Higashi-Kujo Madang— Allegory and realism

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“The term madang refers to a space where communal activities take place. The reinvested meaning of this space, however, invokes a utopian plenitude of the imagined non-periodized prelapsarian past and alludes to the advent of a postcapitalist unity in which the division between production and consumption collapses.”
(Choi 1993, 92)

The first madang play (madang geki) was a dramatization of a rural allegory, where an old village widow, always kind to everything and everyone, is being threatened by a tiger, who has eaten her son and is coming to devour her as well. But each of the things (mountains, and flies, and trees) with which she had been gentle comes to her aid. Together they kill the tiger, releasing her sons from its belly, and dancing on its pelt.

“...as if [everyone] together were dancing in one great circle...” This was the prescription that the Higashi-kujo Madang organizers gave for their first festival. It would show—the city, and also the participants—that Japanese and Korean residents in Higashi-kujo could find a common ground (madang) upon which to put aside their differences, and recognize their commonalities. And it was this image of dancing together that came about in the final decontrolled emotional state that signaled the presence of festivity in this festival. Much of the description of this madang is the backstory that leads to this moment.

It was this final dance of victory that crowned the madang with its joy, and sent the first event into a maelstrom of dancing and emotional release. But the play itself was not what many of the actors had hoped it would be. Even before the event, there were arguments over its tone and content. But in the abbreviated time-frame of that first year, no one could imagine creating a new play, that task would have to wait until the next year.

The antagonist in the first Madang’s madang geki (drama) was a tiger. It has been reported that tiger’s were used metaphorically in events in Korea as a symbol of Japanese oppression, and of its antecedents: oppression under Korean military/U.S. backed capitalism. But the members of the Kyoto madang took this as a straight allegory.

Photo by Anjali

The climax of the first year’s Higashi-kujo Madang was the tumultuous dance that crowned its final hour. Beginning as the triumphal dance when the tiger-character was killed in the drama, it swelled uncontrollably to include every person present in a whirling circular celebration.

Within this, one could sense an exaltation over the successful completion of this first event, and, in equal measure a release that was linked most specifically to the site—to the school yard as a disciplinary space—and to its successful appropriation as a festival place. This was the site of mundane schoolyard humiliations, of the pubescent terror of exclusion and ridicule, but today there was only joy, and a joy that was enabled and articulated as, of all things, Korean.

“Because ethnic discrimination is so firmly rooted in Japanese society, we must press this very issue all the more. Having failed to hold on to our own identities, we are now a people who are shunned in society. This we must overcome—we must reassert our own independence and restore our ethnic identity.”
MADANG STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

This counter-display, powerful in its expressive load, and pivotal in its re-imagination of the space and for this crowd, was the first moment in Kyoto where I could fully say that a festival had taken place. But I could not yet, within the theoretical apparatus that I had taken to Japan, account for what it was I had seen.

The backyard of the Uribunken Center was the site of much of the artistic production for the first Madang. An outdoor space about the size of a two-car garage, it also served for impromptu parties and meetings.
In this scene, my son, Louis, plays Gameboy to escape the boredom of having been included in his father’s work.

I was watching three (even four) generations of people, Japanese and Koreans, physically disadvantaged and physically nimble, devout Christians and devout Maoists, and they were gamboling in the dusk with arms linked and with a collective laughter that could not, within the realm of imagination, have come from this neighborhood.

“My grandfather and grandmother came to Higashi-kujo from Korea in 1920. He worked in a metalworking factory. [One day he was injured and] blood came out. ‘Red blood comes out of Koreans too’ a Japanese [worker] said. And he [my grandfather] got mad and quit.”
Hanmadang member, 3rd generation Resident Korean.

For this was a neighborhood that was riven by internal disputes and embittered by the dire reality of active social discrimination. Today that reality paled before a greater desire, and the daily load of worry and hatred was set down for a time. The realization that this load could be set aside was just one of the accomplishments of this first-year event.

The tiny Uribunken center was the only place where the group could freely gather on their own. Its small rear asphalt yard served as the focus for many meals where the Madang’s performers and organizers tackled the issues raised by doing this event.

A week later there was a post-event party at the Uribunken Center. Over sizzling barbecued pork and tripe and cold beers, I played back the raw video from the event.

“All of us in the Korean community want to make a madang for ethnic/cultural ex change, and so foster this type of exchange. What we mean is that the festival is a splendid and joyful event which is dedicated to the unity of the Higashi-Kujo area. On behalf of the young resident Koreans, we want this festival to provide great encouragement and to be a place that restores their ethnic identity and pride.”
MADANG STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

People came and went, commenting on the various scenes. But when the final dance began, they stopped their conversations, and watched, and remembered. The older crowd had departed early, and the younger, mostly third-generation Korean volunteers began to reflect on the event. I was surprised by their tone of disappointment, (although this might have been in part the result of reviewing the look of the event on the unedited videotape).

