Have you seen Korean movies or TV dramas where family and relatives gather to celebrate a baby's 100th day, "baek-il" (백일)?  A big first birthday party for a baby is common in a lot of cultures, but a party for the 100th day?  Is it just another excuse to throw a party for the baby because she is so cute?  That's probably true, too, but in Korea, there are more historical and cultural reasons to celebrate the baby's baek-il. Why Koreans celebrate their baby's baekil (100 day): - Celebration of life Historically, many newborns didn't make it to their first 100th day because ...

My family's seollal* events have been gradually scaled down since my mom started to go to church twenty years ago. Her church argues that religious service to the deceased -a big part of seollal - is superstitious and my relatives didn't appreciate it much. My mom decided to follow her church rules and eventually our seollal has become more of family-gathering, not a huge holiday gathering with relatives. We still keep the good elements of the tradition that is irrelevant to any religious beliefs and doesn't have patriarchal poison of the holiday. We have tteokguk, play ...