What the eel and charye have in common
Post-Seollal (lunar new year) reflections
Happy weekend mood! And for those who celebrated lunar new year, has twenty-twenty-three actually started for you now?
If you’re anything like me, you’re probably elated that one bowl of tteokguk (떡국) no longer means that you’re a year older now. Starting this June, South Korea is transitioning to the international age system. So you only gain an age when it’s your birthday. The confusion over Korean age versus Western age is slowly nearing its end.
But seriously, what’s left in the wake of a four day festivity during which you’re offered bowls of tteokguk, auspicious looking envelopes containing even more auspicious wads of Saebaedon (cash), words of wisdom by your family—oh and let’s not forget that you’re supposed to offer something in return to your ancestors: charye (차례).
the ritual becomes problematic when there’s a disconnect between those preparing the ritual (women) and those who offer it (men) to the ancestral spirits.
I say “supposed to” because an increasing number of South Korean households are choosing to forgo the notoriously onerous charye. You can google charye and about ten different sites will pop up explaining it in terms like “memorial service”, “ancestral worship”, “ancestral rite”. They’re all right but I’ll unpack it even more for you in a vernacular that’s a tad bit more controversial: charye is a centuries old ritual prepared by women for men. Technically the ritual is meant to pay respect to one’s ancestors and thank them for your health, good fortune at school, work, etc. by curating a table stacked with an array of scrumptious—by spirit standards—dishes. Expressing gratitude is a quality that charye rightfully engrains in us. However, this ritual becomes problematic when there’s a disconnect between those preparing the ritual (women) and those who offer it (men) to the ancestral spirits. Women are not kitchen ghostwriters—get it?
So what does charye have to do with eels?
Well, the eel is “never allowed to simply be an eel”—I quote this directly from Patrik Svensson’s The Book of Eels (check it out), a read that I most recently relished. At surface level, eels don’t have much to do with charye directly (haven’t heard of any family offering cooked eel to their ancestors). However, parallels can be drawn between the two in the sense that both manifest meaning beyond their initial form.
Much like the eel, charye is not “simply” a ritual. It is at once a symbol and a metaphor for the patriarchy that pervades Confucianist customs. Wives are expected to serve their husbands and this duty takes on even more significance during holiday seasons such as Seollal and Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving); women don’t emerge from the kitchen for hours, coaxing flour, meat, fish, veggies into jeon (전) or traditional Korean pancakes. The resulting dishes elicit hoorays from their husbands and children, but the women themselves are sick of the fried smell at this point.
charye is at once a symbol and a metaphor for the patriarchy that pervades Confucianist customs
This isn’t to say that every single household in South Korea pressures women into the kitchen. As I mentioned above, a great number of families are opting to simplify the charye table or just skip the ritual entirely. Obviously, such pivoting in family customs is welcomed by women who have been liberated from their role of K-Dobbie (K doubles for “Korean” and “kitchen”). However, the downside to this phenomenon is that there’s a high chance that charye will slowly fade out of existence—leaving not just our feast-awaiting ancestors stranded, but leaving a blank space in inter-generational culture.
Charye, in itself, is not inherently bad. The ritual espouses a respectable lesson and knowing one’s origin is part of one’s personal history. Nonetheless, much like the now endangered eel, charye can sustain itself only if people have an interest in it and are willing to recreate and re-perform it year after year. In short, charye’s sustainability rests on the shoulders of not just women but the entire family—fathers, husbands, uncles, sons. Sharing the workload and awarding recognition where it’s due is fair practice; women aren’t born announcing “the duty to prepare charye for my husband’s ancestors have been bestowed upon me”. Heck no. If this most basic of team ethos is not respected within the family, how in the metaverse is ESG going to be the new framework of mind for large corporations? Every company is only as great as its people. How those people act at home reflect, to a large extent, how they will encounter tribulations at work.
Perhaps there is still hope left for charye. Change begins will small actions. A sincere thank you can be more persuasive than a logically thought out argument highlighting the imperatives of charye.
So the point is: be grateful. Not just to the spirits of deceased ancestors, but to those around you who—may I emphasize—are still alive.
*apologies for the late post—I came down with a cold during Seollal and wasn’t able to upload as usual. To my subscribers, take care!