I don’t really know how it is possible that I have lived in Korea for so long with knowing about the concept of “solar terms.” Perhaps I was exposed to it and it didn’t stick.
I’ve been watching the Korean 24 hour news channel a lot on TV lately. Mostly, that’s because I’m curious about what’s going on with North Korea – I’m not really that worried, but those around me – my students and coworkers – like to worry about it, so I try to keep up. Regardless, having Korean-language programming running in the background when I’m at home feels virtuous, because I am hopefully picking up bits of Korean.
Today, on the news, during the weather report, the announcer said today was 처서 [cheoseo]. I wondered what that was, and so I looked it up. Specifically, today is the “start” of 처서. It’s a Chinese calendrical concept, the division of the year into 24 named periods called solar terms, each of which is subdivided into 3 pentads of 5 or so days. This must be linked to the every-five-daily market day pattern I remember becoming so aware of when I lived in Yeonggwang. Anyway, you can read about it on the wiki thing.
The name Cheoseo is Sino-Korean [hanja 處暑], and means “limit of heat.” Pretty much appropriate.
Happy Cheoseo.
[daily log: walking, 2km]