Korean Huajiali
01 · Historical Records
The Korean ethnic group has since ancient times regarded respect for the elderly as an important principle in family and even in social life. The Huajia ceremony (the 60th-birthday rite) is an important life-cycle custom of the Korean ethnic group, held for an elder who reaches the age of 60. It evolved out of the customs of birthday celebration and respect for the aged, taking shape between the mid-17th and mid-18th centuries, and is mainly transmitted in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Korean ethnic settlements across the three provinces of Northeast China. On the day a Korean ethnic elder turns 60, the children lay out a banquet and invite relatives, friends and neighbors to gather together, expressing gratitude for their parents' upbringing. The Huajia ceremony of the Korean ethnic group carries forward the national virtue of honoring the aged. It deepens the bonds between father and son, grandparent and grandchild, and daughter-in-law and parents-in-law, helping to promote healthy social customs and accelerate the building of a harmonious society.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Offering longevity wishes is the basic rite of the Huajia ceremony. The banquet table is laden with sweets, fish and meat, cakes and alcoholic drinks. The 60-year-old elder sits at the center of the seat of honor, with men on the left and women on the right, receiving the good wishes of the assembled guests together with peers among relatives, friends and neighbors. As the rite begins, those offering wishes come forward in order — children by seniority, relatives and friends by closeness of relation — toasting, kowtowing, presenting poems and prayers, or singing and dancing to wish the elder health and long life. The whole ceremony is filled with humane care and a warm, harmonious atmosphere.
The seat of honour, men left and women right
The celebrant sits in the centre with peers ranged left and right, so all toasts turn one way.
Toasts ordered by age and closeness
Well-wishers step up by generation and by closeness, each offering wine before stepping aside for the next.
Three ways to offer good wishes
One toast may be a bow, a recited verse or a song and dance, so the same table serves all ages.
Grown out of a birthday rite
What began as a birthday wish hardened into a rite fixed to the sixtieth year, which is why it weighs so much.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Huajia ceremony took root in Dandong as Korean ethnic migrants settled there one wave after another. Dandong faces Korea across the river, and the Korean ethnic villages of the area are mostly made up of neighbors from the same place of origin. When one household holds a Huajia ceremony, guests sharing the same surname or the same village often form a circle around the banquet tables, and both the seating order and the sequence of toasts follow the rules left by the founding families. On the occasion of a 60th birthday, many of those who come to celebrate are also kin from neighboring villages who migrated in the same year; even after the banquet ends, a further round of return courtesies must still be made. Over the course of a year, the relatives visited on these occasions often outnumber all those visited on ordinary days combined.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Korean Huajiali · Korean Huajiali.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The practical function of the Huajia ceremony in Dandong is to give a family an occasion for placing the elder at the center. On ordinary days each household and each trade goes its own way; only on this day does the whole village gather in one place, and the toasts, table talk, songs and dances at the banquet are all spoken face to face by juniors and peers — something more concrete than merely talking about filial piety. The name "Huajia" is taken from the sixty-year cycle of the sexagenary calendar, placing the turning of the years upon the elder, so that the length of his or her life gains a name that can be pointed to. Once the rite has been performed, the elder's standing in the clan has been publicly confirmed once more.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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