Cultural Heritage Administration recognizes the traditional board game’s recreational culture and value in Korean peoples’ lives

The Cultural Heritage Administration will designate yutnori as a National Intangible Cultural Heritage item.

▲ People playing yutnori in a folk painting by Kim Jun-Geun [courtesy of Korean Christian Museum at Soongsil University]

Yutnori is a traditional board game played by two people or two teams. Players throw four wooden sticks into the air and depending on which side the sticks land, their tokens proceed on the board. The player or the team whose token has finished the circuit around the board first wins. Koreans have played yutnori on the first day of the New Year as well as Jeongwol Daeboreum (a traditional holiday celebrating the first full moon after the Lunar New Year). Although industrialization and urbanization have brought seismic changes to Korean society, Koreans have not stopped playing yutnori. As a result, yutnori enjoys a long history and has become Korea’s representative recreational activity that embodies the Korean people’s identity and values.

One cannot find words ‘yutnori’ or ‘yut’ in historical documents of the Three Kingdoms era (57 B.C.-668 A.D.) or Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392), but some historians believe yutnori’s root can be traced to ‘jeopo.’* In the early part of the Joseon period (1392–1910), people played similar game ‘sahi’, while in mid-to late-Joseon period, the game was called ‘cheoksa’ instead. The word ‘cheoksa’ was used throughout the Japanese invasion of Korea (1910-1945) and the following decades.
*jeopo: A game during Baekje Kingdom (18 B.C. - 600 A.D.) where players used wooden dice to compete

It was during the Joseon period that scholars began to take note of yutnori and study it. They made detailed documentation in various historical documents how the board and sticks should look as well as the rules of the games. Scholarly aspect of yutnori is quite significant and evident, and the study of yutnori conducted so far is an invaluable asset.

Yutnori’s logic is based on the Korean people’s understanding of the universe and astronomy. There are the yin and yang and the 28 constellations. The game is simple yet endless variations are always a possibility. There are similar board games around the world, but one can say that 

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Rachel Bae, sungmin.b.213@gmail.com 

yutnori is indeed quite unique in its tools, the board and the rules.
 

▲ Jongji yut in Samcheok, Gangwon Province [courtesy of National Folk Museum of Korea] Also, within Korea, each region has developed its own style of yutnori. Geongung Yutnori is actually played without a board and only with tokens. Others differ slightly in the shapes and forms of the board and the game itself. Today, people play yutnori online, allowing the tradition to be passed down to the younger generation despite many social changes. Most recently, yutnori designed specifically for the blind emerged, once again showing the game’s versatility and ability to transform and embrace.

Yutnori is – and has always been – a family or community event. Festivals marking the start of the New Year as well as Jeongwol Daeboreum often feature cheoksa (yutnori) competitions even today, proving that yutnori is indeed sustainable throughout generations. It is intriguing how it’s the game of luck, yet there is variability stemming from the number of cases. It is also quite intuitive and easy to learn even for first-timers. It can also accommodate and adapt depending on who’s playing and where it’s being played.

Therefore, yutnori should be designated as national intangible culture heritage, due to the following reasons: a) it has a long history and is being passed down generations, b) its records can be found in historical documents including “Annals of the Joseon Dynasty,” c) there is symbolism behind the board’s composition and the yut garak, or the wooden sticks (namely, doh, gae, geol, yut, moh), making it an ideal subject of academic study and use, d)it has been passed down and sustained among families and communities without any discontinuity.

But the Cultural Heritage Administration will not recognize a specific group or person in the designation, as it is a cultural tradition that all Koreans across the Korean peninsula keep and enjoy, as are the cases with ‘Kimchi Damgeugi (Kimchi making)’ and ‘Jang Damgeugi (Korean sauce and paste making).’

The Cultural Heritage Administration will continue to support yutnori and other intangible cultural heritage items that are being widely transmitted throughout the nation. It will actively encourage academic research and transmission programs which will promote people to share the values of intangible cultural heritage and participate in the future transmission. Also The Cultural Heritage Administration is committed to expand the scope of safeguarding practices by identifying and designating more items as national intangible cultural property to facilitate a wider range of our traditional culture to be safeguarded and passed down to our future generation.