Life-Cycle Ceremonies

The festivals so far belong to the calendar. This chapter covers ceremonies that belong to a person's life: the first birthday, the 60th birthday, the wedding and the funeral. For each it gives what the sources call traditional, what they say has changed, and where they disagree or say too little.

The First Birthday: Doljanchi

The Doljanchi article describes dol (돌), the first birthday, as practised since the early Joseon period. It explains that dol is a native Korean measure word for a child's age, and says the importance of the day is tied to high infant mortality in the past. I take that as the article's explanation, which I did not check.

• An offering. The family makes a samsinsang, an offering to the god Samsin, of seaweed soup (miyeok-guk), rice and pure water, placed in the anbang.
• Dress and guests. The child wears hanbok. Guests bring gifts, including money, rice and thread. The dolbanji, a gold ring, is said to have come from Chinese immigrants in the early 20th century, which makes it a more recent custom than the day itself.
• The table. A round table (dolsang), with a folding screen (byeongpung) behind, holds foods such as songpyeon, baekseolgi and red bean rice cakes, each given a symbolic meaning in the article. Tteok is shared with neighbours.

Doljabi

The best-known part is the doljabi, in which the child picks an object from several set out, and the choice is read as a sign of the future.

Today, the article says, the day is often a secular party held at a reserved venue. The ceremony has moved from the home to the hired hall while keeping its main objects.

The 60th Birthday: Hwangap

The Hwangap article describes the 60th birthday (also hoegap, jugap and other names) as reached in international age, which is Korean age 61. The reasoning it gives is the sexagenary cycle from Chapter 2: when the cycle of sixty completes, a second lifetime begins. The date is chosen to avoid inauspicious days and is held before the actual birthday, not after.

• A filial duty. It is "a major affair" and an expression of filial piety, and the costs fall on the descendants.
• Traditionally, it was held at home, with respects at the ancestral shrine, food piled high, seaweed soup, a food table for the honoured person (heonjusang) and music. Before breakfast, the eldest son and his spouse approach the table, bow deeply and raise glasses; younger siblings follow in descending order of age, then extended family. The honoured person's own parents, if alive, may join, "symbolically and/or jokingly" in children's bright clothes.
• Guests. Strangers and passers-by are often invited, and the article says it is "traditionally considered a sign of virtue and social status to have many guests". Speeches are given, and poetry could be read.
• Later birthdays. A smaller jingap follows the year after. The article lists others, rarer and of similar scale: the 70th (gohui), 77th (huisu) and 88th (misu), and a 60th wedding anniversary.

Weddings

The Korean marriage article gives a history before the modern ceremony, and I report only the parts I read. It says that from Goguryeo through early Joseon, marriage was matrilocal: the groom went to live with the bride's family (jangga). In the Goryeo period it says aristocratic marriages were political and economic, ceremonies were held at the bride's home, there was no dowry or bride wealth, plural marriages occurred, divorce was easy and inheritance was equal. The Joseon period brought changes, including primary and secondary wives and imitation of the Ming code, but I did not read that part in full and so say no more. A wedding ritual that looks timeless is therefore set against a very different earlier marriage system.

The modern wedding, and pyebaek

• Wedding halls. In large cities, hotels and independent halls host weddings. Many couples begin with a "Westernized" ceremony in a tuxedo and white gown and then hold a smaller traditional one. The article says hotel weddings were "prohibited by the government in 1980", partly permitted in 1994 and fully permitted in 1999.
• Busy halls. In busy halls, formality is relaxed for guests, a ceremony "may take no longer than 20 minutes", and the most common gift is cash, collected and logged by family representatives outside the hall.
• Pyebaek (폐백) is held after the official ceremony, among family members only. The bride formally greets her new parents-in-law with a deep bow. The article describes jujubes and chestnuts (a wish for children), wine cups, and parents throwing jujubes and chestnuts to be caught in the bride's skirt. It was traditionally held days after the wedding for the groom's family only, and is now often held after the reception, sometimes with the bride's family too, and commercial services exist for it. The article adds that the groom often gives his mother and then his bride a piggyback ride, to symbolise his obligations to both.
• The feast. The article describes a mixed feast of bulgogi, galbi, kimchi, rice, gimbap, mandu, soups and fruit, and tteok as a ritual food.

As context the article gives a 2020 Statistics Korea figure, an average age at first marriage of 33.2 for men and 30.8 for women, and says the average wedding cost per person passed 50 million won in 2013. I read these as the article's figures.

Funerals

The Korean funeral article says funeral practice mixes Confucian elements with shamanic influence, and that scholars debate which is which. The Jangnye article adds a history: burial in the Three Kingdoms, cremation under Buddhism in Goryeo, and burial established again under Joseon Confucianism, with Christian influence since the 17th century.

• Time. The body stays in the house for three days (rarely five to seven). The Jangnye article describes three days and nights, with the coffin placed after two days and burial in the morning of the third day, ending with a jesa (Chapter 6).
• At death. White cotton is used to ascertain death. A declaration is made in the four directions. Three bowls of food, three coins and three pairs of shoes are set out for the messengers who come for the dead.
• Preparing the body. The body is washed, grave clothes put on, and rice put in the mouth, and the article describes a seven-layer shroud. The grave clothes are often prepared in advance by people in their sixties.
• The burial site. The eldest son finds a site with a geomancer (pungsu-jiri): water in front, a tiger hill and a dragon hill to left and right, and a turtle hill behind. Burial is said to come from the Confucian idea of preserving the body.
• Roles. The eldest son's wife handles the food. The article says men are expected to restrain their grief.
• Shamanic rites. The article says they are "diminishing in commonality", with gut performed by mudang (Chapter 6) to help souls that "fail to completely or properly transition" and might otherwise bring bad fate; ssitgim-gut (the cleansing rite) is the one named.

Reading a Life-Cycle Claim

1. Home or hired hall? The same ceremony can be an old family rite and a booked package; the sources describe both.
2. Which period? "Traditional" marriage in the Goryeo article is very unlike the Joseon one, and unlike the modern one.
3. Whose hedge? "Possibly", "reportedly" and "often" are signals that no figure stands behind a claim.
4. Which tradition? Funeral customs mix Confucian, Buddhist, shamanic and Christian elements, and scholars disagree about the proportions.

Exercises

Next chapter: The Festival Boom, which asks how many of today's festivals are new, who pays for them, and how the Gangneung Dano Festival and the Seoul Lantern Festival are described.