The Korean celebration of Chuseok
Chuseok (추석), also known as Hangawi (the 15th day of August according to the lunar calendar) is a major festival and a three-day holiday in both North and South Korea. Korean usually celebrate Chuseok by making a kind of rice cake called songpyeon (송편), which is made with short-grain rice powder (쌀가루) and the dough is made into a half-moon shape and filled with sesame seeds, chestnuts or red beans. Songpyeon will be arranged and steamed on layers of pine needles. The name songpyeon also comes from the use of pine needles, as “song” means pine tree.
Another tradition for Chuseok is gift-giving. Chuseok is also called the Korean Thanksgiving, where people will present gifts to relatives and friends. Before Chuseok, the Korean supermarkets would have special sections with a huge variety of gift sets on sale. The typical gifts include ginseng, cow bone, beef, fish, fruits, and cooking oil (which symbolize “good flow” in work and life). To reunite with family, people would leave Seoul or the city they are currently residing and return to their hometowns. In the past, people would wear Hanbok, the traditional Korean clothing, when visiting their elders. The families will also play Korean traditional games together. Sometimes people in villages would dress themselves to resemble a cow or turtle and go from house to house to play music. Other common folk games played on Chuseok are archery, ssireum, tug-of-war, and juldarigi (Korean wrestling).
The traditional ritual would also include Charye (제사), which is the ancestral memorial rites that symbolize the returning of favors and honoring ancestors and past generations. The families would gather and hold a memorial service with food as offerings. There is also a special arrangement of the foods of Charye on the table -- traditionally rice and soup are placed on the north while fruits and vegetables are placed on the south; meat dishes are served on the west and in the middle, and rice cake and some drinks such as makgeolli or soju are placed on the east.
I got interested in learning about Chuseok because it is similar to the Mid-autumn festival in China, while it also happens in the middle of August according to the lunar calendar. But instead of eating songpyeon, we have mooncakes which consist of a thick, tender pastry skin with sweet fillings, and may contain one or more whole salted egg yolks in their center as the symbol of the full moon.
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