The Chuseok Holiday
Chuseok is one of the two major holidays in Korea, the other being the Lunar New Year (which most Westerners mistakenly refer to as the Chinese New Year). Many Koreans will tell Westerners that Chuseok is “Korean Thanksgiving.” I don’t agree with that. Chuseok is Chuseok — it’s uniquely Korean and shouldn’t be translated. It is similar to the North American Thanksgiving in that it is a celebration of the harvest, but it is also similar to the Day of the Dead in Mexico in that people honor their ancestors.
Every year, Chuseok is a three day holiday centered on August 15 on the Lunar calendar. This year, that day fell on October 6 on the Gregorian calendar, so the holiday encompassed last Thursday, Friday and Saturday. This year was particularly nice since October 3rd on the Gregorian calendar (last Tuesday) is also a holiday in Korea. The result was that many companies actually let their employees off on Wednesday for an extended 5 day holiday. Some even closed shop on Monday.
I used to really enjoy both Chuseok and the Lunar New Year when I was single. A large percentage of Korea’s population migrates to Seoul from the surrounding areas, so on the major holidays they all head back home to visit their families. For those who remain in Seoul, the city transforms overnight. The daily traffic disappears, the sidewalks become virtually empty, there’s no problem finding a seat on the subway or the bus, and empty taxis are everywhere. Most service-oriented shops stay open for most of the holiday if not for its entirety. For those who enjoy the nightlife, the bars seem to be livelier even though the city seems dead. Once I got married, Chuseok and the Lunar New Year became less of a holiday and more of a trial.
My wife’s parents live in a small town that is, on a good day with no traffic, about an hour-and-a-half south-southeast of Seoul. On normal days, meaning when there’s a little traffic, it’s a good two-hour bus ride. On the two major holidays, it can take much, much longer due to the mass exodus from Seoul. One year, we chose a particularly bad time to leave and it actually took us 6 hours. One of the major highways now has lanes exclusively for buses, but that doesn’t help much going to my wife’s hometown. After the usually exhausting trip, there’s work to be done once we arrive.
My wife usually helps her mother with preparing all of the different holiday dishes. I usually help her father with auxillary tasks — such as grinding garlic, “peeling” chestnuts, or making a traditional Korean snack called seonpyeon. For a guy whose idea of cooking is opening a can and dumping its contents in a pot, peeling off chestnut shells with a knife for three hours is not a pleasant experience.
We usually arrive the day before the actual holiday and spend one night, leaving on Chuseok or Lunar New Year day in order to avoid the traffic as everyone heads back to Seoul on the day after. Because of the long holiday this year, my wife left on Wednesday and I remained home an extra day to take care of our three dogs. Unfortunately for her, many Seoulites chose Wednesday to leave as well. She hit some heavy traffic. I left Thursday evening and had an easy time of it. I also got to miss all of the food prep this year. Because her parents usually complain about us going back home on the holiday, we decided to stay an extra day this year and came back early Saturday morning. Lucky for us, it seems most people actually headed back to Seoul on Chuseok day so we missed all of the traffic. We left her hometown at 6:35 am and stepped off of the bus in Seoul at 8:10 am. Not bad at all.
As always, I spent most of the holiday with a beer in my hand. Drinking is embedded in every aspect of Korean culture. There’s an old belief in Korea that you can’t truly know someone’s heart until you drink with them. They believe that when you are intoxicated, you say what you really mean. This has caused me no end of grief with Korean women over the years, my wife included. Because of this belief, drinking is an important part of holidays, special events (weddings, birthdays, even funerals), business, and more.
I got hammered at a funeral once. Since many of my wife’s family members in attendance had never met me I found myself drinking a shot of Korean soju with each of them. Soju is nasty, rotgut stuff that I usually avoid. But when an older person asks you to drink a shot with them it is rude to decline. I actually offended one of my wife’s great-uncles at my father-in-law’s 60th birthday party because I refused to drink soju with him. At the funeral, I wanted to avoid offending anyone so I drank with everyone who asked me to. I woke up the next morning lying in my own vomit under a table in the room we were using at the hospital (where most funerals take place — hospitals often have a special wing for funeral “banquets” as I call them). Although I was miserable, I learned my wife’s family really enjoyed having me there. Apparently, I was the life of the funeral and made a good impression.
So this Chuseok, like every other, I drank a great deal of beer and ate a lot of food. On Chuseok morning, I watched as my father-in-law and brother-in-law performed the ceremony to honor their ancestors. Then we all drove a couple of hours east to my father-in-law’s hometown to visit the graves of his parents, grandparents, and brother, where they performed more ceremonies. We visited his stepmother, who lives in his father’s old house — and I mean old. It’s the sort of house that was common in Korea over 100 years ago and has been in the family for generations.
After seven years of marriage I have a great relationship with my wife’s family. The first few holidays were rough as we all tried to get comfortable with the situation. I was going out of my way to avoid intruding or doing anything offensive, usually holing up in a bedroom with a book for most of the day. They were doing everything to try and make me comfortable, worrying whether I would like this food or that food. Things are much more comfortable now — I don’t hide and no one worries about me so much. We joke, laugh, and have a great time together. But Chuseok is still an exhausting holiday and I’m always happy when it’s over.