the music becomes a shared communal experience of story-telling to cadence and emotional release.

The festival was primarily dedicated to pansori, and the more I listened to the singers and watched the dramatic styles of the various drummers, the more I felt charged with their vocal and percussion energy. With shouts of eolssigu (얼씨구), jo~da (좋~다), and jalhanda (잘헌다) from the audience, I too began to be carried along with the emotions of the singers and their connected audience. And although the full story escaped me, I was able to understand some fragmented phrases and feel the joy, sorrow and despair woven into the music. I can now see that singing and even listening to pansori is a very cathartic experience.

The pansori festival opened with a soul cleansing ceremony before the unveiling of a commemorative shrine to a pansori master, more specifically, a gayageum player. This ceremony in itself was a culture experience for in the West, we are very unlikely to laud a musician posthumously and even more unlikely to hold a ceremony for him or her and dedicate a statue in memory of his or her performance. These actions really defined for me the high value that Koreans place in music and performance. 

However, since it is obvious that Koreans regard music so highly and that Guyre is the birthplace of pansori, it is very odd to me that Namwon is where the large shrines to pansori memorial singers are located other than the few at the Pansori Heritage Center. The concept of "hometown" is very important in Korea, and yet, the hometown of pansori is not the place where pansori is most commemorated. This strikes me as very ironic.

In any regard, at the end of my two days in Guyre surrounded by pansori music, I realized that music is such a vital part of the Korean culture and is essential for me to understand in order to better understand Korea itself. While I don't ever see myself becoming an ethnomusicologist, I do now have some understanding of the value of pansori and can even shout out a heart-felt jo~da (조~다) or eolssigu (얼씨구) to show my solidarity with the singer and the audience.

By journalist Cheryl Magnant, MA, MA

Cheryl Magnant holds two master’s—one in English linguistics and the second in anthropology. She has lived in Korea off and on since 1991 and is currently teaching at Korea University.  She thoroughly loves living in Korea.

[Published in Korean Quarterly, Vol 18, No 2, Winter 2015, p 62]

[Published in 구례 소식,  구례군, 2014 겨울, 재162호, p 40-41, translated by Younsook Shin]

Opening of Hangeul Museum

And yet another museum is opening in Seoul ... this new one beside Seoul's largest museum, the National Museum of Korea, but then the Hangeul alphabet, which the museum is dedicated to, is intimately related to the national identity of Korea so its location is most appropriate. 

Already within Seoul, the listing of museums in Seoul according to Wikipedia is 4 national museums, 9 municipal museums, and around 63 private museums. However, according to a brochure I picked up a few years ago at a tourist booth, the listing was closer to 300 museums in Seoul alone. Museums that I have either been to or thought sounded interesting and were not on Wikipedia's list are a shaman museum, a comic book museum, an old newspaper/magazine museum, and a baseball card museum. And sadly, the Tibet Museum listed in the Wikipedia list was closed about two years ago, according to my anthropology friend interested in the various sects of Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism being one of them. As for museums within South Korea, Wikipedia lists 123. 

This museum promises to take the visitor beyond just hearing that Hangeul was invented and promulgated by King Sejong the Great. The museum seems to be a historical journey from its creation and promulgation to how, over the centuries, its development impacted Korean society. I'm definitely interested!

The following article was taken from The Korean Herald, October 8, 2014:

Celebrating the beauty of Hangeul

Museum opens amid growing artistic, cultural interest in Korean alphabet

Hangeul, the writing system for the Korean language, has always been a source of pride for Koreans. So much so that they mark Oct. 9 as Hangeul Day, a national holiday celebrating its creation more than 500 years ago. 

Efforts to cherish King Sejong’s great gift to the people went further this year, resulting in a brand new museum dedicated solely to the alphabet. 

Hangeul museum 

The National Hangeul Museum opens to the public Thursday, with the stated mission of raising the public’s understanding of its language. 

It is also starting a month-long festival celebrating the 24 letters ― 14 consonants and 10 vowels ― that make up Hangeul. 

“Hangeul is the No. 1 linguistic and cultural asset passed down to us. The National Hangeul Museum aims to promote its value and extend it beyond the linguistic realm by promoting the use of Hangeul as a motif in art and culture,” Moon Young-ho, the museum’s inaugural president, told reporters last month during a press preview. 

