Two Festivals Up Close
Korean Festivals and Traditional Life
Course 1 · Chapter 9 · Two Festivals Up Close
Chapter 8 set a revived rite beside a festival made for tourism. This chapter takes two closer cases at the two ends of that range: the Hahoe mask-dance ritual in Andong, and the Boryeong Mud Festival. One is described as centuries old and a ritual; the other has a documented start in 1998 and a stated commercial purpose.
Case One: The Hahoe Mask-Dance Ritual
The article on Hahoe byeolsingut talnori (하회별신굿탈놀이) describes a masked dance-drama "performed every three, five, or ten years at the request of the village deity in Hahoe, Andong". It adds that the village is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the dance-drama an Important Intangible Cultural Property, and a set of thirteen masks a National Treasure. In the Ritual section it says that it is "performed irregularly at the end of December and early January in order to appease the deity Seonangsin", has "a five-hundred year history" and was designated Important Intangible Cultural Property No. 69 in 1980.
The setting: Hahoe village
The Hahoe Folk Village article describes a village founded in the "14th-15th century" (its History section says the 15th), home to the Pungsan Ryu clan as "a one-clan community since that time", listed with Yangdong as a World Heritage Site in 2010, with "around 1 million visitors every year". It names the mask drama among the folk arts the village keeps. It also calls Byeolsin-gut "a shamanist rite honoring the communal spirits of the village". The article's own text is inconsistent on the founding date and spells the rite two ways, so I rely on it for the village's general character and not for dates.
The ritual
- Preparation. After "a period of purification and confinement", there is a procession and then the drama.
- The drama. Eight episodes (madang): shaman, lions, butcher, old widow, apostate monk, nobleman and scholar, wedding ceremony, wedding night. The article stresses "considerable ribaldry" and satire of "apostate Buddhist priests and the nobility". It adds that the wedding-night episode is so lifelike that "minors and women are not allowed to watch". That is the article's claim about the past, and I cannot say whether it holds today.
- The annual rite. The article separates it from the special ritual: the yearly dong-je includes charms and prayers, "but no masked drama".
- Weekly shows. The Hahoetal article says a preservation society "performs the dance drama weekly at the Hahoe folk village for tourists". So a ritual performed at long intervals for a deity has a tourist form that is regular.
The masks
The Hahoetal article says the masks "originated in the Hahoe Folk Village and Byeongsan Village" and that the oldest is in the National Museum of Korea. The government named them National Treasure No. 121 (1964, according to the talnori article). Unlike most Korean festival masks, which are made of gourd or paper and "are often burned", these are carved from solid alder wood and "returned to their shrines as they are considered sacred objects". The article adds that to view them "a person has to offer a ritual to the spirits".
- Age. The Hahoetal article says the ceremonies "date back to the 12th century"; the talnori article says "five-hundred year history".
- Mask count. Hahoetal says "of the twelve original masks, nine remain". The talnori article says eleven Hahoe masks survive, plus two from Byeongsan, thirteen in all, and lists the bachelor mask as lost.
- Origin story. Hahoetal gives a legend in which a young man named Hur was told in a dream to carve the masks unseen, and died when a young woman watched him through a hole in the paper window; the ritual honours them as local deities. The article calls the origin "not clearly known" and the story "colorful". It is a legend and not a record.
The Andong festival, as far as I found it
The Andong Folk Festival is "held in mid October every year" (Andong article). The same article lists the "Andong International Mask Dance Festival" under "Festival", and the Hahoetal article says the city hosts it every October. It says nothing about when it began, what it includes, how many visit or how it relates to the village ritual. Reading these lines together, the festival is a city event that draws on a village tradition, but that is my inference and not a source's statement. It is the kind of thing worth checking before repeating.
- Wikipedia, "Hahoe byeolsingut talnori" and "Hahoetal": the two articles used here; their reference lists point to the underlying sources.
- UNESCO, "Historic Villages of Korea: Hahoe and Yangdong": listed in the Hahoe article's external links; I did not open it.
