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Category Archives: Chuseok 2008

Chuseok in Chessington

25-Sep-08

Chuseok in Chessington

The King's Centre was opened last year by Cliff Richard. It’s a multi-purpose venue in Chessington designed for the local community, with facilities for business meetings, conferences and sporting activities. The main users of the space are the Chessington evangelical church. But last Saturday evening there was a multicultural audience of Korean and Korean-British families, plus one or two solo Brits, assembled to enjoy a colourful array of music and dance performance to celebrate Chuseok. The advantage of the hall is the flexibility of the space: the fixed stage could be taken apart and moved out of the way, leaving ample space for performers to move around. As one comes to expect in Korean events, there’s always a bit of compulsory ...
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Korea at the Thames Festival 1 - Jump! and Last For One

16-Sep-08

Korea at the Thames Festival 1 - Jump! and Last For One

By Saharial Looking out at the rather dull day I am having today, it would be hard for me to believe that the weekend was full of summer sunshine if I hadn’t got a little toasted at the Thames Festival on Saturday. After a long walk from St Pancras to Waterloo and then a nice short one along the Thames to the OXO tower, I found the area dedicated to the Korean section of the program. Aside from the tantalising smell of Korean BBQ, the main focus was the stage with its backdrop of an ancient house. The seating area was the rather damp grass so, after my jeans went soggy I sacrificed my jacket as a seating spot to watch ...
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Korea at the Thames Festival 2 - Stick Throwing and Kimchi Pancakes

16-Sep-08

Korea at the Thames Festival 2 - Stick Throwing and Kimchi Pancakes

By Matthew Jackson The Korean section of the Thames Festival 2008 was bigger, more spectacular and altogether more chaotic than the 'Sarangbang' of last year. When I showed up on the Saturday afternoon, I was introduced to a traditional Korean game which involved throwing sticks at a target, as one of the sticks narrowly avoided my head. I was in Korea alright. A sizeable stage had been set up, on which the three main acts were scheduled to perform. Stationed as I was in the Korean Cultural Centre stall handing out leaflets and books, I was ideally positioned to see 5% of the stage. In the case of the champion breakdancing crew, Last for One, this meant watching the upper half of ...
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Korea at the Thames Festival

10-Sep-08

Korea at the Thames Festival

Those who experienced Korea's input into the Thames Festival last year won't want to miss out this year. As last year, the festival coincides with one of the most important holidays in the Korean calendar, Chuseok. This year we have performances from Last For One (above), probably Korea's best-known b-boy crew and victors in the 2005 international Battle of the Year. In addition, the cast of Jump will be entertaining the crowds with their irresistible martial arts slapstick show. As Grace Kim says in her review: Do not miss JUMP! There will also be Korean food, Taekwondo demonstrations and some traditional Korean games to play. Plus, there's the communal Night Carnival at 6pm-9:30pm on the Sunday starting at Victoria Embankment. You can ...
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Celebrate Chuseok with the Euro Journal

30-Aug-08

Celebrate Chuseok with the Euro Journal

Celebrate Chuseok (추석), the Korean Mid-Autumn Festival. Chuseok, also called Hangawi (한가위: meaning "great middle"), is one of the two main holidays in Korea (the other being New Year’s Day). It is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar Korean calendar. It is to celebrate a good harvest, and Koreans visit their ancestral hometowns and share a feast of Korean traditional food with various traditional dance and music. [caption id="attachment_4347" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Jiphyun Ritual performance from KOTTI"][/caption] The EURO MEDIA GROUP (www.eknews.net), which publishes the EURO JOURNAL (유로저널), a weekly Korean newspaper circulating all over Europe, and the HANIN NEWSPAPER (한인신문), a weekly Korean newspaper circulating in the UK, is hosting Celebrate Chuseok: Korean Mid-Autumn Festival with various ...
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Celebrate Chuseok with the Anglo Korean Society

30-Aug-08

Celebrate Chuseok with the Anglo Korean Society

The Anglo-Korean Society celebrates Chuseok in an event at Asia House on Tuesday 16 September. Chuseok, or Harvest Moon Festival, is Korea’s main annual celebration and takes place on the 15th day of the Eighth Moon according to the lunar calendar. Usually described as a thanksgiving for a good harvest, its origins lie in ancient ancestor worship. Koreans visit their hometowns causing a mass migration every year, pay respect to their ancestors and eat special foods such as songpyeong, a crescent-shaped rice cake which is steamed on a bed of pine needles and filled with beans, chestnuts and jujube. [caption id="attachment_4363" align="alignright" width="129" caption="Chuseok feast"][/caption]At this year’s Chuseok event, Dr Charlotte Horlyck will discuss the meaning of Chuseok, in particular the ...
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