시제

At the weekend, we travelled on the new 300km/h train to the south-west of Korea for the annual 시제 (si-je) at the family burial site.

The graves are near the top of a hill - it's no joke trekking up there wearing a suit and leather shoes.

Since we arrived from Seoul the evening before, the women had to prepare four large meals: a dinner for about fifteen people, breakfast, the formal feast for the ancestors themselves, and finally a picnic (some of which consists of what the ancestors were unable to finish).

The graves themselves have a head-stone and also a grassed dome under which the remains are kept.

The feast is served on a stone table in front of each of the graves, starting at the top of the hill where the oldest of the ancestors are buried. The oldest people buried at this location are 고조할아버지 and 고조할머니 (our great, great grandparents).

The order and nature of the food is important. As well as serving food here, a smaller simultaneous ceremony is taking place a short distance away to offer food to the ghosts who inhabit the mountain. Neither of the feasts includes any red food, as it was thought to scare the ghosts in ancient times. These days, the living eat southern-style bright red salty kimchi on the mountain as soon as the ceremony is over.

Although 세은 (say-eun) is only eighteen months old and is visiting for the first time, she does not need to be told to bow. Indeed, even as someone who grew up in another world, the ceremony seems surprisingly natural. This tradition is as old as history itself; our family book alone has a detailed and trusted family tree going back forty-five generations (approximately 1,200 years).

As we move down the hill repeating the ceremony, 인환 (In-hwan) chants the latest family news to each set of ancestors: 정원 (Jung-won) has obtained a Ph.D from London university and has married an English person. His speech uses arcane language and the rest of the family can only pick up key words here and there.

Although 세은's intentions are good, her physical dexterity is still somewhat lacking:

As we reach the lowest of the graves, some family members are bowing at the graves of their own parents. There are also some empty graves, complete with tomb-stones, prepared for the next generation. This is partially to encourage the continuation of the traditions in these changing times. On marriage, Korean women leave their birth family and are consequently buried with the family into which they marry. However, in our case this would have meant that Jung-won and I could neither be buried in the traditional way, nor join an annual 시제. It seems that even 고조할아버지 is not immune to the white heat of change here in Korea.

There are more pictures from the event.