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Chuseok — the Korean Mid-Autumn Festival

Chuseok, also celebrated on the fifteenth day of the eight lunar month (see Harvest Moon Festival) is one of the three biggest national holidays in Korea, together with “Seollal” (the Lunar New Year) and “Dano” (the fifth of May by the lunar calendar). Chuseok is also called “Hangawi.” “Han” means great or large, and “Gawi” means “middle.”

The holiday is often recognized by foreigners as the Korean version of the American Thanksgiving Day: it is a day when families get together, express thanks to their ancestors for a plentiful harvest, and wish for another good year. The day before and after Chuseok are also holidays, giving people 3 days to visit their families and hometowns.

The holiday has been celebrated at least since the early period of the kingdom of Silla (57 BC - AD 935), where it originally grew out of a month-long weaving contest between two teams. Come the day of Hankawi, the team that had woven more cloth had won and was treated to a feast by the losing team.

Traditions

Many Chuseok traditions involve expressing gratitude to ancestors. On the morning of Chuseok, people present newly harvested rice, rice wine and Songpyeon, a crescent-shaped rice cake, to their ancestral altars. They then visit their ancestors’ graves, trimming weeds growing on and around the graves, and making formal bows of gratitude to their ancestors.

Songpyeon is a traditional Chuseok dish, similar to Chinese Mooncakes. Rice powder is boiled and kneaded to make the songpyeon dough, which is then filled with a sweet stuffing made of sesame seeds, beans, or chestnuts. The stuffed dough is steamed with pine needles, which add fragrance. It is thought that women who can shape a pretty half moon will marry good men.

On Chuseok, women peform a traditional game named Ganggangsulae, in which they hold hands and dance in circles, singing “Gang-gang-sullae.” Ganggangsullae has its origins in the1592 Japanese invasion of Korea. Admiral Yi Sun-shin ordered the women of a nearby village to wear military clothes and dance in circles around the mountains, hoping to confuse the Japanese into believing that the Koreans had a larger number of soldiers than they actually did. (This strategy won Admiral Yi Sun-shin the battle.

A variety of other folk games are played on Chuseok in different regions of the country, ranging from a lion dance, a tug of war, or wrestling and archery contests. It is also customary to wear new clothing on Chuseok.

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