1st Birthday Party
To show one of the Korean traditions practiced, I decided to share some clips from my 1st birthday party. (Note to revisers: I'll be re-recording these clips as I was watching them with my family so there's background noise). This birthday is celebrated similarly to a ceremony and its purpose is, "to bless the child with a prosperous future and a healthy life ahead."
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On the table, you can see certain foods such as ricecakes, fruits, crackers, etc. adorned as part of the setup for this ceremony.
During this ceremony, there is an event known as the "Dolijabi" in which 6-8 items are placed in front of the child and 1 or 2 are picked which represents a certain future of the child in respects to either their career or lifestyle. There is no restriction to what items you can place, but here are some examples:
pen and/or book - study well
rice - rich
string - long life
money - rich
gavel - lawyer
stethoscope - doctor
microphone - performing artist
100th Day Celebration
Similarly to the 1st birthday party, there is a celebration to mark being 100 days old. This is tradition as in older times, newborn babies would often pass away due to disease and the survival rate would be very old. "To protect their children, parents refrained from taking the baby outdoors until the 100th day after his or her birth." This celebration is known as "Baek-il."
