July 13, 2009: Mud Games

[xoxoxoBruce]

It's those southerners playing in the mud again.

But not that southern U.S. red mud, it's southern Korea's gray mud.

Participants enjoy the huge mud slide, compete in the mud wrestling contest and enjoy many other activities like escaping mud prison as well the ultimate, a mud bath. Some of the final weekend participants are foreign tourists, and especially American GIs, but most of the participants during the week are Koreans, attracted by clever marketing by the town.

The town fathers and mothers discovered that the mud is more lucrative as a tourist attraction than using the muddy fields for agriculture. The economy generated from the festival supports the many hotels and restaurants along the waterway and several blocks inland. There is also a great deal to see and do in the vicinity and a free tourist bus takes visitors to local sites, including an impressive coal mine and a famous Buddhist shrine.

But in a new wrinkle this year...

Hundreds of people were hospitalised for the skin disease they contracted in the pre-events of 'Boryeong Mud Festival'.
According Byryeong City Administration, some 200 out of 1,500 participants contracted some kinds of skin inflammations while they were undergoing mud baths in the pre-Mud Festival events. The mud bath events were held on the embankment of Daecheon Stream in Daecheon-eup, Boryeong City, for two days.

I would think most streams in Korea, most of Asia for that matter, would be risky to drink or even bathe in.

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