Memories of full moon day
A few days ago, on the afternoon of Jeongwol Daeboreum, or first full moon day of the lunar year, my wife and I went to a children’s park near our home. It was a familiar route we had strolled often, but there was a place that caught my eye more than usual. There were several traditional Korean folk game booths set up in one of the squares.
It was fun to see people playing folk games such as “jegichagi,” a traditional Korean shuttlecock game, the “yutnori” board game and “tuho,” or arrow-throwing game. We were not good at them but played the games for the first time in a long time. It reminded me of my childhood memories of the first full moon day.
On such mornings in the past, my entire family had “ogokbap,” or rice cooked with five different kinds of grains my mother prepared, along with seasoned greens. After, we ate “bureom” or a mix of nuts, including walnuts, pine nuts and raw chestnuts, to ward off boils.
My siblings and I went to the nearby open space where we “sold our heat,” shouting “buy my heat” to the people we knew, based on the traditional spiritual practice that this would make your whole year, especially the hot summer, go well without one getting sick.
There were already many children in the space, and soon after, a jegichagi match took place. A clumsy boy like me could hardly kick it more than a dozen times, but my more athletic friends could easily kick the shuttlecock around a hundred or more times. Girls also participated, with an advantage where their kick-counts would start at 20 or 30.
Toward the end of the game, adults in the neighborhood came outside one by one to play the yutnori board game, with teams divided based on how good each person was at the game.
In the game, players throw yut sticks onto a mat, which indicate how far their “mal” or board piece, can advance on the game board. The first team to make all four reach the finish line wins the game.
For me, the most memorable activity of the day was “jwibulnori,” a Korean game of fire play. On the eve of the first full moon day, or in the evening, we set fire to the banks of rice paddies or furrows and played around. We went out into the field and put small twigs or straw nests in a wire-attached tin can with several small holes.
We set it on fire, spun it around and then threw it away to burn the weeds in the rice fields. Symbolically, the cans of fire were spun as an act of wishing good fortune.
Today, these folk games are gradually disappearing due to various reasons. Some of them are understandable, others not. I think it’s time to consider the preservation policy of our traditional culture seriously.