Jo Oct 11, 2022
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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Jo Oct 7, 2022
In Koguryo, a nationwide atmosphere of giving priority to martial arts was established and national military arts like riding, archery, etc. were encouraged. Koguryo people trained their strong spiritual and physical strength and will by doing martial arts.
The neighbouring countries were foreign forces of aggression that were constantly threatening the sovereignty of Koguryo. They showed their undisguised aggressive attempts and made constant invades. To make matters worse, the countries of the same blood, Paekje and Silla, too, were hindering Koguryo’s policy of unifying the three kingdoms in every possible way by invading the territory of Koguryo.
From such pressing requirements, Koguryo created the atmosphere of doing martial arts and took measures to encourage it so that all the people would possess patriotism and spirit of defending their native places, and regard defending their country from foreign invasions as their obligation and glory.
First, Koguryo made it a social climate to do martial arts throughout the country. The people considered displaying courage in battlefields as their obligation.
Next, necessary measures were taken to encourage it. Having fully recognized the might and importance of martial arts on horses with great capabilities of mobility, attack and strike in the wars in the middle ages, Koguryo laid stress on increasing the number of cavalrymen when organizing the army and intensified horse-riding martial arts training such as archery, fencing, spearing and doing acrobatics and galloping, etc. Infantry forces were also strengthened and martial arts training with and without equipment were actively conducted among them. In addition, national competitions on martial arts were frequently held and the system of offering government services to qualified warriors on the basis of those competitions was established. On March 3 every year, hunting contests were held on Rangnang Hill. Here, people were tested on their martial arts practised for a year, and winners were awarded commendations. The story of Ondal, a man of low birth, who was appointed to a government post by displaying in a hunting contest his high skills in martial arts gained through his constant practice, is recorded in Samguksagi (Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms).
Ordinary people also made doing martial arts a part of their everyday life and a system of teaching martial arts was established for this. Not only martial arts matches but also other national sports games and amusements held on several occasions including holidays were all focused on practicing martial arts and building up physical strength.
In order to bring up coming generations to be able ones equipped with ample knowledge and strong physical strength, they prepared a place called kyongdang for teaching ordinary people martial arts. Here, young people trained their martial arts and bodily force, and matches for testing their skills were frequently arranged in various forms and ways.
On the basis of the historical environments and conditions and the atmosphere of doing martial arts, Koguryo enriched the contents and methods of the national martial arts of the Middle Ages in keeping with the developing reality.
The climate of doing martial arts in Koguryo provided the people with high national pride and confidence, strong physical strength and courage, and it gave positive influences on vigorously pushing ahead with the cause of unifying the three kingdoms and exalting the honour and dignity of Koguryo, a thousand-year power, by successfully repulsing constant large-scale aggressions of foreign forces.
Im Sung Bin, section head at the Academy of Social Sciences
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Jo Oct 4, 2022
Many countries and nations in the world have wrestling, one of strength events. However, hardly any of them are comparable with Korean wrestling, which has such a long history and tradition, a strong national character and a unique form and way of playing, and is imbued with rich and optimistic national sentiments.
Korean wrestling is one of the national sports events, in which two people try to take opponents down by strength and skills holding opponents’ thigh bands or waist bands. The term ssirum (Korean wrestling) came from an archaic word “hilhuda”, which meant making every effort not to be defeated. The sound “hilhum”, the noun form of “hilhuda”, changed little by little into silhum → silum → sirum → ssirum.
Created through the labour of our hard-working people to conquer the nature, ssirum became a typical event of our national sport in ancient times and entered the track of its development. Mural paintings in Koguryo tombs including Ssirum Tomb in the period of the Three Kingdoms (late 4th century) and Jangchon Tomb No.1 (mid-5th century) give a lifelike portrayal of scenes of ssirum which was very popular in those days. In the period of Koryo, too, ssirum was widely done as a popular sporting event. It was so popular that even one of the kings of the Koryo dynasty used to do ssirum with the officials at Court, far from looking after the affairs of the state. “Ssirum” painted by Kim Hong Do, a famous artist in the 18th century, shows that Korean wrestling is a popular national sport that is simple in preparation but diverse in the ways of playing, and that it can be played anywhere anytime.
Korean wrestling has three main features: diversity in the techniques by thigh bands, giving strong stamina, fighting spirit and herculean strength, and a popularized event that can be played without any restrictions on a place, time and players.
Thanks to the warm love of Chairman
Today, under the warm care of the respected Comrade
Im Sung Bin, section head at the Academy of Social Sciences
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Jo Sep 14, 2022
Horse riding is a game in which riders compete on how fast they run or how skilfully they perform acrobatic acts on running horses.
Ancient Koreans, who regarded speed as the most important merit of a horse, raised native horses in large numbers suited to the topographical conditions of our country with many steep mountains. One of them was Kwahama of Ancient Korea. Kwahama was given the name because it was short enough (about one metre) to pass under fruit trees. It gained great fame in the neighbouring countries, too, as a renowned horse, a swift horse good at running up and down steep mountains.
A large number of horse bones, face pieces and other horse ornaments discovered on several ancient sites including Pomuigusok Site in Musan County, North Hamgyong Province prove that horses were raised in large numbers in Ancient Korea and our ancestors enjoyed riding from early times.
Later in the Middle Ages, excellent riding techniques of ancient Koreans were developed onto a higher level with addition of handling weapons and hurdling on a horse.
