does korea have a new year?

Question

China has their new year, does Korea have one?

when is it?

Answer 1

~ Yes... Jennifer P... same as Chineese

~ February 17th at midnight was their New Year

~ I was blessed to be at a Vietnamese Buddest Temple to assist the Pyrotechnician in lighting off 240,000 firecrackers two nites ago in Santa Ana, California...

What a TRIP! Perhaps 5 thousand people packed around the temple... we had two locations where we had two 40 foot ropes tied to pulleys at the top outside corners of the temple... hanging from each were strings of 20,000 firecrackers ... four of them per rope... or 80,000 on one corner... 80,000 on the other corner... these were lit-off at 11:59pm on the 17th. On the 18th at 00:30, we fired off the remaining 80,000 firecrackers!

The noise was deafening... the people were ecstatic... excited... so happy for their New Year [of the Pig this year 2007].

I was able to take excellent video footage... so colorful... such a happy crowd... such loud noise... such wonderful entertainment... prayers offered for the firecrackers... such ceremony...

~ Yes... Jennifer P... Korea too has the same new year... Perhaps you can catch a glimpse on the Asian news channels for the 17/18th of February... Or perhaps youtube or other www sites.

Answer 2

Scott L's answer is good. New Years in Korea is an important time for families. It is more subdued than in China (where I now live) with fewer fireworks, etc. The Chinese typically take a week of celebrating; in Korea, typically one day but some people take off a few days.

In the ancient past, the King of Korea would send emissaries to the Emperior of China to determine the exact date of the New Year, even though Korea had very talented astronomers themsleves - it was part of being a smaller neighbor to a larger power to show respect to the Chinese Emperor.

Answer 3

South Korea celebrates both solar and lunar (like China) New Years. The lunar new year is called Seollal and is one of the biggest holidays they celebrate here. People get all dressed up in hanbok (traditional Korean clothes [do an image search, they're pretty neat looking]). Like many important Korean holidays, it revolves around ancestor worship. During a big meal (that the women spend all day before preparing), places are set for departed ancestors (not all, typically just heads of family), and their names are written on flimsy rice paper (in Chinese characters). After the meal, the papers are taken outside and lit on fire and let float away into nothingness.

Answer 4

We had it yesterday :)
We call our new year Seoulnall (설날)
A long time ago, koreans observed the moon and made a calendar which was mached on the moon. But it has a little difference in todays universal calendar. Also because of this, korean new years do not have a special date. We call the moon calendar "음력달력" emriuk calendar. This calendar has 20days or 40days in one month. So sometimes Seoulnall is in January and sometimes it is in February. It always change. This is the traditional newyear. We have a 3day straight holiday, and Seoulnall is the middle day(second day). In addition we also celebrate January 1st.

Answer 5

Korea has a way of reckoning age that is quite different from the way we do it in the West. When Koreans are born, they are considered to already be one year old and their age advances by one each Lunar New Year (generally in January or February on the Western calendar). This means that, depending on when a person's birthday falls, their age is 1-2 years greater using the Korean system than under the Western system. The word "sahl" comes after the number to denote age in the Korean system. A different convention is commonly used for speaking of the age of babies and toddlers. Their age is reckoned in either the number of days or the number of years that have elapsed since they were born. In this system, the word "il" comes after the number to denote age in days and the word "dol" comes after the number to denote the age in years. This system is identical to the Western system of counting age in that age starts at zero and advances by one each birthday. The 100th day (pek-il) anniversary and the 1 year (chot-dol) anniversary are important celebrations for babies. The Korean system can lead to confusion. The easiest way around this is to refer to one's year of birth instead of age. Inquiring of a person's age by asking in which year they were born is a common way to ask about age in Korea so you will not sound strange. However, just as in Western culture, asking a Korean woman her age may be a sensitive question.

Answer 6

Actually, the Year of the Pig (Chinese Calendar) started 3 days ago.

Answer 7

Yes.

Answer 8

No, we keep recycling the previous one.

Answer 9

how else would it be 2007 ?