South Korea during the Spring Festival
First, the Spring Festival in China and the Spring Festival in Schell have a long history. Its origin is mixed with sacrificial culture and astronomical calendar. After several dynasties' development, it has become a very mature and meaningful festival in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The Spring Festival in China has a long history and diverse customs and cultures, but this aspect is not to be elaborated in this paper. Our focus is on the "Spring Festival" in Korea. The Spring Festival in South Korea is called "Shel Festival", also known as Shenri, Snowy Day or Old Festival. Together with Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, it is called the four major festivals in Korea and is a very important festival in Korea. "Schell" means the beginning and end of the new year, which is an inherent vocabulary in Korean. Shel Festival is also a Spring Festival with Korean characteristics, which is integrated with Korean local traditions after China Spring Festival was introduced to Korea.
South Korea during the Spring Festival
According to historical records, the Spring Festival originated in the Korean Peninsula during the Three Kingdoms period. During the reign of Korea, the forms and customs of the Spring Festival were gradually determined and widely circulated among the people. At that time, it was listed as one of the nine customs and one of the "four festivals", and its position in Korea was very important. Korea was completely annexed by Japan in 1909. During the Japanese occupation period, South Korea changed the Gregorian calendar year from the lunar calendar to the Gregorian calendar year, and the Schell Festival in the lunar calendar was also changed to the Schell Festival in the Gregorian calendar. However, after the independence of South Korea, the call to restore the traditional Shel Festival became more and more fierce. On 1985, the Korean government declared the Lunar Shel Festival as "Folk Day", and the Lunar Shel Festival resumed again. Since then, although the holiday of Schell Festival has become shorter and shorter, it has always been an important festival for Koreans to celebrate the Lunar New Year and visit relatives and friends.
Korean Spring Festival (Utz)
Second, the mirror of the Spring Festival in China: Just as the custom of the Spring Festival in China is to set off firecrackers, celebrate New Year's Eve and give lucky money, the Schell Festival in South Korea has its own custom with local characteristics, which is consistent with that in China, changed after being learned by China and blended with Korean local culture, or completely born out of South Korea. The development and evolution of customs is a mirror reflecting the historical development and changes of North Korea, which is worth our observation.
Korean Spring Festival culture
During the Spring Festival in China, there are various customs, such as seeing off the Kitchen God, putting up the gate, hanging Spring Festival couplets and paying New Year greetings. What is the tradition of Schell Festival in Korea? In Korea, the most important day of the Spring Festival is the first day of the New Year. On this day, Koreans have many things to do. The first activity is the tea ceremony, which is one of the most important activities of the Korean Spring Festival. Tea ceremony is also called ceremony. Ancient Koreans once wrote in the Year of the East Country: "In Kyoto, people worship their ancestral temples", which means that on the first day of the first day, people will go to their ancestral temples to worship. This is called tea ceremony. Similar to the ancients in China, Koreans also believe that the soul will not disappear with the body after death, so people pay special attention to the sacrificial activities for the deceased, hoping that the ancestors' spirits in heaven can bless the family's future generations with peace and happiness. On the first day of junior high school, people will place portraits of their ancestors in the ancestral hall at home, and then place offerings such as grapes and oranges. Finally, the male elders in the family will host the sacrificial activities, and men, women and children will worship and toast their ancestors in turn.
Sacrificial Activities in Korean Spring Festival
Besides the tea ceremony, Korean Spring Festival also has the same New Year's Eve dinner as China, which they call "New Year's Eve". On New Year's Eve, Koreans usually make their own sumptuous food to celebrate the Spring Festival, and the most distinctive one among many Korean foods is "rice cake soup". Rice cake soup is a kind of food made of rice. First, people make rice noodles into white cakes in the shape of coins, and then cook them with special sauce soup, usually beef or chicken. After cooking, the rice cake soup is ready. The white rice cake soup represents Koreans' expectations for the new year, while the coin-shaped rice cake represents people's desire to enrich their financial resources. At the same time, it is also called "rice cake", which means that people will grow one year old after eating it. Unlike China Red, South Korea advocates white, and even the lucky money is put in white paper bags.
Korea rice cake soup
People in China will celebrate New Year's Day, and so will Koreans. In Korea, people will hold "New Year's Day Worship" on the first day of junior high school. At home, the younger generation will kowtow to the elder to show respect and blessing, and the elder will also give the younger generation lucky money as a blessing and encouragement. Outside the family, people also pay New Year greetings to each other on the first day of junior high school, and the words of greeting and blessing to each other are called "moral conversation".
The younger generation pays New Year greetings to their elders.
Thirdly, the Shel Festival in modern Korea has been transferred to modern industrial civilization, and some changes have taken place in traditional festivals due to the great changes of the times, as well as the Shel Festival in South Korea. The form of Shel Festival in modern Korea is becoming more and more simplified. One of the most important reasons is that modern people no longer use Hanbok as their daily clothes, and the price of Hanbok is also very expensive, so people can't wear Hanbok for the holidays. The simplification of the form is also reflected in the diet. In the past, Koreans would personally cook traditional Korean foods such as rice cakes and rice cake soup on the Scheer Festival. However, in modern society, the emergence of large-scale food processing factories makes it easy for people to buy a lot of food without having to cook by themselves, which makes life faster and the festive atmosphere greatly reduced. In addition, the influx of western festivals into South Korea has impacted traditional festivals such as Scheer Festival in South Korea, and the rapid development of modern communication equipment such as mobile phones has also made people celebrate the New Year in a more diversified way, which has had a great impact on traditional festivals.
Hanbok is very expensive now.
Wen said: The Dragon Boat Festival in South Korea and the Spring Festival in China have the same origin, but they also have their own characteristics. Many of its customs are favored and accepted by Koreans, reflecting the uniqueness of culture. Although the Spring Festival in South Korea has been impacted by many external factors in modern society, it has always been one of the most important festivals in South Korea, and it has entrusted Koreans with their beautiful yearning and expectation for the future.