Broken Voices

Front matter

MUSIC AND PERFORMING ARTS OF ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

ROALD MALIANGKAY

Broken Voices

CHAPTER 1 Colonial Foundations of Korean Cultural Policy 23 CHAPTER2 Defining Korean Folksongs: Characteristics and Terminology 52

CHAPTER3 Masculinity in Demise: Sónsori sant'aryóng and Kyónggi minyo 73

CHAPTER 4 Embodying Nostalgia: Sódo sori 117 Conclusion: Mimicry and Adaptation 149

Appendix: Paebaengikut 159 Notes 175

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Tue completion of this book is owed to the kindness of a great many people. Among those who have played a crucial role in my academic life over the years, I wish to first thank Boudewijn Walraven for introducing me to folklore studies and to many a soju-guzzling, chain-smoking, spirit-whispering shaman at the foot of Seoul’s Namsan in the early hours of the weekend. Koen De Ceuster and Remco Breuker crucially guided me further into the world of Korean studies and to many visual, audial, and palatable delights. Nathan Hesselink encouraged me tremendously when I set first foot on the shaky ground of academia, and like the others and Keith Howard, he continues to be an inspiration. Keith, my doctoral adviser, never ceases to support and motivate me, for which I am extremely grateful. Jacqueline Vel, Mario Rutten, Willem van Schendel, and Leo Douw provided me with my first institutional home in Amsterdam, a place full of wonderful synergies; one I have become increasingly nostalgic about since leaving for Australia, perhaps because it no longer exists. As soon as I took up a position at the Australian National University, however, I began to make many new friends. Those who have since provided very helpful feedback on my work in general include, in no specific order, Ruth Barraclough, Hyaeweol Choi, Marcus Mietzner, Benjamin Penny, Katarzyna Cwiertka, Theodore Jun Yoo, Stephen Epstein, Jo Elfving-Hwang, Ross Tapsell, Michiel Baas, Geng Song, and Tessa Morris- Suzuki. In developing this manuscript in particular, I am hugely indebted to Clark Sorensen, who graciously dedicated much of his time giving invaluable, detailed advice on many aspects of the first draft. His comments have significantly improved my approach toward various aspects of my work and I hope the changes I made after his review do his efforts justice at least to some degree. My good friend Benjamin also provided sharp and insightful thoughts on one of the chapters. At University of Hawaiʻi Press, I was very fortunate to gain the magnificent support of Masako Ikeda, who provided important feedback on my manuscript and graciously guided me through the various procedures. Kristen Bettcher, finally, did an amazing job seeing this book through the production process.

The people and institutes who have helped me in Korea are too numerous to mention by name. I wish to sincerely thank, first and foremost, the Korea Foundation for its enormous support over the years. I was fortunate enough to receive one of the PhD scholarships it funded through the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), and was able to rely on its support for a number of essential fieldwork trips. I am again grateful to the Foundation for the subsidy it provided for this publication. Another institute I wish to thank is the National Gugak Center. It has provided many occasions for me to meet people, and even after she took up the role of Director of the Busan National Gugak Center, So Inhwa and her network of peers have continued to go out of their way to respond to my queries and requests. Others who always offered generous assistance and hospitality to me on various occasions include performers Yi Un’gwan, Yi Unju, Muk Kyewól, Hwang Yongju, Yi Juna, Pak Chunyóng, Yu Sangho, and Yu Chisuk, as well as professors Shim Usóng, Im Tonggwón, and Kwon Oh Sung. Professor Yi Pohyóng, in particular, never seemed to tire of my questions and requests and always welcomed me to his study, where he would dazzle me with fascinating anecdotes and collectibles. Jocelyn Clark gave important advice on my hypotheses, helped me on a few complicated quests, and along with Cecilia Heejeong Kim offered generous scoops of makkólli when my battery needed recharging. Together with her late husband and her daughters Ji Eun and Chihye, Chón Misuk provided a loving home in Seoul, heaps of yummy food, and many hilarious descriptions of Korean culture. Mr. Yi Sónggon at the National Folk Museum of Korea made it possible for me to reproduce the beautiful image on this book's cover, while Mr. Tony Jung was extremely generous with his time helping me with several other illustrations. None of these delightful people are responsible for any of the incorrect or uninspiring parts of this book for which Itake full responsibility (though, if urged to do so, I might pass the buck to the Boogie, rather than Australia's sunshine).

