By Korea.net Honorary Reporters Nagwan Amer and Hanan Salim Mohammed Ali
Photos∙Video = Nagwan Amer and Hanan Salim Mohammed Ali
The harvest festival of Chuseok is one of the biggest holidays in Korea, celebrated on the full moon on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month. Like any other festival, people have their own traditions that they perform. For example, they travel to the towns where they were born to spend time with their families, visit their ancestors' gravesites and perform ritual worship ceremonies.
We here in Egypt also celebrated this special event in a Korean manner. It was really an awesome experience and a great chance to share these sweet moments with our lovely Korean friends.
First, we started with a traditional Hanbok show, where everyone picked a suitable set of clothes and got dressed in it. It was a very comfortable and stylish outfit.
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| Traditional Hanbok attire is still worn today on festivals and other special occasions. |
We enjoyed some delicious sweets that are eaten on this special occasion. Surprisingly, they tasted like snacks we have here in Egypt called semsemya and balh el sham.
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| Traditional Korean snacks are similar to some Egyptian snacks. |
Then we learned how to perform a traditional Korean greeting, which reflects the respect and good manners of all the Korean people. Here’s a video showing how to perform the ritual.
We all took turns doing the greeting to each other. Our friend Manar won a prize for performing the ritual perfectly.
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| Our friend Manar wins a prize for performing a Chuseok ritual. |
After that came time for some games, and nothing beats team games on holidays. We learned a new traditional Korean game called yut nori where nori means game. It’s a traditional Korean game played quite often on Lunar New Year's. It's composed of a board, four sticks made of wood, each with two sides, one of which is round and the other is flat, and the mal which are used to mark the location of each team and which must be different from the opposite team's mal. What’s striking here is that the game looks like an ancient Egyptian game of senet.
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| Yut nori is a popular traditional Korean game. |
After outlining the rules of the game, we divided into teams, and Team B was the winner.
Another game we played was called ddakji or ttakji, which is a traditional Korean game made of folded paper squares. You can play it with many friends. First, the opponent puts their paper square on the ground and then the other person hits it with their paper square. If the opponent’s paper square flips over, then you win and your opponent's paper square now belongs to you.
Here’s how to make your own paper square, and there's also a link to where you can find more illustrative videos.
1. Get yourself two square pieces of paper.
2. Fold each paper into thirds.
3. Fold the corners. Fold the left corner up and the right corner down to the left.
4. Make a second square. Repeat steps two and three with the second sheet of paper.
5. Join the two together. Place your folded squares in a formation to the left.
6. Fold the flaps. First, the left and right flaps, and then the top flap downward and underneath the right flap. Fold the bottom flap up and underneath the left flap.
7. Complete your ddakji paper square.
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| After making our paper squares, we played ddakji with each other. |
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| Our friend Roufaida wins the prize for collecting the most ddakjis. |
Hang on! The celebrations didn’t end there! We had a very delicious platter of snacks called songpyeon.
Songpyeon are bite-sized, brightly colored, cresent-shaped steamed rice cakes made from newly harvested rice and filled with something sweet. Traditional fillings include adzuki bean, black bean, mung bean, red bean, chestnut, pine nut, walnut, cinnamon, honey, jujube, powdered sesame, or simply brown sugar. Some regions fill songpyeon with non-traditional items, such as acorns or pumpkin.
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| Songpyeon is a traditional rice cake filled with a sweet filling. |
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| We make the dough using clay and then shape it into our desired forms. The filling is also made of clay in different colors. |
In addition to that, we had a delicious rice-based drink called sikhye. Sikhye is a traditional Korean drink that contains cooked rice and ginseng. That gives it an interesting taste, odor and texture when you get to the bottom. It has been served in Korea for centuries as a traditional end to a meal.
No one can deny how much we had fun playing and sharing jokes and laughs. We enjoyed it a lot, and our knowledge of Korea has increased. In my humble opinion, that’s how nations should get to know each other. That’s the way peace and love spread around the world.
wisdom117@korea.kr
