Korean Thanksgiving

As the year comes to a close, nothing but nostalgia fills me inside, especially
through the passing of Thanksgiving and the soon approaching Christmas.
As some of my friends living in Korea depart for the United States to spend time with
their family for the holidays, and while the inside of me is longing to be home with family and friends and to eat some turkey and stuffing, I remind myself that I’ll have the unique and precious opportunity to spend my first holidays abroad, in the heart of Korea, Seoul.
Much to my surprise, Koreans celebrate all of the following holidays: Christmas, New Year’s, and even Thanksgiving (I highly doubt and have not yet heard if
they celebrate the holidays Hanukkah and Kwanzaa), though the manner in which they celebrate these holidays is different.
Of the three, Christmas is celebrated the most similarly to American culture. It is more of a holiday celebrated amongst
friends rather than family members in this country. This day tends to be
commercialized, and streets are decorated with beautiful ornaments and lights from the start of December. As a people who enjoy beautiful scenery, going out with friends on this holiday is common, while some of the Christians, making up a majority of the population, attend church services, followed by caroling in the streets.
Interestingly enough, Korean New Year’s and Korean Thanksgiving are the nation’s largest holidays. Set according to the lunar calendar, New Year’s, also known as seollal, takes place on February 9 (January 1 – lunar), while
Thanksgiving, commonly known as Chusok, is celebrated on September 28 (August 15 – lunar). Both of these holidays feature an ancient Eastern custom that upholds the
significance of family, where families would gather at their
hometowns and visit the graves of their ancestors to pay their respects, or as
some would term it, practice “ancestral worship.” Fortunately, I’ve been able
to experience a Korean Thanksgiving firsthand with a Korean family. This
gathering would not be made up of only members of the immediate family but also
members of the extended family.
Generally, being with relatives on the father’s side of the family, all the
members of the family would meet in the house of the eldest son. In doing so,
it shares a common characteristic of most holidays – the usual unbearable
traffic backed up for hours on the highways. A six hour or so trip from Seoul to
Pusan has reportedly lasted as long as 24 hours on one occasion.
On the morning of Chusok, the members of the family dropped into the house one
by one; the mothers headed toward the kitchen, where they prepared meals and
fruits, which were beautifully placed on elaborate dishes when finished. Close
to fifteen to twenty dishes were later arranged on a table before pictures of
their deceased grandparents. Then the entire extended family bowed to their
knees before their grandparents’ pictures as a form of respect, and the eldest
son offered a prayer. Following this, each of the family members individually
offered a bow, a drink, and some food, which the ancestors were believed to
have received. As a gesture of hospitality, a trait which I immediately
identified with the Korean people since coming here, they requested that I too
participate in the ceremony.
Once the ceremony ended, the entire family wholeheartedly feasted on the
meals that were previously presented before their ancestors.
Later on, we took the remainder of the meals to the cemetary at the ancestor’s
gravesite and repeated a ceremony similar to the previous one, made up of bows
of reverence and a prayer, followed by another meal prepared at the site.
Differing from graves in America, these graves were made up of a large mound of
dirt, inside of which the bodies of the deceased couple were cast, and a marble
stone with the names of the deceased, as well as the names of their
descendants.
Not being only a Korean custom, honoring the ancestors of one’s family is very
much an Eastern ritual, a practice which I’ve also experienced
during a visit to Japan. Being born and raised in a Western society, this was
a concept difficult to comprehend and accept, easy to find as strange when I
first came across it. However, through previous encounters with this type of
culture and during my stay in this country, I have learned that this was a way
for the people to identify with themselves through their connection to their
family and where they come from, as well as a way to show appreciation for the
life that was given to them.