East Asian Languages and Cultures

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A Decade of the CALA Indiana Local Group
(1996-08-13) Liu, Wen-ling
Borrowed National Bodies: Ideological Conditioning and Idol-Logical Practices of K-pop Cover Dance
(Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch, 2019) Saeji, CedarBough T
This study investigates the ways the South Korean government and other affiliated organizations use the popular practice of performing choreography to Korean popular music, or K-pop cover dance, to build nationalism in Koreans and soft power for Korea overseas. Cover dances generally have one benefit for the original performers; covers can strengthen the perception of popularity of a song or a group. However, the benefits that accrue elsewhere are wide-ranging. Dance instructors may find eager paying learners, university classes may recruit new students, and the Republic of Korea harnesses the enthusiasm of dancers to promote everything related to Korea. This study, a continuation of my long-term work on cover dance, is based on a close reading of the KBS television program K-Pop World Festival 2018. The larger project includes observation of cover dancers at practice and in cover dance competitions, interviews with organizers, Korean diplomats, dance professionals in the K-pop world, and cover dance participants, as well as online data collection. As Korea struggles with a low economic growth rate, high youth unemployment, and a host of social problems that are increasing bitterness and dissatisfaction, the KBS program and similar cultural productions provide a different perspective on Korea. In this paper I argue that the coverage of K-pop fans from around the world on Korean television essentializes foreign places and people with a singular focus: to prove the attractiveness of Korea to a Korean audience.
Breaking the Disciplinary Boundaries: Collaborative Research in Early Modern Japanese Arts and Literature
(Department of History, Emory University, 1992-11) Jones, Sumie
Confucius's disciple Zigong and the history of early Ruism [In Chinese, with English abstract]
(National Taiwan University, 2011) Eno, Robert
In the fifth volume of the Shanghai Museum collection of recovered Warring States era bamboo manuscripts there are two items that include speech attributed to Kongzi’s (Confucius’s) disciple Zigong. If we compare these texts to typical passages concerning Zigong in the ${Lunyu}$, we see similar features, suggesting that these texts and the ${Lunyu}$ arise from a common tradition within the early Ruist movement, one distinct from traditions associated with the teachings of the disciples Zeng Shen and Zisi. It appears possible that these manuscript materials reflect the earliest split within Ruism, and show that initially two competing factions formed, the pivotal figure in this divide being Zigong, a disciple revered in the traditions of both factions.
Creating Regimes of Value through Curation at the National Museum of Korea
(Acta Koreana, 2014-12) Saeji, CedarBough T
The National Museum of Korea (NMK) is a site for teaching its visitors about the wonders of the Korean past through exhibition of exemplary art works. Through participant-observation in a Korean art history program organized by the NMK, museum visits, an interview with a senior curator, and an analysis of the NMK’s self-published book 100 Highlights of the National Museum of Korea, I interrogate the museum’s ideology in order to gain a better understanding of the messages about Koreanness communicated to the museum’s visitors. I am interested in the curatorial choices made by the museum that may ideologically condition spectators to associate Korean artistic excellence with Buddhism. I combine an analysis of language used in curation of Buddhist art on museum labels and displays, and within the NMK’s self-published book of 100 museum highlights, with a discussion that illustrates how the NMK creates new regimes of value in its presentation of Buddhist objects as national heritage.
Drumming, Dancing and Drinking Makgeolli: Liminal Time-Travel through Intensive Camps Teaching Traditional Performing Arts
(Journal of Korean Studies, 2013-06) Saeji, CedarBough T
The Republic of Korea has been protecting the ephemeral performative artistic and cultural phenomena collectively labeled intangible cultural heritage since passing the Cultural Property Protection Law in 1962. This long history of performance protection has positioned the Republic of Korea as an example for efforts around the world to protect intangible cultural heritage. The focus of South Korean protection efforts is performance and transmission; this article addresses the transmission occurring through intensive camps. Participant observation-based ethnographic research was conducted at two sites, the training camps for the mask dance drama Kosŏng Ogwangdae and for the farmer’s drumming and dancing group Imsil P’ilbong Nongak, to determine the effectiveness of the camps in transmitting performing arts knowledge. The young people who enroll in these camps represent the future of the South Korean traditional performing arts; some students are bound for professional performance, while others are active members of their respective preservation associations. The camps employ full-time, professional performers and create a pool of audience members and arts advocates. The students of the camps build community while they time travel to a liminal space where every day is the day before or the day of the big festival; their positive experience of Korean tradition leaves them connected to and supportive of the traditional arts.
Globalization and the Chinese Muslim Community in Southwest China
(2011-05) Brose, Michael C.
