Chungcheongnam-do

‘Geumsan Ginseng Festival’(Sept. 2 to 10), 25th anniversary is held this year. It proudly has won ‘the best nationwide festival prize’ for the past five years straight from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Especially, ‘2006 World Ginseng Expo, Geumsan, Korea’ will be quite different from an ordinary yearly event with even more diversified facilities and events

The first act was begun by offering the Ritual Praying at one o’clock in the morning to the Mountain God wishing for a good harvest. And participants of the festival gave trial performances of the Geumsan Mulpegi Agricultural Song (Chungnam Province Intangible Cultural Asset No. 16), a traditional folk play in Chungnam Province, ‘Nongbaukeusigi (Chungnam Province Intangible Cultural Asset No. 32), a shamanist service to pray for rain performed by 100 housewives, Geumsan Agricultural Music whose rhythms are masculine, rapid, and bright, and other traditional folk plays (including playing shuttlecock, seesawing, yut game by the aged, sewing, and the like) so that they offered visitors with rare opportunities to look into the facts of preservation, succession, and development of the Korean traditional folk plays which disappear from time to time.

Various Practical Events Were Held.
In addition, various practical events were held, including ‘picking ginseng’, ‘cooking ginseng cuisine’ directly at site, ‘cutting up medicinal herbs’, ‘naturally coloring with ginseng’, where they colored their handkerchiefs with leaves of ginseng using a traditional method, which felt them excited. In this festival a new experiencing corner was made for foreigners and children. Shouting out Simbwatda, they picked up ginseng seeds with slippery iron chopsticks and then transported them to another basket, which was very popular. The ‘Health Experiencing Pavilion’ was newly built, harmonizing with the aspect of the international and healthy city, which allowed visitors to experience directly Oriental medicinal herbs, music curing, artistic curing, red ginseng packs, leg bathing, healthy massage, and the like.

The International ginseng trade exhibition has demonstrated to us that the Ginseng Festival has grown up as an worldwide festival rather than a regional one, which had been planned to invite buyers from the Southeastern Asian countries, inform them of the superiority of Geumsan ginseng, and increase exportations. Besides, other various types of exhibition pavilions were opened with themes of ginseng efficacy and health including Geumsan Ginseng Pavilion, Exhibition of Ginseng and Medicanal Herb Foods, a Flower Park with Ginseng and Medicinal Herbs, and the like.
The 25th Geumsan Ginseng Festival has been evaluated with its high level upgrade of facilities and contents since the festival was prepared as a prototypical Ginseng Expo prior to the 2006 World Ginseng Expo. In particular, many families and foreigners visited Geumsan to enjoy the pleasure of watching, hearing, and tasting Geumsan, a town of wellbeing full of calm ginseng fragrance.