No.032 - Expanding research horizons abroad: An interview with associate professor, Mutsuhiko Matsuda

Expanding research horizons abroad: An interview with associate professor, Mutsuhiko Matsuda

We asked Mutsuhiko Matsuda, associate professor in the National Museum of Japanese History (Rekihaku), who went on a research trip to the Republic of Korea to tell us about his memorable events and research activities in Korea. Matsuda went to Korea as part of the National Institutes for the Humanities’ Program for Young Researcher Overseas Visits. This Program sends young researchers taking part in the Institute’s Transdisciplinary Projects to research institutes abroad and aims to promote international cooperation and to develop internationally minded researchers.

Matsuda-sensei, what are your research interests and what projects you are working on now?

At the moment, I am helping with preparations for an exhibition tentatively titled Japan and Korea: Connected by the Sea, based on results of Rekihaku’s collaborative research project called “Comparative Study on Cultural Framework of Living, Religions and Rituals Related to Sea between Japan and Korea”. The exhibition will be jointly held with the National Folk Museum of Korea, a Rekihaku partner institution.

Japan is composed of a chain of islands, whereas Korea is situated on a continental peninsula. The Japanese and Korean cultures are quite different, and yet they share elements in common as well. In this collaborative research project Japanese and Korean scholars sought not only to shed light on cultural differences and similarities related to the sea, but also to clarify the background to such contrasts and resemblances.

I wish to widely share with the general public what the participating researchers felt, discussed, and deliberated after visiting different locations in Japan and Korea. The exhibition, Japan and Korea: Connected by the Sea, will be held at the National Folk Museum of Korea, in Seoul from October 2019 to February 2020 and then will be held at Rekihaku between March to May 2020.

What first got you interested in this research area?

Rekihaku has been running an exchange project with the National Folk Museum of Korea for a decade, and in 2015, I was put in charge of the next five-year program of the exchange project. Our program team set a goal to mount a joint Japan-Korea exhibition within the five years, featuring comparisons of maritime life and culture in Japan and Korea. After that, to prepare for the exhibition, I launched the collaborative research project mentioned earlier.

I had no previous experience in Korean studies, but as I researched fishery sites and the use of marine products in Korea, I noticed many similarities with Japan. The similarities stem, of course, from the shared cultural foundations of the East Asian region and the commonalities of our natural environments. But what’s also notable is how the activities of Japanese fishermen expanded into Korean waters in the prewar period. As a researcher interested in the mobiligy of fishermen, I decided to approach my analysis from the perspective of the modern-era activities of Japanese fishermen in Korean waters.

What was your purpose in going to Korea with the NIHU Program for Young Researcher Overseas Visits?

I planned to look into the current state of sea-related historical and cultural resources in Korea—technologies, beliefs, rituals and the like and based my research at the Center for Social Sciences, College of Social Sciences, Seoul National University. My plan also included looking at efforts by museums and administrative bodies in different parts of the country to preserve and pass down such resources to younger generations.

My visit to Korea was part of my research I was undertaking for the Transdisciplinary Project “Development of Cross-Cultural Research Bases for Studies of History and Culture.” Our goal is to define models of and conditions for establishing bases for passing on to the next generation the diverse historical and cultural resources of regional communities and accordingly to make concrete suggestions for achieving those models and conditions. So, the task I set for the project was to conduct a comparative study of the preservation and transmission of historic cultural resources, focusing particularly on East Asia.

What was the most memorable event of your stay in Korea?

That would be fieldwork I did concerning the Lunar New Year festival (Seollal) in Hwangdo, Anmyeon, situated in Taean County, South Chungcheong Province. It is an around-the-clock festival that takes place at a village hall dedicated to the spirits of the ancestors, and is presided over by a group of mudang shamans invited by the village. Presenting prayers and singing in a trance-like state, the mudangs ask the gods for peace and security and large catches of fish in the new year. Amid intense cold, a bull is killed and carved as a sacrifice. The experience of joining the mudangs and villagers as they danced, warming themselves with hot soup made from the meat and unfiltered sake made by the villagers, was completely new to me.

Another memorable event was when I went to observe a festival in Wando, located in Wando County, South Jeolla Province. On the day of the Daeboreum festival celebrating the first full moon of the lunar first month, people visit individual households while ringing handheld bells and beating drums. The older women there were full of energy, drinking and dancing happily. Apparently in Wando, it is a day when women may express themselves freely—which contrasts with festivals in Japan, where women are often most active behind the scenes. One older woman, looking happily inebriated, kissed me on the cheek when I told her I was from Japan.

Do you have any advice for students and young researchers who are considering research abroad?

I would encourage young scholars to go abroad, not only for the immediate and direct benefits to what they are currently working on, but also to expand and enhance the horizons of their studies. The scope of any research broadens in proportion to the amount of material we have for comparison, and this is true not only in folklore but in other fields.

Although I specialize in Japanese folk customs, not Korean studies, the four and a half months in Korea turned out to be an extremely important experience because the fieldwork I did there expanded my horizons as a Japanese studies scholar. For instance, focusing only on Japan could prevent me from recognizing whether a certain phenomenon is inherently Japanese or is perhaps something more universal. But now—with my experience in Korea—when I am engaged in research on any of many different topics in Japan, I often recall similar cases that I encountered in Korea or experience amazement at how seemingly similar phenomena may have strikingly different significance in the two countries.

Mutsuhiko Matsuda, Associate Professor, National Museum of Japanese History
After majoring in modern literature at the School of Letters, Arts and Sciences I, Waseda University, Matsuda received his Ph.D. in folklore studies at the Graduate School of Literature, Seijo University. His books include Hito no idō no minzokugaku: Tabi kara miru nariwai to kokyō [The Folklore of Human Relocation: Considering Occupation and Native Place from the Viewpoint of Travel] (Mutsuhiko Matsuda, Keiyūsha, 2010), and Yanagita Kunio to kōkogaku: Naze Yanagita wa kōko shiryō o shūshū shita no ka [Kunio Yanagita’s Relationship with Archaeology] (Hiromi Shirata, Yūichirō Kudo, Mutsuhiko Matsuda eds., Shinsensha, 2016).