Iowe much gratitude to my family for always inspiring and supporting me. They are often missed, in part for their creativity and many passions and for making my work peeves seem so delightfully insignificant. I mention Shuge Wei only at this point, but she comes first in thought. With much love, wit, and care, she has turned my life into an adventure, and I find myself hoping time will slow down. These acknowledgments would not be complete, however, without an ode to Poktori, who for almost seventeen years accompanied me during my work while reminding me of shared meal times, until he sadly passed away during the final months of writing. Fortunately, Shuge and I were able to welcome another amazing boy into our lives not long after. I dedicate this book to her and our dearest Lucas, in loving memory of the greatest food thief who ever lived.

X Acknowledgments

ROMANIZATION AND OTHER CONVENTIONS

Because the official Korean romanization system promulgated at the start of the new millennium can render unfortunate (and in some cases hilarious) connotations, I use the McCune-Reischauer system instead, albeit in the revised form created by the Korean Ministry of Education in 1988. This allows me to use “shi” for sounds previously transcribed as “si,” which does not represent the actual sound and therefore defeats the main purpose of transcription. I make exceptions in the case of commonly accepted alternative spellings, such as Seoul and Pyongyang, and where Koreans used an alternative spelling of their name in an English language publication. In the bibliography references to the latter are listed under that name, followed by a systematic transcription between brackets. In the narrative I retain the order of people’s given and surname as common in what I take to be their country of residence. When referring to place names, I occasionally leave suffixes like—san and -dong untranslated when they are commonly treated as part of the township’s name in English. When the vernacular clearly deviates from the McCune-Reischauer system, such as with words like pohopèp and Sejon-kut, which the system would have me romanize as pohobop and Sejon-gut, I disregard the rules and transcribe the word as I hear it pronounced. Although I add hyphens to separate suffixes from nouns and numbers, the transcription reflects how the sound of the noun’s final consonant is inflected when it is followed by the initial vowel of a suffix. Therefore, rather than pohopóp-üi I use pohopób-üi. In order to avoid confusion I also add a hyphen when a single compound word is separated upon romanization, as in "*30-nyóndae" (1930s) and *1970-nyóndae" (1970s). I have transcribed Chinese terms according to the pinyin system and Japanese according to the Hepburn system.

All translations are mine unless otherwise specified. In my transcriptions and translations of printed text and recorded interviews I have tried to stay as

Xi close to the original as possible, but I have slightly corrected the grammar and terminology where, for example, it was absolutely necessary in order to maintain the flow of the text or where an informant used more profanity than even I thought was cool. Song titles are given in romanized Korean, followed by, where possible, a translation or the official English title. Although I was not always able to find them, I provide birth and death dates for those I believe played a crucial role in the events and traditions deliberated. I omit such dates for scholars unless seniority may have awarded them particular leverage in decision-making processes.

yii Romanization and Other Conventions

Broken Voices

Introduction

PROMOTING TRADITION IN KOREA

Ox my first visit to Seoul, in early August 1988, I visited the National Museum of Korea when it was still located on the grounds of Kyèngbok Palace inside the monumental building formerly used by the Japanese colonial government. Relishing the respite from the humid summer heat, I slowly shuffled through the large open halls, occasionally followed by the stares and whispers of groups of school children, who were unaccustomed to seeing foreigners, let alone teenage civilian ones. The high ceilings and thick walls made the interior seem very impressive, and yet I could not shake the feeling that there was something sad about the exhibition as a whole. If anything, it looked empty. To postpone re-entering the stickiness outside, I visited the museum’s bookshop. But looking through the exhibition catalogues and books, I realized that many of the images offered in print were identical to those I had just seen behind glass. I learned not long after that several of the items on display at the museum were, in fact, copies of the originals.! Not only had many artifacts been destroyed during the Korean War, but tens of thousands of items had also been taken abroad by foreigners over the course of the twentieth century, and the government was attempting to retrieve them. Despite my first impressions, though, the replicas on display served an important purpose. Many of them featured in publications and commercial products both as decoration and tokens of national pride. Koreans often told me about their cultural heritage with pride, could recite a list of important “national treasures,” and were quick to point their finger at the Japanese for having tried to destroy or erase them. Museum collections, it became apparent, comprised mementos rather than specimens of Korea’s national heritage. In the South Korean government's attempt to nurture national pride, propaganda proved more important than either the size or authenticity of the country’s heritage.