- The Hahoe Mask Museum and Korea National Heritage Online (the Cultural Heritage Administration's site): both listed as external links in the Hahoe and heritage articles; I did not open them.
- The festival's own official site and the Andong city tourism office: the likely source of dates, programme and visitor counts. I have not located or checked them, so check for yourself that a page is official.
- Kim Kwang Ok, "After the heritage" (Chapter 8): about Gangneung, not Andong, but it takes up the tension between ritual and festival that this case raises.
Case Two: The Boryeong Mud Festival
The Boryeong Mud Festival article says it is "an annual festival" held in summer on Daecheon Beach, near Boryeong, about 200 km south of Seoul; the first was in 1998, and "by 2007, the festival attracted 2.2 million visitors". It says plainly that it "was originally conceived as a marketing vehicle for Boryeong mud cosmetics".
| When | What the article says |
|---|---|
| Until the 1990s | Daecheon's mud flats "made the beach unappealing to tourists", though they are important for migrating birds. |
| Early 1990s | Boryeong's coal mines closed; the regional economy "plummeted". |
| 1994 | The Daecheon mayor, inspired by a movie scene of a couple in a mud bath, saw a possible boost to the local economy. A pharmacy professor's study found the mud rich in bentonite and germanium. The first tourist business, a mud massage house, opened in July. |
| 1995–97 | A new mayor pushed a mud mask project and eight mud cosmetics, which "had little commercial success as the product was mostly unknown". |
| 1998 | A professor proposed a festival focused on mud to spread awareness of the products. The first was held on 16–19 July at Daecheon Beach, and "its success exceeded all expectations". |
| Today | Mud pools, slides, a mud prison, mud skiing, body painting, a stage, a cosmetics market and fireworks. It is ticketed. A "mud barbecue" was added in 2023. |
The article gives the festival a final weekend as its best-known part, "usually on the second weekend in July", and describes it as "popular with Korea's western population". I do not know what that phrase means, whether the region or foreign residents, and the article does not say.
Putting Them Side by Side
| Hahoe mask-dance ritual | Boryeong Mud Festival | |
|---|---|---|
| Stated purpose | To appease the village deity; satire in the drama | To market mud cosmetics and revive the local economy |
| Age claimed | About 500 years, or back to the 12th century (the articles differ) | 1998 |
| Timing | Irregular, every 3, 5 or 10 years, in winter | Annual, about two weeks in July |
| Heritage status | Important Intangible Cultural Property No. 69 (1980); masks National Treasure No. 121 | None stated in the article |
| Tourism | Weekly shows for tourists; a city festival in October | 2.2 million visitors by 2007 (the article's claim) |
| How well documented here | The ritual and masks well; the Andong festival hardly at all | Well, though much seems to come from promotion |
Exercises
Describe the Hahoe byeolsingut talnori: its purpose, how often it is performed, and three of its eight episodes. Then name two things on which the Hahoetal and talnori articles disagree.
Trace how the Boryeong Mud Festival came to exist, using at least four steps from the table. Then say what the article states as its original purpose.
Say what I found about the Andong festival itself and what I did not, and why I changed the case study. Then pick one source from the "If the Andong festival interests you" box and say what question you would try to answer with it.
Quick Reference
- Hahoe byeolsingut talnori: masked drama for the village deity every 3, 5 or 10 years; eight episodes; satire of monks and nobles; Important Intangible Cultural Property No. 69 (1980)
- Hahoetal masks: carved alder wood, kept in shrines, not burned; National Treasure No. 121
- Andong festival: "every October" / "mid October"; no start year, programme or figures found
- Boryeong Mud Festival: first held 16–19 July 1998 on Daecheon Beach; conceived to market mud cosmetics; 2.2 million visitors by 2007 (claim)
- Check: Hahoe's age (12th century vs ~500 years), mask count (9 of 12 vs 13), the founding date of the village, the "Korea's western population" phrase, the Andong festival's details
Next chapter: Dress, Food and Home, which looks at hanbok, hanok, traditional food and the systems that protect them.