Drinking with the "Family"
Column: The Koreinterpreter
Jay Huweiler, Staff Writer
Issue date: 10/1/04 Section: Lifestyles
This past week, Korea celebrated its annual harvest moon festival, Chuseok.
Officially lasting three days, it is Thanksgiving and Cinco de Mayo rolled into one. Across Korea, families leave the cities to join their grandparents in the countryside to pay respect to their ancestors. They laze and daze; eat and drink; give thanks and pray. This Chuseok, a generous family from Pyongtaek additionally shared their home and heritage with a curious contributing writer for the Traveler.
The first and third days of Chuseok are to travel to and from the home of their elders. The second day, Chuseok Proper (this past Tuesday), my "Family" conducted a traditional ceremony Kije in the elder's home honoring their ancestors. The adult men wore modern suits and knelt numerous times, offering the departed small cups of Kokju (special rice wine) and Song Peon (festival rice cakes) before eating a meal and remembering aloud happy moments with relatives past.
It was our later-day meal and drink, which defined my first Chuseok. Above all other observed customs--visiting the ancestors' graves or recording the names of ancestors in with Chinese characters (Ji-Bang)--our eating and drinking together transcended my commodity as an English teacher and my novelty as a foreigner.
The elders of my "Family" welcomed me by their generous nature and entertained my presence from curiosity, but accepted me only after my passing implicit tests of Korean etiquette at the dinner table. Events and discourse proceed as such:
Test # 1: Can he speak Korean?
Some. However, more important than the honorific, spoken Korean is the non-verbal, silent dialogue. Much of my passing this test included always shaking with two hands, bowing with my feet together and eyes cast down, following the eldest man's actions at the table, and reserving displays of emotion.
Test # 2: Can he eat with chopsticks?
Yes. They notice because chopsticks are more important than one would think. They are not simply utensils for eating. Chopsticks are always in the hand, and thus people who talk with their hands during conversation "talk" with their chopsticks. How a person holds them, clicks them while thinking, punctuates statements by waving them in the air, and places them back on the table indicates how one regards the company with which they eat.
Officially lasting three days, it is Thanksgiving and Cinco de Mayo rolled into one. Across Korea, families leave the cities to join their grandparents in the countryside to pay respect to their ancestors. They laze and daze; eat and drink; give thanks and pray. This Chuseok, a generous family from Pyongtaek additionally shared their home and heritage with a curious contributing writer for the Traveler.
The first and third days of Chuseok are to travel to and from the home of their elders. The second day, Chuseok Proper (this past Tuesday), my "Family" conducted a traditional ceremony Kije in the elder's home honoring their ancestors. The adult men wore modern suits and knelt numerous times, offering the departed small cups of Kokju (special rice wine) and Song Peon (festival rice cakes) before eating a meal and remembering aloud happy moments with relatives past.
It was our later-day meal and drink, which defined my first Chuseok. Above all other observed customs--visiting the ancestors' graves or recording the names of ancestors in with Chinese characters (Ji-Bang)--our eating and drinking together transcended my commodity as an English teacher and my novelty as a foreigner.
The elders of my "Family" welcomed me by their generous nature and entertained my presence from curiosity, but accepted me only after my passing implicit tests of Korean etiquette at the dinner table. Events and discourse proceed as such:
Test # 1: Can he speak Korean?
Some. However, more important than the honorific, spoken Korean is the non-verbal, silent dialogue. Much of my passing this test included always shaking with two hands, bowing with my feet together and eyes cast down, following the eldest man's actions at the table, and reserving displays of emotion.
Test # 2: Can he eat with chopsticks?
Yes. They notice because chopsticks are more important than one would think. They are not simply utensils for eating. Chopsticks are always in the hand, and thus people who talk with their hands during conversation "talk" with their chopsticks. How a person holds them, clicks them while thinking, punctuates statements by waving them in the air, and places them back on the table indicates how one regards the company with which they eat.
