As I mentioned a few days ago, I spent my Lunar New Year (Sol Nal) in Pohang at my mother-in-law’s house.As this was my first sol-nal to spend with Koreans, I was anxious to see how they celebrate the new year.
Just like most holidays, it’s centered around family. MyeongHee’s neice and nephew came to our house on Friday evening and we spent Saturday and part of Sunday playing Wii games. We had recently bought Wii Fit so we had a number of active games to keep them occupied. Like most kids, watching TV, playing computer games and video games occupies the majority of their time. Her neice, MinGyeong, is in her first year of high-school, just like DongHyun. They get along well together. MH’s nephew, ChangHyun, is about 5 years younger and is still in elementary school. He’s a playful little guy who excelled at the sports games on the Wii.
On Sunday afternoon, we packed up all the kids and drove up the coast to Pohang where MyeongHee’s brothers and wives had already arrived. Sunday evening we spent watching TV and playing Wii games which we had brought along with us. Around 10pm, one of the brother’s friends brought over a large box of steamed crabs. Yum! I love crab and it’s just about as expensive here as in the States, so I don’t get it very often. It was interesting to watch how Koreans eat them – no shell crackers and clarified butter – they use kitchen scissors to neatly cut things apart. Eating crab legs was never easier with the legs simply sheared off – just suck the meat out of the tube like a straw. MinGyeong and I feasted on the legs while the rest of the family ate legs and guts mixed with rice. I’m not a big fan off guts so I simply watched them eat their yellow, gray and pink rice mixture while hiding my revulsion as best I could.
Early in the morning, we held another ancestor worship ceremony for MyeongHee’s father. That’s the same ritual they do during Thanksgiving (Chuseok) and I’ve learned that they do it at all big holidays. They’ll do it again one the anniversary of his death. Ancestor worship is a huge part of Asian, not just Korean, culture and it figures heavily into their traditions. At the crack of dawn, we got up, dressed in our finest and bowed in front of the table filled with traditional foods. Then we went to my mother-in-law’s younger sister’s house just down the beach for the same thing (her husband had also passed away) and ate breakfast there. Then we packed up and headed to the military memorial to do another ceremony for MH’s father at graveside. I took this opportunity of bright sunshine, for by then it was 11am, to take some family photos.
This is the whole clan at the graveside of MyeongHee’s father, Kim CheonDo. In the background are a couple of other families doing the same thing – bowing and eating lunch by the graves of their fathers, brothers and uncles.
After we arrived back home and had another lunch (Koreans and food just go together) it was time for a nap while the kids played with the Wii. Dinner time was the traditional New Years dish of ddeok Guk, a soup made of doughy rice. While I was in Texas in 2005, 2006, I made manDu Guk, a similar dish, but with meat and veggie filled dumplings. Most people loved my mandu guk and would probably love ddeok Guk as well.
Last fall, I went to a festival and watched them make ddeok,
the rice dough, which is made my pounding rice and water into a sticky paste.
During the holiday, the kids are supposed to do their “sehbeh,” or bow, to their elders. This is not just a simple bow, but a knees-and-nose-on the-floor bow expressing their respect. Afterwards, parents, uncles, and grandmother is expected to give them money. I gave them each 30,000won (about $35) but I declined the bow. Being a westerner, I’m a little uncomfortable with being bowed to.
Otherwise, it was a pretty typical family holiday. With only a small 4-room house for the 10 of us, it was hard to find any real privacy. The girls, therefore, put on their makeup and curled their hair in the main room while the men shaved along side them. While the bathroom has all the western plumbing, it was added on after the main house and doesn’t have heating. Its too cold to spend too much time in there, especially if you have to put on a cold mask as MinGyeong does.
Again, it was another few days of agonizing on the floor without any furniture other than a small cushion to sit on. My legs ached for a decent chair. Were only there for 48 hours, but I was more than ready to sink into a chair just to get my weight off my legs. SaTang was ready to come home, too. With so many people in so small an area, she had more than enough people willing to throw her a ball or give her a snack. She didn’t sleep much and has been in her bed almost continuously since we came home 18 hours ago.