This year 5th February 2000 was the New Year for Asian countries like Korea, Japan and China. This is by the lunar calendar. This year is the Year of the Dragon and every 12 years the same animal comes back. I was born in the dragon year, which is said to be very lucky. On my birthday I'm already 12 in my Korean age. All the animals of the years go in the order of who runs the fastest: mouse, bull, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, chicken, dog and pig. Most of my classmates are a dragon or a snake.

For our New Year we don't do things similar to the way they celebrate New Year in Holland. In China there are fireworks for new year, but not in Korea. (See Korean New Year).

When we wake up we have to freshen our mind and we normally clean our house before that day. For breakfast we eat a soup with all kinds of Korean food in it. It's called "Tuc Guc". Tuc means rice cake and Guc means soup.

After breakfast we go to our grandparents and do a big bow sitting down with our full costume on. The real full costume even has a false hairpiece, or a very pretty hat, but the false hair is normally for the brides. The children do a big bow to the adults and it's rude to bow to your mum and dad first. After this we get money and they will say good things about our future. So New Year's day is probably a very good day for the children who get money.

In the olden times people used to meet together outside and women did a sort of "swinging seesaw". The men will do Sumo wrestling known as "Shee ruim". They also did a game called "Yut no re" where you throw 4 fat short sticks and you put your player on the board. You might stay up very late for a party.

On 1st January, the Dutch New Year, we also had a party to see the firewords, but the real New Year (for us) was celebrated very differently.

We cleaned the whole house the day before and when we woke up we ate the soup and then bowed. I got money from my mum and dad and then my mum said "Do as good as you are doing now, that will do for me" and my dad said "Grow taller. Drink more milk". To my brother my dad said "Concentrate on your work and do your best at all times" and my mum said "You grew a lot in the past few months and now you have to study more." We ran off and my wallet was full. Only I could wear my costume because my brother's was given to someone because it was too small. At night three other Korean families came to us and I could stay up until 12 o'clock. The parents did "Yut no re" and the big brothers let off fireworks (they weren't allowed to actually!). I had a fantastic new year.