Korean traditional festival customs

Koreans regard the first month to March as spring, April to June as summer, July to September as autumn, and October to December as winter. Among them, it shows that the Spring Festival, which starts in one year, is the largest festival for Koreans. On this day, Koreans sacrificed their ancestors and celebrated the New Year to adults.

There are four traditional festivals in South Korea, namely, Spring Festival (January 1st of the lunar calendar), Lantern Festival (January 15th of the lunar calendar), Dragon Boat Festival (May 5th of the lunar calendar), and Mid-Autumn Festival (August 15th of the lunar calendar). During the festival, folk activities are carried out in most places, and most Korean folk activities are concentrated on the 15th day of the first month, which is closely related to the form of magic praying for a bumper harvest. Representative activities include tug-of-war, car games, stepping on copper bridges, garden dancing, etc.

In the past, the

was a grand religious commemoration. Back in the Three Kingdoms era, South Korea began to celebrate Harvest Festival and Thanksgiving Day. This kind of festival includes the Dragon Drum Festival in Fuyu, the ASEAN Festival in Koguryo, and the Dance Day Festival in Tokyo. Except for the Dragon Drum Festival, which is held in December of the lunar calendar, other festival activities are usually held in October of the lunar calendar after the autumn harvest. In subsequent dynasties, although festivals increased or decreased, activities to celebrate the autumn harvest and welcome the Lunar New Year have been continued. Families get together during the festival. The whole family mainly wore hanbok and held ancestral ceremonies. After the ancestor worship, the younger generation would like to congratulate the elders on the New Year.

spring Festival

The 1st day of the first lunar month is the most solemn festival in South Korea. In South Korea, ancestors are sacrificed on New Year's morning (giving food and drink gifts to ancestors). It means the beginning of a new year. After the sacrifice, the children congratulated the adults on the New Year, and the adults returned their greetings. Eat rice cakes on the Spring Festival. This means one year older. Family members and relatives get together to play games such as hub throwing (a traditional Korean game played with four wooden blocks) and jumping boards (a game in which girls stand on both ends of a long wooden board and take turns jumping). And give a blessing fence (a filtering spoon like tool) with the meaning of "blessing" to others or hang it at home.

Lantern Festival

January 15th of the lunar calendar. At the beginning of the new year, welcome the first full moon and pray for abundance and peace throughout the year. On the morning of the 15th day of the first lunar month, pray to eat "plutonium cooking"(pray to avoid sores and eat hard foods such as peanuts, chestnuts, and walnuts) and "ear ming wine"(wine drunk so that both ears can hear well throughout the year). For breakfast, we eat grain rice (rice made with rice, glutinous rice, beans, and sorghum) and wild vegetables (vegetables made with edible grass and leaves) and call each other's names. The other party replies,"You buy my heat", which means not getting sunstroke in the summer of the year. There are two types of games on the 15th day of the first lunar month: one is flying kites, which means to eliminate a year's disaster; the other is setting off rat fire, which means to expel demons, ghosts and pests. It is said that on the evening of the 15th day of the first lunar month, three wishes were made to the full moon and the city were fulfilled.

Dragon Boat Festival

Dragon Boat Festival on May 5 of the lunar calendar is a day to pray for a good harvest after transplanting. On Dragon Boat Festival, women wash their hair, swing, wrestle, and eat wheel cakes that look like wheels. The Dragon Boat Festival is also called the Wheel Festival after adopting the name of this food.

Mid-Autumn Festival

August 15th of the lunar calendar is a festival for preparing food using fruits and new grains produced in that year. It is the largest festival in South Korea after the Spring Festival. On autumn evening, we used new grain to make food and sacrifice to our ancestors, and then went to sweep the tomb (personally went to the ancestral cemetery to lay food and drink and salute). We also used the grains, buckets, chestnuts, etc. produced in that year to make muffins and eat them. We played games such as tug-of-war and Qiang Shuiyue (everyone shook hands and drew a circle together).

In addition, there are also some family festivals in South Korea. These festivals are important to all Koreans and always have banquets to celebrate. These festivals include: "Hundred Days", which is the 100th day after the birth of a baby; the first birthday of a "one-year-old" child; and the 60th birthday of the "sixty-year-old" child, which indicates that a person has spent a whole sixty-year-old year. In the past, due to the high number of infant deaths and the short life span of people, people warmly congratulated these festivals.

These family festivals used to be regarded as festivals to congratulate them, and even distant relatives came to congratulate them. Now, people participating in this kind of congratulation are limited to their own family members. More and more elderly people in Huaxiang are no longer celebrating their birthdays at home, but choosing other measures, such as traveling abroad to celebrate their birthdays.