COVID-19 Hampered South Korea's Chuseok Holiday — But Daughters-In-Law Got A Break
Women usually clean and cook at their in-laws' — but many stayed home this year. "It's difficult to understand why we have to do so much hard work when it's not even for our own ancestors," one says.
The mid-autumn harvest festival of Chuseok is one of South Korea's biggest holidays. Families typically return to their hometowns to perform ancestral rites, preparing elaborate feasts and visiting and tidying their ancestors' burial grounds.
It is a holiday deeply rooted in tradition. On the morning of Chuseok, children wear traditional bright, flowing silk hanbok garments and bow to their elders. Dishes of rice cakes, fruits, vegetables, fish and liquor are all laid across a table as offerings to the ancestors.
For many married women, though, the tradition means not getting much of a holiday at
