(When I taught at a private kindergarten in South Korea, students performed sehbeh in their hanbok for the school’s director who gave them some sweets in return. It’s still common for young children under the age of 8 or so to wear hanbok for sehbeh greetings. In the tradition of sehbeh children wish their elder relatives (parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles) a happy new year by performing a deep bow and reciting a greeting that their elders “receive a lot of luck in the New Year.” Kids young and old can then present their relatives with a silken, embroidered pouch to receive a gift of money. Some families practice this during Seollal (and periodically throughout the year), but this formality is becoming a less popular tradition as families have spread out and become busier. To honor familial ancestors, families prepare a large meal and assemble an altar complete with candles and other relics. Same goes for the ancestral ritual of charye. Some wear colorful traditional Korean clothes, called hanbok, at least once during Seollal, but the custom is much less common today than even a few decades ago. One particularly special dish: ddeokguk, or rice cake soup is linked to an interesting Seollal practice. Jeon, a savory Korean pancake, is a common new year’s dish. Each family tends to hold their own traditions of what to eat. Cases of fruit, “sets” of sauces or other special food items such as Spam (sounds strange as a gift, but Spam’s been popular in Korea ever since the Korean War!) are common gifts. Koreans who are traveling home to their family often bring gifts for the relatives hosting them, and gifts of food are popular. Think Thanksgiving traffic in North America, but worse.įamilies typically celebrate the holiday by gathering together and preparing large amounts of food. Seollal is one of the busiest domestic travel times of the year: the nation’s highways turn into a traffic nightmare as tens of millions of people head to their hometowns at the same time by car or by bus. South Koreans* celebrate Lunar New Year for three days: the actual day of Lunar New Year, which falls on the day of the second new moon after winter solstice, the day before and the day after. Although Korean Lunar New Year shares similarities with new year’s celebrations in countries like Vietnam and China, it holds its own singularities too. This year, Chinese New Year and Korean Lunar New Year fall on February 8. It is celebrated at the same time as Chinese New Year (except for a rare case every several years where they fall a day apart) and, as the name indicates, is dependent on the lunar calendar. Korean Lunar New Year, or 설날 (Seollal) is the Korean version of Chinese New Year.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |