Korean bullfighting? Who knew? Well to qualify, its not the same bull fighting you find in Spain or Mexico. It is, in fact, more aptly called bull wrestling. Two bulls are lead into a ring and encouraged by their owners whoops and pats to lock horns and have it out until one backs down or  is pushed out of the ring. Long periods of relative calm are broken by the occasional clash of horns. The bulls are seldom injured, fights end more often than not, when one bull simple gets tired of the charade and saunters off to find something else to do. Matches, as you can imagine, can take hours and are rarely exciting to watch unless you’ve spice things up with a wager of a few thousand won. The tradition of Korean bull fighting is a long one, stemming no doubt from the endless boredom of  pre-Nori Bang agrarian Korea.  The 2009 Cheongdo Bull fighting Festival,  last week, was the biggest yet in its long history. Tens of thousands of fans crowding into the newly built stadium to get a glimpse of one of the world’s oldest past times.

Contemporary bull wresting in Korea has a carnaval aspect to it all public events around the world now seem to have adopted. Between fights the audience is reagaled with musical and dance routines like “Comic Acoustic Guitar Performance” and “Sexy and Passionate Dance Samba!” tighly attired young girls and energetic young men performing stiffly choreographed moves to embarassingly sexualy basslines.  The seats are crowded with hoards of fans, ruddy with Makkoli and cheering for the likes of “Bull Jengi” and “Bad Bull” as they watch the animals locked in their apathetic set to, seemingly oblvious to the furvour of the crowd. At ring side, a half dozen media types brandish cameras with enormous lenses, a television camera mounted to a jib arm, undulates over the action broacasting the mateches live on local stations. As the long slow heat of Korea spring mingles with all the drink, the crowd slowly starts to thin. Veterans of these events are keen to get out before the crush of exiting fans comes after the fights are called for the day. The festival runs five days long and is accompanied by several exhibitions of Korean cultural artifacts and dozens of make-shift eateries. Buses run from Daegu and you can also get there by train. It is about a two hour drive by car, considering traffic. Parking is ample but disorganized.

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