The Year of the Pig

Koreans See Fortune in Chinese New Year

Last updated Saturday, February 17, 2007 9:54 PM CST in Living

By Laurinda Joenks
The Morning News

"Business in China stops," Koh said. Factories close for two weeks, and banks and government offices are closed for one. "Before the new year, the company makes lots of exports and is very busy to ship goods out on time," Koh continued.

Anna Cho, a sophomore business major at the University of Arkansas, recalled a week off of school for a winter break. Cho moved from Seoul, Korea, to Van Buren with her parents about seven years ago.

The new year tradition returns people to their hometowns for the holiday season. Reunions at other times of year might not be possible, Koh said, because factory workers can afford to travel mainly by bus or train, and the trip might take several days.

Many countries mark this lunar new year, with customs and traditions varied slightly, but because the tradition developed in China, the name stuck, Koh explained.

"The Korean New Year, Seollal, is the first day of the lunar new year," Cho explained. "It usually falls sometime in late January to late February by the solar calendar."

Chinese New Year is the second new moon after the winter solstice, but the celebration lasts 15 days, culminating with the Latern Festival on the full moon. Celebrants participate in designated activities each day of the lunar cycle.

Koreans celebrate the new year more as a spring festival, Koh said. Autumn prompts the second biggest celebration, a festival called Chu-Suk.

The Asian countries also celebrate a new year Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 with the one-day closing of schools and offices and signs proclaiming "Happy New Year" in stores, Cho said.

Celebration With a Bang

Chinese New Year survives from an ancient period, with legends and very exciting stories, Koh said.

"There are some villages and some beasts -- a cruel beast, that takes food from the villagers," Koh explained. The Korean visitor possesses great mastery of the English language, but his voice remains heavily accented.

"The beasts hate red colors and noise," he continued, so the people dress in red, hang red banners at their doors and shoot off fireworks.

"That's why fireworks are very noisy -- to expel the beasts," Koh said. "They want more noise to scare the beasts."

"(The Chinese) love fireworks and shoot them off the night before the new year," he continued. "The government prohibits it in some areas, but you can't sleep because it's too noisy."

Both Cho and Koh said they prefer the more subdued celebration in the Korean culture.

"Koreans don't do fireworks," Koh said. "We just like it very calm. When I came to China, I was surprised almost."

"It's noisy, but it's fun," Cho said of the Chinese celebration. "There's a lot of traffic in the city."

Family Tradition

The Korean celebration focuses on the family, Cho and Koh agreed, and workers take advantage of the time off to gather in their hometowns.

"In the Asian culture, families are tight," Koh said. "We unify the family for a good relationship. The tradition is good for everybody."

Cho's family join their daughter at the new year's celebration today at the Northwest Arkansas Korean School in Springdale. Koh's family left their home Monday in Hong Kong to return to Korea for the holiday season. He returned to China later in the week to work, but he planned to join his family in Korea very soon.

"My father and mother are waiting for my family," which includes his wife and sons, ages 6 and 4, he said.

"(His kids) love to see their grandma and grandpa -- sometimes better than their parents," he said, admitting grandparents in Korea spoil just like American grandparents do.

"They don't sleep the first night," Koh said. "They talk all night, catching up. It's a family reunion."

Families dress in traditional clothing -- called han-bok -- and share traditional foods.

Cho remembers the celebrations with her mother's family in Korea:

"In the new year morning, we eat tteokguk or rice cake soup. After eating tteokguk, we consider it truly the new year. If you don't eat tteokguk, you don't get another year older," she said.

Koreans eat new year's foods in the color of white -- for purity, Koh said.

"In the new year, you don't want bad thinking," he said. "Bad memories from the previous year are erased."

"Before eating, you are greeting your grandpa and grandma, your parents, your older brothers and sisters," Koh continued, explaining that elders hold places of honor.

"It's very polite," Koh continued. "My son also will give a greeting to me. And I will give him good words for the year -- to study hard or something like that."

Cho's family tradition includes ceremonies to honor ancestors and their memories.

"After the ceremonies, the younger members of the family make a deep bow to the older members of the family and wish each other a happy new year," she said. "We usually get money and put that money in a wallet called a Bok Ju Mu Ni (Lucky Pocket)."

The family plays traditional Korean folk games, including Yutnori, a board game played by tossing sticks; Paengichigi, top spinning; and Neolttwigi, similar to seesaw, with participants standing and jumping.

In United States, people of various ancestry join for celebrations of the new year -- many including parades -- because their homeland is too far, Koh said.

"They join friends, not family, maybe at a church. It's very tough on immigrants who live in other countries," he said.

In With the Old

The Chinese New Year celebration pushes out the old and brings in the new, Cho said, and many ceremonies stem from superstitions passed through the ages.

"On the first day of the new year, people welcome the gods of heavens and earth," according to the official Web site of the Republic of Korea. "They embrace the new start and the new year promises and follow various superstitions promising good fortune.

"While housewives prepared food to treat the New Year's guests, men cleaned in and outside the house. In other words, they were getting rid of the past year's minor demons and misfortunes and were preparing to begin a new year with a pure spirit. Sweeping or dusting should not be done on New Year's Day for fear that good fortune will be swept away.

"On the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, every door in the house, and even windows, have to be open to allow the old year to go out."

Koh mentioned that the red banners, hung to scare away the beast, include a square turned 180 degrees to represent a pocket, from which money falls.

"This represents the fortune for both finances and personal -- your heart, mental and physical," Koh said.

The Chinese Lunar New Year is the longest chronological record in history, dating from 2600 B.C., when the Emperor Huang Ti introduced the first cycle of the zodiac, according to the Web site of the Chinese Cultural Center of San Francisco.

"Like the Western calendar, the chinese lunar calendar is a yearly one, with the start of the lunar year being based on the cycles of the moon," the site reads. "Therefore, because of this cyclical dating, the beginning of the year can fall anywhere between late January and the middle of February. This year it falls on Feb. 18. A complete cycle takes 60 years and is made up of five cycles of 12 years each."

The Chinese lunar calendar names each of the 12 years after an animal, the site continues. According to legend, Buddha summoned all the animals before he departed from earth. Only 12 came to bid him farewell -- rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and boar -- and as a reward, he named a year after each one in the order they arrived.

"A cultural sidelight of the animal signs in Chinese folklore is that horoscopes have developed around the animal signs, much like monthly horoscopes in the West," the site reads. "The Chinese believe the animal ruling the year in which a person is born has a profound influence on personality, saying: 'This is the animal that hides in your heart.'"

Cho -- born in 1986, the year of the tiger -- reads these only for fun, not believing the prophecy.

But many do, said Koh, a dog born in 1970.

"This is the year of the pig," he said. "The year of the pig is a big year, with promises of fortune -- both financial and personal. Also the pig is comical, it's cute.

"Many Chinese love to have a baby in the pig year," he said. "This year, there will be a lot of babies, I think."

Among his contemporaries, 1971 was the year of the pig. Many babies were born that year, he said, and it was tough for them to gain admittance to universities because there were so many. Many students chose to wait a year, he said.

Web Watch

Republic of Korea -- www. korea.net

Chinese Cultural Center of San Francisco -- www.c-c-C.org --

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