I have studied the holiday Chuseok 'Autumn Eve' and discovered many of its very interesting and intricate traditions. Some label Chuseok as the Korean Thanksgiving, but it is the celebration of the 8th full moon that usually takes place in the middle of September. It's a big harvest festival where people travel back to their hometowns with their entire family. There are two main rituals to show respect to the ancestors. First, people travel to their familial grave sites and pull the weeds around it and sweep/dust it to make it very neat and tidy. This shows society how dutiful they are to their family. Untidy graves are seen as embarrassing and dishonoring to the family. Then, the family will prepare a food and drink offering to their ancestors including a bowing ritual. The ideal of filiality traces back to the Confucian Analects that stress familial piety as one of the core values.
One of the dances by women in hanbok (traditional Korean dress) is called Gangangsullae. They form a circle holding hands and transition through various formations to a song appointed to one person to sing. This is traditionally done around a campfire under the full moon, but groups will perform the dance on stage or in other areas of the city. Its historical significance dates back to the late 1500s when Japan attempted to take over China through invading Korea. The Korean military ordered women to dance around the campfires scattered throughout the forests to make their army seem bigger.
One of the main foods prepared on Chuseok is Songpyeon, a crescent shaped colored rice cake filled with a sweet paste, usually beans. Well-prepared songpyeon predicted a handsome man in a woman's future or a beautiful daughter in a parent's future. They rice cakes are presented on a bed of pine needles which are believed to fight off sicknesses and lower stress.
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