In front of In-Kyung Lake, which is a symbol of Inha University, you can see various busking performance day and night whether on weekdays or the weekend. A performance on the campus is so romantic and free that it’s known as one of the important factors of youth culture. However, not everyone loves and enjoys it. In effect, if you look at Inha Plaza, the official website on which students of Inha University can share their opinions, or a facebook page named ‘In-Dae-Jeon’ (which means ‘let me deliver the messages of Inha students’), you can see that quite a lot of students have complained about the noise of busking, especially during exam periods. In this situation, can we still consider ‘busking’ as an art? Let’s see how busking performances have been conducted and how busking-related problems can be dealt with.

What is ‘busking’?

            The word, ‘busking’ originated from ‘busk’, which means performing on the street. The origin of busk is a Spanish word, ‘buscar’ which means to find or get. Recently, busking has become considered as a synonym for street performance which has lower entry barriers than stage performance singing, playing instruments or acting without any specific place to perform.

            There are several famous busking places in Korea: Hongdae (the area around Hongik University) in Seoul, Daegu, and Yeosu in South Jeolla Province.

            First, Hongdae is the hottest busking place for both buskers themselves and their audiences. Since some musicians who previously performed around Daehak-ro in Seoul moved to Hongdae, street performance became a trend in Korea in the 2000s. Those who were branded as ‘underground’, which refers to unknown artists among the public, made indie bands part of the mainstream culture in Hongdae instead of popular music. For example, two representative bands of Korean rock, Crying Nut and No Brain, performed guerrilla concerts in various random locations during the day. Also during that period, busking by professional instrument players was becoming an established part of the cultural landscape.

            Second, there are 3 specific places for busking in Daegu: Dongsung-ro, Kwangseok-Kim Street, and Su-Seong Lake. A lot of busking performances are done at various locations, from the city’s central police box and Daegu Department Sore to Hanil Theater on Dongsung-ro, the main street of Daegu. Busking-culture became a regular feature of Daegu life during the 2010s. Kwangseok-Kim Street is one of the major tourist attractions of Daegu. It was established to pay homage to Kwangseok-Kim, a famous singer and acoustic guitarist who was born in the Bangcheon Market area of the city. It has become one of the most popular busking places in Daegu because of the large number of tourists that visit this famous street. Su-Seong Lake is also a tourist attraction and famous busking place, with four proper stages for busking. After the Su-Seong Lake Ecosystem Restoration Project in late 2013, the number of tourists increased rapidly. It led Su-Seong Lake to become such a popular busking place that it hosted 877 busking performances in 2016. We can see that Suseong-gu is also supporting busking culture as a local government initiative via the official Culture and Tourism Portal of Suseong-gu Office.

            Last, Yeosu is a city of busking loved by a lot of people. From April to October busking is done around Kyodong-Ogeori, Yi-Sunshin Square, Jongpo Ocean Park, Dolsan Park, and more locations on Fridays and weekends. With the popularity of the song ‘Yeosu Bambada’ (‘Sea at night’) by a famous indie group called Buskerbusker and romantic mood of the sea at night in Yeosu, it has become famous among buskers. In 2017 ‘Yeosu Bambada Nangman Busking’ is already on process from 21st April and will be done till 22nd October. Yeosu-si is also supporting busking culture by planning some festivals to make Yeosu an international festival brand.

           In spite of the increasing presence of busking culture in Korea, such performances are in fact completely illegal according to the Korean Public Performance Act, because a performance only with more than 1000 audience members can be recognised as ‘a performance’ and also because performances ‘on the street’ are not recognised. However it’s definitely difficult to control a form of music culture and art simply with pressure from the government. Also, there are major economic benefits that the government can receive from busking, like the development of trading areas near busking places. For instance, Yeosu used busking culture  to develop an image as a ‘romantic city’ among tourists, and received the top prize of ‘International Marine Tourist City’ at the National Brand Awards for two years in a row. For those reasons it is a difficult decision to make to regulate busking.

The problems with busking

            There are two serious problems with busking: sense pollution and the loss of its important value.

