Farewell Party 3

An aged man's grandmother 

 

1.

Early Autumn in 2017. An aged man and three men climbed up together the Chun Ju Mountain situated in Changwon city and sat on a high ridge opposite to the shrubbery zone not far from it. It was spacious enough for climbers to stop for a moment's rest. The mountain top was about 100 meters above the ridge. The ridge is also where the city of Chang-won and the Kun of Haman meet with each other. 

A moment later, the three men were about to pack up their belongings, reading the face of the old, who was looking over toward an old oak by the azaleas in groups in the shrubbery zone. The aged man turned his eyes to the men and said without any sign of rising to his feet, 

"You, young men! Look over there where an oak tree stands. That is the very place of our destination. We don't have to walk up anymore." 

One of them asks in return, "Eh? You mean we stop here?" 

"Right. Here is the very place." the old man replied.

Now the two young men began to make necessary arrangements still sitting on the ground. Su Kil, one of the two, opened the bag on the basis by his side and took out a Dae Gum (bamboo flute), and the other drew the Chang Gu drum nearer to his side. The old kept his eyes fixed to an old oak by a significant number of azaleas. The oak, with several boughs broken, was conspicuously taller than any other trees around it. The zone would have offered a grand violet-colored spectacle with the azaleas in full bloom every early Spring. In June, this cloudy day, with no rain and no direct sun lights over their heads, it was rarely good to walk up along the mountain path.

"Now we will be ready, Sir!" said one of the two young men to the old.

​"Oh, do not hurry. Stay as you are there for a while. I have something to do in advance before you play it." said the old man and added," It is a special day for me. I am here with you to tell the oak something particular."

​"To tell the tree?"

​"Yes. Now I am to do a ritual of paying my last respect to the oak. It is the reason that I am with both of you, young musicians."

​"Yes?"

​"Today, I would say 'Goodbye!' to the oak. I made up my mind to do so, for I am old and physically hardly suitable to climb here. For the first time, I wished to invite a pansori singer here, but I changed my mind. I judged that a bamboo flute player is preferable. So, I asked Your father by phone that I would like to come up here with you, Su Kil. I have known you as a promising young degum player. "

​"You like pansori music very much, do you?"

​"You are right; these days, I have often heard pansori singer, An Hyung Ryun's voice."

​"You did it! I got it."                                                                      (page 3)

​The old said again, pointing toward the oak tree and azaleas.

"Near the oak, there a lady in her twenty has been buried beneath the earth, stopping advance in age. Today I will say goodbye to her, so I invite both of you, Korean classical musicians, here. As a matter of course, I get old enough in no physical condition to climb the high mountain anymore. So I made up my mind to choose this day to do the farewell ritual like this. Now I am over the middle of the 70s. After me, who ....."

​The young musicians turned their eyes silently toward the oak he was indicating. One of the three, Tylor, the old's American friend, who joined Immun and came up to the top of the mountain, asked Immun quietly. The American, who had been teaching English at Kyungnam University for more than a year, understood Korean to some extent, so he was curious about the meaning of the words they exchanged but kept listening quietly.

The aged continued: "I don't know precisely the time I first came up here. I remember that I used to climb here in my boyhood with my father and uncles every year in Autumn after the Tsu Suk holiday. How far and how hard it was to follow them up here! After my father's death, it has been my duty to keep climbing here once every year. Since then, I made it a rule to come up here, usually in winter, for 30 years. It was much more comfortable in winter than in Autumn for me to keep the tomb well by mowing the snow-covered and dry grasses quickly on it."

The three men listened to him. Then he threw a few words to the American,

"Hi, Tylor! You are an inspiring literary writer. Can you understand what I said now?" and he nodded in assent.

The old said again to the three," Before our relatives have known this path to climb up, there used to be two other ones, much longer and more unfrequented, to lead us here. Now we have preferred to take this path, easy to walk up.

Today, I am here with you with a purpose: to do a farewell ritual to the oak and azaleas over there. In the place, there have existed my grandfather and grandmother, and father and mother. They are nowhere. Now they turn, as it were, the wind, leaves, or the soil. Of course, there were no tombs for them except one for my grandmother. Now I will make a ritual."

"Then what do we have to do?" said the bamboo flutist.

​"Oh, for a while, you two, stay at ease.", told the old to the two musicians. 

