Chuseok vacation day 4 part 4: Hahoe Folk Village mask dance

After lunch we went around to other parts of the village, including across the small river that forms a horseshoe around most of Hahoe. We went across in a flat bottomed ferry propelled by a man with a stick, who must have been very strong to move the boat full of about twelve people. Back in the village proper we saw an ancient tree believed to hold the spirit of a goddess. People still tie prayers written on small pieces of paper onto it's branches. Nearby we went into a lovely teahouse where people in traditional clothes offered to perform a full tea ceremony, which we had to decline because we didn't want to be late to the mask dance.

We originally planned to be at Andong/Hahoe that weekend because it was supposed to be the mask dance festival, which was canceled due to swine flu. However, it seems that the festival would just have meant more people and a lot more stands/stalls selling things, so we were glad to go anyway. Andong has a long tradition of their mask dance/theatrical performance. It was originally used to entertain a god that was called upon in times of plague. It was also used to satirize the upper classes and other tropes. There are a set of traditional masks that have been used over the years, as well as particular plays/dances performed. One survives in nearly its entirety and that is the one that is performed every weekend in Hahoe.

The dance is performed by all male actors, even the female parts. The only woman was the one going around with a collection plate. There was also a band, mostly consisting of drummers and someone playing one of those Korean instruments that sounds like a dying duck.

The play began with a man hunting two (creatively designed) mythical beasts. In the next scene a different man (a woodcutter if I recall correctly) hunts a bull. The show is a bit raunchy: the bull is made of two actors, the rear of which often lifted a let and sprayed a water bottle on the audience. The death of the ox was well done with red cloth used as blood. Next an old woman does some weaving and other household chores. One of the more interesting scenes was one where a sinister looking rich man follows a beautiful young woman (even going so far as to smell her urine after watching her squat down) and then seducing her. The details are hazy in my mind (which is why it is unwise to fall five months behind on my blogging) but I think the young woman ends up with the beast hunter from the first scene. In the end a humorously played drunk peasant dances around and eventually invites foreign members of the audience, including Alanna, to come out and dance with all the characters.

When the dance was finished we returned to Andong and walked out to the largest brick pagoda in Korea. Then Alanna had to catch a bus back to Daejeon since she had work the next day and I went to stay in a sauna for the night. I also went to a movie theater and saw an amazing Korean epic movie, The Sword with No Name (Bool-kkott-cheo-reom na-bi-cheo-reom). It was so Korean it hurt, from the burial mounds to the Japanese being pure evil to the film itself being a not quite as good imitation of something made by the Chinese and Japanese (sorry, but it's true). I especially found it odd and fascinating that they choose the nation's moment of greatest shame as the focus for their nationalistic epic movie. It takes place as Korea is forced at gunpoint to annex itself to Japan. The real villains are the pro-Japanese Koreans rather than the Japanese themselves. It is a tragedy about a peasant and skilled swordsman (and a persecuted Christian, sort of) who becomes a bodyguard to the empress. They fall in love but of course cannot act on their feelings because of their duties. It is also tragic because his superior martial skill is defeated by guns. The Koreans seem to be taking control of their history by portraying the conflict this way, changing a shameful defeat to a valiant and tragic one.

Pictures start here.