Chungnam on my bucket list

Ambica Gulati
2 min readMay 2, 2021

There’s something about historic places and Chungnam in South Korea has a lot of history. “As proven by the bronze remains found across the Chungnam region and the Paleolithic remains in Seokjangri-dong, Gongju found in 1964, people have settled in the Chungnam region since the Prehistoric Age. Furthermore, most areas of Chungcheongnam-do were the norther border areas during the Three Hans Period. Wolji State (Mokji State) with the political initiative as the hub of Mahan at that time was estimated to be located around the present Jiksan-eup, Cheonan. It is also estimated that 15 small states among the 54 states of Mahan were distributed in the Chungcheongnam-do region.”

What’s special about Chungnam?

“Chungcheongnam-do is becoming the ‘Capital of Welfare in Korea’ by successfully solving three crises low birth rate, aging society and social polarization and revitalizing the economy,” says Yang Seung-jo, the governor of Chungcheongnam-do.

In Chungcheongnam-do, around 100 festivals are held annually, and 27million tourists enjoy these festivals.

Boryeong Mud Festival is held every July in Boryeong-si for 10 days.

Cheonan World Dance Festival is held every October in Cheonan-si for 5 days. In this, an international folk dance competition is also held.

Giji-Si Juldarigi (tit-for-tat) is designated as ‘Important Intangible Cultural Heritage №75’. This tradition spans 500 years. The rope used in Gijisi Juldarigi is massive, being around 200m long and 1m in diameter (1.8, at the heads), and weighing around 40 tons.

It’s so big and heavy that dozens of smaller ropes are attached to the sides of main rope to carry it, and this is why its appearance is reminiscent of centipede. The villagers divided themselves into two teams called Susang and Suha to play this game. It was believed that if Susang won, the entire village could avoid a bad fortune, and if Suha won, they anticipated an abundant harvest.

Of course, there’s a lot more such as food, city tour and investment-friendly options.

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Ambica Gulati

I just follow the course that life sets for me and I share all those stories through words, visuals and videos on the blog. Happy reading!