Paduk is a game in which two people place paduk pieces on the board in turns to win more positions. At first, paduk was as simple as a koni game (one of the Korean folk games), but it was combined with the outlook on the universe of ancient people to develop into the present-day paduk.
In ancient times, people had naïve opinions ― for example, the sky was round and the earth was rectangular. So the flatness of a paduk board denoted the ground and the rectangle of the board signified four seasons. And 361 crossing points meant one year. Why the point in the very middle of the board was called “chonwonjom” (center mark on the paduk board) was that people thought the earth was the center of the universe. It is said that the roundness of paduk pieces symbolized the round universe and the black and white colours of the two sides of the pieces meant the day and the night.
The term “paduk” is a native Korean word which means placing pieces on the board. It was first pronounced like “podol” and it gradually changed into “podok” → “padok” → “paduk”. Paduk is recorded as “padok” in “Hunmongjahoe” published in 1527 and it has been called so in some south coastal areas until today.
Paduk was widely played in the period of the Three Kingdoms as well as in ancient times and it exerted remarkable influences on foreign countries. According to “History of Koryo”, some Koryo people including Kwak Hui Bun and Jo Jong Thong made a playing tour of paduk to Yuan.
During the feudal Joson dynasty, paduk was an intelligent game that attracted interest of the feudal government as well as ordinary people.
Due to the Japanese wicked maneuvres to obliterate national culture, paduk was eclipsed for years, but under the people-centred socialist system of our own style, it was able to develop into a national sporting event, a popular intelligent game. Excellent paduk players display their paduk skills in the paduk events, which are held every year. Furthermore, our players have won medals in international amateur paduk games, exalting the honour of their motherland. In particular, paduk is even more popular with children of preschool age, schoolchildren and youth. They are constantly improving their knowledge and skills in paduk, winning medals in international competitions.
At present, our people enjoy themselves playing paduk in the cultural recreation centres that are found everywhere they go.
Im Sung Bin, section head at the Academy of Social Sciences
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