Abstract
This chapter examines the “transplantation” (Korean yishik) of the model opera Song of the Dragon River (Longjiang song 1971), as it was adapted for the Korean minority population in northeast China. This was part of a wide push to popularize (puji Korean: pogŭp) the revolutionary model works (yangbanxi Korean: ponbogi kŭk)1 throughout China, initially through radio, films, books, newspapers, and artefacts, and later through regional and ethnic musico-dramatic forms.2 From 1972, cultural organs all over China set about transplanting the model works, including all the troupes working in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Jilin Province.
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Notes
Paul Clark refers to two People’s Daily articles in early 1971 announcing this policy. See Paul Clark, The Chinese Cultural Revolution: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 75.
Kim Tŏkkyun and Kim Tŭkch’ŏng, Chosŏn minjok ŭmakka sajŏn (Dictionary of Korean Musicians) (Yanji: Yŏnbyŏn taehak ch’ulp’ansa, 1998), 429.
Barbara Mittler, Dangerous Tunes: The Politics of Chinese Music in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China since 1949 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997)
Bernard Vincent Olivier, The Implementation of China’s Nationality Policy in the Northeastern Provinces (San Francisco: Mellen Research University Press, 1993), 151.
Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006), 223.
These poetic forms were associated with traditional literati elites and their courtesans. They are set to slow fixed melodies, and are heavily ornamented. See Hae-kyung Um, “Classical Music: Vocal,” in Music of Korea, edited by Byong Won Lee and Yong-Shik Lee (Seoul: KTPAC, 2007), 39–46.
Kim Ch’anghŭi, “Chungguk Chosŏnjok p’ansori yesul paljŏn taehan koch’al” (Outline of the Development of Chinese Korean p’ansori), Tishu diantang (Palace of Arts) 78 (2010): 16.
Bell Yung, “Model Opera as Model: From Shajiabang to Sagabong,” in Popular Chinese Literature and Performing Arts: In the People’s Republic of China, edited by Bonnie MacDougall and Paul Clark (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 144–196
For a detailed description of the 1964 play and the yangbanxi, see Rosemary A. Roberts, Maoist Model Theatre: The Semiotics of Gender and Sexuality in the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) (Leiden: Brill, 2010).
Hŏ Wŏnsik, Kotp’inŭn uri sullim: Hŏ Wŏnsik chukkokjip (Blossoming Lives: Collected Works of Hŏ Wŏnsik) (Yanji: Yanbian renmin chu-banshe, 1982).
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© 2016 Rowan Pease
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Pease, R. (2016). The Dragon River Reaches the Borders: The Rehabilitation of Ethnic Music in a Model Opera. In: Clark, P., Pang, L., Tsai, TH. (eds) Listening to China’s Cultural Revolution. Chinese Literature and Culture in the World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137463579_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137463579_9
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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