 And the aged began to say alone, looking up toward where the oak and azaleas were: 

"Father! I am here to make my last farewell to you and your mother, stepmother, and father. And my mother, too. Probably today would be the last day for me to be here to meet you. This son will be no more here before you. Your son is now too old to walk up here. Father! Today your son is here to say his last goodbye to you. Today, in particular, a bamboo flutist and his accompanist by me will play a piece of Daegum Sanjo to support me.

(p.4)

Most of all, your son is sad to think of your mother, who died at the age of 20, with you only two months old left. How profoundly sorrowful it is to think of you as a baby only two months old! "

"Is this aged man the same person I met in Seattle 15 years ago? This person seems to have himself strongly intertwined with his deceased family! This person now looks like a different person from my room mater at a Seattle hostel. At that time, this man was a bohemian in his 50s!" Tyler thought so while listening to Inmun's monologue.

 

 

2.

Then in a few minutes of silence, the aged man's monologue was followed by the sound of Degumsanjo played by the young player accompanied by the other young man, Jangku drummer. Beginning with a part of sanjo rhythm named Jinyangjo, slow in tempo, the dark and windy sound of bamboo flute shakes quiet lonesomeness in the high ridge of the mountain where not a man in the exception of them was to be seen. In a moment, the vibrating sound of Sanjo captivates the older man looking over toward the zone of the oak and azaleas. The soft drum beats were beginning to give changes to the rhythm of Sanjo played by the bamboo flute. At the end of the 19th century, a Korean musical instrument like Gayagum accompanied by the drum originated the sanjo rhythm. A piece of it sounds like an impromptu: at first, it begins calm and meditative, and as the tempo is getting faster, it grows more tense and brilliant so that it brings a feeling of jubilation.

Daegum Sanjo's sound begins to flow out of the bamboo flute's exit hole, spreading out with regular tempos and rhythm in the repetition of dispersing and gathering again. The sound of it, sometimes quivering and sometimes running slenderly, pushes the air and pulls it, spreading along the path over the high ridge wide and deep.

The flute sound lets the aged man mutter to himself lines of long monologue: 

 

Anytime reaching the hill here, the oak tree shows up before me and the azaleas.

Grandma, at your age of 20 years, lying there is waiting for me now in the age of mid-70s.

You stay as ever in the age of 20 here under the earth.

In the time and tide silently running away, a boy turns an old man, but 'Grandma' remains as a young woman as ever beneath the oak tree over there. Does the time here run, strangely enough, spinning itself around the oak in the high and unfrequented mountain to prevent my 'grandma' who exists as nameless flowers, blooming in the Spring and leaves of glasses getting dry up in the winter, from getting old?

​Grandma! Today I have to say goodbye to you.                              

(p.5)

Now I recollect a remote day when my lonely father said here between sobs in front of his son as a boy, "If I could remember just one time how your figure is, mother! "However, I think with easy that you are less solitary, as your daughter-in-law now 92 years old, my late mother is also by your side as the wind or soil.

Grandma! Someday this grandson shall be here buried by your side or be there in the Soo Woo Island.

Or, probably be a handful of ashes in the sea by the island.

 

The sound of sanjo runs, rolling into the speedy tempo of Jajinmori, and his thinking follows the rhythm of the sound, which runs faster and faster into the spit. In a moment, it brings in his closed eyes the path beginning from the unseen entrance of the valley far- off down. It climbs up through the deep forest to this place where he is now. The way makes curves from corner to corner in the endlessly long winding path up beneath the mountain's summit. Sometimes appears well-straightened and broader way with tall chestnut trees near at one side of it, and sometimes is followed in connection by a gentle path up with pretty flowers, pink and yellow, of nameless grasses side by side. In a moment appears a snake on the path groveling into the grass bushes. The trail suddenly takes an abrupt turn, and an unexpected new path turning up in the almost opposite direction lets him be confused. It is the image of the way through which he would climb here on the past days to meet them hazily emerged before his mind-eyes.

​Soon at the time of the rhythmic sound of Daegum Sanjo going down, the aged stopped murmuring to himself and turned his eyes to Tylor. "Do you like it?" In mun said to Tylor, who lent his ears to the flow of sound. 

"It's not artificial, but natural, In a sense, spontaneous!. The flute sound gets along with the wind over the glasses or birds in the trees sing at sunset. Does it sound fit well with the loneliness of this ridge where humans are rare? Oh, it reminds me of "Condor Pa Sa", the fan plot-played sound by a Mexican musician.", 

Tylor added to it, "By the way, are you the backpack traveler, my roommate in the hostel of Turtles by the fish market of Seatle fifteen years ago? Eh,...in the past, you looked like a free-souled hosteler that wasn't bound anywhere!"

