*Cow mooing sound* Look I know what I said earlier but *moo sound* You’re a strong bull! You can fight anything if you put your mind to it! *Moo sound* You weigh almost as much as that other bull! I’m sure you can take him! *Different moo sound*. Bruh! Now is not the time to chicken out! *Different moo sound* Look man I put 20 bandos on you! Papa needs this! Now go out there and whoop that bull or you’re going to the glue factory *moo sound* OK yes that is technically where horses go, but that’s how mad I’ll be. You won’t even be bulgogi! (Angry moo sound) Aahh, alright alright! Don’t gore me bro!
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All jokes aside, we’re here to talk about a serious subject. Have you ever heard of cow-fighting? This controversial sport has its roots in the Stone Age, where according to the Korean Herald, there are rock carvings of bulls fighting in the Ulsan area. You see, bulls were a treasured asset to farmers, basically the new world equivalent to a tractor today. I’ve read that cows have even been sold to pay for college tuition! You know how that family dinner would go. Son, you came home with Fs! You realize we sold Jin Moo so you could go to college, right? Jin Moo would’ve studied after school! *Joke sting* This style of bullfighting is different from the one in Spain, but has more in common with the one in Switzerland. You see listeners, this is bull vs bull. Called So SSa Eum in Korean, the trainers raise bulls to fight until the age of 4, after which they are allowed to enter the arena. In the old days, this used to be a custom to celebrate a good harvest. Nowadays, its a betting sport and I’m gonna tell you where to go and what to expect! Because no, you can’t tie ropes to your hagwon students and have them headbutt each other. They banned that in 2006 *ohhh sad sound* yeah it was a different era in the old days.
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In Korea, you can find bullfighting at festivals in the southern parts. The big one is in Cheongdo Gyeongsangbuk-do from March to May and Jinju city runs weekly competitions from April to September on Saturdays. So if you wanna see cows hit each other, now’s the time. The bulls are led slash dragged into the dirt arena and pulled towards each other, where they begin the shoving contest. Their horns are filed down to avoid deep punctures, but they still leave marks.
I’m going to the Jinju Cow-fighting competition this weekend to see how much has changed from the last time I went there. There was a lot of beer involved, and I recall a cow from America running off scared. I also recall a match that went on for so long it was called a tie and it took 10 minutes for the organizers to separate them! Oh and a trainer got gored which was sad but also ironic in a way. I didn’t place any bets since I could barely read the signage and as you know, I have bad gambling luck.
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And now we talk about the inevitable controversy. The animal rights crowd is protesting at the cow-fighting festivals these days, calling it animal cruelty. Compared to Spain’s bullfighting, the events are nowhere near as gore-y because the bulls don’t kill each other and the bull gets a chance to run off before fighting. However, you can look at the methods involved in training the bulls, like inserting the metal control ring in their noses at 6 months old, as a kind of cruel practice. There have been some statements about whether Sossaeum deserves the legal loophole as a folk event since these are not family bulls being used for the ritual, but specially trained fighting animals. The controversy will continue, especially since dog meat soup was banned. So then I decided, if I’m going to see this again, I gotta go now. Here is my post-match analysis.
