Korea shuts down for the 3-day harvest moon holidays
Sep 22, 1999 - For the Chusok holidays, which fall Sept. 23-25, most Korean businesses, including companies, banks, government offices and media, will be closed for three days starting Thursday.
The full-moon festival, sometimes called the Korean Thanksgiving Day, is Korea's largest national holiday, when people reunite with their families. It is often referred to as a great exodus of the nation because more than 10 million people will be traveling during the festive days.
On Chusok, which is August 15 by the lunar calendar, Korean people eat rice cakes made with newly harvested rice, and freshly picked fruits and nuts such as persimmons, chestnuts and Chinese dates are used in memorial services for ancestors when Koreans visit their ancestors' graves.
Special foods eaten during Chusok also include songp'yon, crescent-shaped rice cakes, toran-t'ang, or taro soup, and song-i mushrooms. Songp'yon, a Chusok staple to most Koreans, is made by stuffing rice cakes with bean, chestnut or sesame seed filling and then steaming them with pine needles.
Korea Inc. also will be closed during the Chusok holidays. |
