Seol-nal Day

by Kim Seong-Il
February, 2000

Seol is on of the most important holidays in Korea. It is the first day of the year according to the lunar calendar. The lunar calendar in Korea was adopted from China. Chinese celebrate this day, too. So the day is called Lunar New Year's Day and/or Chinese New Year's Day - Koreans never call it Chinese New Year's Day, though.

During the Japanese Colonial Era, many Korean traditions were banned. Instead, Japan fostered Japanese culture, because Japan wanted Korea to be a second Japan. Seol was not an exception. Koreans had to celebrate solar New Year's Day, instead of the lunar one. Surprisingly, it remained even till the 70's. The Korean government did not assign Soel as a holiday. Most people had to work on that day. And they called solar New Year's Day 'New Seol', and the lunar one 'Old Seol'. On New Seol, 3 consequtive days were given to Korean people as days-off so that they could better celebrate New Seol. The wind of change came gradually. The Korean government assigned one day-off for Old Seol, and it was officially called 'Tradition Day'. Seol lost its name again. Several years after that, Seol finally regained its original name and was offically accepted as one of the holidays. Now, the days before and after Seol are also holidays so that we can visit our homes and enjoy the holidays.

Like most young people in developed and developing countries, they live in urban areas. On holidays such as Chuseok and Seol, they visit their homes. More than a half of Korean population rush into their homes so it is sometimes described as 'the Korean migration'.

All the family members gather together and exchange greetings with one another and share special food. In the past, Korea was not as wealthy as it is now. They could not even eat rice frequently, so ofcous, it is needless to even mention meat. They have been eating 'dduck-gook' - a rice cake soup including meat. >From this,we can infer
that Koreans considered the begining of the year very important.

Children give a deep bow to their parents and older relatives, and the adults exchange deep bows on New Year's Day. They also exchange greetings after the bows. And the elders give money to the kids. So the kids wait for the day when they can receive a lot of money from their parents and relatives.

But it was not the same several decades ago. What parents gave were candies or cookies, and greetings that we call 'duck-dahm'. And Kids went around door-to-door to give deep bows not only to their parents but to all the adults in their village. That was the virtue in the past.

These days, the senior citizen has to prepare the clean and crisp bills for the kids. Where has the core of the greetings gone? On this coming New Year's Day, let us exchagng greetings with our love and affection.