            First, busking is a key factor of ‘sense pollution’, especially when it comes to noise. Sense pollution refers to pollution in our daily life that affects our senses like taste, smell, sight (light), touch (vibration) and hearing (noise). There’s a competition of sound volume among buskers to capture the attention of the public, and this can lead to huge noise. For example, in Hongdae, the sound level of people without busking is about 65dB. But once busking performances and the ‘sound volume competition’ starts, it becomes over 90dB, which is almost the same as the departure of a train. A merchant in Hongdae said, in an interview for TV Choseon, that all merchants near the busking place feel uncomfortable about the noise made by buskers and feel like proper regulation is needed.

            Second, the value of busking has decreased since becoming more and more common. Actually, busking has its own value and meaning in that it lets various musicians of all different musical genres perform their own music independently and without following popular music trends. But in recent times, many buskers just cover famous songs to increase the popularity of their performance. Also, because of its lower entry barrier, there are some people who do busking so poorly that it’s sometimes hard to call it a ‘performance’.

            Besides these problems, as the competition among buskers to find a good street location intensifies, it often causes inconvenience among passengers. However, busking gives huge benefits to both individual buskers and communities as mentioned above. So, why should we protect and improve busking?

Why and how these problems should be improved?

            What are the value and benefits of busking? First, it can improve the local economy. For instance Cheongju-si has been considered as the leading city of city restoration for its ‘Jungang-dong Market Revitalization Project Through Specialization of Culture and Arts’ since 2014. In particular, it made a street with a flea market and performances which is surrounded by pine trees. Also ‘Chungchun (Youth) Busking Festival’ is supported by merchants near the festival. In effect, the floating population increased by 127% and the number of empty stores decreased by 57% in comparison with 2011.

Ed Sheeran on the street

            Busking also has value for buskers as individuals. It becomes an effective way to pick out the talented. In the UK, Ed Sheeran is the most successful busker, who won Grammy Awards for two years in a row since becoming famous. He is now a world-class singer-songwriter, but in 2010 he was just a busker who sang with a guitar on the street. In Korea there’s an example of successful buskers too. A famous K-pop dance cover group called D.O.B. (Do One’s Best) who usually performed in Hongdae got so much popularity that two of the members debuted as professional artists in China.

            As you can see busking has good ef1fects on both society and the individual. So we need to keep and develop this culture by resolving the problems previously mentioned. So, how can we solve those problems? First, we can create a ‘busking registration’ process. Busking registration is a certification system that qualifies buskers to give better performances to the audience and decreases other problems like noise. The UK and Australia have already implemented that system so, only those who have busker certification issued by the government can do busking performances. The UK government sets specific rules, like the manner of performance and age of performer (over 14 years old), while also  regulating the busking location so that it does not affect passengers. In Australia, only one busker can perform in one block, which reduces sound pollution  and removes place competition among buskers.

           How about Korea? In Korea there are actually some cities that are implementing busking registration. In Haeundae-gu, Busan, they have introduced busking registration which allocates times and places for busking to those who have applied in advance since August 2014, but there’s no specific good result of it because the system has not been strictly implemented. In locations next to the Han River and Cheonggye Stream where busking culture has become well established, a busking registration process that requires buskers to audition every four or six month is in process, though it also has not worked that well because those places are already widely known as famous busking places and so buskers still perform without having undergone the audition process.

            There has also been an attempt to create a new style of busking: talk busking. As musical busking like singing or dancing have become increasingly common, people began focusing on the real value of busking—gathering freely any time and in any place. So there’s a new trend, talk busking. A new JTBC entertainment program ‘As One Says’ is based on the busking format. A person who has her/his own philosophy or message, including celebrities, becomes a busker and holds a small talk show or a guerrilla lecture with the audience. And before the 2017 presidential election some candidates and organizations like ‘The League of Korean Youth Voters’ held a talk busking performance to encourage young people to vote.

            Busking is definitely a needed culture for modern life, a time when we need to encourage greater communication with and between especially the youth in society. However, as it gains more popularity, the problems caused by busking become serious as well. If we improve and solve those problems and reinforce the good effects of busking, it could become an effective and powerful phenomenon in terms of artistic creativity and the encouragement of diverse ideas.

김세연  kimse3693@naver.com

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