“Hangeul is not just a writing system for our language. It’s a cultural medium,” he added. 

The main exhibition hall of the National Hangeul Museum. (The National Hangul Museum)

Located near the National Museum of Korea in Yongsan, the museum’s building is an architectural embodiment of the philosophy behind the alphabet ― heaven (.), earth (ㅡ) and man (ㅣ). It has four floors ― three above ground and one below. 

Nearly 10,000 Hangeul-related artifacts are housed there. Some of them have been newly discovered by the museum, according to Hong Yun-pyo who led the preparatory committee for the museum. 

“At least 10 of them deserve national treasure designations,” he said. 

Among the highlights of the museum’s inaugural exhibition are an original copy of “Hunminjeongeum Haerye,” a commentary on “Hunminjeongeum,” the original promulgation of the alphabet on loan from the privately run Gansong Art Museum; “Yongbieocheonga,” the first work written in Hangeul; the oldest Korean typewriter in existence and a cache of letters handwritten in Korean by King Jeongjo, a Joseon era ruler who took the throne some 350 years after King Sejong the Great. 

The oldest Korean typewriter in existence,
invented by Song Ki-ju in 1933
(The National Hangul Museum)

The third floor of the museum is dedicated to children and foreign visitors, with various multimedia devices and programs designed to help them understand the basics of Hangeul. 

The museum is located near Exit 2 of Ichon Station on Seoul’s Line No. 4. It closes on Mondays. Admission is free. For details, visit www.hangeul.go.kr 


Hangeul meets art, culture 

For some Korean artists, Hangeul is not just an alphabet. It’s their source of artistic inspiration. 

Many years after designer Lie Sang-bong’s signature Hangeul-themed fashion show, the Korean characters are now more widely used as a design motif in everyday life in Korea ― from Starbucks tumblers to T-shirts. 

This T-shirt is a collaborative work of up-and-coming fashion designer Nohant and actor Yoo Ah-in. (Nohant)

Earlier this year, up-and-coming designer Nohant and actor Yoo Ah-in jointly released a line of T-shirts, featuring a mix of Korean and English letters, which became an instant sensation. 

A stage musical currently running at Theater Yong inside the National Museum of Korea tells the story of King Sejong and all the obstacles he faced within the court as he pushed to create a writing system for Korean. 

The “Deep Rooted Tree” is based on the best-selling novel of the same title by Lee Jeong-myeong. A TV drama adaptation of the book ran in 2011 on local channel SBS, winning both public and critical acclaim. 

The musical raises the curtain Thursday and runs until Oct. 18. Ticket prices range from 40,000 won to 80,000 won. For details, call (02) 523-0986. 

By Lee Sun-young (milaya@heraldcorp.com)

Straw-Plant Handicraft Museum

The Museum of Korean Straw and Plants Handicrafts has been in operation for over 20 years, and since 2001 has been in Hyehwa-dong. The founder, Byung Sun In, has a passion for straw handicrafts and culture and has been doing intense research on Korea’s handicraft straw-plant culture for the past 35+ years.  It is because of her passion and research interest that this museum exists. The museum houses over 100,000 items in the permanent collection made of straw-plant fibers or for household related to such production.

What is straw-plant culture?

Since ancient times, straw and plant have been the oldest and most widely used materials by mankind. Although history doesn’t show a Straw and Plant Age like the Stone or Iron Ages, in prehistoric settings straw and plant were essential for building, tool-making, carrying, providing shelter and comfort and for innumerable other domestic devices. Straw—derived not only from rice stems, but also wheat, barley and Indian millet—made a number of essential daily tools like the straw roof, the entrance of a village, baskets for carrying a variety of things like dirt and farm produce, winnows, scrubbers, straw cushions, and even pillows. Straw was also versatile as a building material as an element of brick making.

The museum has a collection of 16 kinds of knots for making the every day tools.

The outcome of using various types of straw and plant fibers, some with or without plant-based dyes,
is apparent in these beautiful bags for decoration, carrying or storing.

Containers and handbags for storage of delicate items like make-up or for a purse or "lunch box"
as is evidenced by the containers in the background.

