The New Year of Korea

Everyone celebrates the start of a new year on the 1st of January, and Korea is not an exception. However, there are a few things which are a bit different with the other cultures, such as when they celebrate, what they do, the food they eat, and the traditions that lie inside it.

Everyone gathered to hear the ringing of the bell at midnight

               First with the date. In Korea on January 1st of the Solar calendar, people do celebrate what is called Sinjeong. They would go hear the ringing of the bell in Jongno at midnight, and spend time with their friends and family.  Now on the Lunar calendar’s January 1st, people celebrate Seollal, an official holiday which lasts for three days (the day before and day after). This year’s Seollal was on February 8th and next year’s will be February 11th.

During the three days of Seollal, people would go visit their parents, families, and relatives, and would dress in the traditional clothes hanbok, enjoy the holiday feast which they made together, play traditional games and have fun.

On the day before Seollal, the preparations called ‘charye’ is done, and this includes preparing the food, ritual gifts and ones for relatives, and making travel arrangements such as by car and reserving the train.

Children doing a deep bow to their ancestors

On Seollal, the ancestral rite to honor their ancestors is done in the morning. All the members gather dressed in hanbok and do the traditional rules for it. They would first make a deep bow and greet the ancestors. Then they gather all the ritual foods and put it on the ritual table, and do offerings and prayers. The ritual ends as they give another bow, saying goodbye to the spirits. In my house, as we are Christians, we do not do this process but a family worship with the members.

After this, the whole family would gather together to eat the ritual food, and the main one would be tteok-guk. It is a soup with sliced rice cakes, vegetables, egg, beef and other ingredients. Children would also eat sweet rice cakes, which they could make with their parents and relatives altogether.

Lastly, the younger people would take sebae, a deep bow and present them with gifts to show them respect. Sebae would be done while dressed in hanbok. Children would get sebaetdon, New Year’s money, from the elders as a gift. In the past, it was known for the elders to give them ddeok, rice cakes and fruit to them.

After receiving gifts, the family would spend time together, eating food and playing games. The kinds of games are yutnori, tuho, jegi-chagi, yeon-naligi, and neol-twiggi. Yutnori is a traditional board game that uses 4 sticks, and is easy to learn and enjoyable for all the members of the family. Tuho is tossing arrows in a small basket from a certain distance, and jegi-chagi is trying to kick a foot-bag for as many times as you can. Yeon-naligi is flying a traditional Korean kite which you could make, and neol-twiggi is jumping up and down on a see-saw.

             For more information about the New Year of Korea, you can either ask by commenting on this post or go to the site below.

http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/ATR/SI_EN_3_6.jsp?cid=941952