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LUNAR NEW YEAR
Looking at the different traditions and
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the state can properly celebrate traditions passed down from generation to generation. Various cultures celebrate Lunar New Year in different ways. For Koreans, Lunar New Year, or Seollal (설날), is a family-based holiday. Koreans perform ancestral rites and bow to their elders to wish them a prosperous new year.
In Korea, each new lunar year adds a year to one’s age, and rice cake soup, tteokguk, is eaten to symbolize becoming a year older. Unlike other cultures, Koreans consider the color red to be unlucky. Dressing in hanbok, traditional Korean clothing, is a custom much more common compared to Chinese or Vietnamese traditions. Families play traditional games and exchange white envelopes filled with money.
Like many Chinese holidays, traditions regarding Lunar New Year, or the Spring Festival (春 節/春节), are based on famous myths. Red firecrackers line the streets and are prepared to set off throughout the 15-day celebration. People buy new clothes–typically in red. These customs are based on the myth of Nian
