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The villagers’ misunderstanding of the protagonist is predicated on the comic play of mistaken identity. The village elderly Man-ho is afraid that a model worker like Ok-sil might leave the village, so he spies on her to ‹nd out what her true intentions are. One day, while secretly pursuing Ok-sil, Man-ho notices a notebook she has dropped, but instead of returning it to her, he scrutinizes it with a hope that he will ‹nd out about her plans. As he reads through, he notices scornfully what he thought was Ok-sil’s plans to escape to the city: “Huh? . . . ‘my future apartment, theaters, and paved sidewalks?’ Ha, she acts as if she has already become a city girl. (He has a bitter expression on his face).”116 Man-ho’s anxiety of losing the model worker is compounded by the incident , and he goes so far as to hide behind a tree to spy on what Ok-sil and Hyeon-cheol’s father Kim are talking about, but soon Man-ho is mistaken for someone else and is dragged from behind the tree by villagers, humiliated by public laughter. The ‹nal comic touch comes when Man-ho urges Ok-sil’s mother to hold back her daughter from leaving. Ok-sil’s mother, whose dream is to attend the land they have been irrigating for a lifetime, becomes angry at the news of her daughter’s potential departure. However, the mother, just like the klutzy Man-ho, inadvertently ends up staging a comic show at the cost of her own ridiculousness: she comes out to scold her daughter wearing the daughter’s ›owery parasol and high heels, only to be laughed at by villagers for trying to look like a young marriageable girl. The generational divide in this play between hardworking, faithful young people and the misguided, clumsy elderly gets resolved in a clear vindication of the young generation, which is well captured in the chorus song. CHORUS: A girl and a boy run together to bring blossoms to the farmland But the head of the work unit misunderstands the girl’s intention and wreaks havoc by accusing her of planning to run away to the city. Look at the ridiculous way he runs! Oh, the belated cuckoos sing their song. They procrastinate, and then sing “Coo-coo.”117 In the end, villagers overcome the generational divide and everyone rejoices at Ok-sil’s plan to transform her beloved village into a modernized town. MAN-HO: Only now I came to realize the truth. If I stop trusting myself and others, then I will lag behind and become the laughingstock of modern times . . . 118 • ILLUSIVE UTOPIA HYEON-CHEOL AND OK-SIL: Comrade Head of the Work Division! MAN-HO: (Trying to calm his excitement.) I hear the engines! That sound urges me to move forward. That sound for me is the heartbeat of our time. MRS. RI: So let us seniors march together with the younger ones. MAN-HO: Yes, let us be united and make our village a cultured socialist farmland, a civilized place where nobody is envious of city life. Along the mountain hills, contemporary buildings in two or three stories are lined up neatly. Brand new parks and pavements accentuate the beauty of the scenery. In the center of town stands a cultural center with dashing roofs as if they were wings ready to be spread out over the sky. HYEON-CHEOL: (Pointing at the backdrop.) This is a future plan of our village . EVERYONE: It is as good as a city. (Everyone looks at the backdrop in wild rapture. Chorus sings.) Cuckoo birds sing their songs In my lovely hometown. Labor opens the path of happiness Labor brings ›owers Oh, always a happy place Oh, my hometown—mother’s bosom.118 The play ends in an outlandish celebration of Ok-sil’s wisdom and leadership , which will bring a brighter future to the village. Upholding the young generation in this play becomes coterminous with ridiculing the older generation , particularly men. The reversal of the traditional gender and age hierarchy is signi‹cant in light of the long-standing Confucian tradition of upholding male elders as village heads. The reversal of the conventional order becomes possible only because of the rural area’s special place in the spatial hierarchy within North Korea. Distanced from the physical and symbolic center of the nation, Pyongyang, where the sacrosanct patriarchy is very well guarded, the countryside...

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