Since the late 1980s, major sports events, global brands, and the Korean Wave—the worldwide success of South Korean (hereafter Korean) popular entertainment since the late 1990s—have tied Korea’s national heritage to images of prosperity and celebrity. Korea’s cultural icons had to play catch-up with those of its neighbors, at least in the eyes of policy makers, but they have proved quite successful, and features of traditional culture now appear prominently in popular entertainment, tourism, and general retail. A modified copy of the traditional costume (hanbok) is a popular formal type of dress, worn by people on a wide range of occasions; and traditional crafts are used everywhere for decoration, from modern hotel lounges to car interiors and restaurants. Even the popularity of traditional folk ceremonies and religious rituals has grown, if perhaps more for sightseeing than participation. The success of such iconic traditions has derived as much from economic growth as from the effectiveness of Korea’s cultural policy. Of particular importance in this regard is the ongoing impact of the Korean Wave on foreign shores. Although it is significantly amplified by the global success of Korean business conglomerates, it is inconceivable that Korean popular entertainment could have become such a phenomenon without the features of traditional culture it incorporates. Korea’s heritage gained significant commercial importance only after the Wave began; until then the country’s cultural traditions were principally used to express a range of sociopolitical concerns, and evoke feelings of patriotism and nostalgia. Today, many consumers across East and Southeast Asia avidly keep up with the latest Korean traditional costume dramas, populated by casting agents from among a broad arsenal of idol K-pop stars.

The commercial success of Korea’s cultural policy is owed partly to the image of Japan overseas, in particular in China and Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and the West. This may be because of familiarity with or fond memories of Japanese popular culture, or resentment of the Japanese government’s unwillingness to discuss its war crimes or its position on whaling. Japan’s image has affected the world’s view of Korean contemporary culture as well as Korea’s national heritage. In this book I investigate Korean government policies created to preserve and promote its intangible heritage, and focus especially on the professional folksong traditions from the central provinces. I discuss the major factors that have made an impact on the alleged authenticity of the Korean traditions and show that the experience of Japanese imperialism has been a major factor in both their configuration and conception.

Studies that scrutinize Korea’s heritage management are generally concerned with either tangible or intangible cultural properties. In her extensive, seminal work on the presentation and preservation of Korean archaeology and tangible properties, Hyung Il Pai deliberates the crucial impact of nationalism, modernity, and colonialism on the valorization of Korean objects and the development of Korean preservation strategies. Others, such as Yang Jongsung, focus on strategies toward the preservation of specific elements of Korea's intangible heritage. Among his major contributions is his analysis ofthe impact of Korea's heritage management on the reinvention of Kangnyóng talchum, a mask dance-drama from the town of Kangnyóng (National Intangible Cultural Property no. 34). As a former performer in the group that preserves the tradition, and an occasional adviser to the government on heritage-related issues, he is able to share many insights related to the decision-making processes.? Keith Howard is concerned with the use of traditional arts and crafts in the construction of identities on either side of the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Although he critically investigates the challenges posed by the requirements of authenticity and transmission, he is particularly interested in the motivations of those involved. He includes folksongs in his analyses, but focuses on the less prominent genres from the southern part of the peninsula.* While I carefully consider the roles identity formation and globalization play in approaches toward heritage and its management, in this book I deviate from the work of these scholars by presenting the primary argument that strategies and notions developed by the Japanese during the colonial period have impacted Korea's folksong traditions.

Apart from Japanese strategies and notions, major factors in how the management of Korea's national heritage was conceived include a range of sociopolitical concerns and economic pressures. In the early days of South Korea's existence, funding constraints significantly affected the scope of national heritage management. The enormous devastation ofthe Korean War left little room for a policy that concerned itself with heritage preservation or the nurturing of cultural activities. Rather than promoting the development of culture or investing in sizeable restoration endeavors, therefore, from the mid to late 1950s new legislation regarding culture was mostly administrative and regulatory. Since establishing a comprehensive system of heritage management in 1962, however, Korea has undergone dramatic sociopolitical and economic transformations. Bolstered by feelings of loss and nostalgia, efforts to preserve and revive Korean heritage have tried to keep up with the ensuing changes, but they frequently required adjusting. As properties, both tangible and intangible, became damaged, moved abroad, or risked becoming lost, constant maintenance and policy revisions became necessary.

