Malaysian crossings: place and language in the worlding of modern Chinese literature

Abstract

Western music and musicology, and growing global cultural clout are irrelevant here and do not entitle the Republic of Korea to a superior position in the contending regional versions of musical tradition. Koo then runs through ‘the PRC’s institution of its Intangible Cultural Heritage Law’, referencing a law passed in 2011 which, in its own words, aims to ‘maintain the country’s unification and ethnic unity and promote social harmony and sustainable development’. The paradox here is evident: the language of the law by its very nature homogenises, but its implementation also meant, in Koo’s words, that ‘Chaoxianzu kayagum music and Kim Songsam (as a key tradition bearer) as important state cultural heritages and assets ensured the transmission of Chaoxianzu kayagum music in China’. What, then, is the metric against which this positivity can be measured? Koo looks at enrolments at cultural institutions in Yanbian, noting that in the first decade of the 2000s, ‘[the] Yanbian Arts school had seen a drastic decline in the number of students majoring in Chaoxianzu music, both in singing and instruments’. Someone has to keep the tradition alive and evolving, and the classrooms filled, and if the state provides support in those endeavours, it should be taken. The book occasionally slips into specialist vocabulary, but it also includes useful appendices, including an English/Chinese/Korean list of general terms, as well as a trilingual appendix on place names that will be highly useful to those working on the region. This book slots perfectly alongside Keith Howard’s relatively new magnum opus on North Korean music and fills a huge gap in the Korean peninsula musicology focus. It also helps to fill in a deeper sense of the comprehensive reality of minority culture and the state of transnational musical practices in the PRC since that state’s inception. It speaks to the diversity of experiences in Yanbian during the Mao years, and fleshes out details about Yanbian’s cultural growth during the reform or Dengist era. This book is a gem. It merits careful reading and should stimulate further work in the fields of ethnomusicology, Korean history, Korean diaspora studies, the history of music and politics in Northeast China, and borderlands and Korean studies.