New Years Day - Seol Nal (January 1st by Lunar Calendar)

After you wake up early in the morning and clean yourself. You then greet your elder family members (starting with the eldest) with the formal "Big Bow". In case the eldest family members, like your grandparents or great grand parents are in separate rooms. You greet the man first. However, they are usually together in the morning. Next, you visit all your other relatives through the whole town, greeting them formally in the same manner, starting with the more immediate relatives. By the time you have finished you may have visited hundreds of homes, wishing them all health and happiness throughout the new year.

After you have greeted all your relatives, you visit the other town members you highly respect; such as school teachers, town officials and members of your friend's family.

This type of greeting is everyone's moral duty on New Years Day. When the young with the elders, the elders give "BOK DON" or fortune money (a token of love) to the young. This is the traditional way for the elders to give a gift back to the young people for showing their appreciation for what the elders have done for them. It is not always a large amount of money. Sometimes only a few cents, but it is given with great feeling.

After you greet all the relatives and other towns people that you respect, you go back home to eat.

All day long people would go out to fly kites or play "JAE KI CHA GI", which is a kicking game played with an object made of a coin and rice paper (similar to Hacky Sack.)

Another interesting game that the entire family can enjoy is "YOOT NOHL EE". This is played by taking a small log, measuring 1 in diameter and 6 - 7 inches long cutting it in half. Through both the width and the length. So that you have 4 pieces with one side curved and one side flat. Each person then takes a turn by picking up the pieces and dropping them on the floor. Every pattern formed with these pieces has a significant meaning.

January 15th (Lunar Calendar) - Chung Wol Dae Bo Rum
(the first great full moon day of the year)

On this day, parents tell stories to their children in order to help them build a strong moral character and to teach them responsibility. For example, parents will tell their children to stay awake all night or their eyebrows will turn white.

This tale teaches them patience and strength by overcoming the difficulties of staying awake all night. During the evening, most of the townspeople play a kind of war game. The townspeople build a big fire in front of their town by stacking the wood for the fire into what looks like a big bed and setting it ablaze. This is called "MO DAK BOOL" because the fires are so large, all the towns are very visible. Next, each of the participants gets a small can, punches many holes in it, and stuffs it with pieces of wood which are easily ignited and will burn for a long time. The can is then attached to a long handle, and swung round. When all of the young people in town do this. It looks very beautiful from far away. Finally, each town will try to invade the neighboring towns.

When the team meets they fight amongst each other to try and gather up all their opponents fire cans. They can go on to the next enemy town to take the fire away from that town's central fire to win the game.

This day teaches the children teamwork; to be responsible for their family and that it is their moral duty to defend their family and community.

August 15th (Lunar Calendar) - Choo Seok

Similar to the American holiday, Thanksgiving. This day was chosen because it is a time of the first rice harvest. On the night before, you set out all different types of food, such as fish, meat, vegetables, fruit, etc. for the departed souls of your ancestors. This is the way to show deep appreciation and respect to your ancestors and God. Between 2:00-3:00 am on the 15th, the roosters cry as a signal for the departed souls to leave and for your family to get together and eat the same food that was set out for your ancestors. After a two to three hour rest period, everyone wakes up, cleans themselves, and goes to visit the ancestors in the cemeteries. First, you visit the 4th or 5th oldest generation, then the more recent ones. Even though each ancestor still has an anniversary once a year, this is very important holiday in Korea because the whole family can enjoy being together to honor their ancestors.

Note: In the past, three previous holidays were public celebrations. Now, only January 1st and August 15th are celebrated as public holidays since many relatives could not stay from the first of the year until January 15th, due to their responsibilities back home.