The Biggest National Holiday in Korea
201103628 Hana Choi
Although Korea has been so developed over the last few decades that the lifestyle is westernized, there are still a number of Korean traditional activities. Lunar New Year’s Day is one of them. It is a Korean traditional holiday which takes place on January first every year by lunar calendar. On the holiday all of the family members get together to wish their family good luck and enjoy their time. Because the holiday usually lasts more than 3 days, many things need to be prepared a couple of weeks before we celebrate New Year.
The markets in Korea become very crowded with the people buying presents for their relatives or neighbors. Merchants wearing Hanbok, a Korean traditional costume, sell a variety of products from general merchandise such as soaps, shampoo or socks to pricey food like ginseng, meat and so forth. Since a memorial service is held on the holiday morning, things for the rite including a folding screen, special utensils and a big wooden table are bought. Grandparents buy food for the ancestral rite and prepare food for their family. In case grandparents passed away the eldest son in family does what their parents did. And People who want to wear Hanbok during the holiday rent or buy one.
A day or two days before Lunar New Year, family arrives at grandparents’ house to make ritual food. Grandparents warmly welcome family members and they have lunch together. After lunch women make different kinds of food for the rite during the day. They usually make a lot of food to share it with others later. After they prepare food, they head to a shop to have tteok made. In every town there are several small tteok shops which are called ‘tteok mill’. There we see the whole process of rice go into a machine and turn out into hot and chewy tteok. While women do their job, men put out a folding screen, clean the utensils for the ancestral rite or make kites with children. In the evening we eat and take a rest playing yut or playing a card game called ‘go-stop’.
On the early morning of the holiday people hold a memorial ceremony. We put the food, fruits and sweets in the steel dishes and set them on the big wooden table. And we open the windows to let the spirits of our ancestors in and stop talking for a minute to give some time for the soul to eat the food we have prepared. We vow twice and the rite is over. After the rite we eat the food and tteok guk which is kind of soup with tteok, meat, vegetables in it and garnished with grilled eggs and many pieces of seaweed. In Korea people believe they get one year older after eating tteok guk on Lunar New Year’s Day so we eat at least one bowl of tteok guk during the day. Next we visit ancestors’ cemetery with offerings. After that we visit others’ house wearing hanbok and give presents. Children vow to elders for New Year’s and in response to that the elderly give words of blessing and some money to the children. For the last of the day Grown-ups eat and drink with their neighbors, children go out and play Korean traditional games like top-spinning game, yut, jegi, or kite flying.
After Lunar New Year, Many people do not get used to go back to their work or school because of all the eating and fun time they had. On the other hand some people do not like this holiday because of a long preparation. A few people even do not visit their family and go abroad for a trip during the holiday. However, Lunar New Year’s Day should be preserved as the biggest national holiday in Korea to unite family and make people remember their ancestors.
A giant leap for me
201103628 Hana Choi
2014 is called horses' year in Korea. A horse has a meaning of 'activeness' and 'strength' in Korea. Thinking about how to be an energetic and powerful person like a horse in the future I made three resolutions for this year: learning French, having a knowledge of the world history, and studying economics.
I was always eager to learn any other languages except for English because English was the only foreign language I could speak. When I was in Quebec for a week last year there was an event I realized how important languages are and made me to learn French. I lost my way to a bus terminal. The departure time was approaching but I had no idea how to get to the bus station so I asked one of people on the street. But in Quebec many people use only French even though it is a part of Canada and the person also did not speak English. I used body language and succeeded to get to the station but if I had known how to speak basic French it would have been much easier to communicate with not only the person but other people there. This was the strong motivation for me to start to learn French so I have been going to French school for twice a week and try to spend as much time as I can on studying French.
I also began to have interests in world history. I had not thought it was important to know what occurred in the past. However, since I subscribed newspaper I found out how crucial world history is to understand current affairs around the world. So whenever I read an international part in newspaper I research online the background or find some materials in books. But there were still some curiosities about the articles I read and many of them couldn’t be clearly explained only by world history. This is the reason I have focused on economics.
Not only world history but also current issues cannot be explained without the understanding of economics because economics are used to interpret why the things happened. For instance if I want to conceive why a war is going on in the Middle East I need to know economic strategies of each country. So I read newspaper daily and try to find which economic rules people use to analyze incidents. Furthermore I study economics reading a text book to understand this field deeply.
Those three things I mentioned above are never be achieved in a short time. Though being fluent in French, knowing what happened in the past and studying economics are the things I have to improve on to become an influential person for the rest of my life. Even though it is not easy to work on them with school work I already feel how much I changed from who I used to be so I will keep doing my best.
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