Traditional straw shoes were another essential, and as many as 10 pairs of shoes were generally made for each person each winter so that as soon as one pair wore out, which took about 10 days, another pair could be slipped on. Ladies took more care with their shoe embellishments and they wore “flower shoes” made more painstakingly of hemp, ginseng, cattail or rushes dyed in colorful water. Shoes were not only for the seasons but were made for various occasions, especially for those who held positions in society. For examples, the upper class wore delicate hemp cord sandals, chief mourners had “mourning shoes” and their benefactors wore “horsehair shoes.

The traditional straw thatched houses used the largest amount of straw in the past. While the upper class had rooves of tiles, the lower class made rooves of rice straw. And for those too poor to afford rice straw, plants like cogon and eulalia grass were used. Constructing a straw house and thatching it was a communal affair as it was difficult to do such a task alone. First the walls were constructed with piled thatch and then the thatched roof was put on. This task had to be done every year or two for the house to remain functional.

The large round mat is over 50 years old, but most straw items in the museum or much more recently made.
Everything in the museum is hand-crafted. 

More items. Of particular interest to our group taking the first English tour of the museum is the urine pot. It is the rounded metal pot with odd hole in the side (for dumping the urine). The lowest class of people would travel from house to house and collect the urine for a tiny amount of money and then sell it to farmers as fertilizer. Their carts royally stunk, but though they were avoided because of their ripe smell, those workers were an essential part of society.

Pillows on the right, decorated by shiny dyed rice-fiber artwork (more pictured on the left). Rice fibers were split open to reveal their shiny interior; they were dyed and cut to size and carefully woven into intricate designs. Giving such a pillow to a woman's in-laws was a  respectful gift, which revealed the industriousness of the daughter-in-law and her filial respect to her elders by relationship.

Straw also played a big part for religious and recreational occasions. For example, the golden twisted straw rope on the front gate or village entrance was used in religious ceremonies or to announce the birth of a child. Masks made of straw or plant fibers were various: basket mask, winnow mask, zodiac mask—each created to be used for certain festival events. Also a heavy twist of rice straw or arrowroot vine rope for making a giant game of tug-of-war (man against woman, or uptown against downtown) was commonly played on lunar celebrations; women were often secretly helped to win in this event as it was believed to bring them luck. Straw ropes could also be used as a warning to people. For example, putting charcoal, Korean paper and pine branches along with a straw rope woven in counter-clockwise twists at the village entrance meant “do not enter”; this rope was appropriately called the “left twisted straw” and referring to it as such was a euphemism for “beware”.

Very well crafted! Not sure its purpose though -- traditional or merely as modern decoration?

A raincoat in the background, often made of cattail fibers, and in the foreground,  a very clever piece of artwork. I didn't ask if this was a child's toy or maybe just a modern creation, but it's of high-quality weave and strength.

Plant fibers had a wider variety of uses than rice straw—for examples, a mat of sedge or cogon, Korean paper made of peeling the mulberry tree, and the raincoat made from cattail. And many of the above mentioned tools could easily be substituted with a wide variety of plant fiber varieties in abundance throughout the peninsula.

Obviously, rice and plant fibers have played an essential role in the social and cultural development of Korea. Non-essentials like crafts and stylized artistic pieces were a part of many homes, particularly in the wealthier homes. However, there was a large decline in the need for straw and plant fibers when materials like iron and wood started to be widely used. However, in later centuries, the straw-plant culture made a resurgence, and now in modern times, contemporary artists are reviving the artform of using straw and plant and children are commonly given classes in straw or plant fiber crafts.

The museum has a room for craft-making also, and a much larger display than this was on shelves for the public to enjoy looking at and to even sign up for classes ... although the classes are primarily aimed at children.

Since this was the first English tour ever given at the museum (on October 15, 2014), all those who participated in the tour were given materials to make a "zipul" (straw, 지풀) grasshopper house, an item that children often used in ages gone past. Even though in the upper right-hand corner it looks like there's a hole at the bottom of the house, grasshoppers are known to jump up, not down, and so they do not escape from the house.

Much of the above information was taken from the website for the museum.

