Chuseok
Next: September 15, 2027
Korea's harvest moon, and the long drive home.
The story
Where it comes from
Chuseok (추석), 'autumn eve', is Korea's harvest festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, the same full moon as the Mid-Autumn Festival. Tradition traces it to a month-long weaving contest in the Silla kingdom nearly two thousand years ago. It is a three-day public holiday and, with Seollal, one of the two great family gatherings of the Korean year.
How it's celebrated
Families return to their hometowns, hold a memorial rite (charye) for ancestors with a table of new-harvest foods, and tend family graves (seongmyo). The festival food is songpyeon, half-moon rice cakes steamed over pine needles. Traditional games, folk wrestling (ssireum) and the women's circle dance ganggangsullae are performed; children wear hanbok.
Did you know
- Tens of millions of Koreans travel for Chuseok; a Seoul-to-Busan drive that normally takes four hours can take ten.
- Gift sets of Spam, fruit and premium beef are among the most popular Chuseok presents in South Korea.
The greeting
즐거운 추석 보내세요!
Coming up next
- Malaysia Day · September 16, 2027
- International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer · September 16, 2027
- World Patient Safety Day · September 17, 2027
- International Red Panda Day · September 18, 2027
- World Bamboo Day · September 18, 2027
- International Talk Like a Pirate Day · September 19, 2027