Jeju, which has lived on despite the limits of being an island, its barren land, and harsh wind and rain, preserves folk culture distinct from other regions. Although time has passed and generations have changed, the Lunar New Year holiday remains filled with a distinctly Jeju character.

In Jeju, Lunar New Year's Day is called ‘Jeongwol Mengjil (January festival)’ or ‘Seol Mengjil (Lunar New Year festival)’. In particular, instead of gathering at the eldest family home on the mainland for a joint charye, relatives visit, one by one, the households within the eighth degree of kinship that host the rites and conduct them together. Jeju residents say they ‘go to eat mengjil (to eat)’ when visiting the homes of relatives.

In the past, they typically visited 5~6 places, and as many as around 10. Making the rounds of households within the eighth degree of kinship to perform rites for ancestors from great-great-grandparents down to parents and then to drink the ritual wine often meant spending the whole day of the holiday on rites. However, during COVID-19, meetings among many relatives were restricted, and the custom of visiting each home to conduct the rites was greatly reduced.

Kim (54·Sinchon, Jeju City) said, “Until just a few years ago, I went around to half a dozen homes to eat mengjil, and by the time everything was finished, it was often late afternoon,” adding, “With COVID-19 prevention measures limiting group visits, much of this culture has disappeared, and lately the trend is to observe it only with immediate family.”

By contrast, Kang (56·Yeongpyeong-dong, Jeju City) explained, “I used to visit 6~7 homes, but recently it has been reduced to three,” adding, “Even after COVID, going around to eat mengjil remains the same, but as some rites have disappeared, the number of homes visited has decreased.”

Holding a ‘Munjeonje’ by setting up a small ritual table at the front door before the main ancestral rite is also a unique Jeju custom.

In Jeju, in addition to the table for the ancestral spirits, each household prepares a separate small table, the ‘Munjeonsang’, and offers a rite to the Munjeon god. The Munjeon god, the seventh son of Lady Yeosan who appears in Jeju’s ‘Munjeon Bonpuri’ myth, is regarded as the foremost household deity who protects the entire home.

Munjeonje is not part of formal Confucian etiquette. As a shamanic ritual in which indigenous belief is blended with Confucian-style ancestral ceremonies, it is regarded as a uniquely Jeju form of rite.

The offerings on the charye table are also distinctive. On Jeju tables, instead of the usual rice cakes, it is common to see castella, bingtteok, roll cake, and sweet red-bean buns. Recently, the varieties have become even more diverse, such as gamgyul gwajeul and yakgwa.

This is thought to stem from a custom shaped by Jeju’s geographic conditions, where rice cultivation was difficult, in which people filled the table with care using ingredients easier to obtain than rice cakes. For the soup placed on the table, many households serve okdom seaweed soupmade by thoroughly simmering a fresh, large okdom and removing the bonesinstead of beef soup.