UNSRC Korean Cultural Society

The Los Angeles Times

The ritual performance, which involves sacred chants and elaborate dances, was almost lost under restrictions imposed during Japanese colonialism in the first half of the 20th century.

Monks of South Korea’s Young San Preservation Group perform pomp’ae – sacred, melodic chants punctuated by gongs and drums — at the Irvine Barclay Theatre. (Christina House / For The Times / October 10, 2009)

It begins on a darkened stage. Someone chants. The sound of water flows from speakers. The lights come up slowly in imitation of dawn. A gong sounds, and five monks walk in procession onto the stage. The first one carries a candle and stops in front of an altar and an image of Buddha. The others stand behind him. In quick succession they kneel and stand, kneel and stand.

The ritual, performed by South Korea’s Young San Preservation Group at the Irvine Barclay Theatre this month, is meant to awaken the forces of the natural world. On stage, it was a sacred ceremony condensed — a five-minute greeting for the day.

In their 80-minute version of the Young San ritual, the group’s eight monks performed traditional dances known as chakpop and music known as pomp’ae — unwritten chants learned by ear and recited from memory. Pomp’ae, translated to mean “sacred chant,” consists of long, drawn-out melodic lines punctuated by gongs and drums.

The group was touring the United States under the sponsorship of the Korea Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting awareness and cooperation between South Korea and the U.S. Just hours after the Irvine presentation, the monks headed east for performances at Princeton University and the Smithsonian Institution.

Each performance of the ritual is meant to “spread the goodness of the Buddha to all the world,” the Venerable Dong Hee, a monk and the group’s director, said through a translator.

The music and dance help bring peace not only to those who are still alive but also to the sprits of those who have died unfairly, she said.

Hee has dedicated a lifetime to preserving the rituals of this ceremony, which was nearly lost under restrictions imposed during Japanese colonialism in the first half of the 20th century. She began learning the chants as a child studying under the Venerable Song-am Park, a revered Korean monk who helped preserve the ritual during the colonial period, and is the first woman to join the lineage of the pomp’ae monks.

She learned the music first, then the dancing, she said.

“A profound understanding of the music leads to the dance,” Hee said. “Without understanding the music, there is no dancing.”

When the music fills her body, she said, she imagines the ideal world and tries to send that vision out to those around her.

Shortly after the five-minute awakening performance, five monks took the stage for Insong, a 10-minute chant to request that all Bodhisattvas — enlightened beings — attend the ceremony.

Chanting, interspersed with cymbal dances, a drum dance and a butterfly dance, followed.

In one cymbal dance, six monks walked in procession onto the stage, each carrying a pair of brass cymbals. They waved them over their heads, then brought them together — not quite touching at first, then sliding them against each other ever so lightly so that the slightest reverberations could be heard around the theater. They did this three times in unison, then knelt together on the floor. The soft tap, tap, tap was followed by a louder clash. The shiny, pounded-metal cymbals were like a cluster of fluttering autumn leaves.

The monks stood again and danced with cymbals overhead. They bowed and most walked slowly off the stage, leaving one behind to chant alone.

A few minutes later, Hee stood in front of a drum, drumsticks in hand, and played and danced alone. The drum dance is a wish, she said, that all beings be enlightened in response to the beat.

In the butterfly dance, the monks entered in flowing robes and brightly colored headdresses. Each one carried a large peony and stepped slowly in rhythm around the center of the stage. They extended their arms like butterflies and then knelt to the floor.

The final performance was a 10-minute chant by Hee, accompanied by a lone drummer. The lights were dimmed for a time, then came up slowly as the drumbeat and the chant picked up speed.

It is a supplication, the group says, that all the blessings from the ceremony be transferred to the realization of peace.

paloma.esquivel@latimes.com

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

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The Museum of Chicken Art in Seoul displays carvings, paintings, embroidery and other works that celebrate the hen and rooster.

The Museum of Chicken Art in Seoul has 2,000 exhibits of carvings, paintings, puppets and more that celebrate the hen and rooster. (Ju-min Park / Los Angeles Times)

Reporting from Seoul - For years, Kim Cho-gang kept her oddball art collection out of sight, hidden away in a basement.

She admits hers is a rather unusual assemblage: wood carvings, paintings, puppets and embroidery — all celebrating the lowly chicken. There are roosters and hens big and small, birds depicted clucking, scratching and crowing.

Since 2006, these works have had a public place to roost.

Setting aside her lifelong dream of opening a child-care center, the 70-year-old former public health professor runs the Seoul Museum of Chicken Art, a private facility containing all things fowl.

Kim is crazy about chickens, including their looks and their historical and cultural significance in countries across the world.

“I do not buy luxuries. I don’t buy cosmetics. I am only indulged in chickens,” said Kim, an elegant gray-haired woman with glittering chicken earrings and a multicolored rooster brooch. “Whenever I make money, I mostly spend it buying chicken art pieces.”

In 2000, the South Korean government passed a law that opened the door to for-profit private museums of all kinds. Since then, Seoul has become the home of a wide variety of private museums containing collections of what many might consider offbeat subjects.

There’s a museum dedicated to kimchi, one of Korea’s national dishes. There’s a dumpling museum, a sex museum, and showcases for rocks, masks, owls and traditional knots — many in the same neighborhood as Kim’s museum.

“There are so many Koreans who are passionate about collecting,” said Kim In-whoe, president of the National Trust Cultural Heritage Fund of Korea. By opening a museum, he says, they can try to turn their passions into profits.

Kim Cho-gang’s gallery shows that the East and West have something in common when it comes to the chicken — an emblem of luck, fertility and wealth across cultures.

The rooster was once within a whisker of being picked as the national bird of the U.S., Kim says. In Russia, she notes, chickens signify arrogance and in China, they are a symbol of the zodiac. In Korea, they represent wealth, fertility and protection from evil.

Kim got her start as a chicken icon collector decades ago when she came to the conclusion that the bird’s image wasn’t fully appreciated. She was taken aback to see puppet roosters burned as firewood in the countryside. Those roosters were originally attached to a traditional Korean funeral casket.

“I saved a few of the unlit puppet roosters and brought them to Seoul,” she said.

Kim collected chicken art while on vacation and during her academic travels. When she retired a few years ago, she decided to share her acquired knowledge of chicken culture.

Scholars say her fascination with chicken art is far from outlandish.

“The chicken is one of man’s universal livestock, absorbed in various cultures, but barely known,” said Kim In-whoe of the National Trust Cultural Heritage Fund.

The tiny Museum of Chicken Art, in a fashionable neighborhood not far from South Korea’s Constitutional Court, contains 2,000 exhibits. Many artists have donated or lent their works on the winged creature to the museum.

The art is not for sale, but Kim Cho-gang charges a small admission fee and sells souvenirs and postcards.

A brace of chicken sculptures from Mexico seems to cackle in a doorway while a roomful of chicken-shaped charms from Europe reflect light nearby.

There’s a display of bronze, wooden and porcelain fighting cocks from countries that ban cockfighting and those that regard the battles as national sport.

And there is a collection of the wooden roosters that got Kim started as a chicken arts expert: A showroom features kokdoo, bright sculptures that were once a common decoration on Korean funeral biers.

Yu Yeon-joon, a former art magazine writer and freelance photographer, marveled at the range of color at Kim’s museum. “If Picasso was alive, he’d extol flamboyance of chicken arts,” said Yu as he took in the gallery one recent morning.

But not every visitor to Kim’s chicken menagerie gets the point.

One walked in with an unusual question: Does the museum serve chicken soup?

Park is in The Times’ Seoul Bureau.

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

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