HELLO from KOREA

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Holidays and Food 99 _ Holidays and Food Holidays Although Koreans work hard, they always appreciate a holiday as a time of rest and reunion. Between the two calendar systems in use, the lunar and the solar, in the country, the year is full of special days, and when personal birthdays and other milestones are added, every month brings something to look forward to. Lamentably, however, the pace of modern Korea hardly allows urban citizens to keep up with the traditional feast days that their agrarian ancestors enjoyed. Although the two biggest holidays, the Lunar New Year Day and Chuseok, have retained many of their traditional trappings, observation of other days has diminished to the eating of a special dish. Koreans old enough to remember, however, fondly recall the pleasure of an entire day off from hard labor to celebrate and feast with the entire community, and to wish for good fortune. The Lunar Calendar Since the Three Kingdoms period, farmers followed a calendar based on the moon circling of the earth. A month is 29 or 30 days, and there are twelve months in a year, but this adds up to 354 days a year, compared to 365 in the solar calendar. The 11-day difference is made up every 33 months in a 30-day leap month called yundal. Since it is essentially a repeat of the month before, the leap month is considered a blessed period, free of "unlucky" days. Weddings and other ceremonies are purposely scheduled for this month. Although the Western calendar was officially adopted in the 19 th century, many Koreans still calculate important personal days by the lunar calendar. The list of lunar holidays below is by no means complete. Each region,
100 _ HELLO from KOREA religion, and village has a unique tradition or folk festival, some completely unknown to the rest of the country. What these special days have in common, though, is their celebration of nature, community, and family, not to mention their collective wish for prosperity and luck. Even today in industralized Korea, families from all across the peninsula gather together at least twice a year (creating massive traffic jams!), usually at the household of the oldest male. All the wives help to prepare the feast while children play, and the men sit around talking. Traditional Holidays New Year's Eve Last Day of the Year The superstitions and customs of New Year's Eve have given way to the greater importance of the following day, but surely reviving them might bring additional luck. In the past, women went to the well at dawn to be the first to draw "lucky water." They also began preparing the feast for the next day, including the rice-cake soup in pheasant broth called tteokguk. Another custom was the settlement of outstanding debts by midnight. The household stayed up well after midnight, with even children fighting not to succumb to sleep lest their eyebrows turned white. Seol (New Year's Day) First Day of the First Month This is one of the two biggest holidays in Korea where the New Year is celebrated twice. While January 1 is still an official holiday, most families make the cross-country trip to their hometowns for the Lunar New Year, which falls in late January or early February. As in the West, this day sends off the previous year and ushers in the new. In the weeks preceding this day, friends exchange cards to thank each other for deeds of the past and to wish them a happy new year. Nowadays church-going Koreans send their Christmas greetings as well. Children dress up in rainbow-colored silk hanbok and perform the sebae (New Year bow) before all the elders of the family and wishing them bok (good fortune) in the coming year. In turn, they are rewarded
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