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This past weekend saw the opening of the Boryeong Mud Festival on Daecheon beach. The famed mud is said to remove toxins and slow aging.
After you get off the bus and head to the festival, you begin to see the real reason this festival is so popular. A trickle of expats slightly covered in mud walk by, followed by photographers. Then the sound of the ocean and the smell of the beach hit you. Next you walk past the battle arena - a blown up playground caked in mud filled with dozens of boisterous grey wrestling figures. After that you come across the "mud prison," where a dozen or more people jam into a mud-filled cage.
It seems weird at first to see so many expats caked in mud. Everywhere you look you see large groups of expats and Koreans peppering each other with Boryeong's famous spa-quality mud.
Stations are scattered across the beach where people help one another lather themselves in it. There are mud paintbrushes and even a giant mud bathtub.
As Andy Wordsworth, a British English teacher from Jeonju jokes, "It's about equality, mud equality," he said. "We are all the same color and race here."
Wordsworth has only been in Korea for two weeks but when every expat in Jeonju told him he had to come out to the beach and experience the Mudfest 2008 he knew he had to come.
Camped right behind the massive stage where expats can relax and bake in the sun, bands play popular cover songs. And right beside the huge mudslide where mud clad expats and Koreans slide down a muddy hill, the Jeonju crew has assembled.
To read the rest of the article please go to www.koreaherald.co.kr
July 16, 2008
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