[Reportage] Celebrating peace in a land of war and division

Posted on : 2019-06-10 17:18 KST Modified on : 2019-06-10 17:18 KST
DMZ Peace Train Music Festival kicks off in front of old WPK headquarters in Cheorwon County
The “Friendship Concert” kicks off the DMZ Peace Train Music Festival in front of the old Workers’ Party of Korea headquarters in Cheorwon County
The “Friendship Concert” kicks off the DMZ Peace Train Music Festival in front of the old Workers’ Party of Korea headquarters in Cheorwon County

The ruins of the old headquarters of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) are located in Cheorwon County, Gangwon Province. This Russian-style building went up in 1946, a year after Korea’s liberation, when the area was under North Korean control. The building is pockmarked by bullet holes and bomb blasts, a legacy of the Korean War. During Communist rule before the war, the building was where anti-communist activists were taken, often to be tortured and killed. This was also where Seo Taiji and Boys shot the music video for their 1994 song “Dreaming of Balhae,” a call for Korea’s peaceful reunification.

On the evening of June 7, martial music rang out in front of the old WPK headquarters. While it’s a normal occurrence for military songs to be heard here, given all the soldiers stationed along the border, there was something different about the songs sung that day. In place of a military band, there was a 10-person band playing jazz music; instead of soldiers, it was free-styling indie musicians like Baek Hyun-jhin, Kim Sa-wol, Kim Hae-won, and Kim Ji-won. Dancers from the Ambiguous Dance Company put on a playful show in time to the martial music. This was all part of the “Friendship Concert,” a special show marking the beginning of the DMZ Peace Train Music Festival, which is being held for three days in and around Cheorwon County.

 Gangwon Province
Gangwon Province

“We are Korea’s freedom fighters / Veterans in search of our home country,” sang folk singer-songwriter Kim Hae-won, as she kicked off the festival with the song “Yalu River March.” After that, she sang the familiar song “Sleep Well, Fellow Soldier,” which begins with the line, “Forward, forward, over more and more bodies of our fellow soldiers.” Kim Sa-wol appeared for the second verse. “My comrade-at-arms vanished amid the smoke / of the last cigarette we shared on a moonlit hill.” The faint and dreamy voice of a woman added pathos to the army songs. A weeping trombone — a staple of energetic military marching bands — played a plaintive solo.

Musicians satirize military songs and transform their sound

While preparing for this concert, Kim Sa-wol said, she was shocked by the violent lyrics of military songs. She felt unable to relate to the song and seriously considered dropping out of the concert. Kim was finally persuaded to continue with the rehearsals by Jang Young-gyu, the concert producer. The concert’s objective, Jang told her, was to deconstruct the violence in military songs by paradoxically revealing their myopia and irrationality.

Next up on the stage was Baek Hyun-jhin, who is part of the Eoeobu Project duo along with Jang Young-gyu. Hobbling around the stage, Baek sang, “We are with the fatherland / Loyalty is with us,” the first lines of the song “With the Fatherland.” He was wearing a T-shirt with the word “state,” which was crossed out by a big X. There was a striking contrast between the lyrics of the song and the message that was actually being conveyed, a satire of totalitarianism and collectivism. Some of the audience members swayed along with the music.

 on June 7. (provided by the DMZ Peace Train Music Festival)
on June 7. (provided by the DMZ Peace Train Music Festival)

When Kim Sa-wol was singing “Go to the Front,” small drones rose into the air to film the area around the concert. Some drones take photos of beautiful scenery; others drop bombs on the battlefield. In an age when patrols and bombing runs are carried out by unmanned aircraft rather than jet fighters, Baek was singing “The Red Scarf,” a song about a fighter pilot. The lyrics of the song — “Don’t trust my feelings, young lady / Youth passes like a flash of lightning” — seemed to convey the idea of human futility with exceptional impact.

Kim Ji-won, from the band Billy Carter, sang the song “You and I,” which starts with the lyric, “Who will protect it, if not you and I?” The lines “The bloodline of our people was divided into North and South / Who will reconnect it, if not you and I?” seemed to carry fresh significance. When sung by soldiers, the song is presumably talking about forceful unification, but it occurred to me that, if the song were sung by all Koreans, it could also be understood as meaning peaceful unification.

The “Friendship Concert” kicks off the DMZ Peace Train Music Festival in front of the old Workers’ Party of Korea headquarters in Cheorwon County
The “Friendship Concert” kicks off the DMZ Peace Train Music Festival in front of the old Workers’ Party of Korea headquarters in Cheorwon County

The final song, which was sung by all the performers together, was the “Song of the Army Reserves,” which starts out with the lyric, “The soldiers of yesterday have come together again.” Considering that Korean men still have to sing lyrics like “shouldering our guns as we build” and “come out, invaders of the red horde” even after they’ve finished their military service and returned to civilian life, perhaps we’re all still living in a huge barracks. Perhaps that has something to do with the frequent derogatory references to “lefties” and “commies” seen online even today. The end of the concert left a bitter taste in my mouth.

“The point of this project was to sing the military songs that have been sung more than any others during Cheorwon County’s modern and contemporary history so as to scrutinize those lyrics without getting lost in them and to transform them into a new sound. We also hope that our post-ideological project will someday enable Cheorwon to be known purely for its scenery and its seasonal characteristics,” Jang Young-gyu said, referring to the fact that the county is mostly known for the military presence today.

By Suh Jung-min, music correspondent

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]

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