The tradition involves being together as a family and staying up all night on new year's eve (February 6th this year, February 7th begins the lunar new year, the Year of the Rat). Kids are told that if they don't stay up all night, their eyebrows will turn white. Seriously. No one, and i mean no one, wants white eyebrows, yo. Recognize.
Everyone turns one year older on this day, and it is said that you must eat the traditional dak guk soup (a delicious soup with rice pasta) in order to actually earn that extra year in age. families play all sorts of traditional games and the kids get money from their relatives--the amounts of which were all over the map according to my students. some get the equivalent of about $5, others $100. dunno. and some kids insisted that all they'd do on seollal is play nintendo ds with their cousins. fascinatingly traditional, non?
we have three days off from school which i'll be spending with some friends in seoul. since we won't be around for the holiday, today was Seollal at our school. our morning kids dressed up in their traditional clothing (hanbok), and they bowed to me and my boss as we sat on the floor in front of them (the holiday involves a lot of bowing to your elders and such). i loved it! then, my boss proceeded to whip out a huge stack of 1,000 won bills (about $1). each kid came over to get one and bowed to my boss in the process. i was totally photo crazy today and made the kids have an inordinately long photo shoot. check out the pics below for the full experience!
Seollal (설날) 2008
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