Important Korean Holidays

Apart from remembering all the birthdays of husband's family members, it is also important for every daughter-in-law in Korea to take note of imporant holidays such as Parents' Day, Children's Day, and Teachers' Day. Usually, presents are expected to be given during these occasions.

New Year's (January 1)

Some Koreans still celebrate the New Year on this official holiday, while many more now celebrate on the Lunar Calendar's New Year's Day, Seollal.

Seollal (First Day of the First Month by the Lunar Calendar)

It is one of the most important holidays in Korea like Christmas in the Western world. Family members who live scattered around the nation reunite on this day to spend time together. This holiday features family rituals honoring ancestors and many traditional games.

Samil Independence Movement Day (March 1)

This day marks the beginning of the independence movement against the Japanese during their colonial rule. On this day in 1919, leaders of social and religious circles gathered at a park in central Seoul and declared Korea's independence from the Japanese colonialists.

Buddha's Birthday (Eighth Day of the Fourth Month by the Lunar Calendar)

Solemn rituals are held at Buddhist temples across the country. The day's festivities reach their climax when monks and laymen march through city streets with beautiful paper lanterns.

Children's Day (May 5)

Children are the center of attention on this day as their parents shower them with presents and take them on outings.

Parents' Day (May 8)

Though not an official holiday, it is still observed in many homes. Children give their parents carnations along with letters of thanks.

Teachers' Day (May 15)

Teachers occupy a special place in this society which still has a strong Confucian influence. There was a time in Korea when students were forbidden to walk in the shadow of their teachers, literally. Students give their teachers flowers on this day.

Constitution Day (July 17)

This national holiday celebrates the establishment of the first Korean Constitution on July 17, 1948. The Republic of Korea was established about a month later.

Liberation Day (August 15)

Taegeukgi, the Korean national flag, fly from nearly every building on this day, which marks the end of 35-year Japanese colonial rule in 1945.

Chuseok or Harvest Festival Day (Fifteenth Day of the Eighth Month by the Lunar Calendar)

This is one of the great national holidays of the year. On this day a feast is prepared and families hold memorial services at family grave sites. Viewing the full moon is a feature of the evening.

Hangeul Day (October 9)

Perhaps the only alphabet to have its own day, hangeul is the crowning achievement of the brilliant King Sejong. Among the many inventions of his court, this scientifically-based phonetic alphabet was the most influential, as it freed the populace from the tyranny of memorizing thousands of Chinese characters.

National Foundation Day (October 3)

Called Gaecheonjeol Day, this is the day when Dangun founded the first Korean kingdom.

Christmas Day (December 25)

Christianity took hold in Korea only in the 19th century, so this day has less religious significance. Just as everywhere else, though, it is a time to exchange greetings and gifts. Grandfather Santa, as he is called in Korea, is somewhat smaller in build than his Western counterpart.

Traditional Holidays

New Year's Eve - Last Day of the Year

The superstitions and customs of New Year's Eve have given way to the greater importance of the following day, but surely reviving them might bring additional luck. 
In the past, women went to the well at dawn to be the first to draw "lucky water." They also began preparing the feast for the next day, including the rice-cake soup in pheasant broth called tteokguk. Another custom was the settlement of outstanding debts by midnight. 
The household stayed up well after midnight, with even children fighting not to succumb to sleep lest their eyebrows turned white.

