So there's a cheese village in Korea.

I got finished reading this post on the lack of cheese and cheesiness in Korea, and ironically I walked past a poster for the cheese festival yesterday, the combined effect being this post. In Imshil county, Jeollabuk-do is the cheese village (임실치즈마을), and being that Wikipedia has just about the only English explanation out there, here it is:

Imsil Cheese Village is located near the town of Imsil (within the county of Imsil). It offers a one day or more vacation program for children and tourists to learn how to ferment cheese.

The cheese is called Imsil cheese, following the county name. A pizza franchise using Imsil cheese has become a widespread business in South Korea since 2004, under the name of Imsil Cheese Pizza.[1] Nearby livestock farms produce dairy products required for the manufacture of the cheese.

Imsil cheese is the unusual mission legacy of a Catholic priest from Belgium who took the Korean name of Ji Junghwan. He arrived in the farming village of Imsil, in the mid-1950s, when the economy was still shattered from the Korean war. He started a farmers’ milk cooperative. This cooperative eventually became the Imsil Cheese Factory, which exists today and produces high quality cheese and yogurt for the Korean market.

A group of enterprising cheese manufacturers decided to branch out into making cheese pizza. In time, Ji Junghwan’s Imsil Cheese Pizza became one of the most popular brands, and today it can be found throughout Korea. Pictured on every box is the Belgian missionary priest, probably the only missionary in the world to have left a pizza chain as part of his legacy.

Imshil Pizza restaurants serve what my I tell my girlfriend is 무서운피자 with all kinds of toppings that really shouldn't be anywhere near a pizza unless that pizza is in your shopping cart.

This year's cheese festival is . . . last weekend, November 1st and 2nd, so good job on getting the word out there guys. Hope you had a good time.

The website's English site redirects to the Invil (Information Village) site, which has a list of all the associated villages. Quite an interesting-looking collection, although the English-language pages hardly make any sense, but it'll be interesting to go through them a little later. I think they sound more interesting because the English is rendered so bizarrely. The Gwangyang Brother Justice Village? They're the current tag team champions if I'm not mistaken. The Duryun Smurf Village? The ILGOK Green Great Forest Village? Seriously, click through that last link, you'll laugh out loud what that "great forest" actually is.