culture

The Intangible Cultural Heritage Exhibition-2025 was held at the Moranbong Youth Park in Pyongyang between October 27 and November 2.

It was attended by more than 80 units which had received certificates of registration of intangible cultural heritage, including the Agricultural Commission, Korean Taekwon-Do Committee, ministries of Education, Public Health and Regional Industry and Guidance Bureau of Public Catering Service.

On display at the exhibition were over 100 national and regional intangible cultural heritage elements including the “practice of using wormwood”, “practice of cultivating and using Kaesong Koryo insam”, “grasswork”, “custom of Korean costume dressing”, “Kamhongno liquor”, “Pyongyang onban” and “moxibustion therapy”.

Participants showed visitors, through videos, visual aids and practical actions, the intangible cultural heritage elements which reflect the time-honoured history and superiority of the cultural heritage created by the Korean ancestors and their noble spiritual world and unique lifestyle.

Eye-catching were the sights of men in traditional costumes pounding boiled glutinous rice on a big flat stone with mallets to make glutinous rice-cake in a flash and some others playing ssirum (Korean wrestling).

The booths of Okryu and Chongnyu restaurants were crammed with lots of women as they introduced about Pyongyang cold noodles, sinsollo, terrapin dish, yakbap (glutinous rice mixed with sugar, dates, chestnuts, pine-nuts, sesame oil, etc.), beef-rib soup, mung-bean pancake, beef stew and red-bean porridge taken on the winter solstice.

They elucidated traditional recipes and precautions to be taken in cooking the Korean traditional dishes like yakbap, beef-rib soup and mung-bean pancake.

Ri Jong Nyo, a woman living in Inhung-dong, Moranbong District, Pyongyang, said that she used to buy and eat yakbap produced by a foodstuff factory as she thought that it would be hard to make, but now that she learned the recipe at the exhibition she would make it by herself and serve it to the family members.

The Moranbong maize food restaurant under the Moranbong District Restaurant Group received certificates of registration of intangible cultural heritage by making a rice-cake soup with bar rice-cake as the main ingredient and using chicken, Letinus edodes and laver and another kind of rice-cake soup by adding sautéed beef, eggs and crumbled laver to beef broth.

Ri Myong Sim, a waitress of the restaurant, said that rice-cake soup, one of the original national foods which the Korean people have widely applied in their dietary life from olden times, is efficacious for strengthening spleen and stomach and recovering the health of old persons and children after suffering illnesses and is regarded as an ideal food for reinvigoration and recuperation of parturient women, adding that the restaurant offers the flavour of the Korean nation to the guests by serving special rice-cake soups.

The booth of the South Hwanghae provincial craftwork technology introduction station caught eyes of visitors with their grasswork and sea snail-shell craftwork pieces that show the wisdom and wits of the Korean people.

Visitors were filled with admiration as they saw the grasswork pieces made of sedge, such as cushions, hats, slippers and bags, and various craftworks delicately made of shells of sea snails living on natural rocks on shores and in deep sea water.

According to Pak Sung Gyu of the national heritage preservation department of the South Hwanghae Provincial People’s Committee, grasswork has become varied in kinds and shapes as goods for cultural life and snail-shell craftworks with a long history are popular among people. He said that they would conduct the preservation of heritage elements properly to hand down the techniques of making craftworks to the rising generations.

Many people visited the exhibition.

Kim Chan Myong, student of the history faculty of Kim Hyong Jik University of Education, said that he acquired a wide knowledge of intangible cultural heritage as well as of the wisdom and wits, time-honoured culture, lifestyle and custom of the Korean people, adding that he wished such exhibitions would be held frequently in the future.

There was a presentation of experience related to ICH during the exhibition.

In addition, a performance was given at the Pyongyang Municipal Youth Open-air Theatre as part of the exhibition.

Performers staged various numbers including women’s group dance, kayagum solo, male folk solo and oungum ensemble which brimmed with national sentiments and flavour, greatly amusing the audience.

In particular, the demonstration of players of the Korean Taekwon-Do Committee won a huge ovation as it showed the power and valour of Taekwon-Do, the orthodox martial art of the Korean nation.