"Taste the New Rice": Icheon Rice Cultural Festival Opens

[Anchor]

Korea's representative rice festival, the Icheon Rice Cultural Festival, kicked off on October 14. Visitors enjoyed a variety of events, such as eating rice cooked in a giant cauldron and making rainbow garaetteok (long cylindrical rice cakes).

Reporter Yu Yeong-su has the story.

[Reporter]

Long lines formed even before the event began to taste rice cooked in a traditional cauldron using freshly harvested new rice.

Rice cooked over a firewood fire in an extra-large 320-kilogram cauldron is being served to 2,000 people for 2,000 won per serving.

Visitors mix the rice with kimchi and gochujang (chili paste) to make bibimbap.

[Choi Kyung-hee / Gwangmyeong, Gyeonggi Province: (An acquaintance) kept telling me how delicious the rice was and urged me to come, so I woke up early in the morning and came here in a car with my group. The rice is delicious, and it is so much fun.]

Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, the Icheon Rice Cultural Festival has raised its curtain for a five-day run.

The "Making Rainbow Garaetteok" event, where residents and visitors line up together to extrude and share rice cakes, remains highly popular, while various agricultural culture experience programs for the whole family added fun and vibrancy to the festival.

Farmers also prepared for the festival with fluttering hearts.

[Lee Jong-hyun / Farmer in Icheon: It helps farm household income, does a lot to promote individual (rice) brands, and provides a great economic boost to the local area...]

Starting this year, the venue has been moved to Bokhacheon Waterside Park near the city center, improving accessibility for citizens.

[Sung Su-seok / Mayor of Icheon: We have improved the traffic system so that citizens can comfortably access the parking lots. We hope this will be a place for coexistence, communication, and harmony.]

The city of Icheon expects more than 300,000 people to visit in total.

(Video Journalist: In Pil-seong)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.