Chuseok — Korean Traditions

The Harvest Moon Festival

Chuseok (추석), also called Hangawi, falls on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month, around the autumn full moon, and is one of Korea's two biggest holidays alongside Seollal (Lunar New Year). At its core it's a harvest thanksgiving and an act of hyo (filial piety): families give thanks for the year's bounty and honor the ancestors who made their lives possible. The holiday traces back centuries, with roots in Silla-era harvest celebrations.

How It's Celebrated

Two rituals anchor the holiday. Charye (차례) is the ancestral memorial service held at home on Chuseok morning, where a carefully arranged table of freshly harvested rice, songpyeon, jeon, fruit, and rice wine is offered to ancestors, with family members bowing in a set order. Seongmyo (성묘) is the visit to ancestral graves, often paired with beolcho (벌초), tidying and clearing weeds from the burial sites beforehand.

The signature food is songpyeon, small half-moon rice cakes filled with sesame, sweetened red bean, or chestnut and steamed over a bed of pine needles for fragrance. Families traditionally make them together the night before, and there's an old saying that those who shape pretty songpyeon will have beautiful children. The table also brings jeon (savory pan-fried fritters), japchae, and seasonal fruit like Asian pear. People wear hanbok, play folk games, and in some communities perform ganggangsullae, a women's circle dance under the full moon.

Chuseok in the US

For Korean American families, the great migration home, the defining feature of Chuseok in Korea, usually becomes a single family gathering, since the holiday rarely lines up with a US day off. Many keep the charye rite in a simplified form, and the songpyeon-making session has become a beloved way to involve kids born in the US. Korean churches and community organizations in places like Los Angeles' Koreatown, the New York/New Jersey area, and Atlanta host Chuseok events with food, hanbok, and folk games. H Mart and Korean bakeries make it easy by selling ready-made songpyeon and Chuseok gift sets, the boxes of fruit, premium oils, and snacks that are central to the holiday's gift-giving.

If You're Invited

If you're included in a charye, treat it as the solemn family rite it is: follow the host's lead, don't take photos mid-ceremony, and wait to be shown where to sit. Wearing hanbok or smart, modest clothing is a respectful touch. Try the songpyeon and jeon and say so, the food represents real effort. A Chuseok gift set (fruit or quality pantry items) is the customary thing to bring.