Daeboreum

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Daeboreum

Korean name

Hangul	대보름
Hanja	大보름
Revised Romanization	Daeboreum
McCune-Reischauer	Taeborŭm

Daeboreum (literally "Great Full Moon") is a Korean holiday that celebrates the first full moon of the new year of the lunar Korean calendar. This holiday is accompanied by many traditions.

1 Traditions
2 Food
3 Gallery
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Traditions

One familiar custom is to crack nuts with one's teeth. It is believed that this practice will help keep one's teeth healthy for the year.

In the countryside, people climb mountains, braving cold weather, trying to catch the first rise of the moon. It is said that the first person to see the moon rise will have good luck all year.

Historically, people played the traditional game named geuybulnori (쥐불놀이) the night before daeboreum. They burned the dry grass on ridges between rice fields while children whirled around cans full of holes, through which charcoal fire blazed. These cans fertilized the fields and got rid of harmful worms that destroyed the new crops.

[edit] Food

For breakfast on Daeboreum, Ogokbap (오곡밥 / 五穀밥), a five-"grain" rice consisting of rice, millet, Indian millet, beans, and red beans is served (gok includes grains and beans). This is eaten with various dried herbs. One of the special foods of Daeboreum is Yaksik (약식 / 藥食). This treat is made of glutinous rice, chestnuts, pinenuts, honey, sauce, and sesame oil.

On this day, Koreans traditionally do not give any food to dogs since it is believed that dogs that eat on this day will contract gad flies and become ill during the coming summer.