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[benji]

Originating as a form of martial training, seokjeon involved two teams of combatants throwing stones at one another.

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As a result of royal patronage and military appropriation, the stone battle game became increasingly popular in the capital Seoul, where it was a common pastime during the festival of Dano. The high rate of injury caused the city's Correctional Tribunal to ban the game for a time, but it was still played in rural areas outside the city. A minor scandal was caused when three royal princes staged such an illicit stone battle in 1438, which led to numerous injuries and several deaths; as a result, King Sejong was obliged to banish them and tighten the ban on stone-fighting.[2]

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Christopher Thomas Gardner, impressed by the "fondness for manly sports" in Korea, recounted seokjeon as told to him by a yangban: "In the winter the people have nothing to do, so the strong and brave men of all the towns of [Korea] come to [Seoul] to play and fight. The strong men of one town fight the strong men of another town. I go on the wall of the city to look. People must not fight in the city. I keep far away. Then they throw stones at each other, and beat each other with sticks. If they kill each other it does not matter."[9]

These stone battles, known as “seokjeon,” were held twice a year throughout the country ― usually in vacant fields just outside of the city gates. The participants were generally the young men of two different villages, or families and their friends that had suffered some wrong from their opponents. Other times the battles were between two guilds that had decided to use these battles as a way of settling their differences. These battles were especially brutal and usually involved several hundred men.

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Suddenly one of the leaders shouted a battle cry and was answered by a barrage of stones, and the two sides raced across the vacant expanse towards each other.

These battles lasted for hours if not days, and surged from one side of the field to the other, causing the spectators that had gotten too close to the action to flee for their lives or be trampled by the rush of the fleeing participants and their pursuers. The game ended when one side was chased from the field of battle. The victors were heroes ― models for young boys to emulate ― and the defeated sulked off, swearing revenge for the rematch in six months. Even the palace and King Gojong kept abreast of the results ― but probably more for political reasons than entertainment.

The injuries were horrendous: broken bones and noses, shattered teeth, bruised bodies and, not surprisingly, there were often casualties. Husbands, sons and brothers died in these games, but no one was punished for their deaths ― the deaths were deemed unavoidable accidents.

Of course the "woke" Japanese had to put a stop to it because men aren't allowed to be men anymore.

[Rendle]

Woke 0 was crazy