#동지

Long time no see! This is Admin Hee. This time I’m going to tell you about special day in Korea.

Dongjinnal(동짓날) is the 22nd season of the 24th season, with the longest nights and shortest days of the year. Usually it is around December 21 or 22 in solar calendar when the sun is located at 270 degrees southbound of the equator. Also the cold starts to get stronger from this time.

The celebration was so important that it was recognized as the second most important day after Lunar New Year’s Day. This perception made such words like “You’ll get a year older if the winter solstice passes.” or “You have to eat red bean porridge to get one year older. Here we can see what we eat this day.

The picture you see right above is red bean porridge. Boil red beans to make porridge and put something like rice cakes made of glutinous rice and boil them together. Even though family members gathered and ate together, people had more diverse thoughts at that time. For example, they thought the red color of red beans drove away evil spirits. It was also effective in boosting immunity and overcoming the cold.

Like I said above, the celebration was so big this day. Let’s take a look how they celebrated in palace. They hosted a banquet called Hoeryeyon and appointed talented people by conducting the test ; civil service examination called gwageoje.

For ordinary people, they cooked red bean porridge not to get old and not to get sick. Also there was a custom in which daughters-in-low used to make Korean socks to their mother-in-law.

Written by Admin Hee

Edited by Admin Yu