In the early 1960s, at the first signs of economic recovery, the administration of Park Chung Hee (Pak Chónghüi, 1963-1979) began to heavily involve itself in activities to preserve what it defined as national heritage: “Culture must be a part of the daily lives of the people to hasten the renaissance of our national culture.” Believing that its sociopolitical and economic goals could only be achieved through concerted sacrifice by the Korean people as a whole, the administration laid out a cultural policy that promoted national pride using a single historical narrative that emphasized the uniqueness of the Koreans and their culture, which past invaders had tried hard to eradicate.5 In doing so, it executed a cultural policy that was colonial at its core (although it would strongly deny this).” Several of Park’s developmental policies and strategies were noticeably inspired by Japanese ones, including those dealing with Korean heritage. Indeed, in devising his policies and strategies Park would have drawn substantially on his years serving in the Japanese imperial army in Manchukuo.? It is likely that in exchange for considerable economic aid and investment, US representatives also urged Park to adopt schemes similar to those that had proven successful in Japan in earlier years. For the purpose of reviving the Korean economy and advocating unity in the face of North Korea's belligerence, Park openly embarked on a policy of reconciliation with Japan.? His efforts were explained as necessary to secure loans and develop an economy strong enough to hold its own. Since they were intent on making South Korea "impervious to further outside influence," the government sold them to the public as patriotic.'?

In spite of the emphasis they placed on traditional Korean values, Park's policies were fully supportive of capitalism. Yet they sought to define the modern Korean nation as decidedly non-Western. Chatterjee has shown that in India, in response to British colonialism, a non-Western nationalism led to an exploration of the spiritual and cultural essence ofthe East, whereby traditional values retained their relevance at home and global values held sway outside. According to the protagonists, Chatterjee asserts, Britain had failed to destroy the inner, essential identity of the East, which lay in its distinctive and superior spiritual culture. The nationalists were nevertheless intent on people studying “the modern sciences and arts of the material world from the West in order to match their strengths and ultimately overthrow the colonizer."!! In Korea, where Japan was virtually synonymous with the dominant West, Park chose to follow a similar approach. To rally the people behind him in his bold pursuit of idealized Western living standards, he used a similarly self-orientalizing rhetoric: "Orientals possess a mysterious, unified, and harmonized spiritual culture that can scarcely be understood by Westerners, who have different ways of thinking and different systems of logic. Although it is risky to generalize, it is clear that Oriental cultures have a certain gentle, mild rhythm and harmony"? To promote this view, government propaganda began to use the slogan "spiritual mobilization,” originally a Japanese wartime term whose adoption under Park was again no coincidence. And to foster the study of this unique, spiritual culture of Koreans, in 1978 Park established the Korean Spiritual Culture Research Institute (Han'guk chóngshin munhwa yón'guwón; renamed Han'gukhak chungang yón'guwón, or Central Research Institute for Korean Studies, in 2005), known in English as the Academy of Korean Studies. On its current home page, the institute explains that its mission is to overcome "the ethical confusion that has emerged alongside rapid industrialization."

Apart from making efforts to implement policies from Korea’s former colonial power while publicly denouncing them, Park emphasized the danger of renewed North Korean aggression, communism, and foreign cultural imperialism. In his inaugural address on December 17, 1963, for example, he said, “The difficult times that followed the turn of this century included [our] blind acceptance of unsuitable foreign customs and manners at the end of World War II. This half century of shame and disgrace degraded our traditions and customs, and lowered public and private morality. “ While primarily aimed at encouraging Koreans to work toward a common goal—the pursuit of Western materialism— and refrain from dissident activities, the denial of the plurality (and indigenous agency) of colonial modernity," and the focus on Korea's unique culture also served to prevent negative reactions to the effects of economic growth (e.g., increased economic inequality and new values in conflict with official policy). At the same time, Park may have hoped that the emphasis placed on protecting Korean traditions would help prevent accusations of being unpatriotic in light of his efforts to reconcile with Japan.

The inability to abandon the standards and hierarchies of the colonial past has long represented one of the major predicaments of postcolonial nationalism. Indeed, Park's penchant for comparing Korea with Japan would have resonated with many of his contemporaries, including US representatives. Sorensen notes that after liberation, many among the business and intellectual elite, who had maintained “uncomfortably close ties with the Japanese authorities" during the colonial period, believed that Koreans had a lot to learn from the Japanese.! Possibly compounded by the geographical proximity of its former colonizer, which achieved fast economic recovery after the Pacific War and benefited from the United States having a relatively higher opinion toward its recent adversary, a cultural cringe manifested in the first few decades of Korea's post-Liberation era." Many norms introduced by the Japanese during the colonial era prevailed, as the former colonizer remained, alongside the United States, one of Korea's primary yardsticks in terms of cultural prowess and economic development. The cringe dissipated only in the final years of the previous millennium, when the Korean Wave began to divert considerable soft power away from Japan, and Japanese pop culture, which had been banned for decades, became widely available in Korea for comparison.

