CHONGDO, South Korea -- Japan and South Korea have held a joint military exercise. Trade and cultural exchanges are blooming. And now -- in the latest show of goodwill between two old foes -- their bulls are locking horns.
To deafening drum beats, Japanese and South Korean bulls charge and duel in a dusty arena ringed by 30,000 cheering spectators during the five-day festival that ends Sunday.The invited Japanese competitors make unusual diplomats, wearing golden cloaks emblazoned on the back with their names. Their horns draw blood, and the bulls push and strain, heads bowed, for as long as half an hour.
South Korea's biggest bullfighting contest is another sign of improving ties between South Korea and the nation that inflicted harsh colonial rule upon Koreans from 1910 to 1945.
In a more conventional sign of better relations, Japan's education minister arrived in Seoul on Saturday in the first such visit since World War II, visiting a Korean university.
Goodwill, however, was not always evident among the fans in the bullfighting spectacle in Chongdo, 170 miles southeast of Seoul, the South Korean capital.
In one contest, Pyobum, an 1,800-pound brown Korean bull, and Godetsu, a 1,700-pound black opponent from Japan, prepared to duel. But Pyobum fled past Godetsu, who stood still and was declared the winner by a referee.
A fight ends when a bull runs away from its opponent or refuses to fight for one minute or longer.
"The coward didn't even try to fight against the Japanese one, of all the bulls in the world," grumbled Kim Young-rae, a 71-year-old farmer. "It can lose to any other bull, but not to a Japanese!"
Many older South Koreans resent Japan because they remember the dark days of colonial rule.
A small group of elderly women who were forced into prostitution by Japanese soldiers a half-century ago protest every week outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul.
Younger South Koreans, however, are indifferent to history, snapping up comic books and other Japanese goods.
South Korea is lifting bans on Japanese cultural products and the two countries conducted a navy rescue operation together last year.
Seoul and Tokyo have drawn closer out of concern about the military threat from communist North Korea, which test-fired a rocket over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean in 1998.
But anti-Japanese sentiment has surfaced on the occasions when a Japanese official has denied wartime atrocities or tried to justify the colonization of the Korean peninsula.
Japan's education minister, Hirofumi Nakasone, and his South Korean counterpart, Moon Yong-lin, were expected to discuss differences over the way Japanese textbooks depict Tokyo's military expansion into Asia.
Many Asian governments say the textbooks offer a sanitized version of Japan's actions before and during World War II.
"We can say the diplomatic relations between the two countries have matured and improved enough now for working-level officials to discuss this very sensitive issue," said Kim Ha-il, a spokesman for Seoul's Education Ministry.
Bullfighting has a long tradition in South Korea, where most people lived in poor, rural areas until rapid industrialization began after the 1950-53 Korean War.
Six bulls owned by Japanese farmers are taking part alongside 100 Korean bulls in the Chongdo festival, which awards $36,000 in cash prizes. Japanese bulls also participated last year.