For those of you who have no idea what I mean (most of you?), that would be Happy Seolal, aka Korean Lunar New Year, and Happy Valentines Day, all wrapped up in one! The two holidays happened to fall on the same day this year, which meant it was a day doubly filled with love for families and friends. And I felt particularly blessed because I had two of the people I love most in the world here to celebrate it with me. :)
Valentine's day has always been a favorite day of mine. Before you start rolling your eyes and jumping on my back for buying into the comercialized hype, let me tell you I will be the first to admit that the whole concept is completely cliched and contrived, and, in fact, my love for the holiday has nothing to do with a desire to be romanced. Rather, I simply love being given the excuse to indulge in overflowing and absurdly ridiculous amounts of girliness for one whole day out of the year. In all honesty, I think that I would probably live my entire life twirling around in a display of pink and red hearts if that were at all socially acceptable, so it is quite fortunate for me that Valentine's day provides an outlet to express my deep appreciation for ubercheesy prettiness and all things tackily feminine.
Even more importantly, though, on Valentines Day it becomes completely appropriate-- in a way that it is not on any other day of the year-- to be extravagantly effusive in expressing your affection for the people you care about, and that is something that I absolutely *love*.
Not suprisingly, Korea, with its booming "couple culture," has fully embraced this particular holiday as well. Everywhere I turned on VDay I was faced with couples in matching outfits bearing gifts of flowers and chocolates for one another. In Korea, Valentine's day in mostly an opportunity for women to shower the men in their lives with lots of love and gifts (don't worry, the men get their turn to reciprocate next month on "White Day"), but I definitely witnessed the love flowing both ways.
In spite of all this, though, Valentines day was still a bit of a sidenote this past Sunday; mainly because it was so overshadowed by the importance of Seolal. The Lunar New Year is the biggest festival day of the year here in Korea and a time for families to travel to their hometowns and spend quality time with relatives. It's akin to the way we might view and celebrate Christmas in the States. (Side note: It was particularly sweet for me to have not just distant family here with me on this Korean family holiday, but my own siblings. I know I said it once already in this post, but I cannot say enough just how grateful I am for the time they have gotten to spend here!)
The Lunar New Year is also the day that everyone in Korea officially ages one year. I thought about skipping out on the traditional ricecake soup (deok guk) that is typically eaten on the holiday, because I was always told by my mother growing up that without eating it I wouldn't be able to become a year older, but in the end I couldn't resist-- deok guk has always been one of my favoriteeee Korean foods, and I just couldn't muster up the will power.
Yum.
Ah, well... I guess being 24 is not *so* bad. And atleast now I can rest easy knowing that I have secured good fortune for myself for the rest of the year :)
M.E.
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