It was originally to run from October 1st through the 12th. I've gone the past two years, and not only was it interesting during the day---unlike a lot of festivals, admittedly---but it was especially beautiful at night. On a post last fall I collected some pictures from around the wire:
Over a million people attended the festival on the opening three-day weekend last year, and the year before there were an estimated three million during the two-week run. Granted, it is in celebration of killing Japanese people:
Jinju Namgang Yudeung Festival has its origin from the Jinjuseong battles in the worst suffering period of Imjinwaeran(Japanese Invasion). In October, 1592, when General Kim Si-min with his 3,800 men killed 20,000 Japanese troops, heightening national pride, the lanterns were used not only as military signals but also communicative methods between soldiers and their families.
In the 2nd attack in June, 1593, 70,000 citizens, officials and soldiers were killed, and after it, they began to float the lanterns on the river during Gaecheon Art Festival as a service for repose of the deceased and peace and prosperity of homes and nation.
Reflecting the long history of Jinju, Jinju Namgang Yudeung Festival has settled as the symbol of royalty and wishing.
There have been several big festival cancellations this fall, including the Andong Mask Dance Festival, the Gwangju Kimchi Festival, and, as norepeat tells us, the Seoul International Fireworks Festival. Others have told me about others in the comment sections, and I'll do my best to pass along word of the big ones locally and nationally. As I wrote before, though, if you made plans to attend festivals this fall, you'd better make back-up plans. Browsing the "Festivals" and "Swine flu in Korea" categories will bring you the round-up.
5 comments:
"In October, 1592, when General Kim Si-min with his 3,800 men killed 20,000 Japanese troops,"
I am calling bullshit on this figure. Why is Korean history like a bad (and unbelievable) work of fiction? My favorite is Lee, Sun-shi with his 136 navel victories without a defeat. Sure.
Brian,
Where do you get all of your information? I don't know where to find Korean news in English and CNN doesn't cover anything!
Yeah, you really won't get anything from Western sources.
I've always kept up-to-date on the local seasonal festivals. The best way to do that is just run searches on Naver in Korean for the particular stuff you're looking for. I've written long posts on spring and fall festivals in the past, so I knew all the big ones coming up,and I just visited their official websites. I knew the Jinju festival was in jeopardy, so I navered 진주남강유등축제, got the official site, and made sure my pop-up blocker was off. Korean sites, as you probably know, often announce their news via pop-up.
Then, when I was looking for information about cancellations for local festivals, I just Navered 전남축제 and got to see all the news articles on that topic.
From time-to-time I'll run Google news searches for "Gwangju," though rarely does anything noteworthy turn up.
If the Government cancel one local festival, logically, have to cancel all, unless one is of really special relevance. It won't make sense to allow some mask festival and allow a lantern one.
I meant "to cancel some mask festival and allow..." Sorry for it.
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