2010 Jinju Bullfighting Festival cancelled, Uiryeong's festival April 21st - 25th.

I've written about Korean bullfighting before, but didn't think to post about this spring's festivals until a reader asked about them on my Facebook page.



The 118th bullfighting festival in Jinju (진주전국민속소싸움대회), scheduled this year from April 30th through May 5th, has been cancelled. The website says it's because of the tragic events in Incheon last month:

언론보도한 바와 같이 관계기관에서
2010년 4월 8일 인천 강화지역의 구제역 발생과 관련하여
축산물을 대상으로 하는 행사는 전국적인 방역조치의 우려 때문에
연기 또는 취소하라는 요청이 있어
부득이 다음과 같이 알려드리오니
널리 양해하여 주시기 바랍니다.

That's not the only festival cancelled or delayed in the aftermath of the Cheonan sinking. The Ulsan's Whale Festival scheduled for April has been pushed back until July, and Ulsan's Bonggye Bulgogi Festival (봉계한우불고기축제) scheduled from the 23rd through the 25th has been cancelled. It's been a bad couple seasons for festivals; a good many last summer and fall were cancelled ostensibly because of swine flu.



The Uiryeong Bullfighting Festival (의령전국소싸움대회) will run from April 21st through 25th in Gyeongsangnam-do's Uiryeong county. The fights will take place each day from 10 am to 6 pm.

They're held in Uiryeong-eup, the county seat, at the 전통농경문화테마파크. The address in Korean is 의령군 의령읍 무전리 116번지 일대, there's a map here from Naver, and because neither the festival site nor the county one says anything about buses going that way you'll have to check when you get there or take a cab. The internet also says no buses go there from Gwangju, bus there are eight a day from Jinju's intercity bus terminal (시외버스터미널) and about one per hour from Masan's intercity terminal (마산시외버스터미널), with both mid-sized cities being accessible by frequent buses from Gwangju and Suncheon. You can get schedules out of both cities, in Korean, via USquare.co.kr.

The bigger and better-known festival, the Cheongdo Bullfighting Festival (청도소싸움축제) takes place each March in Gyeongsangbuk-do's Cheongdo county, and was held this year from March 17th through 21st.

This is the sort of event that attracts western media attention once a year. Last year the International Herald Tribune had an article out of Jinju:

Unlike Spanish bullfighting, there is no matador. In South Korea, bull fights bull. Tons of muscle charge at each other, and clumps of bloody hair fly as the animals bang heads, their horns clashing like sabers.

That may sound brutal, but bulls rarely die in the ring. The fight is over when one turns tail. Some matches stretch on for hours. Others end before they start: the bulls stare each other down, and one walks away.

Popular interest in bullfighting, once regular village entertainment in South Korea, has waned in recent decades, a victim of television, the Internet and more-global spectator sports, like soccer and baseball. But in the last few years, some cities have begun promoting bullfighting as a tourist attraction and the government now hopes to reignite the old passion by legalizing ringside gambling, starting in July.

. . .

[One of the local rancher-trainers] dismissed concerns that the pastime’s revival might attract charges of animal abuse.

“All male herd animals fight each other for reproduction,” he said. “This is not about man conquering nature, as in Spanish bullfighting. We are simply observing nature in action.”

Here's another lengthy article from the JoongAng Daily from 2008, with plenty of others available from our friend Google.