Is globalization a good thing when it comes to religion and religious practice gener-ally in China? What contributions might globalization have on the practice of religion, or more broadly, on social transformation, in China? Focusing more speciﬁcally on Islam in China, is it also subject to forces of globalization? If so, will that encounter result in more or less social and political power to Muslims in China? Is Islam antithetical to or a part of modernization? These are just some of the questions that are raised in thinking about the role of Islam in China today as related to the theme of this special issue, “religion and globalization in Asia.” This paper uses two case studies, recent mosque construction projects and the development of a new Institute of Arabic Studies in Yunnan Province, China, to understand if and how global trends have affected the Islamic community and practice of Islam in one region of China. Southwest China presents a unique context for the role of Islam in Chinese society because this area is largely free of the hot ethno-religious issues that plague other parts of China. Yunnan is also home to twenty-six ofﬁcial minority groups, but of these the Chinese Muslims have been largely ignored by scholars. It is clear, however, that Chinese Muslims are becoming important economic and political actors in Yunnan, judged by the kinds of mosques and educational activities they are sponsoring. They present an excellent opportunity to probe the impact of globalization on local forms of Islam, to understand how Islam might become a strategic social and political resource for the Yunnan Chinese Muslim community, how identity politics serves this group’s interests, and to demonstrate the importance of regional particularities in understanding “Islam in China.”
Introduction: A Short History of Afro-Korean Music and Identity
(Journal of World Popular Music, 2020-12) Saeji, CedarBough T.; Kim, Kyung Hyun
[paragraph, not abstract] Though the tension between Korean business owners in America and African Americans during the 1992 Los Angeles riots and more recently post-George Floyd protests have grabbed the mainstream media’s attention, Koreans have been awkwardly caught between populations of white Americans and African Americans since the era of civil rights protests. Though blacks-only platoons were phased out during the Korea War (1950–53) by President Harry Truman, racial discrimination and segregation remained entrenched in barracks and in social life during the US military occupation of Korea throughout the latter part of the twentieth century. Camptown clubs for US military personnel in Korea were segregated—so much so that the violent protest described above broke out in 1971 motivated by black GIs upset by the de facto policies of segregation enacted by these clubs and their proprietors. It was Korean businesses that separated entertainers and sex workers who serviced white soldiers from those who serviced their black counterparts. More than two decades after the American military had desegregated, the racial tensions and disparities on US military bases continued, and extended to the nearby clubs and the music that they played. Desegregation was officially enacted by requiring music to be played for both black and white patrons. As stated by Capt. A. D. Malloy, who was then responsible for easing the racial tensions in the American military bases in Korea and headed the committee called GIT (Get It Together), “We check on the variety of music played in the clubs. They must mix it up; some soul, some rock, some country and western. If they don’t mix the music, you get … segregation” (Lea and Brown 1971: 12).
Juvenile Protection and Sexual Objectification: Analysis of the Performance Frame in Korean Music Television Broadcasts
(Acta Koreana, 2013-12) Saeji, CedarBough T
The wide-spread sexual objectification of women in Korean popular music performance subconsciously teaches men and boys that women and girls are sexual objects that exist to please them. Simultaneously sexual objectification disempowers girls and women by emphasizing superficial beauty. Although many decisions related to Kpop choreography, costumes, or lyrics may be attributed to music management companies, this article analyzes how music television programs Inkigayo (Seoul Broadcasting System) and Music Core (Munhwa Broadcasting Company) contribute to the sexual objectification of women through the ways that emcees frame performances and the ways the camera draws attention to sexualized body parts. In August 2012 racy performances by the girl group Kara raised public debate and spurred calls for amendments to the Juvenile Protection Law. At that time commentary focused on the impact of sexually provocative performances on young people. The law places responsibility for monitoring content onto the content producers and broadcasters, yet frame analysis of Kara’s performances, compared with performances in early 2013, demonstrated that neither Inkigayo nor Music Core had changed the sexually objectifying performance frame on their shows. The final version of the revised law, passed in March 2013, does not contain amendments to address these issues more stringently than in the past.
No Frame to Fit It All: An Autoethnography on Teaching Undergraduate Korean Studies, on and off the Peninsula
(Acta Koreana, 2018-12) Saeji, CedarBough T
In the past two decades, Korean Studies has expanded to become an interdisciplinary and increasingly international field of study and research. While new undergraduate Korean Studies programs are opening at universities in the Republic of Korea (ROK) and intensifying multi-lateral knowledge transfers, this process also reveals the lack of a clear identity that continues to haunt the field. In this autoethnographic essay, I examine the possibilities and limitations of framing Korea as an object of study for diverse student audiences, looking towards potential futures for the field. I focus on 1) the struggle to escape the nation-state boundaries implied in the habitual terminology, particularly when teaching in the ROK, where the country is unmarked (“Han’guk”), the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is marked (“Pukhan”), and the diaspora is rarely mentioned at all; 2) the implications of the expansion of Korean Studies as a major within the ROK; 3) in-class navigations of Korean national pride, the trap of Korean uniqueness and (self-)orientalization and attitudes toward the West; 4) the negotiation of my own status as a white American researching/teaching about Korea, often to Koreans; 5) reactions to the (legitimate) demands of undergraduate Korean Studies majors to define the field and its future employment opportunities. Finally, I raise some questions about teaching methodologies in Korean Studies. Drawing on my experiences with diverse groups of students, I ask those involved in this field to consider with me the challenges emerging in a time of rapid growth.
