Seollal; Korea’s lunar New Year’s day

February 7th is a Seollal, lunar New Year’s day, in Korea. Koreans usually celebrate two New Year’s days; One according to the solar calendar, and another according to the lunar calendar. Most people consider our traditional New Year day, Seollal, as a bigger holiday than the first of January by the solar calendar because we use lunar calendar from old times in my country. Many people return to their hometowns to celebrate and socialize together, so the government decided to make holidays including days before and after Seollal for 3 days.

In my country, there are a lot of events during Seollal holidays. First, on the Seollal morning, people get up early to wash on their ‘Seolbim (new clothes prepared for Seollal)’; we usually wear Hanboks (Korean traditional clothes). Then families perform ancestral rites. After the rites have been performed, everyone shares the holiday food together. We always eat Tteokguk on Seollal, which is made of thinly sliced Tteok (rice cake) cooked in beef soup. According to our tradition, eating Tteoguk on Seollal adds one year to your age.

Another event is ‘Seabae’. The younger people pay their respects to the elder of the family by bowing to them. The elder people offer ‘Deokdam (well-whishing remarks)’ such as ‘have a healthy year’ or ‘have a lot of lucks’. And then they usually give ‘Seabae-Don (New Year’s money)’ to younger people, so many children expect this day especially.


On the Seolla evening, the members of the family play traditional game, Yut-nori. It is a fun game and easy to learn, so we make two or three teams and play together with teamwork. In this game, it is hard to predict winner, so we can enjoy this game more interestingly. I will explain next time how to play.

Now, maybe my family is all together in my parent’s house, and they are busy to prepare Seollal food. I will call to my family tonight and say to all family members, “Have a healthy and happy new year”.