Chuseok 2024 is on September 17. Get to know the essentials for food, family, and fun.
What is Chuseok?
Chuseok (추석), also known as Hangawi, marks a zenith in the Korean calendar, rivaling only the lunar New Year in its cultural significance. Often likened to Thanksgiving, this festival is observed on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, typically aligning with September or October by the Gregorian reckoning.
In 2024, Chuseok will be celebrated on Tuesday, September 17th, with the festivities unfurling over a three-day period from September 16th to 18th. During this time, millions of Koreans will traverse the country by plane, train, and car, drawn back to their familial homes in a nationwide pilgrimage of kinship and tradition.
Rooted in ancient Buddhist mythology that speaks of a celestial rabbit, Chuseok extols the virtues of fertility, longevity, and the bounty of the harvest. The term itself, translating to “Autumn Eve,” hints at the deep seasonal resonance of this observance, which is recognized as a national holiday across both North and South Korea and celebrated by Korean diasporas around the globe.
The lunar calendar prescribes the cadence of Korea’s biggest holidays, Chuseok and Seollal. These major celebrations take place under the glow of the year’s most significant moons—the first and the eighth full moons, marking Korean New Year and the harvest festival, respectively.
Chuseok, falling on September 17th in 2024 and October 6th in 2025, sees its date shift annually. Deeply embedded in Korean culture, it is a time when families travel great distances to to celebrate the occasion. They also honor their ancestors through grave visits and the charye, an elaborate ceremony that honors those who have passed.
Traffic is a nightmare in Korea during Chuseok with millions of people traveling to their hometowns for rituals and festivities. If you live outside of Korea, consider yourself lucky to be able to celebrate, relatively, hassle-free.
Feasting: What do Koreans eat on Chuseok?
Korean Chuseok is a festival that celebrates the beginning of the harvest. Bountiful amounts of food and drink are prepared with the freshest ingredients. People celebrate throughout the world mainly with extensive family time, fun games, and, of course, good, glorious food.
On the morning of Chuseok, family members will come together, traditionally at the home of the eldest son, a place called kun jip (literally translated as the Big House). Because of the large gathering and the great feasting that takes place, preparation for Chuseok used to be a weeks-long, labor-intensive undertaking for the keun myuneuri, or eldest daughter-in-law.
These days, however, other family members often help with the preparations, sharing in the tremendous workload. This is a holiday when Koreans look forward to feasting on all their favorite Chuseok foods such as songpyeon (half-moon rice cakes), jeon (Korean pancakes), grilled meats, and rice wine!
Top Foods for Korean Thanksgiving
- Songpyeon and other colorful rice cakes signify a bright future
- Different kinds of Jeon: vegetable, meat and fish fritters
- Nameul (bellflower, bracken, spinach) – 3 different colors of vegetables from a root, stalk, and leaf signify prosperity
- Japchae: Korean glass noodles stir fried with vegetables and meat
- Galbi Jjim with Daechu (Jujube) signifying a wish for more descendants
- Nabak Kimchi
- Whole Fish signifying spreading descendants
- Radish Soup
- Korean Pears signify wisdom
- Large Apples signify love and peace within the family
- Ggot Gam (Dried Persimmon)
- Traditional Honey Rice Cakes in five colors signify the five elements of the universe
- Sikhye Sweet Rice Drink
- Makgeolli Rice Wine
Honoring Ancestors
Rituals to honor your ancestors are an important aspect of Chuseok. Many Koreans visit the tombs of their family members during Chuseok to pay their respects and tidy up their graves. Traditionally, families would visit tomb sites on two different days– beolcho (벌초) and seongmyo (성묘). Beolcho refers to the grass-trimming ceremony that takes place the day before Chuseok, where families will go to clean up weeds and tidy the grass surrounding the tomb.
On the day of Chuseok, families will go again to bow to their ancestors and symbolically lay out a table of food and drinks, otherwise known as seongmyo.
The Old Traditional Charye
Alternatively, families may choose to conduct an ancestral ritual at home, also known as charye (차례). A form of ancestor worship, the family goes through a procession of prayer and bowing as attendees ask dead relatives to bring good fortune to the living.
On Chuseok morning, families set up an elaborate table with traditional foods arranged in a way that would invite the spirits into the home to enjoy the feast. While individual families may have their own traditions for setting the table for charye, there are general guidelines that have been traditionally followed with 15 different foods on the table:
- 1st row: Utensils, cups, tteok 떡, guk 국 (soup).
