South Korea, the full name is the Republic of Korea. The main ethnic group in South Korea is the Korean ethnic group (also known as the Korean ethnic group), which belongs to the yellow East Asian type and accounts for 96.25% of the country's total population.
The Korean ethnic group is mainly distributed on the Korean Peninsula and is the main ethnic group in North Korea and South Korea. The two countries have a population of more than 70 million. In addition to North Korea and South Korea, countries with a Korean population of over one million include China and the United States. According to China’s sixth census in 2010, there are approximately 1.83 million Koreans in China. According to a 2012 U.S. Census Bureau survey, Koreans There are approximately 1.7 million Americans.
1. Eating habits:
The Korean diet is mainly light and less greasy. Rice is the most common staple food of the Korean nation. Bibimbap, kimbap, Korean rice cakes, kimchi fried rice, etc. are all common staple foods in the Korean diet. Beef is the most expensive meat in Korea. South Korea faces the sea on three sides, so seafood is also an important staple food for Koreans.
Soup in the Korean national diet is not a side dish before or after a meal, but a main dish eaten together with the staple food. The soup in Korean national diet usually contains meat or seafood. Common soups include ginseng chicken soup, miso soup, Seonong soup, dumpling soup, kimchi pot, pure tofu soup, kelp soup, etc.
Kimchi is an important member of the Korean national diet. There are many types of kimchi, and their categories vary across Korea. Koreans also eat different kimchi in different seasons. Low in calories, rich in fiber, vitamins and a beneficial Lactobacillus probiotic, kimchi is one of the healthiest foods.
2. Folk etiquette:
The Korean nation has attached great importance to life etiquette since ancient times. There are many rituals from birth to death, among which the main rituals include birth ceremony, crown ceremony and hairpin ceremony, wedding ceremony, birthday ceremony, funeral ceremony and sacrificial ceremony, etc.
1. Birth ceremony: The Korean people regard birth ceremony as the beginning ceremony of life and are very particular about it. Among the birth rituals are "Ji Rope", "Hundred Days", "Zhu Zhou", etc.
2. Wedding: It is the most important event in Korean life rituals. In the past, there were many red tapes surrounding weddings. Although the scale, complexity and specific methods have changed and developed with the evolution of the times, the basic content and procedures of weddings have not changed significantly. Weddings are still carried out in the order of "wedding agreement", "receiving lottery", "receiving coins", and "welcoming the bride".
3. Birthday gifts: Koreans also pay special attention to organizing "birthday gifts" for the elderly. Birthday gifts include the sixtieth birthday, the seventieth birthday, and the "return wedding" to commemorate the sixtieth wedding anniversary. The Sixtieth Birthday is a birthday banquet held by the Korean people for sixty-year-olds. According to the calculation of the heavenly stems and earthly branches of the traditional calendar, sixty years are regarded as a cyclic unit. Therefore, the Korean people regard the sixtieth birthday as a watershed in life and are particularly particular about it. On the day of the Sixtieth Anniversary Banquet, the children put the old man into a special dress, set up a birthday banquet in the hall, and invited relatives and friends to gather together to thank their parents for their upbringing. Offering longevity is a basic ritual. The old man in his 60s sits in the middle of the birthday banquet, and the birthday celebration begins. The order should be based on the age of the children, the relatives near and far, and even the guests, toasting the birthdays in turn.
4. Funeral rituals: The Korean people have regarded filial piety as the first of all behaviors since ancient times, and attach great importance to funeral rituals and sacrifices. The funeral mainly includes procedures such as summoning souls, small gatherings, large gatherings, coffin transportation, funeral procession, burial, and monument erection. When burying, you should ask a Feng Shui master to choose the cemetery first. When placing the coffin in the grave, it should be placed in a hillside grave with the head facing the top of the mountain; in a flat grave, the head should face north. In order to rely on collective strength to handle funerals, non-governmental organizations such as "Bereavement Management Contracts" appeared in villages where Koreans live, uniting neighbors to jointly solve specific difficulties encountered in funerals.
3. Sports:
The Korean people love sports. Wrestling is their ancient sport and entertainment activity. Swinging and springboarding are women's favorite entertainment and sport activities. Playing football is a popular sport activity for men. Every village has its own football team, and students in the fourth grade of primary schools or above organize football teams. A few more women's soccer teams emerged. During festivals and holidays, various sports competitions centered on football are often held.
