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• ●This year’s Seollal falls on February 1 

• ●New generation of Koreans come up with their own ways to fete lunar New Year 

At the start of February, Koreans will once again celebrate the New Year. This time, however, it is the one marked by the 12 recurring moon cycles rather than Earth’s 365-day orbit around the sun. 

Lunar New Year Day, or Seollal, falls on February 1 this year. The actual holiday itself is three days long, as the day before and after are spent on preparations that include cooking and travel.  

Traditionally, Koreans would return to their hometowns as this is a family holiday that brings relatives from around the nation together for a feast and traditional ancestral rites. Most still do visit their ancestral homes while others use this break for getaways. Always the result is a mass exodus from the capital region.  

Rather than stay up late to celebrate the stroke of midnight, many families that still follow prescribed customs perform a ceremony known as Charye on the morning of the holiday. For this rite, a great deal of food is prepared in advance and placed on a table as an offering to the family’s ancestors, and family members perform a head-to-floor bow in front of a photograph or makeshift altar. Often, they dress in Hanbok. After the ritual, the food is not wasted; the family enjoys a big feast.  

Another common Seollal ritual is Sebae: children wish good fortune for their living elders while performing the same deep bows in front of them. Their elders, in turn, present them with money – typically 10,000 to 50,000 won, depending on age.  

The holiday period is also a time to enjoy traditional pastimes, such as folk games. This includes jegi-chagi (similar to hacky-sack), the board game yunnori where sticks are thrown to determine moves rather than dice, and neolttwigi (see-sawing).  

In the 21st century, however, customs have shifted significantly as younger Koreans – driven in part by COVID-19 social distancing – are observing Charye celebrations online. And older Koreans are reluctant to ask their children to sit for hours in traffic to visit ancestral homes to pay their respects.  

For foreign residents and visitors, Seollal was once a lonely time – Korean friends left to be with their families and many shops and restaurants were closed. The sudden abundance of empty parking spaces and taxis as well as bus and subway seats, however, made the holiday enjoyable in some ways. The government has now made sure that there is plenty to do during the long break, and many restaurants and stores close only on the actual Lunar New Year’s Day. Some government-operated sites such as palaces even open on the holiday itself, and visitors in Hanbok can enter for free. This now-popular activity has made it possible for even those without family here to find a meaningful way to mark the Korean holiday.  

This time of year is also marked by the oft-heard phrase “Saehae bok mani badeu-seyo” (May the New Year bring a lot of good fortune).  

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