Seollal (New Year's Day) - First Day of the First Month

This is one of the two biggest holidays in Korea where the New Year is celebrated twice. While January 1st is still an official holiday, most families make the cross-country trip to their hometowns for the Lunar New Year, which falls in late January or early February. 
As in the West, this day sends off the previous year and ushers in the new.
In the weeks preceeding this day, friends exchange cards to thank each other for deeds of the past and to wish them a happy new year. Nowadays church-going Koreans send their Christmas greetings as well.
Children dress up in rainbow-colored silk hanbok and perform the sebae (New Year bow) before all the elders of the family and wishing them bok (good fortune) in the coming year. In turn, they are rewarded with golden words of advice and pocket money, the amount depending on their age and position in the family. This is one custom that is in no danger of dying out from rapid industrialization and urbanization.
Some of the games that make this day special, but are losing ground to electronic forms of recreation, are a tug-of-war, kite-flying, see-sawing, and yunnori, a kind of board game played with sticks.
The tug-of-war is more than a game of sheer strength. Because the ropes are bound in such a way as to symbolize the joining of man and woman, the contest promises fertility and productivity for the winning team, essential for farming and fishing communities.
Kite-flying is not only a sophisticated sport in Korea, but also the medium by which the previous year's bad luck and illnesses are released to the heavens. Over seventy different designs are known, including the shield kite, the baduk ("go" in Japanese) board kite, the skirt kite, and the stingray kite. The most popular is the shield kite, with its distinctive round hole. The hole acts to control speed and direction. These qualities were necessary for kite battles, in which boys tried to cut each others' kite strings, which were coated with shards of glass. 
Traditionally for girls over seven, the see-saw was their window to the world. New Year's Day used to be the only time of the year that girls could see over the courtyard walls. Nowadays, the see-saw is more a test of rhythm and balance than the social event girls look forward to all year. Jumping up and down on the low, flat board is a great deal more difficult than it appears. The momentum comes entirely from the timing of the leaps.
The menu for this day varies from region to region and family to family, but common to every table is tteokguk, a soup of slices of rice cake in beef or chicken broth not the pheasant broth used in the old days. Koreans say that eating tteokguk means eating another year. 
Other dishes are dumplings, bindaetteok (mung-bean pancakes￠?¨￡much more appetizing than they sound), and sujeonggwa (cinnamon tea) or sikhye, a rice punch.
Families offer food and drink to ancestors in a memorial ceremony. Although memorial rites are held at other times throughout the year, but on this day ancestors are served tteokguk as well.

Related site: Seol-- Lunar New Year

Dano ("Double Five," or Fifth Day of the Fifth Month)

To welcome the beginning of summer, memorial rites for ancestors were observed and then the fun began. Women washed their hair in water in which iris roots had been boiled (changpo) and gathered herbs to be dried. This was the one day of the year that married women were free to visit their own families. Women also swung on high swings while men engaged in ssireum, traditional Korean wrestling. 
In anticipation of the heat, kings sent fans to officials while villages sent fans to Seoul. The royal clinic made jehotang, a health soup, for the king. The traditional menu also included shad soup, steamed carp and cherry punch. Round rice cakes flavored with mugwort and other mountain greens are still served in some households. 
Gangneung in Gangwon-do Province is famous for its five-day Dano festival. In fact, the government has officially designated the festival as Important Intangible Cultural Treasure No.13. In addition to the folk games played at other times of the year, the festival includes a Confucian ritual, shaman exorcisms, masked dances, farmers' dance, and even a circus. After working up a vigorous sweat, merrymakers drink powerful liquor brewed especially for the celebration.

Chilseok (Seventh Day of the Seventh Month)

This may be the most romantic day of the calendar. Korean legend has it that the Vega and Altair stars are the celestial reincarnations of two lovers, Gyeonu (Herdboy) and Jiknyeo (Weaving Maiden), who meet only once a year. 
As the story goes, the daughter of the Heavenly King lived on the eastern side of the heavenly stream, or Milky Way, and weaved beautiful fabrics every night. Worried that she might be lonely, the king married her to a handsome herdboy tending flocks on the western side, but the two lovers were so caught up in romance that she neglected her weaving. In anger, the king banished her back across the stream. Their sorrow moved the king to allow her to cross the stream once a year on Chilseok on a bridge made of magpies and crows. Rainfall at night signified their tears of joy, while rain on the following morning meant tears of parting.
Foods for this day were ricecakes, zucchini pancakes, noodles, and cucumber kimchi.

Chuseok ("Harvest Festival Day")

Fifteenth Day of the Eight Month
This is another of Korea's major holidays, and the most generous in spirit. It is a day of thanksgiving for a good harvest. As on Lunar New Year's Day, families return to their home towns from all across the country to celebrate together.

Families traditionally received new clothes on this day but today they are likely to dress up in hanbok. They pay respects to their ancestors with wine, rice cakes, and newly-harvested fruits and grains like chestnuts, jujubes, persimmons, apples, and Korean pears. The day is not complete without the half-moon shaped rice cakes called songpyeon.
Folk games are played at this time of year too, when the weather is brilliant.