The goodies have arrived...

My package from the Korean online shop arrived two days ago - yes! Now I'm all equipped for the upcoming new year's festivities. Here's part of one of the hwatu (화투) card sets. These cards are made of plastic, and the cards from this set have 2 dimensions that are close to those of a regular box of stick matches. I'm still trying to figure out what the logo on the brand name is - is it a caveman with a horn on its head, a throwback to nuclear-age cartoon characters, or what? 아, 몰라! (Oh, I don't know - sing nawang!)



And here's the yut game (윷놀이), with the game pieces on the left side and the long dice above the paper game "board". The dice themselves look kinda cheesy, with their romanticized scenes of peasant Korean life, like the farmers performing nongak pangut [농악 판굿] all day. Nongak pangut is a genre of percussion and dance entertainment, one of the predecessors of samulnori (四物놀이), a kick-ass quartet of Korean percussion.




I'm definitely thinking of going down to LA Koreatown and getting more sets of these games - perhaps even a set of Korean chess. Perhaps when the traffic isn't as gnarly as it's been lately :p ...