The Samcheok, Taebaek and Donghae areas, nestled between the spine of the Baekdudaegan mountain range and the East Sea, have long had a tradition of eating kimchi made with leaf mustard greens, known in Korean as "gat."
Few people in the region knew that Yeosu, far to the south, had built a reputation around the same ingredient — some only learned of it when a political dispute over gat kimchi put the southern port city in the news.
Samcheok, which once administered both Taebaek and Donghae, has long grown its own gat, primarily in Hajang-myeon on the eastern slopes of the Baekdudaegan. The local variety, known as "Yeongse gat," has thick, crunchy stems and soft leaves that absorb seasoning well.
That combination means kimchi made from Yeongse gat retains both its flavor and freshness long after it is prepared. The name reflects the plant's origins: "yeong" means mountain and "se" means between — a specialty of the highland terrain of the Gyeongdong massif, close to the sea.
Samcheok recently held a festival celebrating the variety, called the Hajang Yeongse Gat Experience and Community Gathering. The city said the event, held Friday at the former Yeokdun Elementary School grounds in Yeokdun-ri, Hajang-myeon, drew about 800 participants, including local residents, visitors and members of Local Letter, a content agency that promotes ties between Seoul and Samcheok.
The city supported the event, while the Residents' Committee for Regional Development and Environmental Conservation organized it. The Saemaul Women's Association handled hands-on activities and food, and the Yeokdun Agricultural Cooperative managed sales of local produce — making it a community-led festival planned and run by residents themselves. Samcheok Mayor Park Sang-su and representatives from local institutions also attended to encourage participants and residents.
Visitors responded enthusiastically to a range of hands-on programs built around Yeongse gat, including harvesting and salting the greens and making gat mandu.
A food market offered distinctive local dishes — oat mandu, gat jeonbyeong and gat pijeon — while games such as shoe tossing, gourd smashing and fishing brought residents and visitors together in a festive atmosphere.
Local Letter, a regional content agency, handled promotion and participant recruitment, drawing more than 100 tourists from the greater Seoul area, including Incheon. A celebrity volunteer group called OK Joha also attended and staged a variety of performances that added to the energy of the event.
Local Letter participates in the Seoul Metropolitan Government's Next Local 40+ midlife entrepreneurship support project, which connects expertise built in Seoul with resources in regional communities. For this festival, the agency took charge of marketing and promotion for the Hajang gat experience event, serving as a bridge between Seoul and Samcheok.
A Samcheok city official said the event confirmed that Hajang's Yeongse gat could be linked to experiential tourism and local consumption, with visitors from the greater Seoul area joining an event organized entirely by residents. "We will continue to support experience-based events that draw on local resources, so they can raise farm incomes and bring vitality back to rural communities," the official said.
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