Gongju City is a place keeping many relics of Baekje Kingdom including Royal Mausoleum of King Muyeong. It successfully hosted 2010 World Baekje Culture Festival last year so to impress its identity on the people. Taking this opportunity, Gongju schemes the cultural renaissance with the project.
Gongju was a capital of Middle Baekje period, with that day’s name of Ungjin (ung: gom ‘bear’, jin: naru ‘port’). In pure Korean word, it corresponds to Gomnaru. Until the capital shift to Buyeo in 16th year of King Seongmyeong (AD. 538) after the last year of King Gaero’s reign (AD. 475), it has been the capital of Baekje for 60 years. The keywords representing this historic city are 2010 World Baekje Culture Festival, Gongsanseong, Royal mausoleum of King Muyeong, a grayish-blue-powdered celadon and chestnut – the indigenous product. And one thing will be added from this year; it is the Geumgang Weir.
2010 World Baekje Culture Festival raises city’s brand value
Since the last year’s event of Gongju, the city had a good chance to promote its name to the world. The 2010 World Baekje Culture Festival was held in Gongju and Buyeo from September 18 to October 17, 2010. According to the survey of Chungnam Province, the event had total 3.6 million visitors (incl. 1.5 million paid visitors) with economic effect of KRW 249 billion in production induction, KRW 51.8 billion in income induction, KRW 79.8 billion in value-added induction and KRW 380 billion in employment induction including 6,541 recruits. Besides these factual numbers, creating the Baekje brand and discovering possibilities by forming diverse historical and cultural content were the most valuable fruition of all.
The event which highlighted Baekje made worldly attention focus on the province. Therefore, the accumulated visitor during last year exceeded 100 million persons. According to the provincial report, last year’s visitors recorded 104,848,890 which increased 17.1% from 89,632,694 of 2009. Especially, Gongju City and Buyeo County increased respectively 72.2% and 57.0% comparing to the previous year in visitors. The outcome was enough to wash away the painful memory of the oil-spill accident in 2008 which resulted in 12.6% decrease of visitors. The festival will be held this year also with a flourish in October in Gongju and Buyeo. The opening ceremony of the 57th Baekje Culture Festival will be in October 1 at Gongju; the ending ceremony in October 9 at Gudeurae, Buyeo. The basic concept of the festival in this year is the harmony of river, castle and people.
Baekje’s culture and history to be weaved with the Geumgang Weir as centered
The 2010 Baekje Culture Festival was held successfully in the Baekje Culture Complex and Gudeurae around the Geum River. And the fact is not different from that it proved bright blueprint of Gongju City beforehand the completion of the project. That is, the synergy effect out of new waterfront area and historical cultural assets result in positive fruition ever after. The Geumgang Weir and Gom naru as the Sixth View have a sizable significance in the context that both represent the cohesion of past and future. The weir will symbolically promise the future of Gongju by ease the flow of clean river water out of deepened and broadened riverside improvement work; meanwhile, the Gom naru will shed a spotlight proud history again in harmony with contemporary development.
The origin of Gom naru, in other words, Gomanaru indicates the western low hilly area from Royal Mausoleum of King Muyeong, including Geum River area of Gongju and Yeonmi Mountain. With legend of woodcutter and bear, this area boasts of superb scenery with panoramic riverside sand beach and pine tree forest along the river. The relics of Baekje Kingdom continue to the Royal Mausoleum and Gongsanseong. The Royal Tomb of the King Muyeong is the sole one which has been proven who was then buried among excavated historic royal tombs. Precious artifacts as much as 4600 items were unearthed by archaeologists. Among them, 12 items were officially designated as national treasure. The relics from the tomb are kept in Gongju National Museum. And Gongsanseong is a mountain fortress to defend Gongju from enemy’s invasion. Gongju shows its geographic feature as a basin surrounded three sides by hills with northern cliffs. It is like an ideal fortress. Visitors can see the gatekeeper guards’ shift ceremony events every day at 12 o'clock
Concerning artworks, the thing representing Gongju is 'buncheong sagi' (grayish-blue-powdered celadon). Buncheong sagi was derived from a kind of pottery technique born at the period when Goryeo cheongja was about to fade away and Joseon baekja (white porcelain during Joseon Dynasty) was in quickening stage. Especially, the pottery technique called 'cheolhwa buncheong sagi gisbeop' has been restored and now succeeded in Gyeryongsan Pottery Village in Sangsan-ri, Banpo-myeon, Gongju City. These precious historical heritages and resources are going to be tuned with the Geumgang Weir, the new landmark representing the harmony of nature and human civilization, with forming new infrastructure. On completion by the end of the year, the wing of Phoenix will soar up to cultural renaissance of Baekje, embracing Gom naru with Gongsanseong, Royal Tombs of Songsan-ri.
