Also, considering that the National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts holdsthe largest number of performances of Korean traditional music, the Gugak FM is thoughtto contribute to the dissemination and preservation of the music by broadcasting it andproducing its recordings.There still is an important issue-why so many Korean people don't like Koreantraditional music. I think it is at least partially due to the very limited opportunity forpeople to be exposed to it. The main trend of culture in Korea is the dominance ofWestern- style popular culture that has deluged Korea since the period of Japanesecolonization. Broadcasting Western-style popular music brought mass media commercialsuccess. In recent years, there has been a strong trend to reevaluate and restore Koreantraditional culture in other realms. A TV program broadcast some young people whofrequently ate Western style fast food, like hamburger, and, because their diet wasnutritiously unbalanced, had many different illnesses. Their dietary cure was to adjustthemselves to eating their own traditional food. It took more than one year for them to getback to a better physical condition. Might there be a parallel in music? However, the budget for traditional culture is always not enough. In the year of 2002, when13,985 hundred million won was for the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 141 hundredmillion won was allotted for the Traditional Regional Culture Bureau, 267 hundred millionwon for the National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts and the Gugak FM isgiven 5 hundred million won as an ordinary budget by the government. It means thatgovernment invests more money into non-traditional areas of culture.Also, the government doesn't have an explicit policy about broadcasting Gugak.Consequently, the managers of broadcasting companies have been more motivated byratings and financial profitability than by the value of tradition. Arirang TV, which targetsoverseas viewers with its satellite broadcast, stopped the shows like "Sound and Motion"which included some performances of Korean traditional music and dance along with otherforms of performances. The producer, Park Hyung-sil, says that making Gugak programs isnot easy in that there are not many artists to select and take more money to make the showappealing to viewers. According to her, the target of Arirang TV is diverse and complexand if any broadcasting station has to be blamed not to show Korean traditional performingarts, then it should be Korean broadcasting stations that targets Koreans who should have Koreanness. Considering that Korean traditional performing arts were more highlyappreciated overseas than in Korea in the past, and still are by some people, I still miss theshow like "Sound and Motion" by Arirang TV (but at least Arirang TV rebroadcasts theseand other cultural programs).If Gugak presentation on radio and TV wants to help Gugak gain more respect andpopularity among Korean audiences, new skills should be tried and developed. Forexample, ¡°Gugak Hanmadang,¡± a Korean traditional music program on KBS TV, usesvarious lighting effects and stage as an aid to overcome the difficulty in capturing thebeauty and subtlety of the most of Korean traditional performing arts. Another way forGugak to gain popularity would be to have a TV idol to star as a student of Koreantraditional music or dance in a sit-com or drama.Some people think that Korean music is boring and strange. They have beenprovided with only a few chances to learn about Korean traditional music and they arelikely to judge it from their limited experience. There is actually a great variety of music,vocal and instrumental, court and folk, and so forth, that comprises Korean tradition.Maybe it will take more time for them to find the beauty of their own traditional music thanthe taste of food.
5. Conclusion
Recently, Korean government and mass media are happy to talk about the "Koreasyndrome," or "hanryu" (Korean Wave) in pop culture as it is called by local fans, which iscurrently sweeping China and some Southeast Asian countries. It is shocking to even
Korean people that Korean culture can be exported and earn money. Meanwhile, thegovernment says that it will cut the budget for the Gugak FM year by year so that it shouldeventually be financially on its own feet. However, short-term monetary gains will beamong the last elements to be considered in cultural planning.While working for preservation and promotion of Korean traditional music, theGugak FM works for popular culture at the same time as it imagines a Korean popularculture of the future. Programs such as Yoon Joong-kang's 2030 introduce popular musicsemploying Korean traditional musical elements in belief that Gugak FM has a duty to findthose kinds of music and spread them to the general public, as most other radio and TVstations do not care.Some Gugak lovers dream of expanding the broadcasting of Gugak FM to becomenationwide and to add TV broadcasting system so that Gugak FM can guide Koreancultural trends towards the production of a Korean mass culture more deeply rooted inKorean tradition and turn the present "Korea syndrome" into an indigenous, long-termcondition. It might seem an unrealistic vision at present; but culture, including musicaltastes, is always dynamic. As human action and belief, it is responsive to human action andbelief-from seemingly chaotic worldwide trends, to the focused efforts of radioprogrammers staking their claim on the Korean airwaves.
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