A national holiday is something that almost all people around the world keep waiting for. Aside from the weekend, national holiday is the best option for spending time together with family without stressing about work. In South Korea, there are five national holidays that follow the lunar calendar. They are:
1. Seollal
Seollal is the “new year holiday” for Korean. It is on the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar. When Seollal comes, Korean will celebrate it by wearing their traditional clothes or their new clothes to visit their hometown.
Children will do sebae, a tradition of bending down with respect to the older one. Same as in Indonesia, they will receive sebaetdon or angpao when visiting hometowns. There will be many foods at this celebration, but the most authentic one is tteokguk (rice cake soup).
2. Dano (Suritnal)
If you ever watched sageuk drama or historical drama, you will be familiar with this national holiday. Dano or Suritnal is the national holiday that is held on every fifth day of the fifth month on the lunar calendar. There will be a festival on this day because they believe that the space activity is on the top (cheonjung-jeol). Korean believes that the number 5 is a positive and good number. So that in Dano, the ritual starts with changpo-tang, bath, and washing hair using jeringau leaf water stew. It is believed to exorcise evil spirits and also bad luck. They will using nice clothes and do homage to the ancestral spirits.
3. Chuseok
Have you ever heard of Chuseok before? Chuseok is the thanksgiving day in Korea. It is on the fifteenth day of every eighth month of the lunar calendar. Just like in Seollal national holiday, when Chuseok comes, people will go to their hometown. There, they will do charye and seongmyo, a pray ritual for their ancestral spirits. In Chuseok there will be many foods, but the food that is a must are songpyeon (rice cake) and Jeon (seems like a traditional pancake).
4. Seokga Tansinil
Seokga Tansinil is the day of Buddha’s birthday. We may familiar with Waisak, and Seokga Tansinil is the Korean name for it. Held on every eighth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar. On this national holiday, Buddhists will wear their best clothes and visit the temple for praying. There will be many colorful lanterns at night when the festival is held. The most famous festival on Seokga Tansinil day is Lotus Lantern Festival.
5. Gaecheonjeol
Gaecheonjeol is a national holiday for celebrating the establishment of Korea’s first kingdom, Gojoseon by Dangun, that according to the lunar calendar happen on October 3, 2333 BC. So every 3 October, Korean will celebrate this day by doing a ceremony at Chamseongdan altar, Manisan Mountain, Ganghwa Island. The special dish for this national holiday is Japchae.
These are the 5 national holidays in South Korea. If you want to visit South Korea, you can see the date and saw the festival there. Don’t forget to comment in the section below on how your reaction when reading this article. Thank you for reading ❤
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