Come Try 'Top Scholar' Rice Cake

‘Do you know about Tteok Street, which was filled with rice cake merchants in the Joseon Dynasty?’

The ‘3rd Byeongjeom Tteok Street Festival’ will be held on the 23rd around Byeongjeom Station in Hwaseong City to inform about the city’s naming history, showcase the vision of the traditional rice cake industry while leveraging regional characteristics, and share it with residents.

● Taste Rice Cakes and Experience Rice Cake Making

As seen in the place name Byeongjeom (餠店), this area has been a crossroads from Gyeonggi Province to the three southern regions—Chungcheong, Gyeongsang, and Jeolla—since ancient times. As foot traffic increased, rice cake merchants naturally gathered one by one to form a specialized market street, and it became one of the famous tteok streets nationwide during the Joseon Dynasty.

With the college entrance exam 30 days away, this year’s Tteok Street Festival, which has adopted the slogan ‘Dreams of Top Scholar,’ centers on the theme ‘Lucky Rice Cake for Success,’ offering abundant things to see, eat, and enjoy.

The festival will recreate a Joseon Dynasty market street around Tteok Street with traditional thatched houses and awnings near Byeongjeom Station, featuring rice cake mills as well as herbal medicine shops, fabric stores, and sundry shops.

At the rice cake mills, visitors can directly experience traditional rice cake-making methods using traditional tools such as a foot-powered mortar, grinding stones, and pestles.

Once rice cake dough is made in a large cauldron, visitors can use rice cake mallets and toppings to create various rice cakes and taste them on the spot.

Additionally, the venue will host the ‘Byeongjeom Rice Cake Industry Exhibition’ sponsored by Taean Agricultural Cooperative, where Byeongjeom rice cakes will be sold alongside Hwaseong makgeolli tasting events and local agricultural products like Hwaseong rice. All proceeds will be donated to help those in need.

● Glimpsing 1920s Life Through Rice Cakes

A special exhibition space featuring rice cakes and the place name ‘Byeongjeom’ will be set up at the venue.

The ‘Tteok Café’ will introduce the current status and activities of Hwaseong’s ‘Wellness Rice Cake Cluster Project’ led by Jeongnam Agricultural Cooperative and the vision of rice cake-related industries.

In particular, the ‘Tteok Street History Hall’ will feature rare photographs and historical materials capturing the daily lives of common people around Byeongjeom Station in 1920, while the ‘Traditional Rice Cake Exhibition Hall’ themed on rice cakes and seasonal customs will display various rice cakes used for different occasions such as traditional weddings, first birthday celebrations, and hundredth-day celebrations.

Additionally, around Tteok Street and the venue, performances by the Hwaseong Dure Preservation Society, neighborhood community center club activities, traditional percussion bands, and outdoor theatrical performances will take place, along with success-prayer carriage parades and Seong Chun-hyang’s top scholar rank parade.

Experience booths for the entire family, including the rice cake slicing ‘Tteok Street Guinness’ challenge, are also attracting attention.

Professor Park Hwan from Suwon University (History), who is advising this festival, said “The term ‘Tteok Street’ can be found in ‘The Tale of Chunhyang,’ published in the late Joseon period,” and added “Since the Goryeo Dynasty, Byeongjeom has been a place where messengers and travelers rested, and there were many rice cake merchants.”

Kim Hoe-geun, head of the Festival Promotion Team at Hwaseong Cultural Foundation, said “This Tteok Street Festival has focused on experience-oriented programs with direct citizen participation, refraining from celebrity-centered stage performances and superficial events,” and added “I hope Byeongjeom becomes established as the ‘mecca of Korean rice cake industry.’”

Meanwhile, the festival organizing committee announced that on the 23rd, to ensure smooth operation of the festival, all vehicular traffic will be restricted from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. along approximately 200 meters of Tteok Street from in front of Exit 1 of Byeongjeom Station to under the Byeongjeom Overpass, and urged residents’ active interest and cooperation.