Today started the three day Korean New Years celebration which is a major national holiday. If you're like me, this seemed a bit odd for February. This wasn't the first time I'd encountered different days for New Years in Asia. The Laos New Year is celebrated in April. Why all the different dates? I knew some dates corresponded to Buddhist traditions, but that didn't seem to explain the Korean celebration in February. This sent me to Google where I learned that Korea tied it's New Year celebration to the second full moon after winter's solstice (Lunar New Year). A little more research took me back in time to the Justinian calendar and the movement towards the Gregorian calendar that competed with other ancient calendaring systems which often contained religious significance. Ouch! My head!
The bottom line is that January 1st is treated as the International New Year based on the Gregorian calendar (originally determined by the Catholic Church in the 16th century in an effort to keep the timing of Easter consistent from year to year and adopted by the British Empire in the 1750s) and is widely recognized among most nations today to keep things understandable in navigation and commerce. Still, many nations, based on their culture and history have separate New Year celebrations that are still honored by holidays in their countries. In Asia, New Years celebrations are usually marked by family gatherings, traditional foods, possible ancestral worship and sometimes religious observances (washing the Buddha and adorning them in some countries.) In Laos it is celebrated, in part, by dumping water and flour on each other and complete strangers as an encouragement for the rains to come during monsoon season.
We plan on celebrating Korean New Year's tonight by setting off some old fashioned bottle rockets and fireworks at the beach. The fireworks came from the Jukdo Indoor/outdoor market in Pohang where you can find just about anything. We selected the beach because it seems a safe place to set off bottle rockets. As near as I can determine, fireworks are perfectly legal to set off In Korea so long as you use a bit of common sense. However, I'm told another professor's family was surprised while setting off fireworks at the beach when they were surrounded by a Korean military patrol in full battle gear out on maneuvers.
We just got back from the successful launch of our sky rockets at Bukbu Beach. Lighting the fuses was a bit of a challenge in the freezing cold winds. It took three butane lighters to get the job done. Once again I saw a new side to Susan who enjoyed lighting of the rockets as much as the kids. Susan is busy preparing a stew for after church tomorrow with the new Marine friends as the kids and I watch Leave It To Beaver. Tomorrow she'll discover the sand we dragged in from the beach and onto her clean floors (and still another load of dirty clothes.) That poor saintly woman!
Happy Korean New Year from the Chinn family.
Thanks Ken and family, I enjoyed following you trip so much. I too like to set of fireworks but we can't around here. We go to the beach on the 4th of July to watch.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to hearing how you have settled back in.
Love to you,
Mary