Chuseok holiday
Bits and pieces of the Korean culture
Chuseok, Korea's Thanksgiving, is indeed the time for family gatherings. We gather together to share and pay respects to our ancestors with food made from newly harvested grain and nuts, and freshly picked vegetables and fruit. My 14-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son are especially excited to meet their cousins. The weather is perfect at this time of the year -- not too hot nor too cold -- for the kids to go outdoors and play, as Chuseok, the fifteenth day of the eightth lunar month, comes in late September or early October.
My daughter, who obviously likes a big audience rather than just her younger brother, enjoys telling the cousins horror stories in a dark room as they are allowed to go to sleep late during the Chuseok holiday. My husband, who has busied himself with teaching and research, relaxes and discusses political and social issues or family matters with his parents and brothers.
Meanwhile my two sisters-in-law and I in the kitchen make "songpyons" (half-moon shaped rice cakes) and panfry meatballs, fish and tofu clad in stirred egg for the ancestor-commemoration ceremony that is due early the next morning. This morning ritual of paying homage to antcestors especially on Chuseok or the New Year's Day is called "charye".
My older sister-in-law whom I call "hyeongnim" -- "hyeong" (older person) plus "nim" (honorific suffix) -- has already spent a few days purchasing newly harvested groceries and preparing kimchi, "sikhye" (a sweet rice drink) and other special foods which take some time to prepare. She has also changed the bedding for the whole extended family. It has somehow become our ritual to spend the night at her place for such family events as Chuseok, as well as other celebrations as our father-in-law's and mother-in-law's birthdays, New Year's Day, and "jesa", i.e., the remembering worship ceremony of grandfather's and grandmother's deathdays. I respect and admire "hyeongnim", the wife of the oldest son, who makes what might have been an unpleasant task into something enjoyable and fun.
What men and women do during Chuseok holiday is quite distinctly divided. Chuseok for men is a holiday, while women work in the kitchen all day long. But amongst the males, the eldest son, at least, is busy. As successor to his father, he knows which food goes where and he sets the table as we deliver the dishes we have prepared. There are certain rules about where to place food: Reddish fruit and fish are arranged on the east end of the table while whitish fruit and meat are placed on the west. When the table is set, my father-in-law offers wine to the ancestors and leads the ancestor worship.
A renowned poet Ko Eun, well into his sixties, justly professed the other day in a newspaper column in Korea that it was high time to give up the history where men had been eating and women had been cooking. When my teenage kids become grown-ups, I hope men and women will share the chores which need to be done for family events. Then Chuseok would never be a burden for somer people, while its is a holiday for others.
After all, isn't Chuseok all about sharing?
From: Bits and Pieces of the Korean Culture (2000)
그림: 김지인
호주에 1년간 안식년으로 있을 때 쓴 글에서 발췌했습니다.
