Tag Archives: Lunar New Year

Seollal (Korean New Year)

Text:

Seollal is the first day of the Lunar New Year in Korea. On Seollal, you bow to your elders, play games, and visit your hometowns. Seollal(설날) is the Korean New Year, usually falling in mid-February. It is one of Korea’s biggest holidays, with many people taking several days off of work to spend time with families. Often, people travel back to their hometowns or visit family members/in-laws. There is also a ritual called sebae(세배), where people bow deeply before their elders and wish them a happy new year and good fortune, and in turn the elders give them money in envelopes.

Context:

The informant, having lived in Korea their whole life, participated in Seollal every year. At first, they were the ones to bow to their elders and receive money, but as they grew older, they began to be the ones to sit as their younger family relatives bowed.

Interpretation:

There is a lot of emphasis on filial piety, and more than that, respect for your elders and your ancestors. For example, you lay out food for your ancestors at the table or a memorial/shrine. I feel like there is a major emphasis on Confucian piety in Korean culture, as well as a reminder of the strength found in community. When you bow to your elders on Seollal, it is more than a bow–you are literally on your knees, head on the ground, essentially showing utmost reverence and respect for the elders’ wisdom and impact on your life. You(as the younger person) have the responsibility to visit your hometown, your origin, not the other way around, showing the idea that you never truly leave your family behind, which is a foundational concept in Confucianism. Through this practice, families reaffirm their connection to the past and show gratitude and respect to their ancestors and elders.

Foods like tteokguk (rice cake soup) are essential to Seollal. Eating tteokguk is believed to symbolically grant one a year of age, connecting food rituals to the passage of time. Furthermore, traditional clothing like the hanbok and folk games like yutnori also play a role, reinforcing cultural identity and intergenerational learning. This latter point is especially important; as Korea quickly evolves to match the demands of modernity, many traditional aspects of Korea’s culture are at risk of disappearing or losing their value. By participating in holidays such as Seollal, families are teaching the future generation the importance of remembering their history and culture.

Tang Yuan

Nationality: Taiwanese-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Animation Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA / Queens, NY
Language: English

Text:

“One of the foods that we made is um.. Tang Yuan, which is like a… kind of like mochi? It’s like a glutinous rice ball and then on the inside is sesame paste. And so, it… it’s usually typically eaten during the New Year. Um… it’s just like kind of a dessert. I know it’s been more popularized within like, um… like, Taiwanese dessert places nowadays, or like dessert places in general, but they’re usually served as like a treat for introducing the New Year. Um… a while ago, like when I was really really young — I’d say like before I was five — my grandma used to make Tang Yuan by like… She didn’t have the sesame paste, it was just like flour balls, I guess? Like she’d make the sort of like, dough out of rice flour and water and then she’d dye it into different colors and like, cut it up into strips and then she’d have me and my cousins like prepare the dough balls together. And then she’d prepare a kind of uh, kind of soup, like a sweet soup to go with it. Um… I believe also typically… I prefer to eat it plain, but my dad um… My grandparents on my dad’s side — and my dad — they both kind of… they have like a somewhat Cantonese background, so they end up drinking it with like, this fermented wine, like rice wine. And it… has an ‘interesting’ taste, it’s like… it’s like the sweetness of the Tang Yuan on itself is pretty good, and it’s like, the fermented rice wine is very bitter, and very pungent…. and so it’s like, I don’t know how they acquired the taste for it but, um, my dad typically eats it with this sort of rice wine. And also, when you eat it… I think it represents currency. ’cause the ‘yuan’ at the end… and ‘tang’ is usually like ‘sweet.’ So like ‘sweet money.'”

Context:

Tang Yuan are a traditional Chinese dessert, although they can be sweet or savory. They are often made for holidays and festivals, especially the Lunar New Year. There are several variations on Tang Yuan recipes, but the most common one involves making a dough out of glutenous rice flour and water, stuffing the dough balls with a sweet black sesame paste, boiling, and serving warm in a sweet syrup. Tang Yuan are said to represent togetherness and completeness.

Analysis:

Dishes like Tang Yuan are often made for festivals to commemorate calendar cycles and bring people together. They represent connections to community and a sense of continuity of tradition and culture. For informant JC, Tang Yuan are a dish that holds significance beyond the process of cooking and eating — they play a role in connecting him to his Taiwanese identity as he and his family navigate American culture and expectations of assimilation.

Lunar New Year

AGE: 20 

Date of performance: 04/30/2025

Occupation: Student 

Primary Language: English 

Title-   Tết

Context- J is a Vietnamese-American student who celebrates Vietnamese holidays and festivals in the US. J tells about Tết, explaining “I celebrate Tết, which is lunar new year/Vietnamese new year. Usually kids get li xi which is lucky money (money in red envelopes) from adults but before they get it, they have to say good things/wish for good things to the adults before they receive it such as saying “I hope this year has a lot in store for you such as good fortune, a long life, good health, etc” and then the adults wish for good for the children as well. You eat a variety of dishes and celebrate the elderly who have passed away during that time by lighting incense on an altar displayed at home. People also go to a whole bunch of temples where they pray to Buddha and get blessings from monks.”

