Seok Jeon is a traditional Korean competition that's roughly akin to "
La Tomatina", the traditional tomato throwing battles held in
Buñol, Spain. Koreans don't throw tomatoes in Seok Jeon, however. They throw
rocks. It's a game that makes
Aussie Rules Football look like a
tea social.
Seok Jeon traditionally took place during the May 5th (
Lunar calendar)
Dano festival. Citizens of villages on different sides of rivers would line the river and hurl stones at each other. The team that "won", it was believed, would have good luck for the year. The proof of this, I guess, is in the pudding. When the losing village full of blinded, brain damaged, and generally
crippled farmers failed to bring in a better harvest than your winning village, it was obvious to all the
harvest gods favored Seok Jeon winners.
Stone throwing was particularly popular during the
Goguryeo Dynasty (4th century-7th century). Much like
jousting, it was expected that the king would preside over games of Seok Jeon. Korean kings eventually worked Seok Jeon into military drills and incorporated it into war games. They even formed stone throwing regiments, although their effectiveness against, say,
ARCHERS is questionable.
However useful Seok Jeon was to the Korean army, it became apparent that public games of Seok Jeon were getting out of hand and becoming increasingly violent. Crippling injuries were becoming all too common. The authorities tried to ban the competition, as the increasing number of injured workers became a drain on
Korea's
productivity. However, much like trying to stop
street racing or
dwarf tossing, such
plebeian entertainment is not easy to stop. Stone fighting continued until the end of the
Joseon Dynasty (1392 - 1910). A more rigid ban was enforced during the
Japanese occupation period and wide spread games of stone throwing have since disappeared.