Theresa's First Chuseok!

I was halfway through another post about Korean amusement parks, but I got sidetracked by a few events that were even better and therefore merited immediate posting. The first event is my adoption of an adorable little kitten by the name of Park Junior. When MyungSoo and I first brought Junior home, he was underweight and could barely walk. For reasons inscrutable, he had been separated from his mother far too early. He didn't know how to use the litter box and was still too young to maintain his own body heat. But now, one week later, he is playful, curious, and incredibly comfortable with humans. More importantly, he can use the litter box and no longer pees on my bed. The vet even gave him a clean bill of health. He wakes me up every morning by punching me in the face.

Did your face just melt from the cuteness?

So that was the first big event. Now for the second, even bigger, even cooler event.

Chuseok! Chuseok is Korean Thanksgiving. It coincides with a full moon and is an opportunity for families to get together to celebrate the harvest and pay their respects to their deceased ancestors. Naturally, I had never been to Chuseok before. The only thing I knew about Chuseok was that it involves families traveling to visit their grandparents and that while there, they eat a lot of food (as is proper of any Korean event). Chuseok probably sets some kind of record for vast numbers of people moving from one place to another. Seoul literally empties itself, as over 6 million of the 10 million people living in Seoul leave the city to head to their ancestral homes and the grandparents living there. Korea is a pretty small country. The longest you'll have to drive is maybe six hours if you're driving from Incheon to Busan. During Chuseok, those time travels double. Even a short, one hour car ride can transform into a four hour smog-fueled nightmare. Train tickets sell out months in advance. Buses are even worse than cars. To avoid traffic, many of my students' families left their houses at 3 AM, and just drove all night.

MyungSoo's family is lucky. Their grandmother's house (their grandfather unfortunately died last year) is located only about 1.5 hours outside of Seoul. It's even accessible by Seoul metro. (One more reminder that Seoul metro is the greatest subway system in the world. For a mere 3,000 won, it can take you two hours outside of Seoul, and their eventual goal is to link up all of Korea in one, giant, incredibly cheap and convenient subway system. Genius.)

Food. It's all about the food. As soon as I arrived, I started cooking. First, there were these toothpick creations in which crab, ham, pickled radish, greens, and more crab were stuck together, then dipped in egg and fried. After that, we made these dumpling-like dainties in which a mixture of pork and vegetables was put inside a leaf, dipped in egg, and fried. Next, we made seafood pancakes, which were also dipped in egg and fried. The whole endeavor required three or even four people to work together. At this point, we had made over 200 pieces and still showed no sign of stopping. I, however, had reached my limit. MyungSoo's mom (a marathon cooker and hardcore badass) told me to go sit down in the massage chair with a cup of tea. I happily obliged.

I still think about those leaf things and weep. They were so good.

Every meal came with rice, soup, meat, vegetables from the garden, and about four different types of homemade kimchi. The table was so full of food that there wasn't room for anything else. After each meal, we'd sit around, eating fresh fruit and sweet rice cakes until someone suggested playing LoL. For those of you who aren't familiar with League of Legends, it's a brilliant online game. Each team has five players, each of whom controls one champion, each of whom has special abilities and talents. The goal is to destroy the other team's base. LoL has become incredibly popular in Korea, even to the point that it's more popular than Starcraft. Yes, there is a TV channel completely devoted to broadcasting LoL games. Anyway, MyungSoo's brothers are all incredibly good. I'm actually pretty terrible, but they humored me and let me play with them anyway.

Pictured: Family bonding

All that food!

But the purpose of Chuseok is not to get together to eat and play popular online games. The purpose of Chuseok is a lot more significant than that. Chuseok is really about paying respect to your ancestors. MyungSoo's family (on his father's side) owns a mountain. The mountain was purchased long ago by an ancestor of the Park family who also happened to be related to the Joseon dynasty. On this mountain is buried every member of the Park family dating back over nine generations. Every Chuseok, the family visits the mountain to pay their respects to their ancestors.

Three Parks. The farthest grave is the man who purchased the mountain. The closest grave is that of MyungSoo's grandfather.

 A quick word about graves in Korea. They are completely fascinating and beautiful in their simplicity and practicality. Ideally, if a family has enough money, they buy a mountain on which to bury their family members. If not, they can always choose cremation. A younger generation can never be buried above an older generation. It is the duty of the family to keep the grave clean of weeds, bugs, water, and especially trees. Tree roots can trap the deceased's soul and cause him to suffer great pain. Water is equally bad and might carry away the bones. Bugs might devour the bones or carry them away as well. Weeds are just bad. In the picture, you might also notice the two stone pillars on either side of the graves. Those are to keep about bad spirits. The stone table in front of the graves are for the family so that they can easily set up their offerings or burn incense of the deceased. MyungSoo's grandfather doesn't have any of these fancy assets because his wife wanted him to have a humble grave. When she dies, she will be buried with him, in his mound. There is also a crescent-shaped mound behind the larger mound. This is there both to keep water from flowing over the grave (potentially carrying away bones) and also to collect energy from the mountain.

MyungSoo's family is pretty traditional. This means that when it comes to Chuseok tasks, these tasks are divided along gender lines. It is the role of the women of the family to prepare the food to be offered at the various rites and ceremonies. It is the role of the men to perform these rites and ceremonies and see that they are done correctly. Usually, the women stay at home to prepare the food, while the men travel to each household to do the rites. In MyungSoo's family, there is an extreme paucity of women, so the men occasionally help with the food. However, women are definitely not involved in the rites. Apparently, at each house, the family sets up a table and fills it with over 20 different dishes of fruit, meat, kimchi, rice cakes, and everything in between. The oldest son then lights incense and pours a glass of chung ha (a Korean liquor that tastes much better than soju) for the deceased (because all Korean guys, whether living or dead, love alcohol). Everyone then bows all the way to the ground 20 times. At least, that is my vague understanding. I'm not actually sure if I have it right. The men also go visit the graves of their ancestors and (I assume) bow some more. Although I wasn't able to go to any of the ceremonies at the other houses of the family, I was able to go to a small ceremony at MyungSoo's grandfather's grave. MyungSoo's grandmother is feeling really sick, so she wasn't able to prepare all of the dishes for the family rite. Instead, we packed up the car full of tables and food and headed to the gravesite, where we set up the food (much of which I had helped make the night before) and MyungSoo's father performed the above-mentioned rite. Instead of bowing 20 times, though, we only bowed 2.5 times twice (the half bow is just a bow at the waist). After that, we hung out at the grave and ate all the food offerings.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and watching TV. That night, the men all went over to the house of the oldest son of the grandfather's oldest brother. I was super jealous because his wife is from Busan and made all sorts of delicious seafood. However, I contented myself by playing the kitten and eating sweet rice cakes. When the boys got home, we played LoL together until 3 AM.

The next day was spent working. MyungSoo's grandmother owns a rice farm, you see. These days, most of the land is rented out to other farmers, but the grandmother keeps a small patch in front of the house just for her own purposes. MyungSoo's father decided that she was getting far too old for that, though, so the men spent most of the day dismantling her greenhouse and harvesting peppers. To make a long story short, we spent almost the entire day harvesting and sorting peppers. Some were made into spices. Some were fried. A good majority were made into kimchi. At the end of the day, I looked upon my work and I saw that it was good.

And that is the story of Theresa's first Chuseok. 

Manly men working hard.

Peppers! Now imagine like a million more.