One festival that wasn't canceled was the festival celebrating insam (which the Western world knows as ginseng) in a small city near Daejeon. The festival was surprisingly interesting. Geumsan is a fairly small agricultural town, though it was all decked out for the festival:
The town had an agricultural market with some very fresh food:
They had strangely shaped roots, mushrooms, and even lizards floating in decorative jars, which made all the shops look like wizard laboratories:
(even this table was made from bottled ginseng. )
(Here the roots are tied together to form star patterns.)
They also had entire warehouses full of ginseng sans decorative jar, which is amazing since the lower quality ginseng is grown for five years and the good stuff is in the ground for seven.
Other strange things for sale included the velvet from deer antlers...
...dried silk worms...
...and (I shit you not) live bees sold in bags (?!?!) with small honey combs.
There were ginseng statues, ginseng aroma rooms, ginseng (and other) scarecrows... you get the idea:
We ate deep fried ginseng, ginseng icecream, and ginseng infused Korean pancakes, all of which were pretty good.
The samples of ginseng tea on the other hand... well, ginseng doesn't actually taste very good, especially when concentrated. Just about every other Korean food there is (including silk worm larvae and chicken feet, both of which I declined to try on the basis of their smell) was available with a nice helping of ginseng tossed into the pot.
I don't think there was ginseng on the roast pig, but I 'm sure it could have been arranged:
There were also some events with no obvious connection to the wonder plant, such as a synchronized dance competition to Korean pop songs and a calligraphy stand. As Westerners we were given a free* sheet of calligraphy stating the wish that Alanna and I remain happy together. (*The price was that we were interviewed and had our picture taken and will probably be on the brochures and website for next year's festival. Every festival likes to have pictures of the token white person enjoying the event.)
One of the more fascinating parts of the festival were those having to do with health. Keep in mind that the festival took place in the middle of the swine flu panic, so there were handwash stations everywhere, and the aroma room had a 'fever detector' that looked like a metal detector but claimed to be able to remotely take out temperatures as we walked through it. Thus people were even more desperate than usual to believe nonsense like booths that claimed to predict a lot about your health on the basis of what basically amounted to palm readings:
The ginseng museum also talked quite a bit about health. It had posters that made claims that ginseng helps in pretty much any aspect in health, from its famed roll as a male enhancement drug to claims that it prevents the common cold, provides more energy, and stops cell degeneration so that people live longer. My favorite claim (and seriously, this was in writing in the bloody museum, the only really official looking part of the festival, and purporting to be backed up by 'scientific studies') was that it "has been proven to delete the AIDS gene." Yes, that's right, not only is Western medicine ignoring the prefect and easy cure for AIDS, it is completely wrong about what it is; you see AIDS is a genetic disease not a syndrome caused by a virus. A former co-worker of mine also was told by a Korean doctor that kimchi keeps AIDS out of Korea. I have always been very skeptical of Eastern medicine since it is completely unproven to be anything but placebo, and even if a particular treatment or drug does work no one has the slightest idea as to why it works or how it would interact with other medicines. However, after this my deep skepticism has turned to pure ridicule. [
Update: for a more serious and nuanced discussion of traditional medicine see the comments.] Anyway, besides misinformation, the museum had some impressive roots:
(This one isn't ginseng. I don't know what it is other than large.)
(These are preserved ginseng stems, leaves, and berries.)
Gingseng roots are said to look like people, and the museum had a collection of many where the resemblance was indeed plausible with amusing names:
(The Lovers)
(slim super model)
(Super Fighter)
(Ballerina)
The museum was much more believably informative about the practices of growing ginseng and the rituals that surround its farming:
(These cases remind me of the growing fetus display at OMSI)
The festival was enjoyable overall:
(even this table was made from bottled ginseng. )
(Here the roots are tied together to form star patterns.)
Other strange things for sale included the velvet from deer antlers...
(This one isn't ginseng. I don't know what it is other than large.)
(These are preserved ginseng stems, leaves, and berries.)
(The Lovers)
(slim super model)
(Super Fighter)
(Ballerina)
(These cases remind me of the growing fetus display at OMSI)
