Korean New Year 2013

Korean New Year is the most important festival in Korea. It is a family oriented holiday. Korean New Year is also commonly known as Seollal. Korea follows a lunar calendar and for this reason, the dates of Korean New Year vary every year. Korean New Year 2010 was celebrated on February 14 while Korean New Year 2013 will be observed on February 3. Seollal 2013 will be observed on the first day of the lunar calendar. The New Year celebrations in Korea last for three days and the three days are declared as public holiday. Apart from the Korean Lunar New Year, they also celebrate International New Year with the rest of the world on January. However, the enthusiasm and grandeur with which they celebrate the traditional New Year is missing in the International New Year celebrations.

Seollal or Korean New Year 2013 will fall on the 2nd New Moon after winter cosmic time. If you follow the traditional, it is noticed that Korean New Year shares the same day of new Year in China, Vietnam, Mongol, and Tibet. As Chinese New Year, Korean New Year is also called Lunar New Year.

The first day of Korean New Year is known as Sol-nal. The first day of celebrations is restricted within the family. All the family members unite and gather for New Year dinner. During the Korean New Year eve, the Korean people keep rakes and straw scoopers at the entrance or on the wall. They believe that these articles will save their family from any evil force.

All the people in Korea wear colorful and new dresses on the New Years day. This symbolizes a new beginning. Everyone gather at his or her respective house to greet the eldest family member. In Korea, there is a popular tradition of ancestral memorial rites, where the young members in the family bow to the elderly members. The elders pray for the good health and opulence for the young members. The elders also present money to the younger members as a good luck charm.

Without food any celebration is incomplete and Korean new Year 2013 is not an exception. All the family members sit and join in for the New Year feast. The traditional New Year meal include ttokkuk, a must-have dish, which is made of rice cake. According to the Korean New Year traditions, this soup can add extra age to a human being's lifespan. In fact, the Korean new year is the time, when every Korean calculates his or her age and everyone become one year older on the new Year.

Koreans also play a number of traditional Korean New Year games on the eve of New Year. Some of the games are yut nori, stick game, and see-sawing. Yut nori is a very popular broad game, which the entire family can take part in. The male members of the family fly kites. They also play jegi chagi is another popular game for men in Korea. Jegi chagi is more like football. The female members of the family play neolttwigi, a traditional game of jumping on a seesaw. The kids play paengi.