By Korea.net Honorary Reporter Stephanie Pradnyaparamita from Indonesia
Photos = Stephanie Pradnyaparamita
Jakarta l Feb. 14, 2018

Last Wednesday, Feb. 14, the Korean Cultural Center in Indonesia (KCC) held an event to let Indonesians experience the traditions of Seollal Lunar New Year's. People who wanted to join needed to register prior to the event because it was limited to a certain number of people. The enthusiasm for this event was pretty high. You could even see some people who were not included on the list lined up in front of the KCC to be admitted on waiting lists. The 2018 Seollal Experience became even more special because Ambassador of Korea to Indonesia Kim Chang-beom and the beauty blogger and video-blogger Sunny Dahye both joined the event with around 100 other people who were participating.

To lighten the atmosphere, some participants got a chance to try on some traditional Hanbok attire picked out by the staff at the KCC. The first Korean tradition that was introduced was called the sebae. It's the ritualistic bow, where younger people pay nominal respect to older people by bowing to them. Then, the older people will give their blessings to the younger people, including some sebaetdon, or so-called "New Year’s cash." Ambassador Kim sat on the stage and some participants wished him a happy new year by performing a sebae bow.



The KCC also gave out some gifts to participants in some games. People who participated in the games could win a small gift. There were two traditional games that were played, yutnori, one of the most commonly played game during Seollal Lunar New Year's, and jegichagi, a popular game that you may have seen on some variety shows like "Running Man." The games really brought some laughs and spirit to the event, even for those who didn’t play, as it was super fun.

The last thing that we experienced was cooking some gyeongdan and joraengi tteok, which is basically made from tteok rice cake. Gyeongdan are rice cake balls with crumbs covering the outside. This time, we used red bean as a filler. Joraengi tteok is in the shape of rice cake that's twisted to look more like a cocoon.



Before making gyeongdan and joraengi tteok, participants were placed into smaller groups and asked to put on some plastic gloves. Each group got some white rice cake to make the gyeongdan and three-color rice cake in white, yellow and pink to make the joraengi tteok. Besides, there was also three-color crumbs in green, brown and yellow. Each group got the chance to make the dessert and the winners got a gift. The KCC also invited a rice cake-making teacher so that the participants knew the proper way in which to make the dessert.

Each group served what they had made on a plate, and these were some of what the participants made. They're beautiful, aren’t they?



The event ended with the KCC treating all participants to some delicious Korean food, and, of course, to some rice cake soup. Rice cake soup is one of the traditional dishes that people usually have during Seollal Lunar New Year's. If you eat a bowl of rice cake soup, then you will get one year older. I found a joke on one TV show that said that if you eat two bowls of rice cake soup, you'll get two years older, but that's just a joke. :-)

wisdom117@korea.kr

* This article is written by a Korea.net Honorary Reporter. Our group of Honorary Reporters are from all around the world, and they share with Korea.net their love and passion for all things Korean.