Yesterday, Desiree and I had the honor and complete pleasure of celebrating Chuseok with a Korean family. A friend of Desiree's from high school and college (Faith) married a Korean man (Mark) and his family invited the two of us to share in their Chuseok preparations on Sunday. What a fantastic day we had!
To preface, Chuseok is like Korean Thanksgiving. It's a typical harvest festival in which people return to their hometowns to pay homage to the spirits of their ancestors by tending their graves and offering food, drink and crops to their ancestors.
When anyone visits another person's home in Korea, they bring a gift with them. Often, people bring practical items like toilet paper or paper towels, and sometimes, food. Desiree and I brought the family grapes. Like, a box of grapes so big that the only comfortable way to carry such a box down the busy street in Gwangju was atop Desiree's head. If it hadn't been raining (and we hadn't been running a tad late...) I would have taken great delight in snapping several photos.
Once we arrived at Mark's family's apartment, we jumped right in to making songpyeon, a traditional food for Chuseok - rice cake, filled with a honey and sesame mixture, chestnuts, or beans, etc., and shaped into half moons (or if you're Desiree: hearts, cubes, candies, seashells and stars). It took a little getting used to, but with tutelage from Mark, his brother, his uncle and Desiree, I was finally able to make some pretty respectable songpyeon. Once we formed and worked them into smooth little half moons, we placed them on a bed of pine needles. Later, the whole pot was steamed. The pine needles kept the songpyeon from sticking to each other and they smell real nice too :) It was so fun to observe all of the different techniques of making songpyeon. Everyone was involved in the process and everyone had their own insights. So fun.
Mark's uncle demonstrates his songpyeon technique. Dude is way pro.
Next, it was time to eat lunch. Before we had arrived, all of the side dishes had been prepared. There were ten of us eating, so we spread out over two smallish square tables. Mark fried up some delicious bulgogi that, accompanied by a fabulous spicy chicken and vegetable stew, was the main attraction at lunch, along with a couple kinds of kimchi, some mushrooms, some kind of soupy greens, bean sprouts, cucumbers, seaweed and rice. I love Korean food. The end.
After lunch, everyone pitched in to clean up and get ready for the next task at hand - preparing an ungodly amount of fried food - vegetable pancakes, (Mark's brother steadily fried three at a time in separate frying pans for literally an hour or two) fish, vegetable bundles, meat and veggie patties, and HUGE mushrooms. Don't worry. I watched real closely so that, someday, I can attempt to replicate these dishes. All of the smaller items were coated in flour, then dipped in an egg wash and fried until golden brown. I cannot convey to you, dear reader, the sheer amount of food we prepared during the afternoon hours. I can only assume that this was some of the food that would be offered to the spirits of the ancestors today as well as consumed by the family as they perform the traditional Chuseok duties (for lack of a better term). I am still baffled by the amount of food we prepared (and consumed - let's be honest.)
Once we finished making the food, Desiree, Faith and I played with Mark's five year old nephew Myong-Gyu. He must have been pleased with our performances for the day because he bestowed upon us several gold, red, green and blue star stickers. (I came home that night to find them all over my shirt, arms and back!) Later, we retired to a back bedroom to take a nap while the men played a traditional card game. I didn't watch enough of the card game to understand what was going on at all, but by all of the whooping and hollering, it was apparent that they were having a great time!
As if consuming food non-stop all day wasn't enough, post-naptime, we moved to the roof to have dinner. Dinner consisted of all of the leftovers from lunch, plus some of the food we had prepared that afternoon, plus grilled meat. Like, more meat that I have ever seen in one place. We all stood around the outdoor table, eating meat straight off the grill, complaining about how full we were, but not being able to keep ourselves from eating just one more bite. Boy howdy, did it hurt so good!
On the way home, with more food in hand, Desiree and I commented on how special it was to be included in such an awesome (in the literal sense, not the overused-by-American-teens sense) display of family, openness, acceptance and community. We all laughed, pitched in and thoroughly enjoyed each others' company, despite the language and cultural barriers. This was one of the most simple, but special experiences I have had here and I will always remember it! Beautiful. Truly beautiful.
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