Analysis- J shares a traditional celebration of the Lunar New Year within Vietnamese culture—a popular holiday that is celebrated in Asia. Tết is a vibrant example of folklore as traditional rituals and customs within the Vietnamese community come together and are celebrated in honor of cultural identity. Some rituals within the celebration are the money in the red envelopes, which symbolize good fortune for the elderly and young. Although the Vietnamese celebration is unique, the theme of good fortune is common amongst East Asian countries. Oicotypes of certain elements such as the red envelopes convey how folklore is adaptable to its respective culture without losing its true identity.

Chinese New Year – Folk Origin Myth

Nationality: Chinese and American
Age: 20
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA

Context:

My informant is from China. In China they celebrate Chinese New Year, otherwise known as Lunar New Year, which is the most important traditional holiday in their culture. Lunar New Year, marking the start of the lunar calendar year, is said to symbolize a fresh start and the opportunity to leave bad luck behind and welcome what the new year has to offer. The lunar calendar follows the moon’s monthly cycles and is about 354 days, making a leap month necessary to stay in line with the seasons. Lunar New Year is widely celebrated in many other East and Southeast Asian countries. Its significance lies in the blending of ancient traditions with modern day practices.

Conversation pulled from audio:
Informant:

“This is like a Chinese New Year’s story, basically. Like why you have to put like you have to have fireworks and like you have to put up like red stuff or wear red on Chinese New Year’s. It’s because like basically there was like a town in the past that was like always like attacked by like I was like tormented, I guess, whatever, like by a monster that lived in the mountains and it would come down once a year to like eat people. And basically like they realized that like by setting bamboo on fire, it causes like a bang, like a really like loud popping and like banging sound. And like the monster would be like scared of the sound. And then they also realized that like the monster was like scared of red because it’s like really it’s like looks like fire, right? And then so, but this is really out of order, but you guys can Polish it.

{ 1:01 }
And so like they did these things and then the monster would like stay away. And like when it did come down, it would like run away. So yeah.

Me: { 1:10 }
The red scared it off?

Informant: { 1:14 }
The red and then the firecrackers because it’s like when you set the bamboo on fire, it like kind of sounds like a firecracker.

Me: { 1:19 }
A ritual. Gotcha. I like that. That’s awesome. Thank you so much.”

Analysis:

Is this story true? Who knows. That’s what makes it a folk myth. Does it even matter if it’s true? I don’t think so. I find it interesting nonetheless. The fact that my informant was told this story as a child as the origin of Chinese New Year is all that matters. That’s what makes it folklore because this story has been pasted down by the folk, true or not.

What I find interesting is it’s explanations for why people wear red and light firecrackers during this holiday. The monster, symbolic or not, is scared away by the color red and the lighting of firecrackers because it’s scared of fire. Is this symbolic? I think so. I think it could represent bad luck, chaos, hardship, or winter and with the new year you celebrate to ward these things off. Often in folklore monsters are used to represent natural or social fears. This monster could also represent the warding off of doubts about the new year and struggles like famine and fear of invasion from the closing year.

Vietnamese Tradition: Lunar New Year Outfits

Context:

Informant G is a 20 year old Cinema and Media Studies major from The Inland Empire in Southern California. Her family is primarily Vietnamese and Cambodian, and G lived in Vietnam for periods of time as a child. She is a junior at USC.

Text:

Please excuse any grammar issues, these are direct text message quotes. G sent me a photo of herself and her older sister wearing áo dài. She said the following:

“During Lunar New Year (Tết in Vietnamese) most people wear áo dài which is the traditional Vietnamese dress/costume/outfit. Although, it’s not exclusively worn during Lunar New Years, most people buy new áo dàis or wear their best one as a way to start the new year off well.”

When I asked about further significance in the type of áo dài, she replied

“they more symbolize the significance of an event, like people can wear it in their casual life but the fancier an áo dài the more formal/significant an event is”

“the color is also very important (not as much any more) but during Tet a lot of people wear red áo dài because it represents luck and prosperity”

Interpretation:

There are a number of significant details in this anecdotal description. For one thing, G clearly indicates an association with life cycle. There is a purpose in the kind of áo dài worn as one enters the new year. She mentions that people might “buy new áo dàis” – perhaps as a physical representation of newness – or wear their best one as a way of instating luck. G explained that áo dài is a Vietnamese garment that can be worn casually, but a fancier one is considered more formal and correlates with the event for which it’s worn. G also mentions that the color red has some significance. I find this interesting because, though Vietnam is considered a Southeast Asian country, imperialism brought bits of Chinese culture into Vietnamese culture, and the East Asian significance of the color red has been part of Vietnamese tradition, too. Traditions done for the purpose of bringing luck into the new year are incredibly common (ie: Latin Americans eating 12 grapes or bringing a suitcase around the block) – they are meant to induce prosperity, and multiple aspects of wearing fancy, or sometimes red áo dài reflect that folkloric commonality.