Happy Chuseok

2013-09-17 16:06

Happy Chuseok

Bernard Rowan
Last week, several colleagues and I were traveling by car to a meeting in downstate Illinois, and while returning home in the afternoon, one noticed the moon in the daytime sky.
“There’s the moon!” she exclaimed, to which someone replied, “Oh, well, yes, that’s the moon.” Our underwhelming notice of astronomy aside, we talked about the lengthening nights and shorter days, and about the autumnal equinox. I got to thinking, however. I really should have said, “Chuseok is coming.”Chuseok is more meaningful than American Thanksgiving. It really combines what some cultures call Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead) or All Souls’ Day, which are days to remember those loved ones who have passed, with a celebration of life and the earth’s bounty, which is part of Thanksgiving. Chuseok also carries the status of a national and cultural event, recalling Korea’s history and uniting citizens to Korean society today as a people and culture.
While American Thanksgiving is also a wonderful time, and like Chuseok, one of the biggest cultural festivals and holidays, it is overly associated with the bounty of nature, as in a harvest festival or Oktoberfest.  Americans rarely remind themselves as much nowadays about the “Pilgrims,” or the historical events of our national culture.
Not so on Chuseok.  One could argue that it combines a celebration of cultural origins, of family members, and the harvest simultaneously, and that it does so as a national holiday that continues to carry meaning and currency in the 21st century.
As an advanced nation, one sign of the nation’s vitality is the way in which it marks and carries forward key cultural, social moments and signifying events or days.  Lunar New Year (Seollal) and Chuseok are precisely those kinds of times.
I will always remember my first celebration of Chuseok in 2002.  My best friend’s paternal great aunt invited me to her family’s celebration, which she led.  That family combined a Catholic rite or readings with the preparation and display of foods to honor deceased family members.  I had been reading a lot about Confucianism and remember thinking how seamless, how characteristically syncretic, was the way in which this family honored their cultural and religious obligations on a fine autumn afternoon.  Somehow the religious conundrum about spirits and souls was less important than “charye” and its power to remind us of those we love and in whose memory we live, breathe, and act.  I also enjoy the music of “munmyo jeryeak,” which carries this kind of emphasis to a greater level of inclusion and transcendence relative to Confucianism.
There were all of the wonderful foods available in abundance at that time of year.  Pears (bae) were so fresh I would eat them skin and all.  Yakgwa and dates, apples, clementines from Jeju, fine rice cakes (dasik), and all kinds of other good things were enjoyed.  It is also wonderful to see neighbors enjoying makkoli at street-side cafes, or in my case hoping to enjoy some dongdongju together with friends.  There’s really no equivalent in the Euro-American world of beer, wine, or hard liquors.
My friend’s immediate family travels to their family mountain in central Korea to stand with their deceased members, a more solemn aspect of Chuseok.  In America, it is not so often the case that families visit grave sites on an annual basis.  I hear that some Romani peoples still maintain such traditions but have not witnessed it.
I try to visit my grandparents’ graves and their families’ plots, to hold a version of seongmyo and beolcho, but it is typically a solitary observance, and often one must purchase or buy the service to clean the gravesites and free them of weeds.  Chuseok binds the remembrance of our mortality with generational celebrations of life and living, more akin to the Mexican Day of the Dead.
As Koreans continue to invest in the vital day that is Chuseok, I hope that they will work to alleviate some of the burden on women and the elderly.  It is fantastic to enjoy a bounteous feast, but the amount of food arguably is not necessary to show the love, vitality or power of a family, as opposed to say, making sure that everyone is present and joins in the family meal, is in the circle that unites the living and the dead.
As I understand it, the preference historically was for the eldest male child to conduct Chuseok observances, but in my formative experience the celebrant was the eldest female member of the family.  Here’s to allowing for the observance of more gender equity in all things related to Chuseok, from leading the ceremony to sharing in the labor and cooking activities, and to bringing all generations into the leadership of organizing the celebrations.
I am going to celebrate Chuseok, too, in Chicago, starting a practice for the benefit of my own family. My dear friends in Korea, I wish you a wonderful Chuseok.  Bless you for teaching me something about life in sharing this celebration with me.
Bernard Rowan is assistant provost for curriculum and assessment, professor of political science and faculty athletics representative at Chicago State University, where he has served for 20 years.  He can be reached at browan10@yahoo.com.