I can taste and actually smell the fall of the leaf from the middle of September every year. After a long, hot and humid summer, cool and barmly autumn tints season is finally coming around the corner.
The 'Chuseok' holidays, one of the biggest national holidays in this country, dating back to more than 1,500 years ago, is coming this time of the year in our nation. Actually it comes on August 15th each year in the lunar calendar. In the case of this year, it comes on Saturday, October 3rd, bringing the weekend to a long weekend. In South Korea, the day before and after New Year's Day (lunar) and Chuseok are nominated as holidays as well. The 'Chuseok' in Korea is a festival which thanks to those ancestral gods who has helped their descendants to have a good year, as well as practicing a feast to the ancestors with some songpyeons, half-moon-shaped rice cakes (stuffed with beans or sesames and flavored with pine needles), rice wines and the first fruits on the table.
Shortly after practicing a feast to the ancestors at home, family members (mostly male members) go out to visit their ancestral graves with a roll mat and a kettle rice wine and some fruits and cakes. In my case, it takes only several minutes to get to the grave site which is located at the skirts 0f a nearby mountain by walking. I think I am pretty fortunate, ain't I?
