Hearts of Pine by Pilzer Joshua D.;

Author:Pilzer, Joshua D.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 3.5.

Mun Pilgi giving testimony to a group of Korean students, 2005.

Photo by Yajima Tsukasa.

The young woman passed the mic around in a wide circle. It came to Mun Pilgi and Kim Yushim last. Mun Pilgi took it first and sang a long medley in her light voice, which, although less powerful than it had once been, had lost little of its radiance. Kim Yushim sang appreciatively by her side, alternating between singing the lyrics and shouting rhythmic interjections: kkung-jjak kkung-jjak, chan-chan-chan, and others. She sang loudly, clearly audible underneath the sound of Mun Pilgi’s gentler, amplified voice.

Medleys such as this one are common practice in teuroteu; many cassettes contain two sides of ceaseless medley. This pattern originated in social singing, but now, under the influence of such cassettes, teuroteu fans reproduce recorded medleys in their own singing. Medleys are sometimes associated with travel, as many of these cassettes are for sale at rest stops along the expressway and provide the recorded soundtrack for express bus travel and the musical material of singing parties on private tour buses (Son 2006).

Mun Pilgi sang “Anyway, the One Who Left,” “Tears of Mokpo,” and many of her other favorite songs. She chose well-known classics and recent hits, leaving aside her more obscure favorites so that Kim Yushim and the other survivors could join in singing the teuroteu canon. It was of course her personal version of the canon, centering on songs of loneliness and love. Many of the other women clapped and sang, calling out the rhythmic syllables; others nodded off or sat lost in thought, watching the passing scenery of the expressway. Some of the young people too sang along on well-known verses and choruses. If there was a lull Kim Yushim would call out the first line of a new song, which for most women their age served as the song’s title and a clue as to how to begin. After a while Kim Yushim took the microphone from Mun Pilgi, and beneath the distortion and the reverb of her booming voice Mun Pilgi sang softly in support.

As the two took turns and supported each other they were knitted together as friends, fans, and survivors. And singing brought them together with those other survivors, activists, and volunteers around them who sang along or listened appreciatively. This was a community in formation in the moment of performance, united in the collective appreciation of teuroteu songs and the evolving story of love, despair, and intimacy found there. It was also a community of survivors, of women, and a transgenerational community bound by fragile and tentative collective understandings. The Korean Council and other organizations had long struggled to bring that community of survivors into being, and to sustain it. There was an infrastructure of institutions and funds that supported it, and the sense of security and the opportunities for sharing that it made possible. But it also depended for its survival on moments like this.

The song party on the bus also made official the links that survivors had long cultivated with public culture and society.

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