Perspectives on Korean Music

Volume 1: Preserving Korean Music: Intangible Cultural Properties as Icons of Identity

Keith Howard

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351911689
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medien & darstellende Kunst
• Subtopic: Musik

As Korea has developed and modernized, music has come to play a central role as a symbol of national identity. Nationalism has been stage managed by scholars, journalists and, from the beginning of the 1960s, by the state, as music genres have been documented, preserved and promoted as 'Intangible Cultural Properties'. Practitioners have been appointed 'holders' or, in everyday speech, 'Human Cultural Properties', to maintain, perform and teach exemplary versions of tradition. Over the last few years, the Korean preservation system has become a model for UNESCO's 'Living Human Treasures' and 'Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Mankind'. In this volume, Keith Howard provides the first comprehensive analysis in English of the system. He documents court music and dance, Confucian and shaman ritual music, folksongs, the professional folk-art genres of p'ansori ('epic storytelling through song') and sanjo ('scattered melodies'), and more, as well as instrument making, food preparation and liquor distilling - a good performance, after all, requires wine to flow. The extensive documentation reflects considerable fieldwork, discussion and questioning carried out over a 25-year period, and blends the voices of scholars, government officials, performers, craftsmen and the general public. By interrogating both contemporary and historical data, Howard negotiates the debates and critiques that surround this remarkable attempt to protect local and national music and other performance arts and crafts. An accompanying downloadable resource illustrates many of the music genres considered, featuring many master musicians including some who have now died. The preservation of music and other performance arts and crafts is part of the contemporary zeitgeist, yet occupies contested territory. This is particularly true when the concept of 'tradition' is invoked. Within Korea, the recognition of the fragility of indigenous music inherited from earlier times is balanced by an awareness of the need to maintain identity as lifestyles change in response to modernization and globalization. Howard argues that Korea, and the world, is a better place when the richness of indigenous music is preserved and promoted.

Chapter 1
Preserving the Intangible

The Korean Preservation System

As South Korea emerged from Japanese colonialism and the devastating Korean War, so modernization led to the rapid decline of traditional performance arts and crafts. The reasons were many, amongst them rapid urbanization,¹ the emerging mass media – first radios, distributed as part of a policy intended to bring isolated communities into the government’s embrace, then television -, land reform and the mechanization of farm activities, and social change.² Korean commentators routinely emphasize that Japanese colonial policies destroyed much of the indigenous heritage during the first half of the twentieth century and, in respect to the performing arts, court music clearly suffered: 772 musicians had been employed at the court institute, the Music Management Bureau (Changakkwa) in 1895, but less than 30 remained in the Court Music Bureau (Aakpu), also known as the Yi King’s Music Bureau (Yiwangjik Aakpu),³ in 1945. Again, staged performances, emerging with the advent of theatres and the rise of a concert culture, created ruptures, p’ansori giving way to staged ch’anggŭk in which singers presented episodes rather than whole stories, a style denigrated as ‘piecemeal singing’ or ‘segmental episodic singing’ (Chan E. Park 2003: 107). Group performances were monitored and restricted by the colonial authorities: Hahoe t’al ch’um, the mask drama from Hahoe village in North Kyŏngsang Province, was performed for the last time in 1928; Songp’a sandae nori, a mask drama thought to descend from plays performed by troupes who were on the government payroll until 1634 in Songp’a, Kyŏnggi Province, was last performed in 1924 (Yi Pyŏngok 1985; Baker 1992: 4–5). Shamanism was repressed (Kim Seong Nae 1989: 213; Kim Chongho 2003: 160). In the 1930s, percussion bands, which had once been found in almost every village punctuating the peace of the countryside, largely fell silent as the Japanese war effort requisitioned metal gongs to melt down for armaments. In some cases, the need for communal activities declined; in other cases, such as the Songp’a mask drama where a flood wiped out the village in 1925, nature intervened.

The Korean preservation story certainly starts during the colonial period, but primarily in respect to the tangible heritage. In 1907, during the brief preliminary protectorate period, it was announced that an Office for the Royal Family’s Property Management (Cheshil Chaesan Chŏngniguk) would be established to create an inventory of royal property. This can be seen as a ploy to prepare for the transfer of responsibility to the new administration, along with the establishment of museums, the first of which, in 1908, was built in a royal complex, Ch’angdŏk Palace, administered by what from 1911 was named the Yi King’s Bureau (Yiwangjik) (Maliangkay 1999: 71–2; Munhwajae kwalliguk 1992: 6–7; Munhwa kongbobu 1970: 574–6 and 1979: 311). To be accurate, responsibility for maintaining and repairing palace property had been prescribed earlier, in the 1471 legal code, the Kyŏngguk taejŏn (Maliangkay 1999: 6–8). Archaeological activities had begun with a 1902 inspection of Pulguk Temple in Kyŏngju and other sites in today’s North and South Kyŏngsang Provinces by Sekino Tadashi; these, too, might be interpreted as a preparation for annexation (as does Yi Kuyŏl 1973: 87). Hyung Il Pai charts the activities of Japanese archaeologists during the colonial period, citing meticulous annual reports compiled between 1918 and 1937 (1994: 25–48), and in two 1999 articles argues that today’s Korean museums, and the government agencies charged with preserving the archaeological heritage, retain much of the methodology and use much of the research of the period. The Temple Act (Jisatsurei) of 1911, matching earlier decrees and legislation that had been in place in Japan for four decades, tightened legal constraints on archaeologists and others, requiring an inventory to be made of all movable and immovable properties at sites considered worthy of conservation, and controlling their removal or disposal.

