Not long ago, my learning partner gave me a quick overview of Korean New Year’s, which was on February 16 on the Gregorian calendar. During the lesson, we covered basic topics related to the holiday, including its foundation on the lunar calendar and the way in which Koreans typically spend the day to celebrate the holiday: they spend the whole day with family, cook, eat and play games. The brief introduction my learning partner gave me during my lesson with her made me curious to investigate more into the holiday. Therefore, the following is what I found from reading an article, “Celebrating Seollal in Korea: Glimpse of Local New Year’s Customs”, by the Korea Tourism Organization.
For starters, Korean New Year (or Lunar New Year) is called 설날 (Seollal) in Korean and it marks the beginning of the new lunar year. Seollal is a holiday that takes at least a week to prepare for: nevertheless, on the morning of the holiday, everyone gathers, wearing seolbin (traditional clothing reserved for this holiday), to pay respect to one’s ancestors. Shortly afterwards, the family communally eats tteokguk, a soup holding ritualistic value. Then, younger generations perform 세배(sebae), which is bowing to show respect, to their elders who gift younger generations with sebaetdon, a monetary New Year’s present.
After these rituals are performed, the family spends the rest of the day playing games, eating and conversing. Yutnoriis a game commonly played during Seollal: it is a board game that requires players to throw four wooden sticks and move their game pieces according to the amount of sticks that fall face-up. The first team to complete the board wins and this game is enjoyable for the entire family, regardless of social hierarchy.
Moreover, it should be noted that one of twelve animal deities (or zodiac signs) represents each year. For example, “the year 2018 is referred to as Musullyeon(‘Mu-‘ means ‘soil mountain’, representing yellow or gold, and ‘-sul’ means dog) or ‘The Year of the Golden Dog’” (Korea Tourism Organization).
Reading about Seollal and hearing stories about the holiday from my learning partner make me hopeful that one day, I will have the opportunity to experience Seollal personally in Korea.
Bibliography:
Korea Tourism Organization. “Celebrating Seollal in Korea: Glimpse of Local New Year’s Customs.” Imagine Your Korea, 2 Feb. 2018, http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/ATR/SI_EN_3_6.jsp?cid=941952.
Comments
This holiday sounds like so much fun! I can see the Confucian cultural aspects incorporated in the tradition such as respect and the elders caring for the younger generation. You mentioned that it takes a whole week to prepare for seollan, that's a long time! I wonder what they do to get ready. The game you talked about, Yutnoriis, I actually saw in the K-Drama Hwarang, highly recommend, so I've seen it in action. Hwarang is a historical drama so it's interesting to see how the traditional games are still played today. I wish that we had something similar to this in the U.S. Regarding the name of the year, are the animals the same as those in China? It is really cool to have a name such as 'The Year of the Golden Dog' instead of just numbers because it gives the year a character and an energy to go off of.