Red Calendar Day
How much humanity exists, so much exist and holidays. Holidays arose in time immemorial, and many millennia they were for our ancestors a good reason to relax, find out, get drunk, and in general to break out of the week. In most cases, holidays were associated with religion. The birthdays of the deities, saints, anniversary of all real and fictional events from the life of gods and heroes were celebrated. Often holidays were timed to one or another moments of economic activity, for example, by the end of field work.
Nowadays, the role of most traditional holidays, which were closely related to religion and peasant life, has significantly decreased. However, new rituals came to replace the old holidays, including state. Now the state has very serious impact opportunities for a festive calendar, since it is the official authorities able to declare (or not to declare) one or another festive day inoperative, weekend. It is clear that in a modern society, in which all men, as well as a prominent part of women, work in the morning until late evening, is simply impossible to make it clear to celebrate the holiday, if it is not considered a day off. In addition, all states of the world have official holidays, which serve as a means of ideological processing of the population or, if such an expression seems to be the reader too tough, his "Patriotic and spiritual education of the people". Some of these official holidays may well find a considerable response in the souls of people (remember, for example, the day of victory in the Soviet Union of the seventies and the eighties), others remain abstract dates, just a pleasant additional weekend (will take the same example, remember the past day Soviet Constitution or the current "Russian Independence Day").
Although Koreans work much more than residents of Europe or America, holidays in Korea unusually many. By the way, they used to be even more, in recent years their number is somewhat extorted. The first national holidays were installed back in 1949., Soon after the official proclamation of the Republic of Korea. There were four of them:
March 1 – the anniversary of mass demonstrations under the slogan of the return of Korea of independence, which occurred in 1919. (these events in Soviet historiography are not quite called "First Armenian uprising").
July 17 – Constitution Day. The holiday is dedicated to the anniversary of the publication of the South Korean Constitution in 1948.
August 15 – Renaissance Day. The anniversary of the liberation of the country from Japanese colonial rule (1945.).
October 3 – the founding day of the state. Dedicated anniversary of the foundation of the state Ancient Choson (in Korean historiography is considered the most ancient proto state). Event is, according to traditional chronology, allegedly occurred in 2333 g. to N. NS. and due to the name of Tangun – the son of Heavenly Lord and who turned into a female bear, who, they say, and founded the ancient Choson.
Subsequently, these holidays that are referred to "4 major holidays" new, considered, however, less significant. List of holidays changed constantly. Only in my memory, that is, in the last decade, new holidays were introduced into Korea and the old holidays were canceled. More precisely, holidays as such no one canceled, they simply stopped reckoned with days off. For example, October 9 in Korea marks the day of Korean writing. For some time, he was considered a non-working day, but then again became a worker. As before, a variety of festive events dedicated to national culture and literature are held on the day of Korean writing, but "Red Calendar Day" October 9 is not now. Similarly, recently, they took the work day and October 1, the traditional holiday of the Korean military. In those days, when military regimes ruled, this holiday was considered a non-working day and was noted with a considerable pomp.
What are the official holidays (except "four main") considered weekend in Korea in the past, 1998?
April 5 – Tree landing day. This holiday was established in connection with the Government of Pak Zhong Hee Campania for the restoration of Korean forests (by the way, this campaign was extremely successful). On this day, many residents of the country take part in the work on landscaping their districts, forest landing in the mountains.
May 5 – Children Day.
June 6 – the day of memory of the fallen. Deals with the memory of the fallen in the battles of warriors, marked on the day of the signing of the truce, which put the end of the Korean War 1950-1953. On this day, meetings of veterans are held, a variety of events in honor of the participants of the war.
In addition to these official holidays related to those or other historical events and, so to speak, "ideologically painted", There are also traditional religious holidays in Korea (both Christian and Buddhist), and some of them are also officially recognized as weekends. In their popularity, these holidays, of course, are significantly superior to official, state. It is curious that many traditional holidays are celebrated on a lunar and sun calendar, which up to 1894. was in Korea official. Therefore, it turns out that they fall for different days of the Western calendar in different years. These holidays include:
January 1-2 – New Year in Western (Sunny) calendar.
1st, 2nd, 3rd days of the 1st Moon – New Year according to the traditional lunar calendar (on the Western calendar usually hits the first half of February or at the end of January)
8th day of the 4th moon – Buddha’s birthday (usually May)
The 15th and 16th days of the 8th Moon – a holiday of commemoration of ancestors and autumn harvest of Chusok (usually September or October).
December 25 – Catholic and Protestant Christmas.
In addition, in many large companies and departments there are also their special holidays that are also considered non-working days in these companies. As a rule, such is the day of the founding of this company, organization or educational institution. There are in Korea and professional holidays, which can sometimes be considered non-working enterprises of the respective industries. Military, for example, are still celebrated on October 1 (so to speak, "November 19 in South Korean"), although it is considered a worker for civilians. Other professional holidays include: March 13 – Day of Maritime Transport, April 21 – Day of Science, April 22 – Day of Communication Workers, May 15 – Teacher’s Day (actually professional holiday of the entire education system), June 18 – Builder’s Day , September 18 – the day of the railwayman, October 21 – the day of the policeman, November 9 – the day of the fireman, November 11 – the day of the peasant and fisherman, and on November 30 – the day of foreign trade (for us it sounds somewhat strange, but Korea depends on Foreign trade extremely). Finally, non-working days of parliamentary, presidential and local elections are. Even if you do not take into account these professional holidays, the working Korean is theoretically theoretically there are 16 official holidays a year – more than a resident of many other countries. True, in real life, part of the holidays falls on Sunday, so in general, additional weekends are still less than 16.
At the same time, it should not be thought that all Koreans have such an abundance of holidays. In practice, all numerous official holidays are respected only in educational institutions, banks, government agencies and the largest firms. The vast majority of small firms and almost the entire sphere of trade and service and on holidays works as well as always. However, in Korea, the enterprise of this sphere, as a rule, do not recognize the resurrection, which are also ordinary working days for them. Only during some, the most beloved in the people, holidays (lunar new year and the holiday of the autumn harvest of Chusok) Business life in the country really freezes.
