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Many university clubs are no longer beating their drum

Published: 12 Apr. 2022, 17:50 Updated: 03 Mar. 2023, 17:34

Room of Seoul National University (SNU)'s student club called "Tal," which is to close this year [THE CLUB]

Many prestigious student clubs at Korean universities are closing their doors for good as students had been restricted from offline interactions due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

Seoul National University’s (SNU) traditional madanggeuk club called “Tal” had zero new members this year. Madanggeuk is a Korean term which can be literally translated to mean yard theater, referring to a traditional Korean outdoor performance.

The club, with a long history of 51 years, is closing this year as it has been unable to recruit new members. Currently, Tal has just four members, who are all now about to graduate. Due to the coronavirus and social distancing measures, even the remaining club members had been unable to gather at all to practice and perform for the past two years.

“I decided to shut down the club because I figured it will disappear after I graduate anyway for not fulfilling the required minimum number of members,” said Seol Wan-suk, a 26-year-old who had been leading the club for the past four years.

Tal is well known as far as school clubs, called dongari, are concerned, for having some popular alumni like Lee Na-rae, vocalist of contemporary Korean pansori (traditional Korean narrative singing) pop band, Leenalchi, who in 2020 released the popular song “Tiger is coming.” The song was used as the theme song for the Korea Tourism Organization’s promotional video called “Feel the Rhythm of Korea: Seoul,” released in July 2020 on YouTube. The video went viral and recorded 48 million views as of Tuesday.

“The number of new members has been decreasing for the past 10 years. Even graduates and students enrolled in master's programs had to come and help for the performance. I feel like this is what we all anticipated would eventually happen,” said Lee.

Another alumnus of the club who went to SNU in 1999, Ahn Yi-ho, said, “Realistically speaking, it would have been difficult for the members to maintain the club this far because it requires a great amount of time and effort to keep it going. I feel like the overall change in students’ social status and college culture may have caused these clubs to shut down ultimately.”

The Covid-19 pandemic has surely hastened the downfall of student clubs. Last year, Kyung Hee University’s prestigious art club was abolished as well. The twenty members who were registered to the club in 2020 were not able to meet offline once since social distancing measures were implemented.

“New members were not able to meet each other in person last year, and the remaining members are now all expecting to graduate,” the last leader of the art club, aged 23, said.

Durihana, an associated sign language club for Hanyang University and Hanyang Women’s University students, was also abolished last year after its 21-year run as face-to-face volunteering activities were prohibited.

According to the Hanyang University Club Association, members of student clubs have decreased by 34.2 percent from 1,616 in the first semester of 2019 to 1,064 in the first semester of 2022. Members in performing arts clubs in particular decreased by 46.5 percent, though those in academic clubs actually increased by 31.4 percent.

“It looks like students are closed off from the offline world. Due to social distancing measures, students have been meeting people online based on common interests, and this is making students feel like offline interactions unnecessary,” said Lee Myung-jin, a sociology professor at Korea University.

According to a poll conducted by the JoongAng Ilbo with a Korean online recruitment website called Saramin, 30.3 percent of 1,503 responders in their 20s and 30s answered they have not participated in any extracurricular activities in college.

BY LEE BYUNG-JUN [[email protected]]