For a complete recipe, check out Korean Bapsang’s Red Bean Porridge recipe. Cook the beans until they’re soft, mash, smash, and mash some more or puree them with a blender. Similar to pumpkin porridge, it’s more about getting the right consistency. To make the dish, it doesn’t require a ton of work. Plenty of dishes to help anyone visiting Korea to grow a fondness for the bean. Red bean dishes and desserts are found all over from red bean porridge to patbingsu, the shaved ice summer treat. As I mentioned above, my husband goes for the savory, while I enjoy the sweet a bit more. There are two types of red bean porridge. The little white dumplings are known as saealshim (새알심), or bird eggs due to their little round cute egg-like shapes. Either is acceptable and can really make the dish rather delicious. While my husband adds salt to his, I prefer sugar. Don’t let the appearance ward you off though. Little white dumplings will float in a bowl of mashed and boiled red beans if you head out to order the meal. Actually, historically, Koreans considered themselves a year older on Dongji and not on the Lunar New Year as is celebrated today. It’s truly amazing how fast Koreans age and yet they manage to look oh so young. This is also said when you eat rice cake soup on the Lunar New Year so, you get one year older on December 22nd and then you get another year older in January in Korea. Interestingly, there’s a Korean proverb that says, “eat patjuk and you eat a year” which in essence means you grow a year older when you eat this dish. The custom of eating red bean porridge, patjuk, on Dongji originated due to a belief that the red color of the beans had a positive energy to drive away evil spirits. While most families don’t do this anymore, many people still follow the custom of eating a big heaping bowl of patjuk, or red bean porridge, to mark the coming of the new year. While Dongji isn’t anything we’ll be getting a holiday off from work for, in the past families gathered to perform the ancestral ritesbefore eating their patjuk (팥죽) and placed a bowl of the dark lumpy dish in each room of the house to ward off evil spirits. What To Eat On Dongji Credit: Korean Bapsang It’s no wonder that you get a free calendar from your local pizza shop, ramen shop, hat store and every other store in between in December, now is it? This was also the day when, historically, the kings of Korea would hand out the calendar for the upcoming year.

Get it? Short day? Little? It’s a good way to remember it anyway.įrom Dongji, the days start to get longer leading up to spring which is often seen as the new year in many places as that’s when things start to bloom, babies are born and all of the new things of the year pop up, out and whichever other way.

While there is New Year’s Day on January 1st in the west and the Lunar New Year’s Day in January or February depending on the lunar calendar in the east, Dongji can also be referred to as a New Year’s… make that Little New Year’s Day. (This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a certain percentage of a sale if you purchase after clicking at no cost to you.

How To Celebrate The Winter Solstice In Seoul.

Here’s what you need to know about Dongji in Korea: If you’re in Korea and want to celebrate the winter solstice Korean style, then this is what you should know. This first Unit will introduce you to the first 105 Hanja characters that any learner of Korean should know.Like many holidays, unofficial or not, in Korea, there’s something that should be eaten on the upcoming winter solstice, or Dongji (동지), so get your spoons ready! The winter solstice is celebrated on the day of the year with the shortest daylight hours and the longest night and it usually falls on or around December 22nd each year. Because of this, these characters are often substituted for the Hangeul equivalents in various written forms of Korean (newspapers, books, signs, movie posters, TV drama names, etc…).

Korean people, even those who claim to be “absolutely terrible in Hanja” are able to recognize about 100 basic characters. In our Hanja Lessons, you will gradually be introduced to the most common and important characters that can help you with your Korean studies. However even a small amount of studying Hanja can help one’s Korean studies tremendously. Welcome to the Hanja section of ! Make no mistake about it – our website is dedicated to teaching you Korean.

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