Bring on the Blue Horse

January 31st , Lunar New Year, began the year of the Blue Horse. The years are based on the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac. The symbols repeat themselves in 12 year cycles.

I hope you will enjoy one more post about  Lunar New Year. Its one thing to research it and another to experience it. Thanks to our good friend Sup we witnessed some traditional rituals up close and in person. We also participated in some. Later in the day, we provided our own version of Seollal for the young missionaries.

Traditioal Seollal Celebration:

The ancestor rituals begin first thing in the morning, so we arrived at Sup's house about 7:45. His niece and nephews were already decked out in their hanbok. Don't they look adorable? Sup lives in a very nice home with four generations of his family. Traditionally, families gather for the ancestral rituals at the family homes of the oldest/first born male. The wives go to the homes of their husband's family. Since Sup's father is the oldest of his siblings, Sup's uncles and their families come to his home.



Shortly after we arrived they served Ddeokguk (rice cake soup). It was quite delicious. Koreans almost always eat sitting on the floor at very low tables. We have done that a couple times, but it isn't a pretty picture. They served us at a coffee table and we sat  on a couch.. One of Sup's brothers is setting the table. He is in hanbok because this is the first Lunar New Year since his marriage.


The food preparation takes several hours or sometimes days. In the past everything was prepared from scratch, but now they can buy many of the ritual foods already prepared so it cuts down on the time and effort. We witnessed the final steps. This is a brother's wife. The women do most of the cooking. Both of his sisters-in-law were dressed in hanbok. Sup and his brother worked on the presentation of the foods for the ancestor table. They are careful to trim off the ends to make it easier for the ancestors to eat and also so they can display the foods in a pleasing way.

The food is placed on special dishes used only for ancestral ceremonies, which occur seven times a year. They are laid out in a very specific order and all plates must have odd numbers of food, never even numbers. Notice the two octopus? This is a delicacy that is saved for special occasions. It is quite expensive. They also cover all of the mirrors in the home in anticipation of the arrival of ancestors.

Since Sup's mother passed away earlier this year, they had a special ceremony for her. This is his father's prayer room. It is set up with the ritual foods, but on a smaller scale. You can see a picture of his mother. The family members took turns going in and bowing to her.

The rituals focus on honoring their ancestors through offerings and bowing. They also bow to their father, and older siblings. Young children bow to their elders and receive money in return. Sup's niece and nephew bowed to us and we gave them each a couple thousand won. (A thousand won is worth about one dollar, but it sounds pretty amazing.)                           

 We most likely will not ever implement these rituals into our family traditions, but I think we can learn from the Koreans to remember and value our ancestors in a more personal way. We were not able to stay for the full celebration because we had work to do for our own. But we had a wonderful time and felt honored to be included.

Our "meguk" version:

 
The young missionaries like to come to our home to have "American food" and we are happy to oblige. But I really wanted to provide some traditional Korean food for our young Korean missionaries on their important holiday. So I went to the Internet in search of information and recipes. I made the ddeokguk (the traditional soup) with a slight American flair- I used beef broth instead of anchovy base. I just couldn't handle the fishy smell and taste. It was pretty good, but my favorite was the japchae. It's a Korean stir fry using "glass" noodles, made from sweet potatoes. It takes a while to make, but is "jeong mal mah she seo yo" -or really delicious. It's one of my favorites. Even though the internet version was great, I am hoping to take a class and make sure I fix it according to Korean tradition! I also served dried persimmons and chuseok crackers (purchased at a Korean market). The missionaries were so excited and very appreciative. They spent the entire day with us, playing games and watching church videos. Then we ended the day with a real American meal- steak and potatoes!