People in Koguryo raised numerous kinds of excellent horses like well-known Kwahama and mastered superb riding techniques on them. Such information can also be found in some Chinese historical books. In addition, murals in Koguryo tombs give a lifelike portrayal of riding skills like archery, spear throwing, hunting on horses, etc. In Koguryo there was a hunting competition on Rangnang Hill on March 3 (by lunar calendar) every year. The winners were awarded generous rewards and some of them were offered government positions.
The riding techniques of Koguryo were handed down through Koryo to feudal Joson Dynasty.
“Taejonhoethong” (1865) and “Haedongmyongjangjon” (1794) keep detailed records of archery, spear throwing and hurdling on horses in the first half period of feudal Joson Dynasty. It is recorded that Han Hui Yu, a military officer in the mid-thirteenth century used to fly into and out of the flames on a horse and Kim Tok Ryong, a famous swordsman in the period of Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592, was good at running through and immediately jumping back out narrow doors while Jong Ki Ryong could lightly jump over as wide a pit as six fathoms and leap onto the top of a precipice like a flying bird.
This fully demonstrates the superb riding techniques of our people in the past.
Im Sung Bin, section head at the Academy of Social Sciences
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Jo Sep 7, 2022
Tug-of-war is a folk game in which two teams pull at opposite ends of a long rope until one team drags the other over a line on the ground.
From ancient times our people with strong cohesion enjoyed doing tug-of-war that demonstrated communal might involving a lot of people.
Tug-of-war came into being through creative labour of mankind for survival. Whenever they needed to pull or drag up something in remote primitive times, our ancestors used to fasten ropes to them. This turned into a game little by little and eventually became tug-of-war, a competitive sport.
According to historical records, tug-of-war was usually done by peasants, especially in areas with a high proportion of paddy farming.
“Rimhaphilgi” (19th century) wrote that tug-of-war was already popular in the period of Three Kingdoms ― Koguryo, Paekje and Silla.
It became even more popular later in the period of Koryo and feudal Joson Dynasty. “Tongguksesigi”, “Hwagyejip”, “Tonggukyojisungram”, “Thamraji” and other historical books containing contemporary historical records give details of tug-of-war at that time.
Present-day tug-of-war is a little different in the ways of playing and ropes.
First, the thickness and length of a rope were altered to be convenient. After the national liberation, the thickness and length were fixed at 4~5cm and 20～30m each.
Next, unlike the past tug-of-war with main focus on strength only, the teams with tens of prearranged players have to pull the rope over one metre first to be the winner.
That is how tug-of-war was able to develop into a popular folk game in which many people can highly display the collectivist spirit of pooling their strength and wisdom, and players as well as spectators can enjoy themselves anywhere amidst tension, cheerfulness and laughter.
Im Sung Bin, section head at the Academy of Social Sciences
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Jo Sep 2, 2022
Yut game is a folk game in which players compete to be the first to move all their pieces to the finish position by throwing four yut sticks and making moves on the board as indicated by the sides of sticks.
Devised by the resourcefulness and talent of our people and played on several occasions including the lunar New Year’s Day, yut game is a time-honoured folk game peculiar to the Korean nation.
The game was invented in ancient times based on the principles of natural and social phenomena.
On the yut board is drawn a figure representing the principles of movements in the universe. According to historical records such as “Junggyongji” (1649) and “Ojuyonmunjangjonsango” (mid-19th century), the position in the middle of the board with a total of 29 signifies the Pole Star while other 28 positions around it represent the 28 constellations studded around the ecliptic. The routes on the board, on the other hand, reflect the law of change of four seasons. The shortest route (round through 11 points) stands for the winter solstice with shortest hours of daylight, the two routes through the diagonal paths for the spring equinox and the autumnal equinox with equal hours of daylight each, and the longest route for the summer solstice with longest hours of daylight.
The four sticks for throwing reflect four directions ― north, south, east and west.
The names of moves also reflect ancient social systems and customs. Not only the titles of ancient government positions Joga, Kuga, Uga, Maga, etc. but also the size and speed of domestic animals widely kept in those days were used to make the names of moves. For instance, the names “To”, “Kae”, “Kol”, “Yut”(Shung) and “Mo” mean “pig”, “dog”, “sheep”, “ox” and “horse” respectively. As they believed that oxen played the most important part in farming, they called this yut game.
All these imply that yut game originated from the small desire of ancient people who wanted to be successful and to travel all around the world on domestic animals to their hearts’ content.
This ancient game was carried forward and developed as a folk game peculiar to our nation in the period of Three Kingdoms (Koguryo, Paekje and Silla), Palhae and Later Silla and it was widely introduced into other countries, too.
At present, some newly devised ways of playing help players develop their intellectual faculties and have a good time. The number of pieces has now increased from four to ten, which means the first one to move all the 10 pieces is the winner. “Huto” (one step back) and “Tuhuto” (two steps back) and some other rules like the need to have one extra move before the finish point are now adopted, which makes it even more entertaining.
Today yut game is enjoyed at industrial establishments and public organizations as well as at home on several occasions including traditional holidays like the lunar New Year’s Day, Jongwoldaeborum (the lunar January 15), and Chusok (the autumn festival), national holidays and other public holidays.
Im Sung Bin, section head at the Academy of Social Sciences
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