The Audience as a Force for Preservation: A Typology of Audiences for the Traditional Performing Arts
(Korea Journal, 2016-06) Saeji, CedarBough T
The Republic of Korea’s robust system for protection of traditional performing arts has insulated the traditional arts, ensuring that a population of master artists continued to practice their arts even as Korea rapidly modernized. This protection allows people in twenty-first century Seoul to attend performances of raucous mask dance dramas, evocative epic songs, and sedate literati ensembles. However, do they? The audience for Korean traditional arts is eroding, but ample government support has removed artists and venues from the urgency of attracting new and younger audiences. This article describes reception techniques of traditional performance that are dying out in Korea, proposes an audience typology, and discusses the varied challenges of attracting and maintaining an audience. Although examples are taken from Korea, parallels exist in other countries and with other genres around the world.
The Bawdy, Brawling, Boisterous World of Korean Mask Dance Dramas
(Cross Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, 2012) Saeji, CedarBough T
Korean mask dance dramas are captivating and entrancing. Comedy, tragedy, and social commentary meld with energetic dance, distinctive masks, and lively music. These dramas are often colloquially and incorrectly referred to as talchum (“mask dance”) in Korean—in fact, talchum is one of the major variants of mask dance drama from Hwanghae Province in present-day North Korea. Performers of other variants have long objected to the broad application of the term (akin to calling all in-line skates “Rollerblades” or all MP3 players “iPods”). Only in the late 1990s did academia catch on, when two highly respected midcareer mask dance drama scholars, Bak Jintae (Daegu University) and Jeon Kyungwook (Korea University), began to use the terminology talnoli (“mask play”) and gamyeon-geuk (“mask drama”) in their publications. I needed to watch only one performance, in 1997, to fall in love with the mask dance dramas, but at first the many forms of the genre melded together in my mind. It took repeated exposure and study over more than a dozen years for me to see the profound similarities and differences among all of Korea’s mask dance dramas...
The Medieval Uyghurs of the 8th through 14th Centuries
(Oxford University Press, 2017-06) Brose, Michael C.
The medieval Uyghurs became a political entity in the mid-8th century when they established their steppe empire as the inheritors of the ancient Türk steppe tribal confederation. They ruled their empire for a century from their capital city in the heart of the Mongol steppe. Their empire ended when rival Kirgiz tribes attacked it, and the Uyghur aristocracy fled south into the borderland areas between China and the steppe. Two groups of diaspora Uyghurs built new states in Gansu and the Tarim Basin. The Gansu Uyghurs stayed in that region but never exerted any real power as a state. The Uyghurs who migrated to the Tarim Basin were more successful, building an independent kingdom that maintained a stable rule over the mixed population of city dwellers and nomads who lived in the far-flung oases of the area. The Tarim Basin Uyghurs readily adapted to the sedentary lifestyle and built one of the most highly diverse societies of the age, where Buddhists, Nestorian Christians, Manichaeans, Zoroastrians, and nomads all lived side by side. Even after they became subjects of the Qarakhitai and then the Mongols, the Uyghurs retained some autonomy as political rulers in the Tarim Basin. That ended when Khubilai lost control of the Tarim Basin and most of the Uyghur aristocracy moved to China. The Uyghur diaspora refashioned their identity a third time in China as members of the conquest government and the cultural literati. Their existence as a distinct political entity ended with the eviction from China of the Mongols.
The Republic of Korea and Curating Displays of Koreanness: Guest Editor's Introduction
(Acta Koreana, 2014-12) Saeji, CedarBough T
[First paragraph] The four thematically-linked articles in this journal were developed from papers that were originally presented as part of a conference panel from the 7th Kyujanggak International Symposium on Korean Studies held at Seoul National University in August, 2014. We had discussed their publication and proposed the theme issue to Acta Koreana prior to the conference. Thanks to peer reviewers who were willing to meet short deadlines and all the efforts of the journal’s editorial staff, we have managed to get our four accepted papers ready for publication in time for this December 15, 2014 issue of Acta Koreana.

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