Which means “I went outside home to play the Yunnori.” (Yunnorireul hagi wihaeseo jip bakkeuro nagatsseumnida.) The rule is very simple so I believe you’ll be able to master it very easily and it’s very fun! It takes about 30 minutes to finish the game and with multiple players, we can actually group them into two and play it all altogether with 10 or 20 people at the same time. For the game, we throw out five sticks, five 윷 (Yut), and see how many sticks that have rounded side and, you know, flat side down. 윷 (Yut) is kind of a woodstick which has, like opposite side is rounded and bottom side is flat. So we have a special board game for New Year’s Day which is called 윷놀이 (Yunnori). “traditional board game played during Korean New Year” “On New Year's Eve, my mother prepared rice cake soup and 전 (jeon).” (Seollal jeonnare eomeoniga tteokgukgwa jeoneul mandeusyeotsseumnida.) So it’s very oily, but very tasty so if you visit someone’s house in New Year’s Day or if you go to traditional market, you can easily get 전 (jeon) and try it. 전 (jeon) is kind of pancake with beef, meat, a very small one with vegetables too. So when I was a kid, I wanted to get older and older faster than the other, you know, my friends, so I would have two or three bowls of 떡국, (tteokguk) “rice cake soup” so that I can be like two years older than my friends.Īnd the other word is 전 (jeon). Many consider that if you have one bowl of rice cake soup 떡국, (tteokguk) then you will get one year older this year. So the soup has a lot of rice cake inside and, you know, it tastes a little bit salty because it has seaweeds inside it too. 떡국, (tteokguk) means a “rice cake soup” so 떡 (tteok) means “rice cake” and 국 (guk) means “soup”.

The traditional food eaten during 설날 (Seollal). Which means “I bowed to my grandfather saying 'Happy New Year.' (Saehae bok mani badeuseyo.'rago iyagihamyeonseo harabeojiege jeoreul haetsseumnida.) You can convert it into in informal Korean and say 새해 복 많이 받아 (Saehae bok mani bada) to your friends to mean “Happy New Year!” With friends because this phrase is in formal Korean. (Saehae bok mani badeuseyo.) literally means “please receive a lot of luck in the New Year’s Day” or you can translate it as “Happy New Year!”. Like you say, “Happy New Year!” on New Year’s Day or New Year’s Eve to friends, to your family, you can use this phrase to anyone you meet on the New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day. “Please receive a lot of luck in the new year.” Here, I used the word 큰집 (keunjip) which really means “big house” which can be something like the house which has the oldest son of the family.ģ. Which means “On the New Year’s Day, we go to the big house to have memorial to ancestors.” (Seollareneun jesareul jinaegi wihaeseo keunjibe gamnida.) And then the whole family gather together and bow to their ancestors like considering that they are sitting behind the table to show the respect and show their thankness to the ancestors. So people prepare food on the big table fish, meat, fruits, rice and something that ancestors like grandfather/grandmother’s like. So 제사 (jesa) “memorial to ancestors” is one of the big event in Solar New Year’s Day. “Lunar New Year's Day is on January 1st in the lunar calendar.” So it usually falls in late January or February because it’s based on lunar calendar. So, you know like, there are two New Year’s Day in South Korea which is신정 (sinjeong), the New Year's Day based on solar calendar and the other one is 설날 (seollal), the Lunar New Year's Day. In this media, we’ll be talking about one of the most important and biggest holidays in South Korea which is 설날 (Seollal), the Lunar New Year’s Day.

Lunar new year korean traditions