US Generals Experience Korean Folk Culture
By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
Top U.S. military generals in South Korea had the unique experience of playing various traditional Korean folk games over the last weekend, marking Chuseok, the Korean Thanksgiving Day, a spokesman of the Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC) said Wednesday.
Deputy CFC Commander Gen. Lee Sung-chool invited about 15 American commanders, including CFC Commander Gen. Walter L. Sharp, and their families to his residence in Hannam-dong, Seoul, last Saturday, a day before the annual harvest festival, said the spokesman.
About 70 Korean and U.S. participants dressed in hanbok, Korean costumes, watched Samulnori, a genre of Korea's traditional percussion music, and played a variety of games, including neoltuigi, the Korean version of a seesaw, and tuho, an old game of skill that involves throwing arrows into a barrel from a distance.
``The ROK-U.S. alliance is the strongest in the world, and we work very hard together,'' said Sharp, who concurrently serves as chief of the U.S. Forces Korea and the United Nations Command. ``It's great to be able to come together like this to play together on such an important holiday.''
About 27,000 U.S. troops are stationed here as a deterrent against North Korea, which conducted a nuclear test in October 2006.