My Seollal (설날) 2020: Celebrating the Lunar New Year
Before I opened my eyes to the world of Korean culture and took a deep dive into appreciating it, I’d always associated the Lunar New Year with China. Really, it’s no surprise: in North America, that general time of year is colloquially referred-to as “Chinese New Year”. Now, I should say that if you know the basic history of how Korean culture grew from many ancient Chinese traditions, that Americanized misnomer makes slightly more sense; regardless, Seollal (설날) is definitely its own beautiful celebration.
I’m not going to go into all the differences between the two in this post, however, I do want to share why I hosted my own Lunar New Year celebration this January, some of the things I learned about it through my research, and what parts I included in my more modern take on the tradition.
Why celebrate 설날?
Seollal is a family-oriented holiday, traditionally focused on ancestor worship and paying respects to the elders of the family. Personally, I believe that family is not limited to the people you simply share blood with; family can also be the people with whom you choose to surround yourself, who bring love, support and positive energy into your life. It’s for that reason I hosted my Lunar New Year party for my closest friends; the family I chose and wish to honor for being a part of my life.
I bought this pretty floral tea set specifically for the Seollal party, since I like to serve green or white tea after dinner.
What did we eat?
In Korea there is a historic ritual, performed as a part of the meal, called Charye (차례). It is a memorial service to one’s ancestors. As there is a deep cultural significance to it, and because I am not Korean, we left this ritual out of our celebration. In its place, we each silently gave thanks before eating our dinner.
Even without the Charye, food is still a very important part of Seollal. There are a number of traditional dishes eaten during Korean holidays; however, since one of my friends is ovo-vegetarian and another is celiac, I made the whole meal meat and gluten-free. Lucky for me, a lot of Asian-based cuisine is actually wonderful for accommodating these types of eating restrictions, so we were all able to eat a plentiful dinner! So what did we eat anyway?
Korean sweet potatoes, chopped into small pieces to cook evenly!
Those potatoes after being fried in an oil and brown sugar sauce.
On the left we have japchae: sweet potato glass noodles, carrots, onion and shiitake, cooked with gluten-free soy sauce. On the right are Korean-style braised eggs (hard-boiled and soaked in a soy and rice wine sauce), which should have come out darker but it was my first time!
Sweet and tangy cabbage salad with oil and rice vinegar dressing
Korean fish bread made with gluten-free flour and filled with Nutella
This is ddeokguk (떡국), a soup (국) made with sliced rice cakes (떡), which has a special significance during Seollal even though it is eaten regularly in Korea throughout the rest of the year. It’s said that eating a bowl of ddeokguk is what causes a person to age one year because it marks their Lunar Calendar birthday. In my reading I learned that Korean children will eat more than one bowl to try to grow up faster, how cute is that?
Traditionally you would make ddeokguk with beef, anchovy and kelp stock made from scratch, but since that isn’t vegetarian, I substituted pre-made vegetable stock. It was still delicious!
Note: if you aren’t used to rice cakes, you might find the texture weird in your mouth.
What games did we play?
Yut Nori (윷놀이) is an old, old, incredibly old game usually played around the holidays in Korea (if you watch any idol variety shows, they often play it in Seollal and Chuseok-themed episodes). It uses marked sticks to move around the board instead of dice and the goal is to get at least two of your game pieces back to the start.
I designed this custom BTS yut board because my friends and I are huge fans and I thought it would be more fun to play as our favorite members! Also, since this isn’t exactly a game you can go pick up in a store (at least not in Canada), I needed to make my own game pieces anyway. Why not have fun with it?
Next year I hope to include a game called Go-Stop (고스톱); another traditional game which uses a special deck of cards and is also played at holiday gatherings. Maybe I’ll make a custom version of that too!
Like most holidays, Seollal is really a time to be with your loved ones and enjoy each other’s company with some great food. I believe that I achieved everything I wanted for this Lunar New Year celebration and next year I hope to do something even bigger and better. I’m truly grateful to find such a beautiful culture that resonates so strongly with me, that has come to mean so much to me, and that I can continue to learn about and appreciate every day. Here’s to 2020!