In 1916, an additional set of regulations gave the colonial regime direct responsibility for the protection of movable and immovable properties. By 1923, 385 relics and buildings had been listed for protection, and of these 114 were designated for repair (Government-General of Chosen 1923: 108; Kim Chongyŏm 1984: 252; Pai 1994: 37; Maliangkay 1999: 72–3). In 1933, new legislation broadened the provisions to encompass and protect natural monuments and places of scenic beauty or historic interest. Pai argues that the aim of this was to prevent neglect or looting, particularly as railroads were built (Pai 1994: 34), but Korean accounts typically specify that the aim was rather to legally justify the huge quantity of relics subsequently taken to Japan. Not surprisingly, since ratification in Seoul on 14 May 1983, South Korea has been a keen partner in the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, researching and attempting to engineer the return of artefacts removed to Japan and other countries.⁴

Much of the legislation was left intact after the end of the Pacific War and following Korean liberation, although South Korean commentaries favour an account in which protection is seen to have begun at this time and not before, noting the establishment of the Royal Household Affairs Office (Kuwangshil Semuch’ŏng) on 8 November 1945. Attempts were made either side of the Korean War, early in 1950 and in 1954, to implement new laws that categorized cultural properties as structures, works of art, ancient remains, scenery, and places of historic interest. In 1955, all 582 cultural properties listed during the colonial period that had survived the turmoil of war were renamed as National Treasures (Kukpo). New cultural properties began to be designated.

The tangible heritage, though, is not my subject in this volume. Museums and the bulk of the art fraternity collect and value objects, whereas music is part of what we must term the intangible heritage, skills that are essentially held by people, and of which we see only created products. Skills are learnt and must be transmitted from generation to generation if the art is to survive. In Korea, recognition that the intangible could form part of a self-affirming cultural memory began to emerge as part of a movement tolerated under the Bunka seiji cultural policy that arose after the Japanese colonial administration had been wrong-footed by the 1919 Declaration of Independence. That declaration, pronounced at the funeral in March for the last independent Korean king, became a widespread and effective campaign for freedom that took some four months to bring under control.⁵ The movement that then emerged was never united, and consisted of a loose grouping of intellectuals known by its detractors as the ‘cultural movement’ (munhwa undong).⁶ ‘Cultural nationalists’ is a gloss for its proponents given by Michael Robinson, since the grouping sought to promote the indigenous, with one eye on Gandhi’s encouragement of native industry in India, particularly through the Society for the Promotion of Korean Production (Chosŏn Mulsan Changnyŏnhoe) (Robinson 1979: 143; 1988: 48–77; see also Yoshino 1992 and Befu 1993). Amongst those affiliated, Yi Kwangsu (1892–1950) was the ideologue, arguing for the encouragement of what was termed, in the inaugural edition of the East Asia Daily News (Tonga ilbo) on 1 April 1920, as ‘culturalism’ (munhwa chuŭi). Yi’s treatise, ‘National Reconstruction’ (Minjok kaejoron), published in May 1922 in the journal Creation (Kaebyŏk 3/5: 18–72), argued for the development of nationhood through rebuilding and strengthening Korean identity: ‘The essence of reconstruction is found in the national character and life. Its goals are rooted in moral and practical enlightenment’ (Yi, cited in Robinson 1988: 69). Amongst others associated with the group, Ch’oe Namsŏn (1890–1957) and Yi Nŭnghwa (1868–1956) published widely on Korean myths, culture, history and religion, Son Chint’ae (1900–?) considered history and oral literature, and Song Sŏkha (1904–1948) documented folk performance genres and historical scores for music.

