FestivalEast Asia · Korea
Dano
No rule yet
Nobody has written a rule for this observance yet, so the calendar does not put it on a day. A name with a made-up date beside it would be worse than a name on its own.
In short
Midsummer in Korea, marked with swinging and wrestling.
The story
The fifth day of the fifth month, the old Korean midsummer, kept when the sowing was done and before the work of the harvest. It shares its date with the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival and is not the same festival. Korean lunisolar calendar, not computed here.
Retold from the Gujarati household practice
Why it matters
The fifth day of the fifth month, at the turn into summer: hair washed in water boiled with sweet flag, swinging contests for women and ssireum wrestling for men, and surichwi rice cakes. It was once one of Korea's three great festivals.
What people do
Women wash their hair in water boiled with sweet flag, and swing standing up on long ropes; men wrestle at ssireum for a prize that was traditionally an ox. Surichwi rice cakes are made. The Gangneung Danoje, with its mask plays and shaman rites, runs for weeks.
Retold from the Gujarati household practice
Told differently elsewhere
Now much diminished as a national observance and kept fully in only a few places - Gangneung Danoje, a month-long shamanic festival on the east coast, is recognised by UNESCO and is where the old form survives. The same date is the Dragon Boat Festival in China.
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