Traditional games in Korea are not museum pieces. They come out every Seollal (Lunar New Year) and Chuseok, when extended families sit on the floor of a grandparent's apartment and play the same games their grandparents played. Knowing what's happening on that mat — and where you can try it yourself — turns a holiday you're visiting during from a logistical problem into the most interesting week of your trip.
Yutnori: the board game that owns Lunar New Year
Yutnori (윷놀이) is the one you'll see in every holiday news segment. It's a race game for two teams, and it's loud.
The kit is four wooden sticks about 15 cm long, each rounded on one side and flat on the other. You throw all four; what matters is how many land flat side up. Each result is named after a farm animal:
- Do (도) — pig — move 1 space
- Gae (개) — dog — move 2
- Geol (걸) — sheep — move 3
- Yut (윷) — cow — move 4
- Mo (모) — horse — move 5
Throw a yut or a mo and you get another throw immediately, which is where big turns come from.
The board (yutpan, 윷판) has 29 stations laid out as four straight courses around the outside plus two diagonal ones cutting across the middle. Each team runs four tokens, called mal (말, "horses"). Land on a station occupied by an opponent and their token is knocked back to the start. Land on your own token and the two stack into a group that moves together from then on — twice as fast, but one bad landing wipes out the whole stack. That trade-off, plus deciding whether a token takes the shortcut diagonal or the long way around, is the actual game.
Many families play a back-do variant, where one stick is marked and, if it's the only flat face showing, your token moves backward one space instead of forward. First team to bring all four mal home wins.
If you get invited into a game, expect noise. The throw is done hard onto a mat, and everyone comments on it.
Jegichagi: keeping it in the air
Jegichagi (제기차기) is the Korean cousin of hacky sack. The jegi is a small weighted shuttlecock — traditionally a coin or washer wrapped in paper or cloth with a fringed tail that flutters and slows the fall.
You keep it airborne with the inside of your foot, and you count. That's the whole game. Competitive versions add constraints: alternating feet, both players in a rally, or a circle where the group tries for a collective total. It was a winter street and schoolyard game — cheap, needs no space, and warms you up fast.
Jegi are sold for a few thousand won at stationery shops, traditional markets and folk village gift shops. They're one of the better small souvenirs from Korea because they actually get used.
Tuho: pitching arrows into a pot
Tuho (투호) is the visitor favourite, because there are no rules to learn and no Korean required: you stand back and throw arrows into a tall pot.
It reached Korea from China during the Goryeo period, around 1116, and was popularised under King Yejong. The Joseon court revived it — King Jungjong publicly defended it in 1518 as a respectable, Confucian sort of pastime — and it doubled as a drinking game, where every arrow that missed cost the thrower a drink. It was pictured on South Korea's 1,000-won note from 1983 to 2002.
Modern sets are simple: a canister and rubber-tipped arrows roughly 50–60 cm long, thrown from about ten paces. It is harder than it looks.
Where you can actually try these
Programmes rotate seasonally, so check the venue's own schedule for the dates you'll be in town rather than assuming.
- Korean Folk Village, Yongin — the big one. A reconstructed village with craft workshops and folk performances, open daily (hours run roughly 10:00–19:00, shorter in winter). Paid admission. About an hour from central Seoul, and the most reliable place to find folk-game sets laid out for visitors.
- Namsangol Hanok Village, Seoul — free admission, closed Tuesdays, right at Chungmuro Station (subway lines 3 and 4). Restored hanok houses around courtyards, with traditional-culture programming; the easiest option if you only have a spare afternoon.
- National Folk Museum of Korea — sits in the eastern part of the Gyeongbokgung palace grounds, and runs the strongest holiday programming in the city. This is where to look first for Seollal events.
- The royal palaces over Seollal and Chuseok — the palaces usually open free to the public across the main holidays and set up folk-game yards in the courtyards. Confirm on the palace schedule before you go, because the exact days shift with the lunar calendar.
Practical notes
- Seollal and Chuseok are lunar, so they move every year. Both are peak domestic travel periods: intercity trains and buses book out, and many small businesses close for several days. Plan around it.
- Jeongwol Daeboreum, the first full moon after Seollal, is another traditional games occasion and far less crowded.
- Entry to Gyeongbokgung is free if you're wearing hanbok, which is why every second person at the gate is in rental clothing.
- Nobody expects you to be good at any of this. Trying badly is the socially correct move.