The DMZ (Imjingak) and Tunnel #3

My cousin came to Korea for the first time and I offered to show him around on his single free day, but when the opportunity came for him to go to the DMZ instead of seeing local sites in Seoul, he was ready to jump at the chance, provided I could tag along. Yup, no problem. So off we went with another guest lecturer and their team coordinator. First we went to Tunnel #3, aka "tunnel of aggression" so named by the South Koreans after they discovered the tunnel in 1978. The North Koreans have tried to make the tunnel look like a coal shaft but according to my geologist cousin, hard granite can in no way substitute for coal. The whole time my cous was in the tunnel, he was scanning continually for any lose rocks that he could take back to the states and examine. I tried to find some too and when we got back up to the surface, our hands were blackened from the coal dust painted on the granite tunnel walls to make them seem like an abandoned coal mine shaft. 

Source 

Before entering the tunnel, we saw a very poignant passage on the wall concerning the Korean War: "The Korean War gave a great wound to our whole national resulting in 6 million casualties in 3 years and 1 month. [Here is] the truce line holding the pain of our nation's division and sorrows of brothers who died bleeding."

Dorasan, the last subway stop to North Korea

Dorasan is really not the last subway or train stop to North Korea, but one day it will be. Currently,  it is the last stop for four daily trains from Seoul before one must turn around and go back. However, back on December 11, 2007, freight trains started traveling north onward to North Korea to transport materials needed at the Kaesong Industrial Region and on the return they carried manufactured goods from the area. At that time there was a daily schedule (weekday only) to depart for North Korea. This, however, was abruptly terminated on December 1, 2008 when the North Korean government closed the border crossing after accusing South Korea of a confrontational policy. 

Bird's eye-view of the Mangbaedan (altar) and beyond it Freedom Bridge

After 36 years of Japanese colonial rule, the Koreas were finally liberated on August 15, 1945, thanks to the sacrifices of service personnel who fought for the nation's independence and who helped bring about an end of World War II. However, before celebration could break out, Korea was arbitrarily divided into north and south according to a unilateral decision on the part of larger powers, regardless of the desire for the Koreans, who had been unified for thousands of years, to remain so. By splitting the country -- an act resulting from the Cold War -- parents and children were separated, husbands and wives were split, life-long neighbors and childhood friends were sundered, and the division remains even after the end of the Cold War. 

In the initial months after the division five million people were able to flee from the northern areas to the southern before the demarcation was regimented and tightly patrolled. They fled their homes where they had lived for generations in order to avoid the Soviet army and the North Korean Communist Party's persecution and brutalities. Refugees and sundered families and friends henceforward gathered at Imjingak, overlooking the lands of North Korea, and made a makeshift altar for offering special prayers and wishes on every Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving day) to honor their ancestors and those they had left behind in North Korea, and of course to pray for reunification. As years passed and reunification was not actualized, the temporary altar was eventually replaced by this Mangbaedan Memorial Altar, which is surrounded by seven granite stone-folding screens carved with the historical characteristics as well as topographical features of mountains and streams of the five provinces of North Korea along with the unclaimed territories of Gyeonggi and Gangwon. These scenes are to remind the refugees of their home, and as the description says, "ease their homesickness".

A few meters to the right of the altar is a monument dedicated to a song "30 Years Lost" which continually plays. The lyrics by Gunho Park and music by Gookin Nam, sung by Woondo Seol were used as the theme song of the show "Search for the Dispersed Families", which was aired on KBS from June 30th to November 14th, 1983. This song was such a sensational hit that it became listed in the Guinness Book of Records. The show "Search for Dispersed Families" was aired live for approximately 3312 hours and 45 minutes over the rather short period of 138 days, and it made contributions in reuniting 10,189 dispersed families. "30 Years Lost", as the theme song for the show, ended up being a huge hit in South Korea and is also well known in North Korea. This monument, dedicated both to the song and the dispersed families, is a symbol for reuniting what was once a cohesive unified nation.

The fence in this area is webbed with both barb-wire and razor-wire. There would be no getting over the fence easily or quickly. Tied to the fence are colored streamers, many of which are yellow for mourning or sadness but other colors exist. The streamers blowing in the air represent prayers blowing in the wind -- prayers for reunification and prayers for the good health of those in North Korea.

While a long part of the eastern fence-line is covered with blowing prayer-ribbons, the north fence is bare except for strategically placed stones in and along the fence.

