The Marmot’s Hole wishes you the very best in the Year of the Rat.
새해 복 많이 받으세요!
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Happy Lunar New Year
This entry was written by Robert Koehler, posted on February 7, 2008 at 1:13 pm, filed under Korean Culture. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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21 Comments
Here’s to 4341. May she be a damned sight better than 4340, and may we all be home before she’s over.
Happy Lunar New Year! 떡국 for breakfast tomorrow = awesomeness.
you too, Robert!
Same to you, Robert.
Happy 설날 to everybody. I mean, eat the proper things.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/108672
Taliban claims Korea paid $4 million for hostages release. “35 percent of the money went to fund local insurgent operations in the province”.
There is not a person alive who truly believes the Republic of Korea paid no ransom.
Does anyone know when the Lunar New Year’s Day has become a public holiday in Korea? It was a step going backward to have two New Year’s Days.
Yeah, they should get ride of Solar New Year’s Day. It is too close to Christmas anyhow.
does anything cool happen on lunar new year
or does everybody just travel home and bow?
No, I think Korea should get rid of Lunar calendar. It uses Solar calendar mostly, but uses Lunar for traditional affairs such as Sul, Chusuk, birth day or death memorial day. But once Korea decided to use Solar calendar sometime after the War as it is the international norm , it should stick to it as it did until not so long ago. It only shows indecisiveness.
It’s way more complicated than such practical considerations. The lunar calendar is one of the things that marks Korea as Korean. It may not be indispensable in and of itself, but it’s too tied into the complex of things that consitute Korea as something with an identity of its own. So even if it, and most of the other elements of that complex, are hopelessly anachronistic, they are not likely to be dispensed with - unless of course Korea eventually succeeds in becoming the hub of anything other than self-absorbed Han. Wanna buy a bridge?
Happy New Year everyone! The year of the Rat, eh? Snitches rejoice!
#10 - it’s pretty quiet. If you head for one of the downtown palaces during the daytime you’ll probably see a fair bit of traditional dress, and some people playing old-style games like jumping on see-saws and throwing arrows through hoops. That’s about it. (If you want a lesson plan for Monday, just ask your female students about housework.)
Forgot - these folks can always show you something interesting about Korea.
http://www.raskb.com
I’d say that in all I’ve been fairly disappointed. Where’s the fireworks and the hoards of people cheering and dancing?
so far it’s been just me dancing alone in my room…not that cool
Happy year of the Rat for the Marmot’s Hole!
the best part about the holiday so far…rocky 4 is on
rocky’s about to kick that russians ass
I really don’t think you can say toss the Lunar New Year. There’s a lot cultural/historical context to it with Korea. And celebrating Lunar New Years hasn’t been with fireworks, etc. It is more quiet - and it’s celebrating it with families and kids getting money from parents/older relatives. Since someone mentioned chucking something, I’ll just say it would be the idea of respecting the older person (which stemmed from Confucionsim) just because he’s older. That has more of social implications, imo.
It may have been in 1961 when Park Junghee came into power or some time before Park era when the public holidays on Lunar New Year’s Day and Chusok were abolished, although companies in private sector continued having holidays on those days, so that their workers, many of whom were from rural areas, could spend time with their families and relatives for traditional activities. I think that was an acceptable compromise by the government.
While the government now has most holidays according to the Solar calendar, New Year’s Day and Chusok holidays are according to the Lunar calendar. That’s inconsistent. I think consistency should be considered above tradition, if Korea is to move forward. One cannot really expect a government to be inconsistent in one area and consistent in others. It can be regarded that the government doesn’t consider consistency important.
If you’re looking for a rockin’ Lunar New Year’s party, you need to go to China. I got to see great fireworks displays from the comfort and warmth of my apartment as I lived just outside the city limits, where fireworks were banned. While Lunar New Year remains the most celebrated holiday in China, the Mid-Autumn festival isn’t even a public holiday anymore although people still eat those disgusting, flavorless carb bombs known as mooncakes. I recall reading somewhere that Mao ditched the Mid-Autumn Festival in favor of the National Day holiday week.