Chuseok celebrates the bountiful harvest and strives for the next year to be better than the last. People perform ancestral worship rituals early in the morning. Then, they visit the tombs of their immediate ancestors to trim plants, clean the area around the tomb, and offer food, drink, and crops to their ancestors.
Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving Day, is one of the biggest and most important holidays in Korea. Family members from near and far come together to share food and stories and to give thanks to their ancestors. In 2022, the day of Chuseok falls on September 10.
Chuseok (추석) is a three-day holiday that is celebrated every fall. It is a traditional holiday where people go back to their hometowns to show appreciation for the fall food harvest. Chuseok is one of Korea's biggest and most important holidays and an essential aspect of Korean culture.
Chuseok is also known as Hangawi, which means the 15th day of August, according to the lunar calendar. On this day, a full harvest moon appeared in the sky and families gathered to enjoy time together and give thanks to their ancestors for the plentiful harvest.
Upon the arrival of Chuseok, families gather to make songpyeon (half-moon rice cake) and feast on japchae (stir-fried glass noodles and vegetables) and other representative traditional Korean holiday dishes. To celebrate Chuseok like a Korean, try making one of these six representative Korean foods.
Unlike a typical American Thanksgiving that is filled with a lot of eating and resting, Chuseok is quite active. Families take part in games and dances to celebrate the harvest and give thanks. Ganggangsulae is a traditional dance done by women and consists of joining hands in a circle formation under the full moon.
Chuseok gifts are exchanged between friends, family and business acquaintances, as much a part of Korean thanksgiving as any other culture's. Popular chuseok gifts tend to be fruit baskets, cuts of meat such as beef and spam, snacks, and gift sets of essential and practical items: toiletries, haircare and such.
Chuseok, a Korean holiday, is just one of many holidays that honor the dead. Although Chuseok is a harvest festival, it is associated with two important customs, charye and seongmyo.
Chuseok celebrations last for three days, including the day before Chuseok's official date and the day after. Here are some upcoming dates for Chuseok (according to the Gregorian calendar) so you can mark the date: 2022: September 9 - September 11. 2023: September 28 - September 30.
In the case of the color chip, since Chuseok is an autumn holiday in Korea, brown, yellow, and red were mainly used to give an autumnal atmosphere.
The liquor that is drunk on Chuseok is baeksaeju (백세주), which is also made from new rice. Along with hundreds of other Korean liquors, soju (소주) is another rice-based drink that is often drunk during holidays, put on the charye table, and sprinkled on graves during seongmyo.
How to say “Happy Chuseok” in Korean. There are a few different ways to wish someone a happy Chuseok. Chun shares that you can say "추석 잘 보내세요 (chuseok jal bonaeseyo)" which means, "Have a good Chuseok." Another option is "즐거운 한가위 되세요 (jeulgeoun hangawi doeseyo)" which means, "Have a happy Hangawi."
This national holiday and festival requires the wearing of the Hanbok, for the reason that it is through this celebration that Koreans brim with pride and honor on the cultural aspect, heritage and significance of the clothing, as far as the Chuseok Festival and Holiday is concerned and placed in the limelight.
But for the Koreans at least, their moon festival, known as Chuseok, is a three-day event full of lively festivities and joyous family reunions. Similar to other Moon Festival celebrations around the world, Chuseok is held on the 15th day of the 8th month, and is considered to be one of South Korea's major holidays.
Traditionally, Koreans believe that when someone dies, their spirit stays on earth to protect and watch over their ancestors. Chuseok is a time to thank them for that protection. On the main day of Chuseok, Koreans will perform a ritual in the morning called Charye to remember loved ones who have died.
In Korean culture, the memorial ceremony for the dead is called Jesa. This is a general term that refers to different types of memorial ceremonies, some of which occur on major holidays like the Lunar New Year. However, the most common type of Jesa takes place on the anniversary of the deceased person's death.
In modern Korean funerals, no eulogies are held. Visitors bow twice to the deceased and once to the mourner with words of condolences to show respect. Various delicacies and wine are served to the visitors. Instead of burial, cremation, which has a shorter period of bodily decay, is more commonly practiced nowadays.
Chuseok - the harvest festival
Since the 15th day of a lunar month is always a full moon day, the day is sometimes also called Hangawi, and thus moon festival.
Most department stores will be closed during Chuseok, which means you won't be able to get your fix of Korean cosmetics, however don't let your ears droop because of that! Save your time and your money by buying cosmetics on the Lotte Duty Free website (eng.lottedfs.com).
Seollal (Lunar New Year's Day) is the first day of the Korean lunar calendar and the most celebrated traditional holiday in Korea.
On the eve of Chuseok, families gather and spend most of the time preparing the traditional foods like songpyeon, japchae, galbijjim and jeons to celebrate the bounty of harvest and give thanks to the ancestors.
Fruit Sets This is probably your safest bet for a Chuseok gift. The holiday is all about reaping and giving thanks for the harvest, so fruit sets with late summer and fall produce like Asian pears, apples, and grapes are popular gifts all around the country.
“I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving”
Jeulgeoun (즐거운) means pleasant and hangawi (한가위) means Korean Thanksgiving which also means Chuseok (추석). When people exchange this greeting, they wish the other person to have a great time during the festival.