Jo Feb 22, 2024
Coming February 24 is Jongwoldaeborum (lunar January 15). From ancient times, our people have pleasantly celebrated the day as a great folk holiday second to the lunar New Year’s Day.
Among the typical dishes for the day are ogokbap and nine kinds of side dishes made of dried vegetables.
Ogokbap is boiled rice admixed with four other staple cereals. The five cereals vary a little in different areas, but the most common ones are rice, foxtail millet, sorghum, bean and adzuki bean.
Nine kinds of side dishes made of dried vegetables are usually cooked on the day.
In a strict sense, the nine kinds are not fixed, but mean “a variety of” or “lots of” vegetables because nine is the biggest figure.
Popular materials for the nine kinds of side dishes were leaves of pepper plants, bracken, fern, goosefoots, etc. in Pyongyang and its vicinity, where they were also called “black herbs” as they were black. And they were roots of bellflowers, todok, leopard plants, seaweed, etc. in the areas of Hamgyong Province and mushroom, dried slices of pumpkin or radish, etc. in Kangwon Province and its neighbouring districts.
It has been said that eating nine kinds of dried vegetables on the day keeps people healthy and resistant to the summer heat for the whole year.
The custom of enjoying special meals with ogokbap and nine dishes of dried vegetables on the full moon day is associated with the pioneering spirit and love for the native land of our people, who have created and developed their own way of dietary life and food culture with various common food materials in their home places.
The custom also reflects the scrupulous household management and economization spirit of our people, who have stored foodstuffs like dried vegetables, edible herbs and seaweeds for effective use in winter and made economical use of even a kind of food material without any waste.
In addition, the custom shows our people’s civilized concept of health care saying that they could keep themselves healthy by eating ogokbap and various kinds of vegetables as they could take various kinds of nutritious substances from a variety of food.
The custom is still being handed down, adding national flavor to our life.
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Jo Feb 18, 2024
One of the folk festivals our people have celebrated from olden times is Jongwoldaeborum (lunar January 15). Jongwoldaeborum was also called Sangwon. The festival usually started on January 14. The 14th was called ‘small full moon day’ and the 15th ‘big full moon day’. On the day our people held some interesting ceremonies reflecting a simple wish for good luck and rich crops in the new year.
On the evening of the day everybody climbed the hills at the back of their villages to enjoy the full moon, which was called welcoming the first full moon.
The custom of welcoming the first full moon enjoyed by everyone implies the following.
It was said that if a single man saw the moon first, he would marry a girl with a fair complexion and if a sonless man took the first, he could have a fine son. That is why people tended to offer the best places at the front to single and sonless men so that they could be the first to see the moon, and when a single got married to a pretty girl or when somebody got a baby son that year, people said it was attributable to their watching the first full moon. Some people wished themselves good luck watching the rising round moon and made bows several times. Some others predicted the success or failure of that year’s farming from the shape, color and position of the full moon.
Popular and exciting folk games for the festival were erecting a stack of grain stalks on the small full moon day and welcoming the first full moon, torch fighting, marrying a fruit tree off, tug of war, wagon fighting, kite-flying, pinwheel whirling, etc. on the big full moon day.
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Jo Feb 2, 2024
In old days our people used to make fried glutinous rice cake, sweet food on the lunar New Year’s Day.
To make fried glutinous rice cake, glutinous rice flour is first kneaded with liquor to be fermented before it is formed into certain shapes and dried. Then, it is fried in oil and plastered in corn syrup or honey. Finally, it is dressed with fried rice, sesame, pine nuts, etc.
Fried glutinous rice cake, sweet food peculiar to our nation, was enjoyed by children as it is sweet and tasty and of high nutritive value. When children made a bow to elderly people on the morning of the New Year’s Day, they would get fried glutinous rice cake as a return gift.
According to a historical document of the feudal Joson dynasty “Tongguksesigi”, fried glutinous rice cake was considered indispensable for guest service on the lunar New Year’s Day, and “Ryolyangsesigi” wrote it was the best of all the dishes prepared for memorial service on the lunar New Year’s Day and the lunar January 15.
As mentioned above, Korean people tried to create their own dietary culture with materials found in their native places.
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Jo Jan 7, 2024
The lunar New Year’s Day is a traditional holiday our people have celebrated from ancient times.
What is important in our people’s custom of celebrating the day is a variety of special dishes ― rice cakes such as glutinous rice cake, steamed rice cake and fancy rice cake, rice cake soup, several kinds of pancakes, fruit punch, fermented fish, roasted meat, etc.
What is the most special of all of them is a special fruit punch beverage called sujonggwa.
The fruit punch is a traditional drink made of dried persimmon, ginger, cinnamon, honey, etc.
Here are the steps to make fruit punch.
First, slices of clean ginger and cinnamon powder are boiled in separate pans.
When the aroma of ginger and cinnamon soaks out enough, they are removed from the pan. Then, the exudates are mixed before honey is added.
After that, a dried persimmon without any seeds is put in the mixture to be stored in a dry place for some time.
Finally, some pine nuts are floated when serving in a vessel.
The knowhow of making the fruit punch is to boil ginger and cinnamon separately as they might lose their own indigenous flavor by affecting each other.
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Jo Jan 2, 2024
The Korean name for a kite, yon is thought to have been derived from a Chinese character with the same sound meaning ‘bird of prey’ since a kite made of paper flies high in the sky just like a bird of prey. In our country, kite-flying used to continue from the beginning of winter to the end of cold weather the following year. The period from the lunar New Year’s Day to the lunar January 15 particularly buzzed with kite-flying.
The period was so animated that it was called children’s kite-flying holiday. The kites traditionally handed down in our country are of different shapes, largely divided into square and ray.
The popular kites are decorated with colored paper cut into different shapes like thin strips, skirt, half-moon, butterfly, etc.
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Jo Jan 1, 2024
Begun in Ancient Joson age, our nation’s custom of celebrating the lunar New Year’s Day has been inherited to this day through a long period from Koguryo, Koryo and feudal Joson dynasties.
Regarding the day as the first day of a new year that brings hope, people of all ages and both sexes prepared various kinds of dishes, dressed themselves in new clothes, held memorial services, made New Year’s visits and played varied games.
In an old book “Tongguksesigi” is recorded as solbim for dressing in new clothes, as charye for holding memorial services, as sebae for visiting relatives and seniors to make New Year’s bow, and as sechan and seju for dishes and spirits respectively.
In the morning of the New Year’s Day, our people held services for their dead ancestors and visited their graves followed by visits to their relatives and seniors to wish good luck for the year. When children, dressed in new clothes, made a bow to the elders, the elders wished them good luck and served them food. People placed a box (called seham) in front of their houses for visitors to put pieces of paper with their names on. Later, they were said to be replaced with New Year’s cards. Dishes prepared for the day were rice-cake soup, steam rice cake, yakbap (glutinous rice mixed with sugar, dates, chestnuts, pine-nuts, sesame oil, etc.), glutinous rice cake, dumplings stuffed with honey and sesame, fried glutinous rice cake, fish, slices of boiled meat, fermented fish, liquor, etc., among which rice-cake soup, yakbap and fried glutinous rice cake were regarded as musts.
Yakbap was considered to be of superior grade for memorial services and guest service.
Major folk games played on the day were yut-game and children’s kite-flying and tipcat.
The custom of celebrating the lunar New Year’s Day mirrors the beautiful characteristics of our people who respect the elders and betters, value etiquette and are possessed of optimism.
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