In Korea, we call Chinese New Year 'sul nal' (설날) in korean. The word 'sul' (설) means New in korean and 'nal' (날) means day. So it is basically saying New year.
When I celebrated Sul Nal, our relatives gathered to our house as my dad is the eldest son. Before it is Sul Nal, they would come to our house one day earlier and spent their night on our house.
The next day, we wear our special korean costume which is called 'Han Bok'(한복). Then every children will bow to the adults and adults will give us the money.So in my family there were my dad's mom, dad, mom, my dad's brother and thier wifes. Every children will collect money from them. After that, adults will say something good thing to us for instance, this year study hard or be healthy.
When everthing is finished, we played this game called 'Yoot Nol Yi'(윷놀이).Yoot No Yi is a traditional board game which our ancestors use to play during Sul Nal. This game is very easy to play. First we divide our teams. Then you just have to throw the dice which looks like a wooden stick. It has two side, one side is flat the other side has a bump. So number of space u move will be determined on which side will the dice fall. In this game there is four chess in each team which have to go around all the steps. When you move your chess, you can stack up your chess together and go around all the steps which is faster but dangerous because once your opponent are same step as uyou your chess have to start from the beggining. Also you can move your chess seperatly.However it will take a long time for your four chess to reach the final but safer. Sometimes we bet on our moneys too to make the game more interesting and making everybody to focus into the game. With greater money on betting , we have more pressure when we throw the dice.
After playing Yoot Nol Yi, my mom and my aunts will start to cook on their food. There is this traditional food called 'Dduk Ggook.' (떡꾹) This is a soup made out of a rice cake. We believed that once we eat the rice cake, we would get one year older so it is tradition to eat. Usually my mom and my aunts refuses to eat the Dduk Ggook as women dislikes getting older.
Finally when we finish our food, we would usually play games,chat,and watch tv.I guess this is how I celebrated my Sul Nal and most of the koreans too!
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
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