In October, we have hanro and sanggang.

   Hanro means “Cold dew starts to fall” and it falls on the 8^th of October this year.

   Sanggang means “Frost starts to fall” and it falls on the 23^rd of October this year. When sanggang is passed, weather gets cold with a big difference in temperature between day and night.

   During these seasons people are busy harvesting and threshing that there is an old saw “Even a poker jumps in autumn” which means everyone is as busy as a bee in autumn.

   Before and after hanro, people harvested rice and other crops like beans, foxtail millet and kaoliang in paddy fields and dry fields. On the other hand they sowed late wheat and barley. In sanggang period they tied cabbage for kimchi-making into bundles.

   Typical foods in October are bean foods and loach soup.

   Bean foods that people liked to have in these periods include boiled ground bean and soybean soup of Phyongan Province, soybean pancake and bean-sprout kimchi of Hamgyong Province and uncurdled bean curd soup and rice and bean curd soup of Hwanghae Province.

   Before farmers start harvesting, they used to have abundant meal with loach soup for encouraging and especially Kaesong area was famous for this soup.

   Various folk games were played in these periods. Especially, children played hide-and-seek, hopscotch, catch-the-tail and the like and these games were conspicuous.

   The 1^st of October this year is Chusok, the 15^th day of the eighth month by the lunar calendar, and it is one of the big Korean folk festivals. Chusok means “autumn evening” and it derived from celebrating the day of full moon in autumn which was a good season for all crops to ripen. On this day people first visited their ancestors’ tombs and they cut the grass and hold memorial services with the foods made from the year’s new grain. This reflected the noble customs of Korean people who respect their elders, who are polite and are faithful to duty.

   Typical folk foods on this day are songpyon (half-moon-shaped rice cake stuffed with beans and flavored with pine needles), steamed rice cake, glutinous rice-cake, chestnut dumpling, nochi (a traditional Korean fried cake), etc. Various folk games like ssirum (Korean wrestling), swinging, tug of war, ox-game (a game which is played with masks and things shaped in ox), tortoise-game (a game which is played with masks and things shaped in tortoise), weaving game (a dance that describes weaving) were played.