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Goguryeo in Korean History
Culture
Festival
Goguryeo people lived in a tense society, which had to fight wars constantly to defend the vast territory covering the East Asia. The citizens found relaxation through enjoying festive activities such as drinking, singing, and dancing. The kingdom held various events, ceremonies, and festive activities including Dongmaeng Festival to let people relieve the tension. During the festival period, citizens all gathered together and enjoyed merry spirit together regardless of their social level. The memorial services of china can be describe as rigid and formal. On the other hand, Goguryeo's events and ceremonies (The Dongmaeng Festival, in particular) provided a forum of festivity where people mingled with one another, engaging in drinking, singing, and dancing.
Marriage
Goguryeo had a practice called "Seo-ok-je," in which the bride's family would build an annex called Seo-ok to their house and let the couple live there and rear children until they fully grew up. This custom would disappear toward the late period of the kingdom, when it was replaced by a more liberal concept of marriage, allowing young ones in love to marry without undue delays.
Game
In the beginning of each year, many village people joined the festive events held at riverside locations. Kings also used to come and watch citizens enjoying entertaining game. Goguryeo people enjoyed games like Baduk, Jang-gi, Chukguk, Dice-play, Yut-nori (the four-stick game), tuho (throwing-arrows-in-jar), Ssireum (Korean-style sumo). Ssireum, which has become a very popular sport today, is a game of wrestling in which two players compete to wrestle the other to the ground using cloth-sashes, which are tied around the waists and thighs of the players. Now Sssireum is one of the representative sports game in Korea.
