Imagine a feast table set with 4 rows of foods
Two place settings served, one for male and one for female,
A written message in Chinese characters on a paper beside this,
And a lower table with liquor and 3 incense sticks in a rice bowl.
Imagine the door is open
And you bow two-and-a-half times to the unseen guests
And stand there ten or fifteen minutes or longer with your family,
Waiting for the ancestors to partake.
Later their food is put outside,
You serve yourself at another table,
You talk among yourselves of the ancestors
And finally you eat this feast meal.
The table is set very early in the morning.
The ceremony takes several hours and then repeats,
First in the home of the husband’s family,
Then later in the home of the wife’s family.
The husband sets the table with the food:
A row of fruit, a row of poached sliced fish with egg,
A row of japche noodles with meat and vegetables,
And a row with rice cakes and meat soup stew.
This is the way of the Korean people
To celebrate the lunar new year
As explained to me when I asked
How the Song family observes this day.
