Korea Now: Seoul Events, K-pop & Local Guide | NowHitz · 38

South Korean and United Nations Command teams conducted a joint field investigation from September 26 to 29, and the final assessment also drew on National Forensic Service analysis received on October 2. The three confirmed mine or blast sites were about 10 meters south of the MDL.

Mine removal on October 5

The military said the minefield south of the MDL that caused the incident was removed at about 12:51 p.m. KST on October 5. It said removal operations would continue if North Korea does not voluntarily clear other mines it placed south of the line.

What comes next

The announcement is the military’s final investigative finding, not an initial estimate. The scope of further mine-clearing and any additional military response have not been officially announced.

“A Little Girl” was released in 1985, with both lyrics and music by Lee Young-hoon. Its melodic lines leave plenty of space around Lee Moon-sae’s conversational delivery, so the emotional contour of the song comes through before any vocal display.

Why it stayed with Korean listeners

The song did not remain sealed inside one generation’s memory. In 2015, Oh Hyuk remade it for the Reply 1988 soundtrack, introducing the melody to a younger audience while keeping the original song’s restrained, wistful character recognizable.

Hear it through an official live performance

Lee Moon-sae’s official channel carries his performance of the song from 2018 LEE MOON SAE the BEST at KSPO DOME in Seoul. It is a useful way to hear how a 1985 song functions in a large modern concert without replacing the original recording with an unrelated clip.

From Seollal to the first full moon

Yutnori has traditionally been played from Seollal through Jeongwol Daeboreum, the first full moon of the lunar year. Families played at home and neighbours formed teams in their villages.

Some farming communities believed the winning side would have a good harvest. The game belonged to a season of gathering and talking about the year ahead.

Four sticks, five results

Each stick has a flat side and a rounded side. Their landing combinations produce do, gae, geol, yut or mo, worth one to five spaces respectively. Yut and mo earn another throw.

In a common version, each side has four pieces and must bring all four home to win. Getting one piece to the finish first is only part of the job.

Capturing, stacking, shortcuts

Landing exactly on an opponent’s piece sends it back to the start and earns another throw. A side’s own pieces can stack and travel together, which is faster but means they are captured together.

Reaching a junction can open a shortcut. Deciding which piece to move gives teammates plenty to debate, so everyone around the board takes part, not only the thrower.

Garak-yut and jongji-yut

Long wooden garak-yut are the familiar form, but smaller sticks were also shaken out of a little cup. In a 2021 National Folk Museum essay, folklorist Jang Jang-sik describes this jongji-yut practice in southern Korea.

Rules varied too. Back-do, for example, uses a marked stick to make a particular one-space result move backward. Players adapted the equipment and rules to their own gatherings.

What the records show

Early accounts of a game called jeopo are sometimes linked to yutnori, but the two cannot simply be treated as identical. Joseon-era records use names such as sahi and cheoksa, and the 18th-century writer Sim Ik-un described the sticks, board and play in detail.

Those records give a firmer picture of how people played than claims that the game has gone unchanged for thousands of years.

Heritage designation in 2022

In November 2022, yutnori was designated a National Intangible Cultural Heritage item with no single master or preserving group. The designation recognizes the communities that teach and play it.

The National Folk Museum’s 2026 Seollal program included a kiosk for yut-based New Year divination. Fortune-telling and the board game serve different purposes, but both tie the sticks to hopes for the year ahead.

Named for its moon-like shape

The National Museum of Korea says the vessel is called a moon jar for its full, moon-like roundness. Its glaze is close to a warm milky white, and the body is softly rounded rather than geometrically exact.

Why the jars are uneven

Large jars can settle and shift during forming and firing, leaving a subtly uneven body.

The museum’s official video, shown with this story, focuses on the jar’s white surface and natural roundness.

Each character was a tool

The National Museum of Korea identifies its Imjinja as metal type produced during the reign of King Yeongjo. Joseon repeatedly cast and improved official type sets to print books needed by the state and the court.

The shape and consistency of each character determined the quality of the printing.

About 800,000 pieces of type

In its official video, the museum says it holds about 800,000 pieces of type, roughly 500,000 of them metal. The number shows how large an inventory of individual characters premodern book production required.

The video shows the type itself and Joseon printing culture.