The last month has been busy for Korea. One of the larger Korean holidays just passed. Ch'usok is the full harvest moon festival and occurs on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month, and is similar to the American Thanksgiving holidays. This year it was on September 27th.
It's a time to spend with the family and to also honor your deceased relatives. I spent some of the holiday with my family and the rest of the time at the Gwangju Biennale, a major contemporary international art exhibition in Korea.
For Ch'usok there are 4 traditional things most people will do to celebrate. These involve Food, Ancestral Graves, Drinking & Money.
FOOD: For Ch'usok, the song-pyon is a very common dish made for the holiday. It is a rice cake filled with beans or sweet sesame seeds. You take a ball of dough, flatten the middle for the filling, and then fold over into a half moon shape. Then you steam these on the oven.
From PBS Site: >>>>>In many homes, memorial shrines are set up to honor an ancestor. On the morning of the Ch'usok festival, the family prepares the dishes with which they will honor their ancestors. Special dishes are prepared and set out on tables in front of the shrine. For instance, fresh chestnuts gathered from the forests are cut into jewel-like shapes, for easy stacking. Stacking things, whether stones or food, is a form of prayer. Food is offered to the ancestors and every dish must be passed over burning incense before it is acceptable. The memorial service table has a set order of dishes: five rows of different kinds of foods and sometimes cups of ch'ongju, a famous rice wine. The number five is important in Confucian thought. And fish are placed on the eastside with their heads also facing east. Fish always mean good fortune and the east signifies eternal life.>>>>>
I watched my host family prepare the memorial shrine and all the men did three bows to honor the ancestors. Curiously enough women do not participate in this part of the ceremony. Or at least not the ones in my family.
ANCESTRAL GRAVE: From PBS >>>>> All across Korea, the eldest sons of the family will clean and prepare the burial mounds of their most recently deceased ancestor. Koreans traditionally buried the dead under mounds standing upright in coffins made from six planks of wood. These represent the four cardinal points on the compass plus a plank for heaven and the other for earth. Corpses either face south or toward some important spiritual part of the landscape such as mountains because these are said to be the homes of the spirits of the land and sky. Even in these modern times ancient symbolism remains important in burial and memorial traditions.>>>>>
My host family and I traveled to the ancestral graves of both my host mother and father's families. The older males cleaned the graves, pulled weeds etc, and to each of the male relatives graves the family bowed 2 times.
DRINKING & MONEY: On Chu'sok, it's traditional for elders to give younger children money. So my host sister on Chu'sok wore her traditional "hanbok" or traditional Korean dress, and the adults gave her money.
I was privy to this tradition in an odd and nice way. It was the first night of the holiday and my Uncle (the husband of my host mother's younger sister), his older brother, and my host father had spent most of day drinking soju (Korean vodka). About 6 bottles or so between the three of them. Needless to say, they were completely and utterly drunk. So towards the end of the evening when I though they were headed home, it turns out that they were headed to the noraebang (karaoke room) instead. I ended up getting pulled along with the three men and the Aunt. For the next hour or so, the men danced, drank and sang songs. They also solicited me to sing as well and the Aunt chose my selection. "My Way" by Frank Sinatra. Most Koreans adults know and love this song. So... I sang "My Way" and when I was done, the Uncle decided to "tip" me with about 50$ USD. To which I tried to refuse, but since it was a holiday and he is kind of wealthy (president of mftg. company) ... I wasn't allowed say no.
Drunken 40 - 50 year old men singing karaoke is something that needs to be instated in the US. It's an important part of the cultural fabric of Korea.