The 58th Suwon Hwaseong Cultural Festival <Sseudam Sseudam Suwon Hwaseong>, held for 3 days from October 8, 2021 (Fri) to October 10 (Sun), ended with the participation of many citizens.
<Sseudam Sseudam Suwon Hwaseong> was designed to convey the sense of accomplishment of protecting the World Cultural Heritage with my own hands and the value of Suwon Hwaseong Fortress. And also, <Sseudam Sseudam Suwon Hwaseong> is an eco-friendly plogging campaign that has been prepared step by step since the beginning of this year. Participants were recruited through advance reservations at Interpark, and the participants received their own kits and then enjoyed plogging(Sseudam Running*).
Plogging is a compound word of the Swedish word ‘plocka upp’ which means to glean, and the English word‘jogging’. It arose from the fact that sitting and getting up to pick up trash was similar to a squat exercise position. Plogging consumes more calories than simple jogging and is getting a lot of attention because it protects the environment.
* ‘Sseudam Running’ is an abbreviation for sseulegi damgi(pick up trash) Run, which is a Hangul that will replace plogging.
Nowadays, environmental issues have emerged as a big topic, even in the Joseon Dynasty, there was a king who recognized the importance of nature and put it into practice. That king was Jeongjo, the 22nd king of the Joseon Dynasty. Jeongjo promoted the planting policy of planting many trees to green forests that had been ravaged by fire and reckless logging.
With the planting policy carried out from 1789 to 1795 in Suwon, a total of more than 10 million trees were planted in 6 years alone. After that, King Jeongjo continued to plant trees, emphasizing the importance of planting trees to officials and people.
In this way, the Suwon Cultural Foundation tried to convey the will of King Jeongjo, who valued the environment, through an eco-friendly campaign called ‘Sseudam Running’ in the present era.
‘Sseudam Sseudam Suwon Hwaseong’ program was held with Ahn Jung-eun (CEO of RUNderful), an SNS influencer with more than 80,000 followers and an active running evangelist.
CEO Ahn Jung-eun, a well-known Suwon person who was born and raised in Suwon. She has a lot of affection for the region, and has been preparing since this spring with the Suwon Cultural Foundation from planning to operation, such as planning and manufacturing eco-friendly products, and course composition.
The 'Sseudam Sseudam' kit that you can't miss when doing 'Sseudam Run'!
The kit is filled with practical and eco-friendly items, such as a functional T-shirt with Janganmun, socks made with eco-friendly yarn made from recycled plastic bottles, eco-friendly biodegradable plastic bags, and badges commemorating Sseudam Sseudam Suwon Hwaseong.
The 'Sseuddam Sseuddam Kit' is divided into a first kit(T-shirt, biodegradable plastic bag, guide, gloves) and a completion kit(Eco-friendly socks, official badges, water/snacks). After receiving the first kit, enjoying ' Seuddam Run', and completing the mission in the guide video, participants was able to receive the completion kit. It rained for two days out of the three days of the program, but even in the rain, all the participants participated until the end and received the completion kit.
In the guide that includes the Sseudam Run course, a historical commentary video of CEO Ahn Jeong-eun for participants only. (*A special video is released to readers of the Ininhwarak blog! Scan the QR of the image!)
The course consists of two courses, A and B, with different levels of difficulty, and you can enjoy Suwon Hwaseong Fortress with different charms in both courses.
A total of 60 citizens participated in <The 58th Suwon Hwaseong Cultural Festival
‘Sseudam Sseudam Suwon Hwaseong’> over three days.
With reference to the guidebook, participants were able to enjoy Suwon Hwaseong Fortress alone or with friends or family according to their preferences.
In particular, there were many people who participated as a family unit for children's education and memories. That made our hearts warm. :)
A lot of participants did 'Sseudam'!
One participant said that he was not happy to see the discarded garbage, but he also felt proud and fulfilled when he saw Suwon Hwaseong Fortress, which was cleaned by his activities.
(The garbage collected by the participants was separated and collected by 'Sseuddam Sseuddam Suwon Hwaseong Program’ team in charge.)
Unfortunately, this year's 'Sseuddam Sseuddam Suwon Hwaseong' ended with non-face-to-face voluntary participation, but we hope that next year, more people will be able to face each other and enjoy the World Heritage Suwon Hwaseong.
