An Authentic Seollal Family Gathering

Koreans do spend time with their families, too.
And may even invite non-members to the kin, you know =)

The Koreans and the Chinese celebrate the lunar new year on the same day, but Koreans call their first day of the lunar year as Seollal (설날). It's one of the biggest holidays in South Korea and they are spent with lots of food and quality time with the family.

My male housemate invited me over to his sister’s house to eat lunch for a post-celebration of the New Year. We were supposed to have dinner yesterday for the occasion, but it didn’t push through that we ended up going to a museum. My male housemate happens to be the youngest in the family, and he has three older 누나's (what a man should call his elder sisters).

So off we went to the eldest sister’s house and caught on her three children once again. I remember seeing them for the first time when they visited our apartment to get some English tutorials from my couple housemates. The third sister and her husband were already there when we arrived, cuddling on their newly-born son. When I last saw the third sister, she was still pregnant with that baby. I then thought that this was going to be a hard-core family gathering. And they allowed me to be a part of it this year =).

The eldest and the second sister were not yet around when we arrived, for they have been out in the market to buy the things needed for lunch. The television has since been switched on, which thankfully gave me something to look at while talks then started between my housemates and the third sister and his husband. I am still unable to converse or even understand the Korean language, so it was pretty obvious how I should just keep quiet unless they ask me questions or talk to me in English.

When the two older sisters got home from the market, they went directly to their work and did the washing, cutting, and other preparations needed for our lunch. The males sure stayed glued to their seats and watched TV while my female housemate and the three sisters kept themselves busy with the cooking. I actually felt uncomfortable to just sit along with the men, but there’s no way that I could help them out just the same. I just played with the baby's chubby, chubby cheeks!!!




The lunch preparations actually felt as homey as how it is back home whenever my mom preps up for her own cooking. It was actually fun to see them clean up the veggies and other crops by either peeling the skin or removing excess twigs...




Now when food's ready, one can always expect a table loaded with side dishes and the main menu, of course. Yum, yum!!!




After eating lunch, I joined the family as they went bowling. It sure was a day wholly spent eating and having fun.