| The Dano Festival is held every May and is characterized by wishes for healthy harvests for the year.
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Dano Day (May 5 on the Lunar Calendar) is up there alongside Chuseok (August 15 on the Lunar Calendar) and of course Lunar New Year¡¯s. It falls just before summer, when the farmers finish up planting rice, and still important, though not as much as in earlier times.
According to custom, the dew of sweet flags was poured into a bowl and women washed their hair with it, as it would give them that extra sheen. They also drank it for their health. There are other things they did, such as bathing in it, and so on, but we won¡¯t get into it.
People considerately presented fans each other on Dano Day, as it would get pretty hot here without air conditioning. There were also a few more traditions like, ¡°The Picking of the Wormwood,¡± ¡°The Wedding of the Jujube Tree,¡± and the making/giving of the Dano ornamental hairpin.
What would a special day be without games? The men played ¡®ssyreum¡¯ (traditional wrestling with a twist), and the women played on swings. And food? They baked and ate special buns and surichitteok (rice with sugar added).
Basically you could say that Dano is to Spring what Chuseok is to Fall, but Chuseok is bigger, because one, there is more food, and two, it¡¯s cooler outside for more fun and games.
It is assumed that Dano Day goes quite some time back, but there is little record of it, as there is of Chuseok, which explains why you are probably hearing of it first now.
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| 04-03-2002 |
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