Korean thanksgiving celebrated this week

Happy Chuseok! (행복한 추석 보내세요!)

Although on a different day each year (Korea follows the lunar calendar), September 10 2022 marks the beginning of the Korean thanksgiving festival, Chuseok. It's one of the biggest and most important holidays in the North East Asian nation - also referred to as Hangawi. Han means “big” and gawi means “the ides of the eighth lunar month or autumn.” 

Like thanksgivings in other countries, Chuseok is a mid-autumn celebration of the harvest season. In Korea, family members return to their hometowns to give thanks, share food and stories, and pay respects to their ancestors.

Paying respects at Seoul National Cemetery | Photo: 123RF

Like thanksgiving celebrations in North America, gourmandising is a big part of Chuseok: all over Korea for the next three days, people will be consuming (and perhaps over-consuming!) a rich array of foods that please the tastebuds and the belly equally. 

This morning, Koreans will begin Chuseok by gathering in their homes for memorial services called charye. They bring along freshly harvested rice, alcohol and songpyeon (half-moon rice cakes) as an offering to the family’s ancestors to show gratitude for those who came before them.

This may be accompanied by seongmyo, a visit to ancestral graves at cemeteries. This is used as a chance for family members to remove weeds from gravestones in order to honour and eulogise dead relatives. 

Songpyeon in three traditional colours | Photo: 123RF

Songpyeon recipes would have been prepared and cooked last night, the eve of Chuseok. Rice cakes stuffed with sweet fillings, there's a Korean cliché that says any person who makes beautifully shaped songpyeon will have a "beautiful baby". While not simple to make, anyone with experience making any kind of dumplings will enjoy trying out songpyeon in their kitchen - here's a recipe. 

- Asia Media Centre