Chuseok: a Korean Holiday
Charlie: I lived in South Korea for about five years, and uh, every year in the fall, the festival of Chuseok was, uh, a big part of Korean culture.
Charlie: Um, every year people would travel to their, uh, ancestral hometowns, and they would have a ceremony at their grave- at the gravesites of their ancestors.
Charlie: And they would make so many great foods. Uh, my favorite of these foods is called songpyeon. Songpyeon are rice cakes, and they have some sweet- uh, something sweet inside, and um, some seeds.
Charlie: Um, and then also, people would eat, um, uh, pears. Very large Asian pears. They’re, uh, very juicy and delicious.
Charlie: It was a very p- common time to give gifts, so people, uh, would sometimes knock on our door and give us food from their Chuseok parties.
Charlie: So it was a great holiday, but I didn’t have to celebrate it because I was a foreigner and I didn’t have any ancestors buried in Korea. So, uh, for me, it was also a day off.
Vocabulary:
ancestral hometowns – the cities or towns where a person’s family or ancestors lived many generations ago, “Every holiday, they return to their ancestral hometowns to meet up with older relatives.”
gravesites – the exact places in the ground where people are buried after they die, “The family placed fresh flowers at the gravesites of their grandparents.”
rice cakes – popular Asian foods made from mashed or pounded rice that are usually very chewy, “We bought sweet rice cakes at the traditional market for a snack.”
Asian pears – large, round, crispy fruits that are very juicy and sweet, “She chopped up some sweet Asian pears to serve after dinner.”
give gifts – to hand over presents to friends or family to celebrate an event or show love, “It is a popular tradition to give gifts during the winter holidays.”
foreigner – a person who comes from a country that is not the one they are currently in, “As a foreigner in Japan, it took him a few months to learn the local customs.”
day off – a day when you do not have to go to work or go to school, “I plan to relax and sleep late on my day off this Friday.”