Sitting in her tiny home, 83-year-old Moon Haeng-ja was struggling to master a new skill as the COVID-19 pandemic plays havoc with South Korea’s harvest celebrations: making video calls.
Chuseok, which runs from today to Friday, is one of the two biggest festivals of the Korean year, and traditionally a time for family gatherings and ancestral rituals, with millions of people heading to their hometowns and the countryside.
However, this year is to be starkly different as authorities urge the public to stay home to help contain the spread of COVID-19.
Photo: AFP
“In the past, my nephews and grandchildren all came to visit me,” said Moon, who lives by herself in Wanju, a small rural county in North Jeolla Province that has yet to see a single virus case.
Residents fear that an influx of young people from the big cities visiting their parents might lead to an outbreak, and Moon is one of the many elderly settling instead for a virtual reunion with their family members.
She has five children and last saw them in January, before the virus hit South Korea.
“I’m quite lonely and miss them, but I will just have to endure it this Chuseok,” Moon told reporters.
Despite many lessons, she still struggled with her smartphone, but said it is the only option this year.
Social worker Kim Hee-sook, who has been trying to teach Moon video calling, said: “Although it’s easy for young people to do, for older people, it’s their first time.”
“They struggled to use a mobile phone to begin with, so of course video calls are more difficult,” Kim added.
South Korea largely contained an early outbreak of the disease, but has suffered multiple case clusters in the past few weeks, heightening concerns.
“Chuseok is the biggest risk that remains in the second half of the year,” Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director General Jung Eun-kyeong said.
To discourage travel, train ticket availability has been halved during the holiday and many cemeteries are to be closed.
However, for some — perhaps many — there would be a sense of relief: Chuseok is a season of stress for many daughters-in-law who bear the brunt of holiday cooking and cleaning for their husband’s entire family.
Kim Soon-joo usually begins cleaning her house a month before the gathering.
“I’m quite edgy, because I also have to worry about the food and have to do the dishes,” she said. “In that sense, I’ll be quite relaxed this Chuseok.”
In a Facebook post urging people to stay home, South Korean Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun wrote: “You can use me as an excuse and spend this Chuseok at home.”
The most important Chuseok ceremony sees families visit their ancestors’ graves to tidy and clean the site, and place offerings for their spirits.
However, this year, restrictions mean many will not be able to do that, prompting a boom for grave-tending companies.
By Sept. 15, the National Forestry Cooperative Federation had already had 23 percent more requests for such services than in the whole of last year.
As a result, some graves would have to wait until after the holiday, a federation official said.
Kim Yoon-rae, a grave tender in the northern city of Paju, said he was seeing demand several times higher than in previous years.
He carried out his duties with “happiness and delight,” he said. “I go about this job as if I were tending the graves of my actual ancestors.”
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