Chuseok Harvest Festival

Month : NA
Place : Korea
Famous For : Traditional Festival
Attractions : Home return time of Koreans, Ancestor worship, Songpyeon Dish, Folk Games.

Chuseok is a much awaited harvest festival in Korea. This three day event is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar. The celebrations of this festival involves a three day holiday in the country, during which Koreans visit their ancestral hometowns and share a feast of Korean traditional food. As in other major harvest festivals of the world, the Chuseok festival is observed around the Autumn Equinox.

Major Attractions

The festival of Chuseok was originally famous by the name of Hangawi which means "great middle" in archaic Korean. There are a number of theories tracing the origin of this popular harvest festival including that from the day of Gabae, the reign of the third king of the Silla kingdom. Another story involves the ancient shamanistic celebrations of the harvest moon. Modern day celebrations of Chuseok involves home returning of Koreans to pay respects to their ancestors. The morning kicks off with people performing ancestral worship rituals. It"s followed by visit to tombs of their immediate ancestors to trim plants and clean the area around the tomb, offer food, drink, and crops to their ancestors. A popular dish on Chuseok festival is the songpyeon, a crescent-shaped rice cake which is steamed upon pine needles. Besides this dishes like japchae, bulgogi and fruits are also available. A variety of folk games are also played on Chuseok like tug of war, ssireum, archery and gama fighting. Another striking feature is the Ganggangsullae dance which is forming a circle under a moon is performed by women and children in southwestern coastal regions, and cockfight or bullfighting in the southern regions.