현대 도시 공간 속 세시(歲時)의 전승과 변이양상 = Transmissions and Variations of Annual Customs in Contemporary Urban Spheres

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This article deals with annual customs in urban settings in contemporary Korean society. For instance, some traditional annual customs are still actively practiced in daily urban life in Korean society today. In particular, the Korean twenty-four divisions of a year (so called 24 Jolgi) are widely used by mass media to clarify seasonal changes. Also to some extents those 24 Jolgi time divisions have been transmitted by proverbs and folk-belief terms which are closely related to agriculture.
Relatively new annual events are also regularly and repeatedly practiced today. Those newly celebrated annual events are classified into three categories: national holidays, government approved commemoration days, commercial oriented event days. All three categories are interesting to be analysed in comparison to traditional annual customs. Yet some commercial embedded event days, such as Valentine’s day, White day, Pepero’s day, etc, are gaining popularity among younger generations in contemporary urban Korea.
Urbanization and industrialization are distinctive cultural and social substances in contemporary urban Korea. Hence annual customs are also inevitably affected by these influences. As a result, on the one hand some of the traditional annual customs changed slightly for both effectiveness and convenience, others are weakened or even disappeared. Furthermore, some new forms of contemporary annual events contain traditional substances of traditional annual customs. However, it is noticeable that traditional annual customs normally reinforce vertical connections whereas today’s annual events solidate horizontal links.