"Ruined Because of Baek Jong-won" Geumsan Ginseng Festival Merchants... Why Exactly?

Geumsan County Office and The Born Korea Collaboration 'Geumsan World Ginseng Festival'
Baek Jong-won "Even if hurt, someone has to do it"

Baek Jong-won, who took on the task of revitalizing a local festival, expressed stress over complaints from nearby merchants.

CEO Baek Jong-won expressing stress on his YouTube account.
[Photo by YouTube 'Chukjibeop' capture]

On the 23rd, Baek Jong-won's YouTube channel posted a video titled "Successful Debut of K-Ginseng Menu?! Reviving the Festival." The video captured the scene of the 'Geumsan World Ginseng Festival,' a collaboration between Geumsan County Office in Chungnam and Baek Jong-won, CEO of The Born Korea.

As part of efforts to boost the local economy, Baek decided to participate in a food zone at the Geumsan World Ginseng Festival. As usual, Baek personally inspected the site and listened to the stories of festival participants.

The process of improving the festival's food offerings was revealed on Baek’s YouTube channel "Chukjibeop (The Law of Reviving Regions through Festivals)." The video released on the 23rd showed Baek selling ginseng sausage, Samguma fried snacks, Samu gukbap (rice soup), and Samu pho noodles. The gukbap and pho, flavored with broth infused with ginseng, were sold for 5,000 won each. Samguma fried snacks, thinly sliced ginseng and sweet potato fried together, were priced at 2,000 won, and the ginseng sausage was 3,500 won.

Proving the "Baek Jong-won power," long lines quickly formed, extending beyond the booths and onto the road. Especially, the "half boiled chicken" menu sold for 6,000 won sold out before lunchtime. Customers who tasted the food showered praise, saying, "It's really cheap," and "The fried snacks could even be sold at rest stops."

An image of an outsider merchant blaming CEO Baek Jong-won.
[Photo by YouTube 'Chukjibeop' capture]

However, the opinions of outside merchants were different. One merchant complained, "People who make a lot of money should come here and volunteer," "Everyone doing business here is dead," "Baek Jong-won is the problem. We should all live together, but only one side is thriving, so the others are dying," "Because of Baek Jong-won's name, all the customers flocked there," "Baek Jong-won's food caused all the merchants to go bankrupt," and "Because of this, the food service industry in Geumsan town has died. I wonder what the county governor did."

In response, Baek said, "Lately, I’ve been sleeping well because I sleep well when I get criticized. I think there must have been a lot of criticism of me somewhere. They probably see me as the culprit. They must really hate seeing me. I get hurt too," he revealed his feelings. Then he emphasized, "Still, someone has to do it."

There was also an issue with overcharging at the festival. Regarding this, a representative from the Geumsan Festival Tourism Foundation explained, "The area outside the festival grounds is private property. We made separate contracts with outside merchants for that private property. There are hardly any price tags. We try to block it as much as possible, but since it’s private property, it’s not easy."

In fact, a serving of tteokbokki sold by an outside merchant was 10,000 won.

Baek apologized, saying, "I’m sorry to the outside merchants. For them, this could be like a year’s harvest." He added, "Still, if we don’t change things while the festival’s lifeline is still alive, I think it will be ignored."

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism plans to launch a full-scale improvement of festival food starting next year through a "Tourism Service Quality Improvement Campaign" project in collaboration with The Born Korea. The Korea Tourism Organization and The Born Korea signed a business agreement to revitalize local festivals on the 11th and will discuss detailed collaboration plans for next year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.