Chongmyong, one of the 24 seasonal divisions that falls on April 5 or 6, is the day when the clear and bright spring weather begins.
From olden times, the Chongroan people visited their ancestors’ graves on mountains on the day and tended them by covering them with turf and piling up earth on the mound lowered through the winter before paying tribute. They also moved graves to other places and this is called the removal of grave or ijang (exhuming and burying in another place) and kaejang (reburial).
Chongmyong also meant the start of full-scale farming of the year.
In the past, farmers soaked rice seeds in water before and after Chongmyong and sprayed them on rice-seedling beds. In the northern mountainous areas they planted late potatoes in the period.
And when it came around, people spring-cleaned their houses to remove the traces of winter and planted the seeds of various species of flowers including balsam and zinnia in their gardens and fruit trees around their houses.
Women mostly played swinging from Chongmyong to May when the air is full of spring.
The custom of observing Chongmyong, along with Chusok (the 15th day of the eighth month by the lunar calendar) has been handed down up to now as the day associated with the traditional good manners and customs peculiar to the Chongroan nation.
It falls on April 5 this year.
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