4. Music and dance:
Korean traditional folk music has various forms, mainly including pansori, agricultural music and Sandiao. Among them, Pansori, as a traditional Korean folk art form, is included in the Representative List of Human Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Nongle and Sandiao are listed as important intangible cultural properties of Korea. "Arirang" is one of the most widely circulated traditional ballads with beautiful melody among the Korean people. During the spread of "Arirang", different variations were formed due to the differences in temperament, hobbies, and habits of singers from various places, and gradually gathered into a huge group of songs.
Korean dance has its own distinctive national characteristics, mainly including agricultural music dance, long drum dance, fan dance, elephant hat dance, top water dance, knife dance, etc. Among them, Nongle Dance is one of the widely circulated folk dances among the Korean people. It evolved from Nongle games. The performance is preceded by percussion instruments, gongs and drums, and the leader is a dozen gongs. The beginning of the dance, the changes in the middle, and At the end, all performances are directed by the gong player. During the performance, there must be a flag player with the eight characters "Farmers are the foundation of the world" written on the flag. He should stand in front of the gong player and dance to his heart's content, full of pride. In addition, the long drum dance is also one of the representative dances of the Korean people. It is famous both at home and abroad for its unique, elegant and elegant dance postures. Long drum dance mainly uses soft hand-carrying, shoulder-stretching, magpie steps and other movements. It is performed by carrying the long drum on the shoulder, holding the drum whip in the right hand, and beating while jumping. The body, drum and spirit are integrated into one, and are highly coordinated and harmonious. Unified, including solo dance, duet dance and group dance.
5. National Costumes:
The biggest feature of Korean traditional costumes is that they have diagonal lapels, no buttons, and are knotted with long cloth belts. Men's and women's clothing are very different. Men wear pants and women wear skirts. The characteristics of men's clothing are that the crotch and legs are wider, and the trouser legs are tied with cloth belts, which is convenient for sitting cross-legged; women wear short coats and long skirts, the length of the coats is just enough to cover the breasts, and the long skirts are as long as the heels.
Due to the flat cutting method used in Korean national costumes, when worn on the body, the straight lines appear simple and bright, while the curves appear elegant and varied, perfectly reflecting the beauty of the straight lines and curves of the clothing. At the same time, the color matching of Korean clothing follows the principle of "Yin Yang and Five Elements", using the color of clothing and the material of clothing to deduce different styles, so that contrasting color matching and similar color matching complement each other. But in general, it is most classic to use bright colors for tops and dark colors for bottoms.
The traditional costumes of the Korean nation mostly follow the folk costumes of the Lee Dynasty of Korea. They are gradually formed and fixed by the continuous evolution and development of the Korean people in their long-term production and life. They retain the distinctive features of Korean folk costumes. Features. In addition, the society, culture, and folk customs of ancient Korea were deeply influenced by the culture of the Central Plains, so they drew heavily on the costumes of the Sui and Tang Dynasties in the Central Plains, which has important reference value for studying social production and lifestyle at that time.
One of the things that marks the cultural literacy of the Korean nation is that people pay great attention to clothing and appearance. Not only that, another characteristic of North Korea's clothing is that it has always liked to wear white clothes. There are records. "Book of Sui" (Volume 81) records that "During the Three Kingdoms period of Korea, Silla's clothes were similar to those of Goryeo and Baekje, and the colors were plain." Therefore, they are known as the "white nation". "Xuanhe envoys to the Kingdom of Korea" (Volume 19) records that Korea "has great farmers and merchants, farmers are not rich or poor, merchants are not far and near, and their clothes are all made of white ramie." As for the Korean people who like to wear white clothes. There have been many opinions on the reasons for its formation in history. Among them, it is common to think that wearing white clothes comes from worshiping the sun god. In ancient times, the Korean people, like other ethnic groups, worshiped the sun, moon and stars, treating them as gods. This belief in gods had a direct impact on the color of clothing people chose. However, it is obviously not sufficient to only use this statement to explain the Korean custom of white clothes. The formation of the custom of white clothes among the Korean people stems from many factors: one is the lack of colorful clothing materials. The main clothing materials of the Korean people since ancient times are white linen, ramie cloth and cotton; the other is the Korean people’s Three Kingdoms and Goryeo Dynasties. , the clothing system established during the Li Dynasty prohibited people from wearing gorgeous colorful clothes; thirdly, the Korean nation has been "pure in all customs" since ancient times. Regardless of the origin of the Korean custom of white clothing, in the process of being passed down from generation to generation, "white clothing" has become a symbol of the nation in the minds of the Korean nation.