Seollal: Korea’s Older New Year – January 2025

By David Shaffer

This year, we are blessed with two important holidays in January – two new year celebrations that are similar in some ways yet quite different in others. The first of the two fetes is on January 1 of the Gregorian calendar, or “western calendar” as it is referred to in Korean. The second (January 29) is Korea’s lunar new year holiday, commonly referred to these days as “Seollal,” but known as Gujeong (구정, Old NewYear) when this writer spent his first lunar new year’s day in Korea. Conversely, the January 1 holiday was known as Sinjeong (신정, New New Year).

Old vs. New New Year’s Day
Both holidays are celebrated in January this year, though Seollal more often falls in early to mid-February rather than in late January. Why does the date for Seollal move around from year to year? Well, it only moves around if you are basing your dates on the Gregorian calendar. Seollal is always on the first day of the first month of the Korean lunar calendar. Actually, “lunar calendar” is a bit of a misnomer. While both calendars have twelve months, Korea’s traditional calendar has a few less days, making is necessary every few years to add a thirteenth month to re-calibrate the calendar to ensure that the longest day of the year, for example, always occurs around the same lunar calendar date. So, though the term “lunar calendar” is commonly used, Korea’s traditional calendar is actually a lunisolar calendar. As red-letter holidays go, Jan. 1 is a one-day holiday, and the more deep-seated Seollal is three days in duration. This year, Seollal falls on January 28, 29, and 30. As these dates fall in the middle of the week, some businesses might designate the preceding Monday as a company holiday, or the following Friday, or both as company holidays, making for a potentially super-long holiday of up to nine continuous days!

The New Year’s holiday actually begins with merrymaking on December 31, New Year’s Eve, in many places, with people staying up until midnight to “ring in the new year.” The sound of bells and the colorful lights of fireworks fill the sky in many cities around the world. In New York City’s Times Square, a prominent part of the celebration is the “ball drop” in which a huge ball descends a flagpole precisely at midnight. In Seoul, on the other hand, the Bosin-gak bell is rung to signal the beginning of the new year. After a night of revelry, the following day is often devoted to rest and recuperation.

Seollal Travel
Seollal has always been associated with travel. It used to be that businesses would shutter up their storefronts and the cities would pretty much empty out, leaving behind the eerie calmness of a ghost town. No street-side food stands; no open restaurants; no tearooms to welcome you. Everyone was headed to the countryside homes of the head of their extended families to celebrate a rural Seollal, steeped in tradition. Buses were packed and highways were backed up for kilometers. I will never forget the time my wife was returning to Gwangju from Seoul at Seollal time. What was usually a four-hour bus ride turned into a fourteen-hour odyssey. With most homeowners now also being car owners, the highways and byways are still congested around the Seollal holiday, but the traffic is no longer one-directional. The rural population in Korea has greatly decreased, with many of the younger generation opting for urban opportunities rather than taking over the family farm. And many of those living in the cities have their parents come to live with or near them. When the extended family once gathered at the countryside home, there always seemed to be room for everyone. But with family gatherings now often being at in urban apartment, and apartments often being less spacious, different nuclear families may visit the home of the extended family head at different times of the day or on different days. The large family gatherings of yesteryear with their all-day-long servings of foods are distinctively diminishing.

Foods, though, are an integral part of any Korean festive occasion. Seollal isn’t Seollal without rice cake soup. It is said that one becomes a year older after eating a bowl rice cake soup on Seollal. Mothers often urge their young children to eat a second bowl of soup and their kids willing oblige, making them believe they have become two years older and making their mothers happy that the little ones’ bellies are full. Bindae-tteok (빈대떡), mung bean pancakes, are another common Seollal food; so is a pan-fried assortment of battered vegetables, seafoods, and meats (jeon, 전). And there are the “sweets”: injeolmi (인절미),
the glutenous rice cakes covered with bean powder; and yakbap (약밥), sweet “medicinal rice.” Beverages commonly include sikhye (식혜), the sweet rice drink; sujeonggwa (수정과), a cinnamon-flavored punch; and of course, no Korean celebration would be complete without alcohol. Only cold alcohol was to be imbibed for Seollal; that traditionally meant makgeolli or soju. The women of the clan would commonly gather
days in advance to prepare these foods and drinks – and more – for the holiday. Nowadays, however, this fare can all be purchased at the nearby supermarket, and even more conveniently, one can purchase it online and have it delivered directly to their apartment door, making the preparation of Seollal foods a much easier undertaking than it traditionally had been.

