Which two big holidays do Koreans cherish as the nation's foremost, when families gather to hold ancestral rites and eat songpyeon and tteokguk?

Seollal, the Lunar New Year, and Chuseok, the mid-autumn harvest festival on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month, are Korea's two most important traditional holidays, both centered on family gathering and honoring ancestors through memorial rites. Seasonal foods mark each one — tteokguk and sebae bows at Seollal, songpyeon and grave visits at Chuseok.

Halloween and Christmas are modern, largely commercial or Western-origin holidays with no ancestral-rite tradition in Korea, and April Fools' Day and Liberation Day are either a minor joke day or a single-day national holiday, not multi-day family gatherings.

Because both holidays follow the lunar calendar, their dates shift each year on the solar calendar, and the resulting mass travel period is informally nicknamed Korea's version of a national migration.