A few weekends ago I went to a bull fighting festival in Cheongdo. It wasn't Spanish bullfighting with matadors. At this festival the bulls fight each other in head to head combat. What I mean by that is they push at each other with their heads and sometimes their horns. The fighting wasn't all that exciting or dangerous. The bulls usually just butted head,locked horns and pushed for about 5 minutes until one managed to either scare his opponent or get a lucky poke in with his horn,then the other bull would run away and that was it. There were a few good moves made,but for the most part you sat their for 10 minutes and then there was 5 seconds of excitement.
We had a good group of foreigner's with us, about 12 of us. We sat in the stands and drank and had a good ol time. The crowds were the best part. Old Korean ladies (Ajumas) and old Korean men (Ajacees) were there and a few even fell over from being old or drunk, not sure which. there were also a lot of young Koreans and many families. It attracted people of all ages and economic backgrounds.
The festival itself had some cool and disturbing things in it. There were a lot of tent restaurants with food and drinks. There were two tents zoos,were animals like bear cubs,snakes,baby monkey's,cats and lizards were kept in very small cages and many of them were doped up. It was pretty sad but not unusual for animal treatment in Asia. There was a bull art tent, it had paintings and statues and many other bull artworks,it was actually really cool. There were places to stick your head in photos that made it look like you were in the bull fighting ring. There were large statues of decorated bulls and bull deities. Their were bands and performers and mascots and all the usual festival stuff like that.
I think the most disturbing and interesting part was the row of bull pens.(pictured above is one of the bulls in his pen) It was quite sad to see these huge beasts kept in such small spaces and it was also amazing how there was just a rope between you and them,of course they were all chained together through there nose rings which I guess would have made a stampede very unlikely,but I was still hesitant to stand in front of them for long. Many of the Koreans seemed to enjoy taunting them which seemed cruel and foolish considering that if they did decide to charge I'm sure it would have led to a all out stampede and may deaths and injuries. The bulls were taken from this area one at a time by some handlers. Many of the bulls in this area were noticeably upset and were doing the hoof in the dirt charge signal they do before charging at something. I found this part of the festival to be very inhumane while the actual fighting seemed very natural and the bulls seemed to enjoy it, but they do the same thing in the wild when they are fighting for mates.
I would recommend this festival to anyone in Korea it happens in Cheongdo around the end of March and the beginning of April every year. Cheongdo is a a train stop between Daegu and Busan. I also wanted to mention one last thing I thought was interesting. The US Army had a bull they enter every year and it was the only white bull in the whole festival...
