Tancheon

Tancheon
Korean name
Hangul
Hanja
Revised Romanization	Tancheon
McCune–Reischauer	T'anch'ŏn

Tancheon, a tributary of Seoul's Han River, is a stream beginning in the city of Yongin in Gyeonggi-do and flowing through Seongnam and then between the districts of Songpa-gu and Gangnam-gu in Seoul before entering flowing into the Han River. It has a total length of 35.6 kilometres.

Winding through the district of Bundang, the stream is one of the widely recognised symbols of the borough. All streams in the Bundang area flow towards the Tancheon. The area also serves as a large park and there are paths for both walkers and cyclists on each bank with occasional foot bridges joining the two sides in addition to the bridges built for vehicle traffic. Along the paths there are many benches as well as exercise equipment. The whole area is extremely popular among local residents.

The stream empties into the Han River by the Olympic Stadium in Seoul.

The Tancheon has been known by many other names, such as Geomcheon (검천, 儉川), Heomcheon (험천, 險川), Meonae (머내), Cheonhocheon (천호천, 穿呼川), and Jancheon (잔천, 鵲川). The word Tancheon (탄천, 炭川) itself is composed of the Chinese characters for charcoal and stream, so a direct translation would be Charcoal Stream. In pure Korean it would be pronounced Sunnae (숯내->순내), another name for the stream that has gone by. The origins of this name can be found in Korean folklore, as is explained below.

It is believed that his long life came from picking and eating peaches at the stream of Seo Wang-mo (서왕모, 西王母), the goddess of immortality. For this, he became blessed with unnaturally long life. Some say, however, that his living 3,000 lifetimes was an exaggeration caused by the slip of a brushstroke and that he may have actually only lived 30 lifetimes. At one point, the Chinese characters for thirty (三十) may have accidentally come to be read as three thousand (三千), by someone adding one extra stroke to the top of ten.

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