Park's cultural and education policies would have a profound effect on the national “popular” image of Japan. Along with a cultural cringe, they fostered anti-Japanese sentiment, which remained strong at least until the mid 1990s. Although the administration could not openly promote negative opinions of Japan, it ensured that their adherents occupied key positions in public information and education while prohibiting the import and public display of cultural products from Japan, including the employment of Japanese entertainers. It also made efforts to educate foreigners about Korea’s suffering at the hands of foreign invaders. An English-language publication by Samsung from 1991 is testament to the lasting impact of Park’s public information and education policies. Entitled “Misconceptions about Korean History,” it sets out to correct factual errors in the descriptions of Korean historical events in foreign textbooks and in the process conveniently lists endless examples of Japanese aggression.!? Two years later, Jeon Yeo-ok (Chón Yóok) published a collection of essays that attacked Japanese culture under the title There Is No Japan (Ilbon-ün opta; 1993), which became a bestseller within months.” Although the government did not directly subsidize either publication, the latter's initial popularity, amid some criticism, suggests that it did not reflect the opinion ofthe author only. A critical view of Japan had become widespread.

In 1962, the government promulgated the Cultural Properties Protection Law (Munhwajae pohopóp), which set up a system to protect, transmit, and promote Korea's cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible. It initially won the approval of many students and intellectuals who wanted to uphold Korea's folk heritage, which they claimed the Japanese colonial government had tried hard to erase.?? Despite their support for the government policy, they would later join the antihegemonic Minjung movement, which, among other things, spurred criticism of the way the government went about protecting and reviving Korea's folklore. Although several other laws related to culture were passed around the same time, the administration's economic strategy prevented the system from receiving adequate funding until the end of the decade.?! Active sponsorship and promotion of cultural activities began with the enactment of the Culture and Arts Promotion Law (Munhwa yesul chinhüngpóp) in 1972. This law, last amended in 2016, forms the basis of Korea's present cultural policy. The most comprehensive measures for the promotion of culture taken since then include two five-year plans (1974-1978 and 1979-1983), a ten-year plan initiated in 1990 by the newly established Ministry of Culture,? and the 1999 Basic Law for the Promotion of Cultural Industries (Munhwa sanóp chinhüng kibonpop), which provided major incentives for the production and promotion of Korean popular entertainment.?

In the late 1960s, when it was still making regular adjustments to its overall approach toward preserving and promoting national heritage, the Korean government split with the US government over issues of defense and security. Tension built up between President Park and Korean Christian leaders, who had long kept close ties with their American counterparts.” Partly in order to secure the allegiance of his political base in the Yóngnam region of Kyóngsang province, a Confucian stronghold, Park began to actively promote Confucian activities, including the concepts of ch’ung and hyo (loyalty to one's superiors and filial piety). This was intended to encourage compliance with official regulations and the endorsement of national economic plans. The Cultural Properties Protection Law from 1962 fit well into this policy, as it could be used to promote specific customs and traditions, including traditional values (though by the late 1980s the new rituals and principles included a few with strong shamanistic associations, which Park had tried hard to eradicate).”°

Initiated in 1971, the New Village Movement (Saemaŭl undong) was another major program intended to develop the Korean economy and the people’s communal spirit. It followed Park’s plans to reduce the economic and ideological differences between urban and rural areas and to boost agricultural production. Rapid urbanization was leading to a fast-growing age gap between rural and urban populations, causing rural communities to become ill disposed toward new policies and farming methods. Crucial to the success of the movement, therefore, was an upgrade of farming methods and technologies, and for this the government had to interfere extensively in village matters.’ In order to achieve significant technological innovation, the government tried to break down the traditional Confucian hierarchy of the village and to install younger, more modern men in leadership positions. It also advocated for a New Mind Movement (Saematim undong) and New Village Spirit (Saemadül chóngshin), which underscored the importance of harboring ideals equivalent to those of ch’ung and hyo while promoting self-reliance and a cooperative spirit." The movement's emphasis on frugality and the value of moral and physical education once more revealed the influence of earlier Japanese programs, specifically the colonial Rural Promotion Movement (Nongch'on chinhüng undong) and the New Life Movement (Shin seikatsu undo), which was introduced in Japan in the late 1940s and reached its height in the 1950s. The wide distribution of entertainment and sports programs served the additional purpose of swaying the populace by giving them a taste of what the movement's primary slogan— "let's try living well" (chal saraboja)— implied.?? Yet, as it was believed that the success of the New Village Movement lay in modernizing the villages to the level of the cities,” those rituals and traditions thought to stand in the way were oppressed or forbidden.