- 2nd row: Guksu 국수 (noodles), yukjeon 육전 (meat pancakes), sojeon 소전 (beef pancakes), eojeok 어적 (fish), and siluddeok 시루떡 (rice cakes).
- 3rd row: Meat soup, beef soup, and fish soup.
- 4th row: Po 포 (jerky), namul 나물 (seasoned vegetables), ganjang 간장 (soy sauce), nabak kimchi 나박김치 (kimchi), and sikhye 식혜 (sweet drink).
- 5th row: Fruits and desserts (such as jujubes, chestnuts, pears, apples, and dried persimmons).
The Modern Charye: Simplify or Abolish
While the tradition of charye still lives on in millions of homes in Korea, many people are choosing to simplify or abandon it altogether. Many people, especially Christians, skip these traditions because they feel uncomfortable with this kind of ancestor worship.
Another obstacle to the continuation of this tradition is the intensive work involved in preparations which traditionally fall on women. This often creates unnecessary strife in many modern families who live busy lives and desire a more equal division of labor at home.
As an increasing number of Koreans are choosing to skip this tradition, the Confucian educational institute Sung Kyun Kwan reduced the minimum number of items on the charye table from the previous 15 to eight in its latest set of guidelines in an effort to simplify this custom.
They stated that jeon is not mandatory, and said that families can reduce the number and kinds of food items. They encouraged people to instead focus on what the deceased actually liked to eat, including things like fried chicken and ramen.
What do Koreans wear for Chuseok?
Koreans love dressing up in the traditional hanbok to get in the mood for special occasions like Chuseok and Seollal. Some people even get the family pet involved in the festive dressing with adorable Korean dog hanboks and cat hanboks.
If you are interested in renting a Hanbok for the Chuseok celebration, Etsy has many options. Allow yourself plenty of time for shipping.
Chuseok Gift Giving Tradition
Gift-giving is an essential part of this celebration. You can’t fail to notice the giant Chuseok gift boxes when walking around retail stores in August and September. These boxes are usually filled with anything from food to toiletries and are given to relatives and business associates as gifts around this time.
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Unlike the Christmas holidays, gifts at Chuseok are not given reciprocally. It is appropriate to give gifts during this time if you are invited to someone’s house during this time, and it’s always a good idea to bring a present that can be shared throughout the house as opposed to gifts with specific individuals in mind.
This is also a time when many people send gifts to clients and business associates. Of course, if there is someone who has helped you a lot during the year, this could be a good time to show your appreciation by getting them a Chuseok gift.
This is a time when retailers will stock many gift items. If you live in Korea, it shouldn’t be hard to find a gift to give during Chuseok because most shops and supermarkets will have massive, clearly labeled gift sets that are suitable for the occasion.
As Chuseok celebrates the beginning of harvest, many of these gifts will be food-based and they will range from fruits and rice cakes to huge sets of Korean Beef or seafood, or even Spam!
Games and Activities
Go Stop (고스탑) – One of the favorite games to play when the Korean family is gathered is Go Stop! Go Stop is a fun fast-paced game played with small plastic cards called Hwatu (화투). The rules to this game are not simple and it may take at least a few rounds before you figure out how to play it. However, don’t be surprised if you get addicted! Many Korean Americans have fond memories of their parents and family members playing this game endlessly, and not just on holidays.
Here’s a great, high-quality set of Hwatu cards that come with instructions and other extras:
Check out this video tutorial and try this hard-core Korean game for yourself this year!
Juldarigi (줄다리기) – Commonly known in Western countries as “tug-of-war”, juldarigi is another traditional folk game played during Chuseok. Large villages would historically come together to compete against each other in hopes of bringing about good luck for the year’s harvest. Korea’s version of tug-of-war typically uses an enormous hand-woven straw rope that requires tens to even hundreds of people on each side. Korea’s juldarigi tradition is actually listed under UNESCO as an intangible heritage item!
Korean villages traditionally celebrated with various entertainment such as Samoulnori (traditional percussion quartets) or Talchum (masked dances), Ganggangsullae (Korean circle dances), and Ssireum (Korean wrestling).
However you decide to celebrate this year, be sure to gaze at the full moon and make it a Happy Chuseok!
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