 

 

3.

​"Hello, Jung! How are you? It's nice to see you again."

"Dear Inmun! How are you? Glad to meet you here. Thank you for the several materials for the Pansori- Flamenco performance you sent by mail to me before."

"What a surprise that you and Yonda have been familiar with each other! How small the world is!" said Inmun.                                                  

 ( p.6)

Jung said," I have been on intimate terms with Yonda ever since I first met her at the Dae Dong festival in Chang-Dong. Then weeks earlier, Yonda gave me a call, informing me of an older man who was anxious to meet the pansori singer named Jung, myself."

Inmun added a few words, "Oh, I happened to tell Yonda about you when I dropped in here before."

 

After a while, Yonda joined them in the conversation, saying to Jung, "You must be getting famous here to know Inmun well!"

"Oh, it was a rare occurrence that we met at a particular place a few weeks before," replied Jung.

Yonda asked her again out of curiosity," Where was it?" and turned her eyes to Immun. He replied to her," Do you know the Dal Chun Valley at the bottom of Chun Ju Mountain? We met each other there. I happened to make a slow ascent along the streamlet's path to reach a hill beneath the mountain top. On my way up along the trail, I stopped to hear Pansori's harsh voice sound somewhere nearby. I could listen to the voice mixed with the intense sound of water stream from the streamlet. So I stepped down through the bushes, captivated by the pansori voice, to find a woman on a vast rock in the creek. She sat singing it in a meditating posture.

"Oh, Jung! Isn't it true?"

She said, recalling the situation to her mind, "Sure, That's it. The water sound completely prevented me from being aware that someone sat not far in the rear of me, as I was concentrating on myself. After a while, by an indication of someone being around me, I came to turn my head back to find an older man sitting on a small rock. It's you, Immun! In a moment, I was surprised to see an older man there. If you had been a younger one, I surely would have been very watchful. Then you came down by such an isolated stream through the wall of shrubs and trees!"

Inmun replied to her," For this or that reason, I asked Yonda to make a chance for me to see you."

"Oh, I wanted to meet you, too, Dear Immun," she followed him.

And the old man hesitantly added a few words, "As a matter of fact, I have an important thing to talk with you. Hi, Jung, may I ask you to sing a piece of Pansori?"

She replied, "Are you sure? If you want me to do it, no problem. Then, when?"

He said, "I will let you know as soon as I made a date." and continued scratching his head awkwardly, "By the way, the place is near under the summit of the mountain, and there would be no audience but for mountain birds and me."

She replied, "What? In the deep mountain? It might be a strange performance, but it would be interesting."

He said, "Then what about a part of Simcheongga song? "            

(p.7)

Listening to the two's conversations, Yonda asked, "What the hell are you doing there?".

He replied with vague words, "Now I can climb that high ridge any more, so I am going to say goodbye to her there."

Yonda said again. "Who is she?

He replied, "To a young woman there."

Yonda, whose curiosity grew even more, kept on asking, "A newly-married woman there in the deep mountain? What on earth do you mean?"

He replied, "Oh, my grandmother in her age of 20 is there.", and kept on saying straightforwardly. "I mean, as I am too old to go up any more there to meet her under the earth, so I would like to have a farewell ritual there."

After listening to him about the farewell ritual, Yonda cautiously replied," Then, a piece of Pansori in such a high and deep mountain where nobody would be? So, I think it would be better to pick up a tune on the bamboo flute than the sound of vocal music. You said there would be mountain squirrels or wild birds as the audience. It would be a desolate scene with no man audience present."

He replied, "Is that so?"

She answered, "Hey, Imagine once. The things you want to express are your inexplicable emotions. Isn't it? Then how would you do it with unnecessary words in the deep mountain where there ould be no men to listen to ?"

Jung also liked Yeon's idea that the Sanjo tune on the bamboo flute would be better than Pansori made of singing words. There would be sure only wild birds or trees and you, Inmun", and continued, "Both Pansori and Sanjo are the pieces of music expressing sorrow and the sounds that cause the cracks and subsequent excitement. However, if you think more about it, Pansori is the center of the story. It consists of words. In that sense, it is more fundamental in that Sanjo is a post-verbal expression. "

During this conversation, recalling a verse 'below' (in the prose of Jean Gnieier), he decided to choose Daegeum Sanjo instead of Pansori on the spot. 

"Nothing expresses our heart. Words, actions, images, dreams .......

But sometimes, a single cry frees us."

(p.8)