Leisure Programmes

Festivals

Seol-nal

Rich in culture and with their long history, Koreans celebrate various types of festivals. Because of the different religious group present in Korea, festivals are celebrated according to both their lunar calendar and the western calendar depending on the origin of the festival.

One of the examples of festivals celebrated according to the lunar calendar would be the Seol-nal or the Lunar New Year which will take place around February and last for three days. This festivals is considered to be the one of the most important festivals throughout the whole year to Koreans. Families will gather and spend time together playing family games, paying respects to elderly. They will dress up in their Hanbok and also eat a soup made with oval rice cakes called the “which is believed that one will grow one year older after eating it. Foreign visitors do not be surprised if you are unable to find any restaurants and provision open for business during these 3 days.

Chuseok

Another one of the four main festivals that are celebrated in Korean is Chuseok, which is the Thanksgiving Day in Korea. It is the time where families member from different places gather together to share their experiences and food as well as to give thanks to their ancestor for the harvest they get for the year. Koreans will hold their ancestor memorial services to honour their ancestor and freshly harvested rice will be used for the service. They would go to the graves of their ancestor to remove weed and to offer their respect. It is considered to be a duty and a form of devotion when practicing this custom. This relates back to the teachings of Confucius mentioned in the post of Korean culture. Korean wrestling and circle dance are part of the activities that will happen during the Chuseok holidays and traditionally the head of the family will buy everyone living in the house, which includes the servants, new Hanbok.

Sports

Soccer

Football or soccer is currently the most popular sports that are spectator by the South Koreans. They have their own football team called the Korea Republic national football team and have their own football league known as the Korean Professional Football League (K-League). Because of their passion for this sports, they were proud to have co-hosted the FIFA World Cup 2002 with Japan and also achieved many success by getting through the preliminaries of the FIFA World Cup multiple times and also currently ranked 39 in the FIFA/ Coca-Cola World Ranking. Professional football player and captain of South Korea’s national football team, Park Ji Sung is also a football player of Manchester United Football Club in Europe.

Taekwondo

Taekwondo a national sports of Korea, which originated from another form of Korean martial arts known as the Taekkyon. With its increasing popularity among sports lover, it is easy to find a Taekwondo coach that speaks English. Taekwondo is also one of the sports in the Olympic Games. Taekwondo is considered to be a great form of exercise as in involves kicking, jabbing and the limberness of the learner. As a form of martial arts, it is also considered as a form of self defence. Learner of Taekwondo will not only benefit themselves physically but mentally as well, as they vigorous training would often require a tougher determination over the physical abilities of a person and the repeated etiquettes teachings passed down from the coach to the learner will turn the student into a more mature person.