The movement was left moribund after the East Asia Daily News published Yi Kwangsu’s second treatise, ‘National Statecraft’ (Minjokchŏk kyŏngnyun), in January 1924. This argued for the building of something new but, inauspiciously, considered this could best be achieved through accommodation with Japan. The newspaper was boycotted and cultural nationalists were branded collaborators.⁷ They persisted with their efforts as the mainstream independence movement fragmented and swung towards socialism. Yi Nŭnghwa and Ch’oe Namsŏn, for example, argued that shamanism should be promoted as a core part of Korean identity (Yi 1927; Ch’oe 1927). Transported from Siberia along with ancient population migrations, shamanism could thus negate the colonial attempt to unify Korean and Japanese cultures when the prevailing consensus was that shamanism did not exist in Japan – wrongly so, I would note, given the Ainu and Ryukyu islanders. Again, shamanism had not been imported from China, an important consideration when many felt Korea had failed to escape Japan’s grasp precisely because it had too slavishly followed its mighty western neighbour in matters of law, governance and culture. Song Sŏkha published three volumes dedicated to Korean folklore during the 1930s, and in 1932 was one of five founders, two of whom were Japanese and two Koreans who had studied in Japan, of the Korean Folklore Society, today known as the Minsok Hakhoe (Yi Hŭisŭng et al 1967: 372, 379, 613, 936).⁸ He later, in 1946, set up the first national folklore museum with his own funds, and was instrumental in establishing the museum at Seoul National University.

The names of Yi, Ch’oe, Song and Son continue to feature prominently in histories of folklore scholarship (for example, Cho Chihun and Im Tonggwŏn 1966; In Kwŏnhwan 1978; Yi Tuhyŏn et al 1984), and the society continued through the lean years following liberation. As in Japan, it remained historical in orientation and nationalistic in outlook, although, reflecting Confucian denigration of folk culture, the relative paucity of written documentation meant that folklorists adopted what Richard Dorson has elsewhere termed a ‘historical-reconstructional’ approach (1972, cited in Janelli 1986: 24–5). Two English-language reports by Choe Sangsu, on the Hahoe mask drama and the Kkoktu kakshi puppet play, stand testament to the society’s promotional and educational efforts during the 1950s (Choe 1959 and 1961), and as a result of these efforts, debate on the need to support arts and crafts took place in South Korea’s National Assembly.

The clarion call to preserve, though, came from a journalist, Ye Yonghae (1929–1994), in a series of landmark articles for the Korea Daily News (Han’guk ilbo) and published between 1959 and 1963. The articles were collected into a book in 1963: Human Cultural Properties (In’gan munhwajae). Ye told me in interview in August 1991:

At the time, there was little interest in traditional culture in Korea. It was considered that there was no need for the old. Our economic situation was difficult, there was disorder in society following the Korean War and the Japanese had tried to get rid of Korean culture during the colonial period. Lots of new things were flooding into the country from outside and western culture was accepted without any critique; we were concerned to develop our economy and for this we needed foreign help. Many of our traditions had simply disappeared. Many had been put aside and others were gradually being hidden. Because things were disappearing, I was motivated to prepare a series of articles about the people who remembered the way things had been. I wanted to put things back to the way they had been before the twentieth century.

I petitioned the government strongly. I wanted Human Cultural Properties recognized because they knew the old things that had been passed down to us but were considered part of a base culture, a culture to be despised. Koreans thought it shameful that the lowest strata of society had the best knowledge of our music, drama and crafts. But they also felt shameful because they didn’t personally know the arts and crafts. We needed to raise the status of these low caste people and I thought this could be done if the government honoured them. Giving them recognition would function as part of a rehabilitation process. It would be like the last breath for those about to die, like an injection of life.

Ye’s articles documented individual musicians, artists and craftsmen, and wove together their life stories with information about their skills. He mixed folk and court traditions, and his choice of arts and crafts proved judicious: he wrote about skills that he believed could be made markers of Korean identity. In his 1963 book, the 50 articles start with musicians: Yi Pyŏngsŏng (kagok; lyric song), Im Pangul (p’ansori), Yi Kyŏnghyŏp (pŏmp’ae; Buddhist chant), Shim Sanggŏn (kayagŭm; 12-stringed half-tube zither), Shin K’waedong (kŏmun’go; six-stringed half-tube zither), Kim Sŏngjin (taegŭm; transverse bamboo flute) and so on. Lineage was a major concern. Yi Pyŏngsŏng and Kim Sŏngjin had trained at the court music institute, Im Pangul had led a travelling troupe of folk singers throughout much of the colonial period,⁹ Shim Sanggŏn, then aged 72, traced his lineage back to the putative founder of kayagŭm sanjo, Kim Ch’angjo, and Shin K’waedong, likewise, to the founder of kŏmun’go sanjo. Yi Kyŏnghyŏp, then aged 61, was one of only four monks who could still sing the Sanskrit-based formal chants that trace back to the eighth century or before; it was a matter of pride for Ye that Korean Buddhism influenced the development of Japanese Buddhism, but a matter of shame that the Japanese had degraded Korean Buddhist practice during the colonial period.

Ye wrote that some craftsmen were wasting their skills. Kang S...