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South Korea Christmas

South Korea Christmas

Korea has a population that is about 50% Christian. This makes for some pretty different celebrations around Christmas, since the remaining 50% are mostly Buddhist. A Buddisht household will have no celebration or even acknowledgement of the holiday, as it is not their holiday. However, the remaining 50% of the population celebrates in many different ways, but are pretty similar to the western style celebration. I have recently seen celebrations in homes that actually have trees and presents and looked no different than what I was used to growing up.

Presents are interesting in Korea. The normal present is MONEY. It is becoming more popular to give actual gifts, but money is still by far #1. Korean's don't typically acknowledge birthdays or anniversaries either. The main gift (money giving) time is Korean New Year (same as Chinese New Year).

Santa Claus can look pretty close to the western version, but they can be dressed in a blue or red Santa suit. You will see a few Santas around Christmas as they are becoming more popular.

Christmas food is pretty interesting and nothing like what you would imagine in the western world. No turkeys or hams, but plenty of kimchi, hot peppers and bean paste. I have seen a few Korean BBQ's during Christmas too. Korean food is great. If you like garlic and things a bit spicy, give it a try!

My wife's family is Buddist, so there is actually no celebration of the holiday at all in their house. However, she has adopted the gift receiving at Christmas, Birthdays and Anniversaries!

Christmas Korea South

That seems very practical. I wouldn't mind that gift! The thing that would be the most difficult for me to get use to is seeing Santa in a blue Santa suit.

South Korea Christmas Christmas

Name: Karen

Comments: I am trying to find out if the customs you have just described are also relevant to North Korea. I am assuming not, but we are interested in finding out.

Christmas Korea South

Karen:

There is no Christianity (legally) in N.Korea. They practice a religion or cult called Juche. It consist of the teachings of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. So, as far as 12/25 goes, it is just another day in N.Korea.

Christmas Korea South

Name: David

Comments: In 2005 a South Korean survey found that 46.5% of the South Korean population express no religious preference.

They found that 29.3% were Christian (of which 18.3% (on total) profess to be Protestants and 10.9% to be Catholics), 22.8% Buddhist, and the rest adheres to various new religious movements including Jeungism, Daesunism, Cheondoism, Taoism, Confucianism and Wonbuddhism.

This information can be checked at Wikipedia. Source 2

A previous post said that 50 percent were Christian and the other 50 percent mostly Buddhist.This seems more of an opinion rather than based on any research.

Source 1: Source 7

South Korea Christmas

Name: Pickanick

Comments: If of 48.6 million, roughly 23.3 can be considered atheist/other. about 14.1 are christian, 11.2 are Buddhist. So to make things more clear, about 58% of the religious people are christian, and 42% are Buddhist. Not to get into the "is Buddhism a 'religion'" argument. now, to get it to the author's original claim of 50%, you have to shuffle only 8% to the other side, which is about 2 million people. so, the author's original estimate of about half was off by about 2 million of almost 50 people, or 4%

* it would be fair to group "other" with the Buddhists, but I didn't. you see my point though, the original claim really wasn't that far off, research boy.

South Korea Christmas

Name: Korean

Comments: I am a 20 years old Korean. Your personal experience in Korea can not be normalized of Korean culture. Buddhist doesn't celebrate Christmas? Christmas is apparently national holiday as well as multi-national holiday. They just can not ignore it.hence they celebrate it in a different way such as giving and taking Christmas presents or saying merry Christmas. Christian go to churches and worship but it's a different story, they still do celebrate but they are just not doing worship as they believe in Buddhism.

About Food. We are having plenty of kimch for Christmas? I feel sorry that it's your misunderstanding. Kimchi is almost every time showed up for every meals for Korean. Korean buy or make Christmas cakes for sure, with wine. Korean wanna have specially menu for Christmas but we don't have fixed Christmas menu so we have our own choices every Christmas, It can be sometimes various steaks in a fair restaurant. I don't think it does make a big difference from Westerner, however, we don't have 'turkey meet' as this is not popular in Korea.

I am not sure how long have you been in Korea and how's your environment in Korea, however, it's a shame that your writing does not give me a positive surprise. Some foreigners might get misunderstanding for Korea and Korean because you described as if it (the story you wrote) is normal in Korea.

South Korea Christmas Christmas

No, actually, I would have to say that it is unfortunate that you took my initial reply on the subject to be negative. I have re-read it and cannot find the negativity you seem to feel.

Buddists will not celebrate Christmas in Korea. If you say that their celebration is acknowledging that they have a day off because of Christmas, then you are correct, but it goes little further than that. Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Buddist will not be celebrating this date. While I will agree with you that Korean Christians may not totally leave their buddist roots, I do disagree with your notion that Buddist celebrate and even go as far as to revere Jesus Christ on his birthdate.

Yes, it is a national holiday because of the large percentage of Christians in Korea. Being back in Korea again this Christmas, I did notice a more places selling Christmas cards than I remember seeing in past years. We actually bought several because of the beautiful art work on them.

Christians celebrate in a fairly traditional way with family and church service like in any other Christian family.

I am well aware of kimchi being an every day dish in Korea and in that fact is little different than the importance of rice. However, as you well know, there are many kinds of kimchi and you might see more of the expensive type around Christmas and New Years holidays. I mentioned it because some people that are not korean or know of korean food might be interested in finding out what it is. However, the Christmas dinner is quite different from western meals and families typically dine at home or a relatives home for Christmas dinner. We would rarely go out to eat. The smell of the Christmas meal cooking is part of the experience in the west. A Christmas cake in Korea would likely be a mochi cake (rice beaten to a paste consistency and favored typically with red bean), which is quite tastey, but very different from what we would typically eat in the west. Korean wine is also very nice. I seem to remember having pear wine, but that is normally only for Korean New Year (again, my wife's family is Buddist). It is common to have makali too (rice milk wine).

Now you can say that my sampling size is not sufficient for what is normal in Korea and I can accept that as I have only visited about 5 different families in Korea during that particular time of the year. I have worked for a very large company in Korea and actually asked many of my co-workers about their holiday plans and they helped round out my opinion. However, I do suspect that your own sampling size of Christmas dinners with other families actually celebrating the holiday would be limited.

Oh, and please let it be read that I love Korean food. I love kimchi, pajeon, bulgogi, jjigae, samgyetang and gukbap. Korean food is very important to the cultural identity and is one of the things that they are very proud of.