Chuseok 2027 is on Wednesday

About Chuseok

Chuseok falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, the night of the harvest full moon, and is also known by its native Korean name, Hangawi, the "great middle" of autumn. It is one of South Korea's two biggest holidays, alongside Seollal, the Lunar New Year, and it is also observed in North Korea. In the South the day before, the day itself and the day after are all public holidays, with a substitute day when one of them falls on a Sunday or another holiday, and roads and trains fill as people head to their hometowns.

On the morning of Chuseok many families hold charye, a memorial rite at home in which food, rice wine and newly harvested rice and fruit are laid out for the ancestors before the family shares the meal. Relatives also visit family graves, a custom called seongmyo, often clearing the weeds from the plots in the weeks before. The food most associated with the holiday is songpyeon, small half-moon rice cakes filled with sesame, beans or chestnuts and steamed on a bed of pine needles. People wear hanbok, play folk games and watch ssireum, traditional Korean wrestling.

The festival is very old. Korea's oldest surviving history, the 12th-century Samguk Sagi, describes a month-long weaving contest at the early Silla court that ended with a feast on the 15th day of the eighth month, and Chuseok's older name, Gabae, is often traced to it. Ganggangsullae, a moonlit circle dance performed by women in the southwest mainly at Chuseok, was inscribed by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage in 2009. Korea computes its lunar calendar on Korean time, so Chuseok usually, but not always, shares a date with China's Mid-Autumn Festival. The date shown is South Korea's.

Sources: Britannica: Chuseok, UNESCO: Ganggangsullae. How we check dates.

How to mark Chuseok

• Make songpyeon at home; shaping the half-moon cakes together is a family tradition.
• Call older relatives you cannot visit, or send them a gift of fruit.
• Try ssireum, yutnori or another Korean folk game with friends.
• Visit a Korean cultural center or museum, many of which hold Chuseok events.
• Take a moment under the full moon to write down what you are thankful for this year.

Chuseok dates