New Year’s Holiday

Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.

“New Year’s Holiday” from When I Was a Boy in Korea by Ilhan New, 1928.

The third holiday is the greatest of all days throughout the Orient. The pulse of the nation automatically stops for fifteen days. During the entire twelfth month the housewives are busy laundering, making new clothing, and changing the paper in their houses. The men are busy clearing up all business transactions, paying all debts, and putting their house in order.

New Year’s day is started bright and early with a very delicious soup, in which is a particular delicacy called “mandoo.” This is made of a thin wheat flour dough, with a highly seasoned meat and vegetable filling.

This time of the year is especially precious to the women of the land, for at no other time do they exchange dinner calls and perform other social duties. With an abundance of clean clothes and new clothes, with her house well in order, with the delicacies prepared as far as possible, she seems a new individual. She has put aside the burden of every-day routine and goes from house to house paying her calls, tasting of the sweetmeats of her friends, drinking in the freedom of each one of the fifteen days.

As one goes out into the streets, the only mass of color discernible during the year greets the eyes. Everywhere children are resplendent in bright silk padded coats with sleeves rivaling Joseph’s, being fashioned of narrow strips of various colors. As the wind blows the coat back, the brilliant cerise vest peeps out and sometimes even the bright blue short-coat may be seen. On their heads are little helmet-shaped hoods with fur ear-laps and tail-pieces to protect their necks from the bitter winds of this season. This head-dress is embellished with much gay embroidery and with tiny round looking-glasses for the younger ones, and many gold ornaments for the wealthier class.

Soft shades are unknown, so the colors are all very vivid and, at the time of year at which they are predominant, give a warmth to the general festivity. The hearts of the mothers are always glad when there is no snow at this time, for the colors are not fast and, after a hard storm, the costume is apt to take on the appearance of an artist’s palette. The idea that the child should remain at home in bad weather, instead of calling, is one that would never enter the mind, the custom is so old.

Every household, during the week preceding New Year’s day, has been busy wrapping money and pieces of jewelry, such as a chain, a charm, or an ornament for the head-dress, in colored paper. These packages are heaped in the outer waiting-room, the abundance depending upon the master’s business status and the number of his friends. A man in moderate circumstances would have prepared at least a hundred such gifts. A similar heap fills a corner of the inner waiting-room which is used only by the women members of the family. These packages contain candies, fruits, and cakes, however.

Now it is the custom for the children of the family, always accompanied by their fathers, to pay New Year greetings to every friend and business acquaintance. This visit is made at any time during the fifteen days. After arriving at a friend’s house the son makes deep bows to the master, wishing him much joy and longevity. The master graciously acknowledges this and claps for a servant who presents the child with one of the packages from the corner. The little guest shows his gratitude by more deep bows. He is then led to the inner reception-room to greet the mistress of the house, while his father settles himself for a smoke and a short chat with his friend, for men may not enter the inner court with the exception of the immediate members of the family.

The same deep bows are given and, again, a servant presents a gift. The presents are stuffed into one of the very large pockets of the vest, and the youngster is ready to go on to the next establishment. The circumference of children with the cotton-wadded clothes is already impressive, but with the four large pockets of the vest filled to overflowing, one can imagine the peculiar shapes seen upon the streets at this time of year.

This is the only time at which gifts are made especially to the children, and every one prides himself upon his generosity. The money and jewelry received by some little guests whose fathers have extensive business operations may reach a total of several hundred yen, a fact that is readily understood when it is remembered that Korean gold is always a pure twenty-four-carat metal without any alloy. Since the children always have some spending money at this time, energetic money-makers are apt to bring to the village such amusements as a side-show consisting of a monkey and a tiger, or acrobats whose chief feat consists of balancing themselves upon one another’s shoulders, a marvel only to be seen at this time.

Throughout the Orient firecrackers and fireworks furnish a great deal of the excitement at this time. In very olden days, it was believed that the noise and bright flashes frightened away the evil spirits. This superstition no longer prevails, but the custom is one that adds gaiety and brightness, and so has withstood the test of centuries. The fund for the amusement is provided by the municipality or a benevolent person in the village who, you may be certain, becomes the beloved patriarch in the years following.

To this day, China is known the world over for her firecrackers and fireworks. The crackers are suspended in a string of from ten to fifty thousand in number and fired from the bottom. A bomb tops the string and its report terminates the fusillade. I remember particularly that, with the explosion of the bomb, a ball of fire would shoot into the sky and be transformed into the lighted shape of a man, a fish, or sometimes a lantern.

The boys amuse themselves on the ice with small sleds about eighteen inches square. They squat upon these singly, and, with a sharpened ice-pick in each hand to push themselves, go sailing down the rivers for miles with incredible speed. No top-driving impedes their progress, for Korea is one of the most seasonal countries known. The season for tops is before the holiday, and no boy would think of playing with them at any other time.

Just so, the girls jump on their seesaws at this time. The seesaws are like those in the States, but instead of sitting on the ends of the planks the girls stand on them. As one end goes down with the sudden weight of a youngster, the girl on the other end is tossed high into the air. The exercise is invigorating but daring, and it is hard to believe that these are the same quiet girls of the rest of the year.

The food eaten at this time is of the best. The rice in every home is of flaky whiteness. At all other times, in the majority of homes, the rice is mixed with small red beans, green peas, millet, or larger beans, both for variation of taste and economy, but on the holidays the rice reigns alone in its glory of unbroken whiteness for every one. When one mentions rice in this country he simultaneously thinks of “kim-chee,” a national dish without which no meal, however meager, is complete. The dish is a type of highly seasoned pickle which is made in every household just before the first frost. The side-dishes include delicious preparations of venison, pheasant, and wild boar, as well as the usual pork and beef.

Mounds of dainty little cakes which are made of rice or bean flour and covered with green or pink puffed rice, sesame seed, or peanuts, appear on every small table. On other brass stands is a candy made of barley flour and malt. The syrup is not pulled, but is cooked to the consistency at which it will hold its shape on being poured. A pulverized bean flour is made and round patties of the syrup poured into it; then nuts are pressed into the candies as they are lifted from the flour.

These sweets are accompanied by a delicious pale-amber drink, in which are floating several blanched pine-nuts. Pine-nuts of Korea are at least the dignified ancestors of those in the West; they are two to three times as large, with their shells as thick in comparison. The Diamond Mountains are famous the Orient over for scenery and for pine-nuts, and, in autumn, huge pine-cones can be purchased with the nuts in their original habitat. The pale-amber fluid is made of wild honey combined with a fruit juice. Bees have not been cultivated to any extent in the country and the universal sweetening agent in the household is wild honey, gathered from the hives found in the rocks. In a mountainous country covered with the greatest variety of wild flowers from early spring to very late autumn, it is possible to believe the flavor most delicious.

And so the time passes quickly in feasting and visiting, and the fifteenth day, which marks the close of the festivities, comes all too soon. On this day each housewife prepares twelve kinds of dishes of vegetables, for it is said that one should eat nine different times. The moon is usually full and, as evening approaches, each family can be seen carrying its mats to the top of the nearest hill to watch it rise. Those who are farmers wish at this time for an abundant crop; those whose households have not yet been blessed by the advent of children wish for a son; those in poor health ask for good health. All these favors are asked of the moon whose beneficent powers cannot be sought after at any other time. As the moon rides higher, the worshippers turn towards their homes with a sigh; the holiday is over and, on the morrow, life must resume its ordinary tenor.

New, Ilhan. When I Was a Boy in Korea. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1928.

Ilhan New

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