Little Butterfly : The Year of the Sheep

1991, 2003, 2015, 2027

As part of the Korean culture and their east Asian belief systems, while the rest of the world followed the roman and greek methods of determining time, east Asian countries or in this case Korea developed their own Calendar. It's called the Lunarsolar calendar.

The lunar calendar is based on the lunar phases or the moon to be less technical. Our calendar is called the solar calendar and was determined by the movement of the earth around the sun rather than tracking the movement of the moon around earth. Because there are slightly more than twelve lunation (synodic months) in a solar year, the period of 12 lunar months (354,37 days) is sometimes referred to as the lunar year. Every 2 to 3 years they have a leap month just to readjust the lunar time line.

The lunar calendar was used to predict when it is time to plant seeds and when it's time to harvest. In the old days Koreans stayed in villages, which as a matter of fact still today influences the way children are brought up and the way Koreans do things. Today Korea is extremely overpopulated with approximately 50 million people, the same amount of people as in South Africa but imagine all of us staying the the Free state. Yes it's small. Because people lived in villages farming for the village was very important in order to provide for the rest of the village. Also bare in mind that Korea has 4 very distinct seasons, which had to be taken into consideration when it comes to farming.

Because of these very prominent dates things were suppose to be done festivals were held on these occasions. The biggest festival is Seollal, the first day of the traditional Korean new year. Other important festivals include Daeboreum also refered to as Boreumdaal (the first full moon), Dano (spring festival), Hansik (beginning of farming season) and Chuseok (harvest moon festival), Samjinnal (spring-opening festival). Other minor festvals include Yudu (summer festival) and Chilseok (monsoon festival). The Gregorian calendar was offically adoted in 1896 but traditional holidays and age-reckoning for older generations are still based on the old calendar.

Every one of these festivals had their own traditions. Dano, the spring festival had the tradition of washing hair with iris water, sireum, swinging and giving fans as gifts. Yudu, the summer festival they also washed their hair to wash away the bad luck. New years eve the Koreans leave all doors open to receive ancestral spirits.

Interestingly in the old days your birth date wasn't important. Everybody turned one year older on Lunar new years. The implication this had was that babies born the day before the lunar new years turned a year older the very next day. Not to mention that in Korea you have 2 ages, Korean age and then Western age. Koreans start counting from the day you were conceived so you are generally 9 months older than you really are. Sometimes 2 years older depending on the month you were born in.

To get back to the calendar, as part of their ancient beliefs, they have the Korean zodiacs which is very much based on the Chinese zodiac signs circulating every 12 years. . I was born in the year of the sheep and this year is me year according to their beliefs. The zodiacs were used as part of fortune readings done at birth as well as before every big occasion in a persons life. These occasions are graduation days, weddings (to determine if you should or shouldn't marry someone), before you conceive ect. This is not linked to the greek mythology of star signs though. I read up a little on this Sheep year thing and so far it's been quite interesting. I placed some links at the bottom if you are interested.

Once you get to know the people here you start to realise how much ancestries and beliefs play a role in their normal ways of doing. And sometimes I wonder if they choose to belief the things they belief and withhold themselves from the philosophies of western world or if it get withheld from them for a reason. The reason being is that some of the things they belief really tends to come over as being closed minded about some topics.