Seollal: the Korean Lunar New Year

In the early morning, children in colourful hanbok kneel before their grandparents and bow deeply, foreheads to the floor. In the kitchen simmers a white soup with thin slices of rice cake, of which everyone will receive a bowl — for to eat it is to gain another year. The country's roads are jammed with families heading back to the village. This is Seollal, the Korean New Year.

Seollal is the Korean Lunar New Year, one of the two greatest festivals in the country along with Chuseok. Set by the same calendar as the Chinese New Year, it falls at the end of winter and gives rise to several public holidays. Far from being a mere calendar festival, it is a high point of family reunion and homage to ancestors. To understand it is to touch the heart of Korea.

The great migration of reunion#

Seollal is above all a family festival. As it approaches, millions of Koreans leave the cities to return to the family home, often that of the elders, triggering one of the country's largest annual migrations. Packed trains, jammed motorways, tickets booked weeks in advance: the whole country sets itself in motion to gather around a single table.

This tradition of return expresses a central value of Korean culture: family piety, inherited from Confucianism. People come back to honour their parents and grandparents, to reunite with siblings, to present the children. The journey, sometimes long and exhausting, is part of the ritual: it marks the importance placed on one's roots and on the continuity of generations.

At Seollal, you do not only celebrate the year that begins: you return to where you come from.

Charye and sebae: honouring the elders#

The morning of Seollal unfolds an essential rite, the charye: a ceremony of homage to the ancestors. The family sets a table laid with dishes carefully arranged according to precise rules, then bows before the tablets or portraits of the departed, symbolically offering them food and respect. It is a moment of reflection that links the living to those who came before them.

Then comes the sebae: the youngest address the elders with a great ceremonial bow, kneeling and bowing their foreheads to the floor, while offering New Year's wishes. In return, the elders offer words of wisdom and, especially for children, the sebaetdon — pocket money slipped into a small pouch, the most awaited gift of the festival.

Tteokguk and the art of taking a year#

At Seollal, one dish is unmissable: tteokguk, a clear soup garnished with thin oval slices of rice cake. It is prepared with a broth often based on beef, and the rounds of white tteok float in it like so many coins. Its clear colour symbolises the purity and renewal of the first day of the year.

A delightful belief is attached to it: to eat a bowl of tteokguk is to gain a year. Traditionally, it was by sharing this soup that all Koreans took another year on Seollal day — hence the playful expression of asking how many bowls of tteokguk someone has eaten to learn their age. The dish has thus become inseparable from the festival.

Games, hanbok and the festive spirit#

Seollal is not all reflection: it is also a time of games and sharing. People don the hanbok, the brightly coloured traditional costume, and the family takes to yutnori, an ancestral board game in which four sticks are thrown to advance one's pieces. Laughter, symbolic bets and good-natured rivalries enliven the houses.

From the crowded roads of the return to the bursts of laughter around yutnori, Seollal condenses everything that matters in traditional Korea: family, respect for elders, memory and shared joy. To discover it is to understand another way of entering the year — and to learn Korean is to be able to wish a "saehae bok mani badeuseyo," to bow for the sebae, and to ask, mischievously, how many bowls of tteokguk one has already eaten.

FAQ#

What is Seollal? Seollal (설날) is the Korean Lunar New Year, one of the two greatest festivals in the country along with Chuseok. Set by the lunar calendar, it celebrates the start of the new year with family reunions, ancestral rites and precise traditions.

When does Seollal take place? Seollal follows the lunar calendar and most often falls in late January or February, on the same date as the Chinese New Year. The festival generally spans three public holidays, around the first day of the lunar year.

What is eaten at Seollal? The emblematic dish is tteokguk (떡국), a soup with rice cake slices. According to tradition, eating a bowl of it makes you gain a year. The Seollal table also includes many dishes arranged for the ancestral charye rite.

What is the sebae? The sebae (세배) is the great ceremonial bow that the youngest address to the elders on the morning of Seollal, kneeling and bowing their foreheads to the floor. In return, the elders offer wishes and, to children, lucky money called sebaetdon.

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