Chuseok

As you may know, this last weekend was Chuseok, which is typically known to Americans as the Harvest Festival, or the “Korean Thanksgiving.” Let me start by talking about what Chuseok is.  It’s date is determined by the lunar calendar (this year it was September 12^th), but it is traditionally a 3 day event.  The meaning of Chuseok is to thank your ancestors for the plentiful harvest. 

So, we started out our Chuseok celebration on Sunday.  I woke up and helped my mom (as much as she would let me)  prepare some of the food that we were bringing to my host uncle’s house.  That’s another thing:  for Chuseok, you always celebrate at the house of the oldest male in the family (on the paternal side).  My host dad has an older brother, so we went to his house.  In Alyssa’s case, her host dad is the oldest male, so people came to her house.  Anyways, we started out the morning by preparing food to bring.  We made these yummy little fish things that were slices of fish covered in flour, and then this egg and vegetable stuff, then pan fried.  I want to make it when I come back to America! 

After Jiwon and Jonghyun finally woke up and got ready to go, it was already 4 PM xD  So we started out on the road to Daejeon, where my host uncle and his family live.  It only takes us about a half hour to get there, so it was a half hour of me being nervous (okay, I have to pause here and say that while I was just trying to type “me being”  I typed “meing”.  LOL .  This is a new sort of contraction xD).  Anyways, I was really nervous about meeting so many new people, especially at an event as traditional as Chuseok.

We got to their apartment, and they were all very nice.  My host cousins consist of a boy that’s like 28, a girl that’s 24, and a boy that’s 20.  So they are all older than me, Jonghyun, and Jiwon.  The 28 year old cousin I had met once before, when he came and took us on a drive around a mountain about a month ago.  So when I got there, I pretty much just talked to him for a while, since he also speaks pretty good English.  I’ve met him twice, but I’m feel way closer to him than I do to Jiwon.  The girl also speaks English really well—she studied in California for 6 months. 

We ate this huge dinner in the typical Korean style—everybody gets a bowl of rice and a bowl of soup, and then there are about 10 different dishes in the middle of the table that everyone shares.  These are called “Pan-chan”, and the English translation is “side dish”, but I don’t really think there is an English equivalent.  These dishes range from standard Kimchi, to beef, fish, eggplant, beans…etc.  They aren’t really side dishes, as they are the main meal, but there are only small dishes of each that everyone eats a little of everything.  Though I will say that the small dishes hold a lot more meat than you’d think.  It seems like you everyone eats out of it all dinner and the amount never diminishes!

After dinner, my oldest host cousin proposed that we go out and see a little of Daejeon, so the 6 of us (the cousins, me, Jonghyun, and Jiwon) went to this big park.  Anyways, my cousin and I walked around this pretty little park and garden area, and it was really nice.  After we got back to the car, we all went to Noraebang, which was fun, but sort of awkward.  Noraebang (Karaoke room) is really really fun if you go with friends, but when you go with people you don’t know it’s awkward.  It was still a good time though, and better than if we had been at home, because we would have just been watching TV with the parents.   After Noraebang, we went to the Coffee Shop and hung out for a bit.  Then we went back to my cousins apartment, and I taught them how to play Skip-Bo.  It really helped that the girl cousin speaks English xD  They all had a really fun time playing it, and they all got really into trying to win.  We played 3 games.  Even Jiwon thought it was fun.  Then I played cards a little bit with Jonghyun and the cousin that is his age, and then we went to sleep.

On the morning of Chuseok, we woke up at about 7 (after going to sleep at past 2 xD) and the females all helped prepare all the food.  My host mom and aunt had been awake since 5:30AM preparing it ><  The food is all arranged on these little pedestal dishes and placed on a low table that is placed in front of this big screen with stuff written on it.  I didn’t take any pictures, as this is a family ritual and I didn’t know if it would be okay.  It probably would have been, but I’m usually too nervous about it to ask.

Once we got all the food set out, the ceremony started.  I sat and watched, with my host mom and my host aunt.  Because they aren’t descendants of the paternal family, they don’t participate.  Yet they aren’t allowed to go to their own homes on Chuseok and give thanks to their ancestors, because they have to prepare everything for the males.  That goes back to the tradition that the female becomes part of the male family after marriage.  Anyways, my host uncle and host dad led the ceremony thing, and it basically consisted of this really rigid structure of bowing and then pouring some drink, then bowing and placing chopsticks on certain food, then bowing more.  And there was incense.  It was really interesting to watch, because there really is nothing like it in America.  This ritual is performed three times a year-  on Chuseok, the Lunar New Year, and the anniversary of the death of the father of the oldest male.  So, on November 20^th, the anniversary of my host dad’s father’s death, we will go to Daejeon again and do the same ritual again.  Well, they’ll go, I’ll be in Seoul.

After the ritual was finished, we ate the food and sat and talked for a bit, and then the men watched TV, while the females all washed the dishes and cleaned up.  This reminds me American holidays xD 

After we finished that, we left to go to the tomb of my host dad’s father.  It was an hour and a half away.  When we got there, they put a dried fish on his tomb, poured soju, then did the bowing thing.  After that, we went to a little picnic table and ate a lot of fruit.  Then, we said goodbye and went home.

Now is the third day of Chuseok, which is the day of rest J