Korean New Year

Korean New Year is on the first day of the lunar calendar. It is one of the most important traditional Korean holidays. This day celebrates the beginning of a New Year. Normally, new years is celebrated for three days.

Korean New Years is typically a family holiday. This day is a kind of formal day for Koreans to return to their hometowns, to visit their parents, and other relatives. Koreans perform an ancestral ritual on January 1^st in the lunar calendar. After sending a greeting to the ancestors, relatives greet each other. It is difficult for families to meet except on special occasions like the New Year’s day. Young children are given an offering words of wisdom, and paper money by their relatives.

Many Koreans dress up in colorful traditional Korean clothing, called hanbok. But as time passes by, small families have occupied most of Korean society, and have become less formal. More recently, Koreans wear other formal clothing instead of hanbok.

Tteokguk is a traditional Korea food eaten on new years day. It is a soup with sliced rice cakes, and is considered as the symbol of New Years Day. By eating Tteokguk, Koreans are considered one year older. Now a days, they also play various Korean traditional folk games such as Yunnori,  a board game, flying a kite, and Neolttwigi, a game of jumping on the seesaw. 

Written by: Sukyoung Kim

WSU Inernational Student

South Korea