Ancestral Rite
Seollal foods are not intended only for the living. Seollal is one of the most important holidays of the year and is one of the major occasions on which one’s ancestors are honored. The ancestral rite of charye (차례) takes place in the wee hours of Seollal morning. Details of the rite vary from family clan to family clan, but in general, a table of foods is prepared for the most recent three, five, etc. generations of ancestors. Rice and soup are part of the place settings prepared for them. A predetermined fare of foods is arranged on the long table with each dish placed in a prescribed place on the charye table, a low dining table with no chairs. Deep bows are made to the spirits of the family’s ancestors after which the family members leave the room for the spirits of the ancestors to quietly and peacefully partake of the repast offered them.

Ceremonial Attire
For this special day, special attire was in order: the ceremonial hanbok. Both the man’s and the woman’s versions are quite colorful, compared to the undyed white hanbok, which were meant for everyday use. But before putting on one’s precious and clean hanbok, bathing was in order. Today, we just jump in and out of the morning shower, but it wasn’t too long ago that bathing was a major undertaking. Consider that Seollal
falls in the dead of winter, consider that there was no indoor plumbing to rely on, let alone hot water heaters. Consider also that one’s last bath might have been quite some time earlier, making them ripe and ready for a Seollal bath. It was mainly the adults of the family who wore formal hanbok on Seollal (one must remember that they were, and still are, an expensive item). However, these days, who will you see more often wearing
colorful hanbok? It’s the children! Parents instead opt for office attire for themselves.

In Korea’s vertically oriented social structure, Seollal would not be Seollal without greeting one’s elders. Children do deep, floor bows to their parents, to their grandparents, and to their aunts and uncles in the hopes of getting a cash gift along with the words of encouragement to do well and to be well in the coming year. Parents bow to their parents, adult brothers and sisters bow to each other, as do cousins to cousins. However, I’m sure you can find those who say, “We don’t do that any more.” Yes, it is true that traditional Seollal customs are becoming more lax, with some families following them much less strictly than others. Some families no longer even spend the holiday in Korea but instead find it a good time to take an overseas vacation.

Seollal Entertainment
Games for both young and old have been a popular part of Seollal, especially before there was a “brown tube” in every household or a digital screen against the living room wall offering hundreds of TV channels. Children would play jegi-chagi (제기차기), beanbag kicking, and still might when they take a break from
their smartphones. The game of yut (윷놀이) is considered the representative Seollal board game with sticks serving as dice and played by parents and children. In the past, though, when I had relatives living in the countryside, yut was strictly a man’s game. They would roll out a straw mat about two meters square with a large yut board drawn in the center. Wagers were made to add to the game’s interest. Speaking of wagers, card games were also often played, especially by the men, along with soju to add to the entertainment. Sambong (삼봉) was most popular in this part of the country, min-hwatu (민화투) elsewhere.

New Moon to Full Moon
Seollal is always the new moon of the first lunar month; fourteen days later is, of course, full
moon. But it is not just any of the year’s twelve full moons – it is Daeboreum, one of the biggest and brightest of full moons, rivaled only by the Chuseok full moon of autumn. As this time of year was down time in farming villages, many events took place during this fortnight. Farmers’ bands went from house to house stomping the evil spirits into the ground (jisin-bapgi) to ensure another prosperous year. Similarly, the dangsanje rite was held by the village tree to ask the spirit therein for a bounteous coming year. In
this part of the country, go-ssaum (고싸움) was a common village competition in which two huge straw ropes with a battering-ram loop on the front end were lifted by two teams with the goal of knocking the commander off of his loop. Victory brought prosperity to the winning half of the village throughout the year. This competition is still carried out in Gwangju’s Chilseok-dong in Nam-gu. Last year, it took place in early March. Daeboreum is also a time for eating nuts. Biting into nut shells was thought to make children’s
teeth strong and healthy. You are sure to find an unusually large amount of assorted nuts available
in supermarkets at Daeboreum time (February 12 this year).