14 Sep 2008, Posted by Matt in Festivals & Holidays, Food & Drink, Gyeongsang, Seoul, Transportation, 1 Comments
Chuseok: The Full Moon Festival
During Chuseok, my family conducted an early morning ancestral worship ritual. Afterwards, everyone enjoyed a feast!
The Korean calendar is a hybrid one. It’s a mix of the Gregorian calendar, which begins on January 1st, and a luni-solar calendar that begins on the first new moon of the year. The result is a mix of holidays- so, while Korean Independence Day always falls on August 15th, a traditional holiday like the harvest festival Chuseok (추석), occurs on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month, which means sometime in September or early October.
This year, Chuseok, which is also known as Hangawi (한가위), falls on September 14th. The days before and after are combined to create one of Korea’s four main traditional holidays. This weekend, tens of millions of Koreans are returning to their ancestral hometowns to be among family and friends. Traditional rites include an early morning ancestral worship ritual and the tending of family tombs, called beolcho (벌초).
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