Celebration

I would like to explain about the first full moon day of the year in the lunar calendar. In Korea, people call this day “Jeongwol Daeboreum”. In Asian culture, the moon stands for the goddess of production and abundance. Koreans have a lot of ceremonies to pray for good harvest and health on this holiday. In the early morning of the day, people drink a small cup of refined rice wine, and it means that they hope they will have only good news for a year. And they have various kinds of nuts like walnuts and chestnuts and the rice which is made of glutinous rice mixed with millets, sorghums, black beans, and red beans. It means they hope that in summer they will keep their good health. Anciently, Korea was an agricultural society, and specifically, in winter and spring, people used to struggle with famine. Because they couldn’t have enough nutritious food during winter, having the nuts and the mixed rice was a good way to replenish nutrition. This kind of customs were handed down, and now, in modern times, they have become ceremonies.

Especially, the night of the holiday, when the first full moon rises in the sky, they pray for good harvest and their own wishes like the wellbeing of their family for the coming year and they burn a bundle of sheaf made with straws, it means that they want to burn bad luck and misfortune, and let good luck and fortune come to people. As I mentioned earlier, because the main industry of Korea was agriculture, the production cycle was a year and people could see the result at the end of a year. Having a rich year was the most important project to them for a year. Because of that, the day they could see the full moon for the first time in a year, was very meaningful to them. It would mean the beginning of farm work and they hoped to have a abundant production.

By the way, I have a lot of memories about the holiday. When I was a girl, I used to be very excited about praying for my wish, when the first full moon rose in the sky. I have several clear memories about that. I used to wait seeing the first full moon and whenever I saw the moon, I remembered what I wished the previous year too. When I was grown up, I didn’t believe the superstition that the moon would make my dream come true anymore. But, still now, I feel the moon of the holiday is much more beautiful and bigger than any of the usual full moons.