A festival where people wade into the water holding scoop nets runs through Sunday, August 2. It is the Bonghwa Sweetfish Festival, held along the Naeseongcheon in Bonghwa County, North Gyeongsang Province. Counting from today, six days remain.
The central event is sweetfish netting with a bandu. A bandu is a hand net with mesh strung between two poles, spread with both hands and dragged up along the bottom of a riffle. Sweetfish have bodies close to silver, so they catch the eye the moment the net comes out of the water. Among the participants standing in the water are some who have come from abroad.
By the water, a pansori stage goes up.
Pansori, even through a loudspeaker, is an art that holds up on one voice and one drum. A riverside stage is neither an advantage nor a disadvantage for that sound.
The sweetfish is a fish that grows moving between the sea and the river. When the waterway is cut, the way back is cut too. Bonghwa holds an event each summer around this fish because the Naeseongcheon is a stream that can bear that round trip.
An event that brings people into the river collides with the demand to leave the river alone. River festivals open each year after adjusting that balance again, and Bonghwa's six summer days are the result of that adjustment.
Behind an event that began on a local stream coming to be called a summer international festival lies the fact that the nationalities of the hands holding the scoop nets have grown in number. Experiences in the water need less interpretation, so the threshold is low for participants who speak a different language.
For anyone planning to go, six days remain. The festival closes on Sunday, August 2. Anyone thinking of taking hold of a scoop net has to reach Bonghwa before then.
Event Information
Dates: Through Sunday, August 2
Venue: Naeseongcheon area, Bonghwa County, North Gyeongsang Province