Despite the enormous effort that went into its production, it could not compete with the spectacles that the city produced, in part because its budget was comparatively meager, and in part because it did not participate in the professionalism that money allows, but which also excludes everyday participants. Its drummers were mainly drummers who had started drumming two months before. Its artists were volunteers with more enthusiasm than accomplishment. The resulting event looked as home-grown as it felt. But this appearance did not satisfy them.

One of them said to me, “I bet you wish you were back studying matsuri.”

A variety of non-official housing is found in Higashi-kujo. This abode, built near the Takasei-canal sports an array of personalizing artistic touches.
From a video by the author

It was a bet he could only lose. For as the evening wore on, it became clear that these young organizers were only beginning to imagine where this event could lead them.

“Madang guk, [drama] then, is seen as a site where this utopia is to materialize through a carnivalesque communal festival and through a collective struggle against the ruling bourgeoisie as the commoners of the pre-rupture period are imagined to have carried it out.”
(Choi 1993, 92)

They were conscious that they had not achieved the kind of critical artistic expression that they had hoped for, even though the triumph of simply doing the Madang was still evident. From the T-shirt designs, to the drama, to the artwork, satisfaction gave way unease. They wanted to make an event that was real, that spoke their anger.

The first year had been too tame. Like the cat in the drama, it was only a paper tiger. The first year had shown that the madang could be done, but now they were ready to push the event up a few critical levels. The challenge was no longer to simply, physically manage the event, but to carry this to its expressive limits.

“As there are few [Kyoto] people who feel comfortable mixing freely with the residents of this district, it is up to these residents to build up this area themselves.”
MADANG STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

In that circle, in the dark, with the embers of the barbecue fading at our feet, and the shinkansen train howling by, nearly overhead, everyone was given a time to speak, and every observation made was granted a space to grow into dialogue. And I was not certain if this space of enclusion was the result or the cause of the madang. But certainly it was a signal that the next year would be well worth the wait.

From allegory to realism

“The enthusiasm of the madang participants, who moved through the madang [space] without discrimination, created the feeling of the joy of ‘living together’ [kyousei]. Young folks, wanting to take a small step towards the peaceful reunification of the North and the South beat the chango drums.”
The Second Madang Report

For the second year drama, a committee was formed to write an original madang geki, one that spoke more directly to the audience. I want to spend some time with this play, for it shows the early maturation of the event as a mode of counter-expression and cultural critique. It displays the hesitation of direct criticism against dominant institutions. And it seeks to make the play into a space that resembles the space where it is performed.

“The students’ use of popular culture as an instrument for raising critical consciousness or mobilizing the masses...resulted from the students’ engagement with the lives of rural Koreans...”
(Choi n.d. 8)

And it also announces the willingness of the organizers to abandon an attachment to existing forms of Korean madang productions, and to innovate new forms using a logic of local action and social-political engagement. Madang plays as a genre historically determined by their performances on Korean university campuses in the1970s, were mostly based upon rural allegories,

The Higashi-kujo center for day laborers was the main site for practicing drumming or rehearsing for the drama. Because of the volume of the sound produced by drumming practice, the organizers attempted to move this between several venues, but not near the schools where the Madang would take place. Spatial concerns were nearly as grave as those of the timing for practices.
From a video by the author

Before we look at the content of the second-year three act play, I want to look first at some representative spaces for the various rehearsals and organizing meetings.

This rehearsal at the Kibou no Ie (Hope House) nursery school was one of many that the madang-geki in staged in preparation for the Second Higashi-kujo Madang.

Within these rooms and throughout these spaces, a large proportion of the event’s social actions occur. It was here where the internal democracy of the event was enacted within discussions, quarrels, decisions, and reviews of prior decisions.

Monthly meetings of the working committee (jikkokiinkai) such as this one in August of 1994, kept the individual committees (art, drama, music, food, fund raising, etc.) in touch with one another. The meetings ran for about three hours, and were held at a Catholic Church run school facility in Higashi-kujo. Women were in charge of the majority of the committees for the Madang in its first two years, however, the executive committee, which also managed fund raising, was dominated by older men, many of them second-generation Koreans.

Beginning with the second year, the play would be written, staged, directed, and acted by volunteers who brought enthusiasm, but few credentials to this task. Learning from their own short history of producing plays, they are building their own community theatre. The give-and-take of the rehearsals betrayed both the pervasive uncertainty of the group as to what was “right” in terms of upholding their desire to bring realism to the play, and also what would work dramatically. But they will acquire their own skills in this practice as the years progress.

“We want to make this a madang that is filled with joy in the recognition of our mutual livelihood: a place on which Japanese people can build their own lives and find the meaning of living as a community by meeting with each other; and a place where resident Koreans can hold firmly to their ethnic pride in this madang.”
MADANG STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

Here is where I learned to look behind the event. Milton Singer’s work on cultural events (1958) first sparked my interest in festival events as windows to the workings of culture. But what he did not realize was how much more there was to learn from rehearsals and other aspects of cultural events. I began my observations of festivals with some idea that culture is event-full, but I was slowly drawn into an appreciation for the simple fact that events are also culture-full. And this fullness is most apparent in rehearsals.