Korea is the most seasonal place I’ve ever lived. That is to say, it’s the place with the most distinct seasons. With a regularity that seems to defy global warming (though that is no doubt changing), the seasons arrive mostly on the northern hemisphere schedule. It’s freezing in the winter, a humid swamp in the summer, and utterly delightful in the spring and autumn. Each season is so different and there is very little of the drab drizzle that plagues Britain for much of the year, nor the extremes of tornado or hurricane seasons of the US south, where I grew up.

This seasonal shift is also underpinned by the lunar calendar, which comes with its own holidays and rhythms, the most recent of which was Chuseok, which falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, this year landing on a still-warm September 25. The Chinese root of the word comes from jungchu (mid-autumn) and wolseok (moonlit evening), and the Chinese version of the word chuseok means ‘a moonlit night in late autumn’, a lovely mental image, conjuring up cool air and bright moonlight as summer winds down.

Chuseok for centuries was a time to welcome the beginning of the harvest season and enjoy seeing the hard work of the spring and summer come to fruition. Of course, modern Korean is no longer a land of farmers, and the rituals of this holiday have slowly adjusted to the modern age. Now it’s a long weekend that is used for visiting family. Certainly, Seoul empties out and the city has a feel reminiscent of Christmas in London, albeit with far warmer temperatures. My past three Chuseoks have all enjoyed what I would consider to be summer weather, and I made the inevitable error of comparing it to the United States’ much later Thanksgiving, at the end of November, which marks the emotional start of winter. Chuseok feels too warm to be a harvest festival, but as the National Folk Museum of Korea’s lovely guide, A Year in Korea, points out, it’s the start of the harvesting time — the work still lies ahead, stretching into winter. Chuseok is a time to give thanks for what is to be collected from the earth, including rice, millet, beans, and vegetables. It is also a time to pause and pay respects to the ancestors, reminding me of All Soul’s Day and Dia de los Muertos, both autumnal rituals in the west.

Now, just over a month on from Chuseok, the temperatures are slipping and a true autumnal nip is in the air. I don’t see many fields from my perch in central Seoul, but I imagine the radishes and cabbages are being pulled from the ground and readied for their winter journey into kimchi.

Kimchi, for anyone not familiar with Korean cooking, is a dish of seasoned and fermented cabbages, radishes, or other vegetables eaten pretty much every day, often as part of the side dishes (banchan) that constitute a meal. Today, of course, kimchi can be bought in a store, or ordered online, but back when Chuseok was an agricultural holiday, kimchi was made at home. This process was known as kimjang, when a great deal of kimchi was made at once and then preserved to be eaten through the winter. This ritual is so important to the cultural life of Korea that in 2013 it was named a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.

So what better time of year to hold a kimchi festival? That is the thinking in Gwangju, which had its 33rd annual festivities this past weekend (23-25 October). Some friends from the US were visiting and given that we are all lovers of good kimchi, we decided to head to Gwangju — about two hours south of Seoul on the KTX fast trains — to experience this celebration of Korea’s most famous dish.

The only thing not delightful about this event was that the recent Champi typhoon that hurtled through the East China Sea left some rainy weather in its wake. But that didn’t deter us from sampling all — and I mean all — the delights. There are so many varieties of kimchi in terms of vegetables used, seasonings employed, and heat levels. The mood was undimmed by the rain and there were cultural and musical performances, including an animated DJing Radish inviting us over pulsating beats to enjoy this kimchi party. There were tasty kimchi pancakes (my favourite) and other delectable treats, all centred on this national dish.

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What I’ve been … reading: On the Beach

I can’t image what would have got me thinking about the end of the world in such stable, peaceful times as these, but I was an apocalyptic frame of mind and was looking for a quick read. I turned to On the Beach, a 1957 novel by Nevil Shute and a Hollywood film a couple of years later. Shute was a popular British novelist in the 1950s, considered to be a bit middlebrow but quite commercially successful in his time. Whatever his reputation, the conceit of this particular novel is sharp. There has been a nuclear war in the northern hemisphere, wiping out all humanity; however, it takes some time for the radiation to reach the southern hemisphere, where the protagonists wait for the inevitable. The plot centres on a brief moment of hope, where a submarine crew goes on a mission to find signs of life, but only end up confirming what is to come. In the meantime, hardy Australians in Melbourne keep it together — socialising, racing cars, planting gardens — until they ultimately fray as the last places on earth fall ill to fatal radiation poisoning. It’s not exactly the most cheerful read. However, the fact that not only does it resonate with our times, it seems entirely probable, speaks to the persistence of the nuclear threat well beyond the era of Cold War stand-offs. It is also a useful reminder of what a fragile hold we humans have on our own survival.

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