Chuseok: the Korean thanksgiving under the full moon

The motorways are jammed from the day before, the trains booked out for weeks, and a whole country sets off in the same direction: toward the home of the forebears. On the low table, gleaming fruits are arranged in a pyramid, rice cakes steam, and the family bows before the portraits of the ancestors before the autumn full moon rises over the rooftops. This is Chuseok, the beating heart of the Korean calendar.

Chuseok is the great Korean harvest festival, celebrated on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, often compared to American Thanksgiving. For three days, families gather to thank the ancestors for abundance and to share the fruits of the earth. To understand Chuseok is to grasp how Korea links, for the span of a full moon, the living, the dead and the harvest.

A festival of harvest and gratitude#

Chuseok falls on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, in September or early October, when the autumn harvests are drawing to a close. It is above all an agrarian festival: the first grains, the new fruits, the freshly reaped rice are offered, as a sign of gratitude for a year of toil at last rewarded.

At the centre of the sky stands the full moon, the roundest and brightest of the year. As in many East Asian cultures, this lunar fullness becomes the symbol of abundance and of the family gathered. Chuseok is not merely a meal: it is a moment when the whole country lifts its eyes toward the same orb, in a single act of thanksgiving.

At Chuseok, one thanks not only the earth for its fruits: one thanks the ancestors for having made them possible, and the family for still being there to share them.

Hangawi: the "great middle" of autumn#

The festival's native name, Hangawi, is older and more poetic than Chuseok. It is made of han (한), "great," and gawi (가위), which denotes the middle of autumn. Hangawi is thus the "great middle" of the season, its culminating point.

Tradition traces the festival to the era of the kingdom of Silla (first century), around a weaving contest between two teams of women, the gabae, whose outcome was celebrated on this date. The account, handed down by the ancient chronicles, anchors Chuseok in a history more than two thousand years old — proof that the festival belongs to the deepest bedrock of Korean identity.

The rites to the ancestors: charye and beolcho#

The ritual heart of Chuseok is charye, the ceremony of offering to the ancestors. The family arranges codified dishes on a table — new rice, soups, fruits, alcohol — in a precise order, then bows to honour several generations of the deceased. It is a moment of memory as much as of filial piety, an inheritance of the Confucianism that structures Korean society.

To Chuseok is added beolcho and seongmyo: the visit to the family tombs. One weeds, cleans the burial mounds, bows before the graves of the forebears. To maintain the ancestors' tomb is a sacred duty; to neglect it would be a shame. These gestures express a Korean conception of time in which the dead never quite leave the family circle.

Songpyeon, half-moon rice cakes#

The emblematic dish of Chuseok is songpyeon, a small kneaded rice cake, filled with sweet sesame, bean paste or chestnut, then folded into a half-moon shape. It is steamed on a bed of pine needles (song, 송), which give it its scent and its name.

The shape of the songpyeon intrigues: why a half-moon, and not the full moon of the festival? Tradition sees in it a promise — the half-moon will become full, as the future remains to come. Preparing songpyeon as a family, the evening before, is a ritual in its own right, and a saying holds that she who shapes pretty songpyeon will have beautiful children. Beyond the cake, it is a whole craft that is passed from generation to generation.

Ganggangsullae and the games of the full moon#

When night falls and the moon rises, it is time for collective festivities. The most famous is ganggangsullae: women dressed in the hanbok join hands and turn in a great circle, singing at full voice under the full moon. This round dance, inscribed on UNESCO's intangible heritage list in 2009, is said to date from ancient times, and legend even links it to a military ruse meant to make an army appear more numerous.

Other games pace the festival: ssireum, traditional Korean wrestling in which one tries to throw the opponent, and yutnori, a family board game played with four sticks. The hanbok is sometimes worn, the new rice wine is tasted, and the rare idleness of a whole country on holiday is savoured. Chuseok is also that: a parenthesis of shared joy.

A tradition between permanence and change#

Chuseok remains deeply alive, but it is changing. The long culinary preparations, long borne by women, are debated: people speak openly of the unequal burden of festival work, and some families lighten the rites, order the dishes, or reinvent the celebration. More and more Koreans also use the holiday to travel, sometimes far from the ancestral home.

But the essential remains: to reunite, to honour those who came before us, to share abundance. Chuseok continues to say that one is never alone, that one belongs to a lineage and to a land. To discover this festival is to enter a Korea of bond and memory — and to learn Korean is also to possess these words, Chuseok, Hangawi, songpyeon, that open the doors of an autumn where people gather under the same moon.

FAQ#

When does Chuseok take place? On the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the Korean lunar calendar, generally in September or early October, the night when the autumn full moon is roundest. The festival spans three public holidays.

Is Chuseok really the "Korean Thanksgiving"? The comparison is convenient: like Thanksgiving, Chuseok celebrates the harvest and reunites the family around a great meal. But Chuseok adds ancestral rites (charye) and the visit to the tombs, absent from the American festival.

What are songpyeon? Small rice cakes folded into a half-moon, filled with sesame, bean or chestnut, steamed on pine needles. Shaped as a family on the eve of Chuseok, they are the emblematic dish of the festival.

What is ganggangsullae? A traditional circle dance performed by women in hanbok under the full moon of Chuseok, accompanied by song. Inscribed on UNESCO's intangible heritage list in 2009, it is among the most emblematic images of the festival.

Photo credits: the images used in this article come from Pexels and Unsplash and are royalty-free.