Heinz-Murray 2E.book

Chapter 9 Korea 353

cial duties. The mask dances are also a venue for ridiculing the patriarchal

system. Men are a consistent object of mockery and satire. Old men lust after

young concubines within the household, in violation of strict familial norms of

Confucianism and Korean society. There is a stock scene in which an old man

abandons his old wife for a younger concubine, causing his wife to die of grief.

Hypocritical male characters point out each other’s flaws and transgressions,

only to commit the same transgressions once their companion leaves the stage.

This uproarious irreverence—skewering pious Buddhism, strict Confucianism,

and patriarchy—often evokes raucous audience participation, with call-and-

response interactions with the audience, and the line between performer and

audience blurred.

Three Kingdoms Period (378 B.C.E.–935 C.E.)

By the beginning of the Common Era, three distinct Korean kingdoms had

emerged, lasting most of the first millennium C.E. (see map 9.2). Each of them

became centralized polities, divided into administrative units, with power cen-

ters around castles where chiefs and kings demanded taxes and corvée labor

from the countryside. The three were Koguryo (37 B.C.E.–668 C.E., sometimes

Actors perform a scene at the annual Andong Mask Dance Festival, 2013, at Hahoe

Folk Village in South Korea. The traditional mask dance can be an uproarious and

earthy performance, mocking social and political norms and engaging audience mem-

bers in the drama.