Happy Chuseok!!

Happy Chuseok holidays everyone in Korea and Malaysia(Koreans only)!

For those who have not heard of what is Chuseok Holiday, here's some information that I gather to for better understanding of this special occasion/holidays:

Chuseok is one of Korea’s most celebrated holidays. It is a time when families and friends gather to share food, enjoy their time together, and give thanks to their ancestors for the year’s bountiful harvests. This year, Chuseok falls on October 3rd of the solar calendar, so the holidays will last from October 2nd to the 4th.

During Chuseok, a variety of traditional holiday events will be held at cultural hotspots throughout Seoul. Traditional cultural events will be held at Seoul’s major palaces including Gyeongbokgung Palace and also at The Korea Folk Village. The National Folk Museum of Korea also plans to open a variety of Chuseok related events. You can participate in some hands-on programs at Namsangol Hanok Village as well. In addition, Lotte World, Everland, and Seoul Land will be holding a traditional Korean dance performance and folk games.

From Wikipedia,

Korean name
Hangul 추석
Hanja 秋夕
Revised Romanization Chuseok
McCune–Reischauer Ch'usŏk

Chuseok (Korean: 추석), originally known as Hangawee (한가위) (from archaic Korean for "great middle"), is a major harvest festival and a three-day holiday in Korea celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar. Like many other harvest festivals, notably the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival[1], it is held around the Autumn Equinox. As a celebration of the good harvest, Koreans visit their ancestral hometowns and share a feast of Korean traditional food.

Origins
Historically and according to popular belief, Chuseok originates from Gabae started during the reign of the third king of the kingdom of Silla (57 BC - AD 935), when it was a month-long weaving contest between two teams.[2][3] Come the day of Gabae, the team that had woven more cloth had won and was treated to a feast by the losing team.

Many scholars also believe Chuseok may originate from ancient shamanistic celebrations of the harvest moon.[4] New harvests are offered to local deities and ancestors, which means Chuseok may have originated as a worship ritual.[5] In some areas, if there is no harvest, worship rituals are postponed, or in areas with no annual harvest, Chuseok is not celebrated

Traditional customs

In modern South Korea, on Chuseok there is a mass exodus of Koreans returning to their hometowns to pay respects to the spirits of one's ancestors. People perform ancestral worship rituals early in the morning. They often visit the tombs of their immediate ancestors to trim plants and clean the area around the tomb, and offer food, drink, and crops to their ancestors. Harvest crops are attributed to the blessing of ancestors.

One of the major foods prepared and eaten during the Chuseok holiday is songpyeon (송편), a crescent-shaped rice cake which is steamed upon pine needles. Other dishes commonly prepared are japchae, bulgogi and fruits

Folk games

A variety of folk games are played on Chuseok to celebrate the coming of Autumn and rich harvest. Village folk dress themselves to look like a cow or a turtle, and go from house to house along with a Nongak band playing music. Other common folk games played on Chuseok are tug of war, ssireum, archery and gama fighting. Folk games also vary from region to region. Ganggangsullae dance which is forming a circle under a moon is performed by women and children in southwestern coastal regions, and cockfight or bullfighting in the southern regions.

Dates for Chuseok on the Gregorian calendar

SongpyeonChuseok is on the following days:

2006: October 6
2007: September 25
2008: September 14
2009: October 3
2010: September 22
2011: September 12
2012: September 30
2013: September 19
2014: September 8
2015: September 27
2016: September 15
2017: October 4
2018: September 24
Chuseok as well as the day before it and afterwards are legal holidays in South Korea.