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Korean birthday celebrations


Korean birthday celebrations or Dol are one of the important facets of Korean culture. When a person reaches an important age in his or her life, Koreans have unique celebrations to mark these milestones. Dol has two meanings in Korean. The most common meaning is a child's first birthday or Doljanchi. It can also be used as a generic description for birthdays: Cheot-dol (first birthday), Du-dol (second birthday), Seo-dol (third birthday), etc.

Dol (doljanchi, or tol) is probably one of the best-known of the Korean birthday celebrations. Dol is celebrated for the first birthday of a child. When Korea had little medicinal knowledge, many newborns would die from childhood diseases or because of Korea’s seasonal temperature differences. When a child lived to be a year old during that period, it was a very joyous occasion.

The first part of the dol celebration is prayer. Traditionally, Koreans would pray to two of the many Korean gods: Sanshin (the mountain god) and Samshin (the birth goddess). Koreans would prepare the praying table with specific foods: a bowl of steamed white rice, seaweed soup (miyeok-guk) and a bowl of pure water. Layered red bean rice cakes (samshin siru) were placed next to the prayer table. The rice cakes were not shared outside the family; it was believed that sharing this particular item with people outside the family would bring bad luck to the child. After everything on the praying table was ready the mother (or grandmother) of the child would pray to Sanshin and Samshin, placing her hands together and rubbing her palms. She would ask for her child's longevity, wish luck to the mountain god, and give thanks to the birth goddess. After she finished her prayer, she bowed to Samshin several times. Women were the only ones allowed to participate in this ceremony; men were forbidden to be part of the praying. When the praying ceremony commenced depended on the region. People from Seoul would pray in the early morning of the child's birthday; other regions prayed the night before. Today this part of the celebrations is usually skipped, because Muism (the religion that worshiped the Korean gods) is rarely practiced.

Before the main part of the celebration, the baby is dressed in very colorful, ornate clothing called dol-bok. The dol-bok that the child wears differs according to the child’s sex. A boy would traditionally wear a pink or striped jogori (jacket) with purple or gray paji (pants), a striped durumagi (long jacket), a blue vest printed with a gold or silver pattern or a striped magoja (jacket), a jonbok (long blue vest) with a gold or silver pattern, a bokgun (black hat with long tail), and tarae-busun (traditional socks). A girl would wear a striped jogori, a long red chima (skirt), a gold-and-silver printed jobawi (hat) and tarae-busun. In addition to their dol-bok, boys and girls would wear a long dol-ddi (belt that wraps around the body twice) for longevity and a dol-jumuni (pouch) for luck. The dol-jumuni would be made of fine silk, with a thread to open and close it. Buttons were not used in the dol-bok, to symbolize longevity.


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Wikipedia

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