by M.R. Bradie Photos by Andrew Cranston
THWONK! The hollow sound of bone crashing into
bone; two massive blunt skulls impacting upon each other like speeding
locomotives in head-on collision. Sounds like international politics,
eh?
It's Springtime in Korea, which brings with it the annual Bullfighting
festival. Taking place in Iso, just outside the county seat of Ch'eongdo
this clash of beast-on-beast has been designated one of Koreas ten most
important annual events by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The
festival is big enough to draw international participation from Japanese,
North American, Chinese and Australian bulls who are well behaved enough
to fly on an airplane or sail on a ship with their owners. The tradition
of drinking while watching two bulls fight has been an annual springtime
event since the days of the Shilla Dynasty, a thousand years back.
When I first heard someone say that there's 'bullfighting' in Korea
I became excited. It conjured up images of deadly battles between flamboyant
men in tight sequined pants and fearsome beastst with mitilated neck
muscles and spears sticking out of their hemorrhaging backs -- a socially
permitted ballet of torture and cruelty, to climax in a final dance
of death.
But then I talked to someone in the know and found out that Korean bullfighting
(seo ssaum) is different. Unlike the European style of man-to-animal
sadism, the Far East Asian version pits beast against beast. Itù a much
more tidy and less violent battle of the wills, which climaxes with
submission and loss of face when one of the combatants runs away or
refuses to fight. The only threat of death for the bulls is that they'll
be butchered up for kalbi ribs after they're no longer competitive.
Many say it's a bestial version of sumo wrestling, but with weight classes
of under 640kg; between 640kg and 730kg; and over 730kg; it leaves Japan's
famous fat boys looking like flabby little babies.
On the bus
THE bus ride from Ch'eongdo to the Bull fighting arena in Iso was a
scenic twenty-five minute cruise through an arid Korean countryscape.
Mostly farmland, the area hadn't yet shed the barren veil of winter.
Inside the bus, Andy and I found ourselves surrounded by a mob of dwarfish
halmonies and harabogies, their gold and gunmetal teeth gleaming out
from between smiling wrinkled lips.
Rolling out of the station in Ch'eongdo, we were approached by a friendly
younger fellow who seemed to be the village idiot. After babbling to
the rows of seated old people and being ignored, he turned to us. With
disheveled hair and a faint scent of soju, he compulsively grabbed his
mouth in a nervous sort of twitch, stuttering and launching volleys
of spittle my way.
This cheerful fellow seemed intent on talking to us about kickboxing
and taekwondo in Korean. With my limited Korean language skills, I tried
to humor him and go along with it but soon became frustrated with his
insistence of topic:
Me: Ok, what's your name? Are you from Ch'eongdo?
VI: Taekwondo...the gloves!
M: (frustrated and increasingly belligerent): Do you like black women?
I really like overweight black women!
VI: No! Kickboxing! Taekwondo!
At this point, he was looking at me like I was the global village idiot
and returned to his seat in the back to mumble at the guy sitting next
to him about taekwondo.
We arrived at the arena and stepped off the bus. Over the embankment
was a huge steaming village of tents, booths and street carts bustling
around the central arena. Fine brown dirt covered everything. Standing
in the mud were tall thin girls taking tickets, dressed like airline
stewardesses, wearing pillbox hats.
In the arena
HERDS of humans filed through the mud, under a gray canopy of sky, towards
the center arena; a pit of loose moist dirt and surrounded by a log
fence. Fleeing from the stench of the porta-potty bank we entered the
arena. On the way in we passed a foreboding white trailer; a mobile
butcher shop offering choice cuts of locally grown beef.
The arena looked like it could hold about 5,000 closely packed spectators.
But on opening day, between excited locals and squads of day-tripping
foreigners, the initial crowd was closer to 2000. For the opening ceremony,
the 'Master' of Ch'eongdo addressed the crowd, telling everyone about
the new World-Cup style bullfighting stadium that will be ready by next
year, complete with legal pari-mutuel betting.
Then the warriors and their trainers filed out into the muddy center
stage, the performing beasts held in tow by the rings and ropes strung
through their noses; groaning as if to say, "Awww...not this time
of year again!" Steam rose from the nostrils and backs of these
behemoths. It was almost as if they were burning from the inside out.
We passed the grandstand seating, wove our way through the cloth-covered
ground seating and made our way into the concrete trench surrounding
the ring. There we joined the inner circle of photographers, television
camera people and hardcore soju adventurers who were mostly ajossis
of the down-home-country variety. Andy and I attempted to find out about
gambling, as we hoped to place some random bets, but there were no takers.
Those about to lock (horns), WE SALUTE YOU!
THE first match of the tournament was between Pakut'do and Sado, two
big brown Korean bulls in the 640-730kg weight class. These massive
beasts of burden must have felt the collective psychic weight of the
audience's anticipation, because as their trainers lined them up eye
to eye, they began butting before the ropes were pulled out of their
noses, causing the coaches to leap back in a shower of brown dirt. BAM!
