SEOL - LUNAR NEW YEAR : the Most Important Of Korean Holidays

The New Year's greeting in Korean is "say hay boke-mahn he pah du say oh".

Say Hay - New Year
Boke - Blessings
Mahn he - A lot
Pah du say oh - Please Receive

It literally means "Please receive many New year's blessings".

"Sut dal kum mum" is New Year's eve in Korean and on that night nobody is supposed to sleep. It's the so called "je yah". There was a belief that if someone slept on that night, the eyebrows would turn white. That was the reason why the light was on at every room, even in the kitchen. This was done to receive the brand new year's day with awaken eyes and brightness. During the New Year's eve day people perform an overall cleaning, brushing off old dust. At the evening they heat water and take a bath. They also burn bamboo sticks to cast off every single house demon. They thought that with the sound of the exploding bamboo's knots, the demons would get scared and run away. At night, as a sign of appreciation, people greet the family's elders (sadang) and if there is a sadang at home they present an offering there. It's the ceremony of the last day of the year.

About The Chinese New Year

Tradition says that Lord Buddha had called for all the animals to come to him before he departed from the earth. When the cat got to know about the news, he told rat about it and the two animals decided to go together the next day. However, the next morning the rat did not wake up the cat. Therefore, the cat could not make it to the gathering on time and did not get a year. This is why there is no year of the cat and this is one of the reasons why cats hate rats.

The rat made it first to the assembly and received the first year. Though the rat did a lot of trickery to reach first to the congregation. At first he tricked the ox to let him ride on its head. The ox agreed and they went together. Just when they were about to reach to the assembly the clever rat jumped off the ox's head and got through the finish line first. This is why the year of the rat is the first year in the cycle and the year of the ox is the second.

This is probably the reason why the first of the twelve years is the Year of the Rat then followed by the year of Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig.

But only twelve animals came to offer Lord Buddha farewell and as a token of appreciation he named a year after each of the twelve animals in the order they arrived. In this way each year got linked with an animal. People born in that year are believed to share different traits.