The Journey- 9 월 (September-Chuseok)

9월

September

Chuseok 추석

(part 2)

As Autumn slowly creeps in, and Summer skipping away Koreans look forward to the harvest season. The sweat and tear of Spring now bears fruits to be harvested and picked in Autumn. And during this season, Koreans also celebrate their Chuseok or Korean Thanksgiving Day. Chuseok is celebrated for 3 days from the 15th day of the 8th month by the Lunar Year (don't worry if you don't get it. I was confused myself). Anyways, during this festival or occasion most Koreans travel the distance to their hometown. Those in Seoul head back home to their villages (something like our Raya, CNY and Deepavali). Well, being foreign students, we're stuck in our dorms for the whole week of holiday. Sad? Well we were lucky. The big bosses of the Uni decided to have some Korean students bring us salvation from the boredom that is the dorm.

So let's begin. During the first day of Chuseok, Koreans visit their ancestor's tombstones or graves and pay their respect. They will be in the Hanbok, adults, children, babies and elders alike. I'm sure the babies would look cute in them. They water and clean the tombstones and pray as a family united. Then they would place offering to their ancestors called the Jesasang. Anyways, those were what the Korean students told us. Very brief. Think it may be due to the difficulty speaking in English. Well, then we moved on to FOOD!!! One of the must during Chuseok is Songpyeon which is made from rice cakes and some other stuff I don't really know what they are anymore. Anyways, got to try some colorful Songpyeon and the others tired a mushroom whiskey (Of course I didn't take any, but it smelled better than most alcoholic drinks I've smelt before).

During the festival, as family members gather, they have traditional games as well. We played a a few, one known as Yut and the other Go-Stop.

The picture shows the game Yut. Its a simple game. Something like snake and ladder. So basically one play it by throwing the 4 sticks as shown. The number of moves is determined by the total heads (side with markings). If one gets all four heads he/she gets another throw. If a player gets the only an X sign facing upright (as in pic), he/she moves back a step. The goal is to have all your beads complete a cycle. Stepping in an intersection allows the player to take shortcuts. The winner is the one who managed to complete (in this case) 3 cycles first.

Later that evening we headed out...