Many Koreans opposed the focus on secular rationalism and Westernization as well as the unfair treatment of workers and police violence that persisted during the regime of Park’s successor Chun Doo-hwan (Chón Tuhwan, 1979-1988). In the 1970s a populist Minjung movement began to emerge that engaged industrial workers, artists, students, and young intellectuals. Although relatively obscure at first, it gained momentum following the ruthless government crackdown on a popular uprising in Kwangju City in May 1980, which later also became known as the Kwangju massacre. The violent episode firmly established Minjung as the dominant ideology of the working class.?? Several years ahead of the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, when the world media feasted on footage of students hurling rocks at military police across torn-up streets clouded by tear gas, the Minjung political protests concentrated on cultural symbolism. Protagonists expressed their discontent in a way that stood in sharp contrast to the cultural features of the regime.?! They advocated traditional Korean culture, which they defined as rural and largely agricultural, in opposition to Western culture, and accused the government and the elite of too eagerly embracing North American culture and its associated norms. In its stead, they sought “a national community where humans are liberated" from "individualistic materialistic culture and administrative force.” Seeing as it advocated a return to the traditional, preindustrialized village values, the Minjung movement promoted principles that conflicted a little with those underlying the New Village Movement. But Minjung proponents' active opposition to cultural imperialism and their anger over Japanese aggression in some ways mirrored the government's own cultural policy and may have been a partial outcome of it.”

In protest against the government's advocacy of Western values and the oppression of Korean traditions, many Minjung practitioners turned toward the study of traditional arts and religion, masked dance drama, farmer's music and shamanism in particular—aspects of Korean culture that were not institutionalized and had long been suppressed. Masked dance drama appears to have preceded shamanism as a metaphor of political resistance. Having traditionally provided political satire for the working classes, its very image represented resistance to the military dictatorship, regardless of its script.?* Some students started playing the music of farmers' percussion bands (p'ungmul) in small ensembles, dressed in the costumes of folk musicians. Their number grew considerably in the mid-1980s, when their activities became a common sight on university campuses. For a while, shamanism became a popular form of entertainment and field of study. Kim Kwang-ok points out that the use of shamanistic ritual items as an integral part of the student rallies symbolized protest against the government's official cultural policy in two ways: it was a reaction against Western cultural imperialism and a demonstration in favor of an authentically Korean belief system that governments had long attempted to eradicate because it was thought to be superstitious and retrogressive.” Tangherlini argues that, in addition, because shamans were predominantly female, their publicly taking center stage symbolized a rejection of the traditional Confucian social order.?ó

The Park and Chun administrations strongly endorsed sports activities not only to nurture patriotism, but, along with cheap, erotic entertainment, also to divert the public's attention away from politics.” At the same time, they maintained a system of strict censorship to silence critical voices and drown out dissonance. For decades, government propaganda and the apparatus of censorship worked overtime to mold the Korean people into conscientious workers and to quiet subversive thoughts that spurred Minjung or any other form of activism.

Widespread propaganda emphasized proper morals and a strong work ethic and reminded people of the hazards of foreign imperialism and aggression. The government even scrutinized the public performances of folksongs it had officially designated as cultural properties,?? making sure their performers did not abandon the script for the sake of entertainment. The rules for censorship were left intentionally vague, but expressions of support for North Korean or Japanese society and culture could result in incarceration and even torture.” In 1999, the second democratically elected government acknowledged that there was no longer a purpose for such policies and abolished many of the propaganda and censorship committees that had scrutinized the entertainment media and public performances." Government-disseminated information nevertheless continues to bean important political tool and efforts to protect Korean moral standards persist, albeit in reduced form. As many forms of commerce and political activism have moved online, the Korean government has established new agencies to survey online activities. While some of these may be politically motivated in their investigation of potentially subversive or otherwise illegal activities, others, such as those protecting Korean copyright, may be driven mostly by the possible loss of revenue.