Can Jeong Mong-ju bring glory back to Yongin?

By Chung Min-uck

Looking for a place where the past and the present, the East and West meet? Then, don’t hesitate to visit Yongin, Gyeonggi Province.

When people think of Yongin, the first thing that comes to mind is Everland Resort, the largest theme park in Korea. They tend to forget that the city situated inside the Seoul Metropolitan beltway is the place where the body and the soul of Goryeo Kingdom’s loyalist Jeong Mong-ju is buried.

To remind them that Yongin not only has state-of-the-art tourist attractions but also holds a golden piece of Korea’s 5,000 years of civilization, The Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) assembled around 80 resident foreigners and Koreans to promote tourism hot-spots in Yongin on May 21.

The participants were members of a volunteer group called ``Korea Tourism Supporters,’’ consisting of foreign ambassadors, company executives and university students.

``Yongin is not very well-known except for Everland and the folk village. But Yongin has a lot of historical spots like the grave of Jeong Mong-ju and was the site of many historical events and battles that are not yet promoted,” KTO CEO Lee Charm said.

The first destination in the trip to Yongin was the tomb of Jeong Mong-ju, also called the Poeun.

When the supporters arrived, it was just the right time as the Poeun cultural festival began to welcome tourists. In Korea, Poeun is the symbol of loyalty and patriotism as Jeong refused to follow the new ruler back then who overthrew the Goryeo Kingdom and founded the Joseon Kingdom.

For that, he was assassinated at Seonjuk Bridge in Gaeseong, now part of North Korea.

The main theme of the festival is to reproduce the process of the legend of Jeong Mong-ju. The legend has it that while moving the loyalist’s tomb to his hometown Yeongcheon city in North Gyeongsang Province, the funeral banner at the front of the procession was carried off by the wind. So, they decided to bury him in the current location in Yongin. Since then, the city has been the hometown to the heart of all the loyalists in Korea.

The tourists were fascinated to get a glance of how the Confucianism funeral ceremony was held back in the day.

“It’s really interesting. They’re quite similar to how it is done in my country. I am really enjoying it. They are singing too and there are so many decorations (in the funeral banners),” said Slobodan Marinkovic, ambassador of Serbia and a member of the supporters group.

It’s already the ninth anniversary of the Poeun cultural festival and Yongin is drawing a larger number of visitors year after year.

Everland

After the visit to Jeong Mong-ju’s tomb, the supporters visited Everland Resort, the theme park affiliated with the nation’s largest conglomerate, Samsung Group. The first response by the foreign supporters as soon as they entered a huge and fancy entrance gate was ``Are we in Disneyland?’’

Besides all the exciting rides that see children flock to Everland, the amusement park organizes also world-class large-scale festivals and shows all year around. On the day the supporters visited, the 35th Rose Festival was in progress.

Filled with millions of roses, the European-style garden and the statues of Venus made it easy for tourists to recall the British Victoria Garden and the era of ancient Greece.

Notices written everywhere in four languages and the tour guide’s readiness to serve the visitors made it convenient enough to prove to tourists that Everland will quickly turn itself into a world-class vacation destination.

Korean Folk Village

The last place on the schedule was the Korean Folk Village, an international tourist landmark where visitors can see and feel the traditional way of living for Korean ancestors.

The outdoor museum of Joseon Kingdom’s noblemen and commoners’ traditional houses are distinctive enough to surprise the tourists, especially the foreigners.

It also has hands-on activities that tourists can enjoy, such as making rice cake by hammering the dough and riding a traditional swing.

But what caught the eyes of the tourists the most were the traditional performances, including equestrian feats and instrumental farm music and dance.

The tourists indulged in the energetic rhythm and the thrilling performance unlike anything they had seen before.

``I think Korea’s horse riding culture will be popular among visitors from Arab countries where camels are the main means of transportation. Korea’s agricultural culture from the architecture to the use of landscape are unique and it can really attract many foreign tourists,’’ said Shahidul Islam, ambassador of Bangladesh.