Dance by M.Mukundan
Translated by D.Krishna Ayyar and K.G. Ramakrishnan
“Dance with your body as a whole, not with your limbs alone.”
“Amidst a swirl of dancing bodies, my body stood out stark and clear. The darkness which no one wanted was now an asset. To appreciate black, I had to borrow the eyes of white men.”
“Dance” is not merely about dance. “It is multi-layered. It is about the borderless world. It speaks about the colonisation of bodies. The changing face of art and its commercialisation also finds mention,” Mukundan unravels the novella.
This is illustrated with a story- In a restaurant there are four people sitting. First one is 'A' blood group, second one is 'B' blood group, third one is 'AB' and fourth one is 'O'. When the food arrives, it is not good, thus follows reactions from each person belonging to specific blood group. 'A' blood group- "Oh my!! if I leave my food what will the others think?" (incessantly worrying) 'B' blood group- "Who cares, let's finish it, forget it and move on" (insensitive, opportunist) 'AB' blood group- "What kind of crap is this!! I will sue you"(rebel, leader, extrovert, dominating) and 'O' blood group person continues to eat happily (easygoing, happy-go-lucky, carefree and cool-headed.) So people with 'B' blood group are supposed to be the twisted, cold-hearted, opportunists, who cannot be trusted. This interesting fact was related to me by none other than my Korean professor after a casual post-conference coffee. What surprised me was the reaction of the other Korean students who were subsequently asked their blood-groups, all of them said they belonged to 'A', 'AB', or 'O'. It turned out that I was the only person with 'B' blood group and a foreigner. The idea of personality based on blood group is said to be started by the Japanese (click on link)
If you write anyone's name in red, (including your own) you wish them death. I would write my name with multi-colour pens on my syntax text books just to make it look happy, one day my Korean classmate pointed out that I should not write my name in red, as I would be inviting death. My guess is that maybe the colour red is the colour of blood, so if you write your name in red it's like writing it in blood, hence you are going to spill your blood, in other words you would get hurt or die. On the contrary names are written in red on wedding invitation cards for Hindus. All names are written in red because it indicates celebration, joy and an auspicious occasion.
When I would go to the biggest department store in Korea, Time World Galleria, I would be confused by the numbering in the elevator. It had numeric 1 to 15 indicating the floors on it except number 4. In place of 4 it was written 'F'. Now I would think this 'F' would stand for first floor. But that was not logical. So my Korean friend explained it to me that number 4 is the number of death for Koreans. The phonetic sound of 4 in Korean is 'sa', which is derived from Chinese, 'ci', which also means 'to die'. Therefore the elevator does not have 4 written on the buttons, just a 'F'. Some apartments do not even have the fourth floor, after the 3rd floor we go directly to the 5th floor.
Eating hot, piping Korean food like 'Sam-gye-thang', chicken soup in scorching summer will cool your body. Eating the hot soup will make you sweat, therefore due to the perspiration your body temperature will cool down, releasing the heat from inside. Also when you are angry, you should drink hot water (not cold water). Hot water will make the anger spill out, instead of cooling it down and suppressing it. If you drink cool water the anger gets suppressed, it increases the pressure on your heart which is not good. Therefore, one should drink hot water to release anger.
The idea takes root in Confucianism-your parents gave you the body you are born with. You have no right over it, so you cannot destroy it or deform it in any ways. Piercing makes a hole in your body which is a form of defiling, therefore you are destroying the gift that your parents gave. Therefore any form of piercing is bad and a disrespect. Not many Korean girls actually have too many pierces, at max most of them have one set of ear piercing, that too after they pass out of school or graduate from university, basically as soon as they can renounce parental control. Although some Korean guys too are joining the piercing club with changing times. Personally, I used to get a lot of attention in Korea for my nose piercing, when perfect strangers in bus stations would come up to me, point at my nose and ask, "Appha-yo?" ("Does it hurt?")
There is a special spicy pork rib soup in Korea, called 'Hye-jang-kook' that is believed to be the perfect remedy to remove hangover. It is believed to be made with special herbs and spices that 'wake up' your senses. This is one of the most delicious dishes I have had in Korea. I still remember that place near City Hall, behind the Krispy Kreme that would serve the best pork rib soup in town. It is served specially in a black stone bowl, straight out of fire along with radish kimchi as side dish (fermented vegetable, Korean specialty). So if Saturday night you drunk then Sunday morning eat spicy pork rib soup to avoid hangover. Around the campus area called Gung Dong, there was an eating place run by a Korean ajuma, who would sell 'hye-jang-kook' and open up as early as 7.30am. Every morning there would be a long line of Korean men going in and ordering pork soup, after a night of partying!