Asian Folkways and Customs

Traditional families in Korea were usually extended families with 3~4 generations living together, as it was a custom in Korea to have a large number of people in the family. However, with the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization and the establishment of population control policies in the 1960s and 1970s, the traditional culture of the extended family style gradually disappeared. By 1980, the average number of children per family was reduced to one or two. However, there are still traces of the patriarchal ideology, such as the preference for the eldest son and the son. In order to break this mentality, the government legislated that men and women have equal rights in inheritance.

Today's young Koreans have almost all freed themselves from the extended family system and started their own small families alone. The shape of the family in Korea is now mainly a small family centered on a couple.

Names

Koreans have the most common surnames, Kim (21 percent), Lee (14 percent), Park (8 percent), Choi, Jung, Jang, Han, and Lim, and most of the names consist of a family name and a two-syllable given name. Korean women do not take their husband's name after marriage, but children must take their father's name.

Marriage

Marriage is a major rite of passage for Koreans. Although statistics show that the divorce rate has increased dramatically in Korea in recent times, divorce is still a dishonorable event for the people involved and their respective families. Korean weddings now take place in a different way than in the past: the bride and groom, dressed in white wedding dresses and tuxedos, are married in a Western ceremony at a wedding hall or church, and then transferred to a room called the "Coinpal Room" where they change into gorgeous traditional wedding attire for the traditional wedding ceremony. (Gumbo, understood as a Korean tradition, refers to the custom of the bride and groom bowing to the parents and relatives of the man during the wedding ceremony, and is the first time the bride formally meets the man's relatives)

Ancestor worship (paying homage to ancestors)

Traditional beliefs of the Korean people mean that there is a spirit that exists after the death of a human being. Therefore, except for the anniversary of the death of an ancestor, on traditional festivals such as the Lunar New Year and the Mid-Autumn Festival, future generations will summon the spirits of their ancestors by paying homage to them. Koreans believe that with this special ritual they can be reunited with their departed loved ones and use it to pray for the blessing of their ancestors' spirits in heaven.

Ondol

The most representative feature of Korean house design is the [Ondol] style of heated kang. Originally, the heat generated by burning wood in the kitchen or in a cooking pit outside the house was used to warm the whole room through a pipe under the face of the house. The [Ondol]-style warmth is good for health as it is warm in winter and cool in summer. Therefore, [Ondol]-style heaters are still used in high-class apartment complexes and buildings in modern cities to transfer heat from modern heating equipment

Korean Traditional Clothing

Hanbok is the traditional clothing of the Korean nation that has evolved from the ancient times to the modern times. The lines of hanbok are both curvy and straight, especially the short tops and long skirts of women's hanbok, which are thin at the top and thick at the bottom, and are dignified and elegant. Nowadays, most of the people are used to wearing western clothes, but many of them still love to wear traditional national costumes on festivals such as the Lunar New Year's Eve (Mid-Autumn Festival), or for weddings. For women, jeogori is a short blouse with an elegant long skirt, while for men, a short tunic is worn with long pants, with a thin belt (daenim) holding the wide leg of the pants in place. The colors of the tops and skirts are colorful, and some are even embroidered with brightly colored brocade.

Traditional Korean Houses

The traditional Korean houses remained unchanged from the Three Kingdoms period (57~668 B.C.) to the late Joseon Dynasty (1392~1910). It was only slightly improved in some aspects to adapt to the different climates of the cold north and the warm south. The main materials used to build traditional style houses were clay and wood. Clay separates the interior from the heat of the outdoors. The black tiles used on the roof are made of clay. They are usually red in color. Moreover, the frames of Korean-style houses are made of wooden stakes without nails. A simple traditional house has a rectangular floor, a kitchen, and a bedroom on one side to form an 'L' shape, and later a 'U' shape or a square with a yard in the center. The upper class house consisted of several separate buildings, one for the women and children, one for the men of the family and their guests, called the "wing", and one for the servants. All of these were within a walled enclosure.