There are four types of cold stones employed in this wall. 

1. Auxiliary stone - installed to drop if someone cut or applied much pressure to the wire
2. Hearing stone - installed at the base of the wire fence for falling stones to strike against so as to easily be heard by patrols
3. Patrol tag - one tag is placed at the top and two tags are placed at the bottom of the fence for the purpose of marking what area has been last checked. One side of a stone is white and the other is red. As patrols pass these tags, they spin the colors so when a mixture of white and red tags are viewed at the same time, the area has not been checked yet.
4. Trace stone - flat stones painted with "l" but unclear as to their purpose.

A steam locomotive (Registered Cultural Heritage in 2004) runs parallel the beribboned fence. It remains as a symbol of the tragic history of the division of the Korean peninsula, after being derailed by the bombs during the Korean War minutes after leaving what is now the DMZ. According to the train operator at that time, the train was destroyed at Jangdan Station while making a retreat from the advancing Chinese Communist Forces on the way to Pyeongyang; it was making efforts to deliver war materials, when it was derailed. The bent wheels and 1,020 bullet holes prevented the train from being further used in the war effort, but it now stands as a testimony to the atrocities of war and as a symbol to avoid further strife by nations needing to come to an understanding and reunifying.

Freedom Bridge (Gyeonggi-do Provincial Monument No. 162)

Standing behind Mangbaedan Memorial Altar at Imjingak Square is Freedom Bridge, which takes its name from the return of 12,773 prisoners of war in 1953 in the first exchange of prisoners after the signing of the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War. Two side-by-side railroad bridges on the Gyeongui Line originally spanned the Imjingang River. Both bridges were destroyed by bombing, leaving only the pier remains. To enable the exchange of prisoners of war, using the original piers the west bridge was rebuilt as a temporary structure so that repatriates could cross on foot what is now called Freedom Bridge. Freedom Bridge is 83 meters long 4.5 meters wide, and 8 meters high. It is a wooden structure reinforced by steel and represents a "return to freedom".

Freedom Bridge is blocked off. It is no secret that walking Freedom Bridge to the north would be to give up one's freedom for such an act would equate to "no return".

The prayers streaming on Freedom Bridge are densely packed.
The prayers for reunification so far have gone unanswered.

Fusion Food: Vegan Style

My cousin as guest speaker at the Sahmyook Seventh-day Adventist main church near Heogi subway station was of course thanked for his spiritual contribution via a vegetarian banquet. As there are two types of Adventists, those who are meat eaters but follow the dietary laws of Leviticus 11 like the Jews and those who prefer to prefer the vegetarian fare, most churches serve vegetarian dishes to visiting speakers or for pot-lucks. But the food served for the guest speaker this time was phenomenal : totally vegan with no animal product of any kind and virtual rainbow display of food goodness.

The food had some fusion food flair but was still definitely recognizable as Korean cuisine. The kimchi was the only non-fusion food served. The other foods were a sweet potato noodle with veggies (잡채) without any meat or seafood, a yellow pepper light stir-fry, a vegetarian-style soy-based "meat" made bulgogi-style, spinach with unfermented tofu rubbed with sesame-seed oil, Vietnamese rice-paper wraps stuffed with raw veggies, and vegetarian "meat" stuffed tofu. A rather unusual but very complementary pumpkin soup was also served as most Korean meals have some kind of soup served with them. And of course since kimchi is so important and there are 200 or more kinds, serving another kimchi would not be out of line and so a fusion kimchi -- so elegantly prepared -- was served. It was very lightly fermented and the water was wonderfully flavored with turmeric, a southeast Asian and middle-Eastern spice that is now appearing on supermarket shelves in Korea. The kimchi was so divinely exquisite that it should be in gourmet cookbooks!

Of course when there are guests dessert is likely to appear and on the table was the traditional "dessert" or after-food. Korean traditional desserts aren't for cluttering up the meal and sitting heavy on the stomach but are usually for clearing the palate and the fruit -- persimmon, Asian pear, and apple slices -- was for just that.

A perfectly eye-candy and mouth-watering meal! In Korea it is good to have connections, and my cousin was the connection to feasting on one of the most spectacular vegetarian banquets I have ever eaten!