It was on!
p in the air. Constant flows of body steam stream from the bulls, their
noses, their rectums, whirling up off their backs like vaporous tsunami.
From the concrete trench, watching from beneath the lowest wooden fence
post, there was nothing between my eyes and the battling bulls. It was
at this point in the first half hour of this epic match that I realized
the subtle intensity of these raging beasts. Huge black eyes beaming
at each other as they ignore their trainers' cries, repeatedly backing
up and charging one another. Pakut'do pins Sado's head into the dirt
with leverage of the horns, Sado's neck wrenched at an agonizing ninety-degree
angle. It's becoming clear that while the sport is non-fatal, it is
absolutely violent.
use, the match now nearing an hour, the beasts are backing off one another
and resting. Sado's trainer is tugging him back towards Pakut'do, who
manages to sneak around and charge the other bull's flank.
Every time they clash the crowd explodes in cheers. Sado stops to take
a dump in the middle of the ring. Pakut'do stands in a daze, his pulpy
head dripping blood. Even the trainers look tired and water is brought
to them, which they swish around in their mouths and spit out like marathoners.
And indeed their eyes looked dead, withdrawn, empty and resigned. The
trainers allowed them moments to recuperate and then pushed them back
into battle. Each collision moistening the dirt with sprays of blood
and saliva. Standing back, Pakut'do is drooling like a brain-dead vegetable.
After an hour and a half, the exhausted crowd is cheering for a conclusion.
Sado's trainer rallies him for one last charge, but he falls on Pakut'do's
horn and wails. Pakut'do lands a blow to the side of his head, the tip
of his horn jabbing his eye, and Sado submits, running away and circling
the ring before charging into the corral. Almost as if he knew of his
victory, Pakut'do runs victory laps around the ring with his trainer
who has his arms outstretched in a victorious V; the crowd releases
a cathartic roar, thrilled to see the rise and fall of these bovine
titans!
Kimchi County Fair
Although bulfighting was the focal point of this festival, it was by
no means the only attraction. And plenty of the people there, children
running amok, screaming, "Hello!" and young women hunched
over cell phones as they punch in text messages to secret lovers, seemed
uninterested in the bullfights. There was an entire village of attractions:
carnival rides, cheap plastic toy venders, old ladies hunched over boiling
cauldrons of silkworm snacks and doughy red bean pastries.
Surrounding tents offered everything from laptop computers to boxes
of locally grown persimmons. And around back, the fair opened up into
a world of restaurant stalls with charred pig corpses on rotating spits,
seafood sitting out in the open too long to be called fresh and thousands
of bowls of beef fatty gristle and rice soup. There was a lonely Bangladeshi
fellow in a white chef's suit and hat selling roasted lamb meat covered
in ketchup and wrapped in flour tortillas and calling it 'gyro wrap.'
To the left of the food stalls was a travelling caravan of flea market
salesmen and a tent of antiques from South East Asia. Walking canes
with sword handles, brass figurines of Buddhist sex gods and goddesses
with interlocking genitals, graphic traditional Korean hardcore porno
paintings on rice cloth, a gang of giggling ajossis gathered round the
colorful illustrations of an unnaturally well hung yangban (aristocrat)
of old, and each page a different position as he penetrates an innocent
looking gisaeng (hostess) in every orifice. Incense and the bodies of
scorpions and seahorses encased in plastic key chains forever. People
were drinking Ch'am (pure) Soju and screaming at the silly transvestite
beggars who make yeot candy and blare crazy pongchak music from their
carts.
At the very back of the fair was a tent-covered shopping mall filled
with every strange product that Koreans love. The entire catacomb of
bargains is filled with frantically throbbing techno music, inciting
a shopping rave. The shoppers are crazed like drunken small game hunters
prowling for good prices on low quality goods: body-health suction cup
kits, motorized nose hair trimmers, cheap hats and sun glasses, cheap
leather shoes, bored men demonstrating kitchen devices for gangs of
ajummas, fake Nike and Adidas dehydrated fruit, vegetables, seafood;
three piece business suites for 39,000 won!
Round 2!
The crowd gathers for the second round of combat. This time the bulls
are from the upper weight division. The red trainerù bull is wild from
the start, tugging and at one point charging the fence where we watched
from underneath. But when they put the two face to face, they just stood
there, seemingly uninterested in fighting. Finally the trainers push
their heads together and scream and they begin butting. The crazy red
bull backs up a little and the blue walks behind him and rams his ass
and he runs, charging the blue bulls trainer who dives out of the way
into the dirt and the charger takes off the corral door; the fight over
in lest than five minutes.
Laughing at the unpredictability of the whole game we walked from the
arena to the holding pens where the bulls are kept in open tent compartments,
yoked to the ground through heavy ropes run through their noses. There
stood the bulls peacfully. We saw Pakut'do and Sado next to each other,
the tops of their heads still mashed and raw with blood-matted fur.
There were all the different bulls, snorting, whipping their tails,
eating, shitting, digging holes in the soft dirt piled up underneath
them. Waiting, controlled and patient for their masters to come and
lead them to battle.