西洋오랑캐

Well the Lunar New Year (known in Korean as 설날) has come and gone, so let’s get the formalities out of the way. 건강하시고 새해 福 많이 받으세요. Now give me some money and we’ll be good to go.

This is the first time since my arrival in Korea more than two years ago that I’ve actually gotten to see first hand how a traditional Korean holiday is celebrated. Prior to this weekend each and every Korean holiday was celebrated at my house pretty much the same way: vast oceans of alcohol, horrible films on television, and on occassion a trip to some tourist attract that happens to be open (경복궁, I’m looking in your general direction). Since I got hitched not to long ago, I now have a Korean family that I am attached to. So this year New Year’s was spent with a lot less alcohol and Jean Claude VanDamme, and a lot more traditional goings on.

설날 is kind of akin to Christmas in the west. Not such much in that there are a lot of gifts being exchanged, but because it is a big holiday in which families all get together. Additionally, like Christmas, 설날 preparations begin well before the day of the big event. To say a lot of food is prepared for 설날 is something of an understatement! The ammount of food I bore witness to (and consumed) over the past three days was insane.

So earlier in the week, the cooking began at the in-laws’ house. There were vegetables to be peeled, fruit to be washed, rice to be turned into 떡, and 전 to be prepared…and those were just the tasks that I personally had a hand in, and let me tell you, nothing says a fun afternoon like hauling 8 kilograms of washed rice to the local 떡집. The fact that I was willing to, nay, wanted to help in the kitchen was mind boggling to my mother-in-law. Korea, in my experience, still seems to be of the mind set that the kitchen is no place for a man, and that household chores are a woman’s domain, but no matter I was all about cooking 전! From what went down in the kitchen I can best describe 전 as stuff dipped in flour, then raw egg, and then cooked in a frying pan, and did we make 전!!! There was fish 전, sweet potato 전, meat 전 (which had a different name that escapes my mind at the moment), pumpkin 전, and so forth.

The cooking went on for days and days. Saturday evening (설날 eve) saw even more cooking, and I found myself partaking in the more manly 설날 preparation persuit of calligraphy. “Wyatt, what does calligraphy have to do with New Years?” asks a dissenting audience member.

Dissenting audience member, I’m getting a little tired of your interruptions, and your attitude, but this time you ask a valid question. While New Years on the solar calendar (Gregorian calendar?) is a time to get smashed and sing lyrically confusing songs about forgeting friends or not forgeting friends, Lunar New Years (in Korea at least…China, Vietnam and other nations with Lunar New Years may have different traditions), is a time when families gather to pay respect to their departed ancestors in a ceremony known in Korean as 제사 (jae-sa or [insert your favorite Romanization here]). This ceremony involves offering up food to the ancestors and is a little more complex than I really want to get into at this late hour. If you are looking for a more in depth run down of the procedure, check out Nathan’s post here. He even has pictures!

Anyhow, I did have a point, honestly I did. So during the 제사, one of the pieces of equipment needed (aside from mountains of food) are papers with the names of the departed written in 漢字 on them. At one point during Saturday evening I was summoned from the kitchen with a, “Wyatt, you know Chinese characters…come write these with me.” While none of the stuff I wrote was actually used it was still nice to get to write them, and to hear that my handwriting was, “very beautiful,” (though it was slightly disheartening to hear that my writing in 한자 looks better than my writing in 한글).

Sunday morning we all woke up at the crack of dawn. People were coming to the in-laws house, so cleaning needed to be done, and the table needed to be set up for the ceremony. Again I refer you to Nathan and his pictures. Like he says, the stuff each family sets out differs a little, but the pictures give a basic idea of what was there. A little before 9 in the morning the vistors arrived, and the ceremony began.

The ceremony at my in-laws went a little something like this. Candles and incense were lit. There was a moment of silence. Then the men in attendence bowed twice. I’m not talking about your everyday bow either. This was the serious forehead to the floor bowing stuff, and now being a part of this family I partook in it. Women had to bow four times, which I am assuming has something to do with kitchen work. After that, alcohol was poured for each of the ancestors. Then the men each had to add more to the cup. I was the last person to pour into the cups and it was like a science experiment. The cups were on the verge of overflowing when I arrived and I had to pour into each cup three times without causing them to overflow. Anyhow then the papers with the names were burned, and since the in-laws are nominally Christian, someone said a prayer. From there it was time to eat. It was now roughly 9:15 in the morning. I be recalling some of the events out of sequence due to what happened next.

There at the breakfast table, we began chowing down on the food which had been offered up…including the alcohol, bringing the earliest I have consumed alcohol having been to sleep the night before to the time of 9:15 in the morning. Things were not helped by Jinhui’s great uncle who kept pouring me drinks of rice wine. Breakfast also included the traditional dish of Lunar New Year, 떡국 (rice cake soup…forged from the 8 kilograms of rice I took to the shop earlier in the week). After breakfast vistors left, and I had a brief reprive before round two: 외가집 (the mother’s side of the family).

Around noon thirty we piled into an automobile with a box of pears (it is tradition to bring gifts when visiting people at 설날) and a short while later had arrived at Jinhui’s grandfather’s house in the country. There were no less than 50 people there, and for some reason I was headlining event, trumping even a 90 year old grandfather and a 100 day old baby (both big milestones in a Korean’s life). Again there was more food to be eaten, and more people to bow to. A big part of New Year’s involves bowing to elders (새배), and wishing them well (see the string of Korean typed at the begining of this article for the typical New Year’s greeting). For this task children are rewarded small sums of money (새뱃돈), since neither Jinhui, nor her sister, nor I were children we were all doing our bows per-bona, until one uncle at the grandfather’s house handed me 20,000 won (about $20US) proclaiming, “You never got ‘bowing money’ before…” Jinhui later expressed her shock, “That uncle is kind of cheap, none of the kids there got more than 5,000 from him.”

Lunch was served, and again tables were breaking. The men sat around and ate while the women worked the kitchens. Jinhui was pressed into service as a waitress, I was dragged over to what seemed to be the main table for men to regail people with poorly worded tales of America (”Honest fellas, the streets are paved with gold!”), and Jinhui’s sister (aged 24) somehow snuck off with middle school aged cousins thus avoiding all work.

After lunch we headed off in small groups one by one to pay respects to Jinhui’s mother’s ancestors at tombs up a small mountain (this was the country remember). So after a brief hike we arrived at the tombs. Some food and drink were again offered up, though the spread was a lot less grand. Like the travel version of board games, the mountain version lacked a lot of the frills the home 제사 had included. Instead of candles and whole chickens and fruit, all that was presented was a dried fish and some makkoli (unrefined rice wine). Again we bowed. One of Jinhui’s uncles explained to her the 한자 on the tombs and then told her to explain them to me. Jinhui’s father chimed in, “Ah, he knows more than she does…he’ll explain them to her,” and with that we then headed back home.

We then bid the people farewell and headed back to Jinhui’s parent’s homestead. The rest of the evening was spent relaxing with some 윷놀이 (yut), which is a game not that far removed from the royal game of India, Parchessi. In addition to the standard game of 윷, the sticks used to play were also used to devine fortunes for the year to come. I have included the list of possible fortunes in the post directly below this…though at present I have not offered up English translations as I’ve been typing for what seems like hours and want to sleep…which is not a bad idea.

Brief summary of Monday was we paid visits to relatives who for whatever reason could not be seen on 설날 proper.

Again, in summary, check out Nathan’s site if you want to read a much more well thought out and written account of the holiday of 설날, complete with pictures I felt too odd to even ask about taking.