Happy New Year!

…according to the Gregorian calendar that is.

The Gregorian calendar

The Gregorian calendar is the most commonly used calendar in the world. And it is based on a solar calendar which means that it goes by how many times the Earth goes around the Sun. It takes approximately 365 days for the Earth to go around the Sun once. Since that’s approximately, there’s the leap year every four years to account for this.

The Lunar calendar

However, the lunar calendar goes by the phases of the moon (full, new, etc.). Then there’s a mix of the two, so the seasons align in both, called the lunisolar calendar.

South Korean calendar

Although South Korea adopted the Gregorian calendar, the traditional Korean calendar is lunisolar. The lunisolar calendar is used for observing many traditional holidays, including New Year’s (Seollal or Seolnal). And that’s actually on February 16th, 2018, not January 1st.

However, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, December 31st and January 1st, respectively, are still celebrated. It’s just not as big a deal as Seollal. Seollal is a three day holiday!

New Year’s celebration

Whichever New Year’s it is though, Gregorian or traditional Korean calendar, it’s considered a time to spend with family. This is in contrast to American culture where New Year’s is largely spent partying with friends and/or strangers. I know I’ve been to a New Year’s Eve party or two, looked around and realized that I knew only one or two people. Maybe it’s age talking, but it would’ve been much more fun to have spent it with family. But I like my family, for the most part, so I guess it depends! 😆

If you go by the lunisolar calendar (often referred to as the lunar calendar) you can celebrate New Year’s twice! So you can party it up with friends on December 31st and party it up with family on February 16th (only in 2018 because it moves around)! How awesome is that?

Two cultures, twice the fun

Sometimes I think being a child of two, or more cultures, can be a lot to handle. And I think there are some downsides, at least seemingly when you’re a kid (Korean language school on the weekends for instance – ugh!). But then there are times like these when you get to have two of something great! It’s too bad that it’s only in hindsight we can realize how much our lives are richer for such diversity. But better late than never, right? 🤗

So have a Happy New Year and let’s do it again in about two and a half months! Yay for diversity!

Did you know that these two calendars make a difference in how you calculate your age too? Check it out here!