Winter, Seen Through Its Rituals
- The Stressed Potato Itself
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
Look closely at winter, and you’ll see a country’s habits, rhythms, and emotional temperature.
Winter in Korea doesn’t arrive with a single moment. It appears slowly — in the smell of fresh kimchi being packed into jars, in the quiet uniformity of padded jackets, in warm breaths escaping sauna doors, and in the glow of year-end stages filling living rooms.
The season transforms behaviour, emotion, and rhythm, turning everyday life into a familiar set of rituals that return year after year.
Here’s what winter quietly reveals.
1. Kimchi & Winter Foods (김장 gimjang)
Gimjang, or Kimchi-making, is one of Korea’s most meaningful winter traditions — not a recipe, but a community act. Families, neighbours, and even office teams come together to prepare large batches of kimchi to survive the cold months. It’s a slow, physical process that ties people together and preserves both flavour and relationship.
The scent of gochugaru (고춧가루), garlic, and salted cabbage signals winter even before temperatures drop. Many households rely on kimchi fridges (김치냉장고, gimchi naengjanggo ) dedicated solely to storing these batches, treating kimchi as both food and memory.
Street stalls release their iconic seasonal treats: hotteok (호떡), bungeoppang (붕어빵), eomuk (어묵), roasted sweet potato (고구마,goguma).
Convenience stores join the season too, releasing limited-edition winter snacks — sweet potato chips, marshmallow drinks, strawberry-flavoured winter editions — tiny joys people wait for every year.
Department stores curate winter gift boxes of kimchi, pancakes (전 jeon), and dumplings (만두 mandu), turning food into gifts of warmth.
2. Puffer Jackets (패딩 paeding)
The black/grey puffer, or paeding (패딩), becomes the country’s unofficial uniform the moment temperatures dip. It’s practical, predictable, and deeply symbolic of Korean winter — a season where comfort truly outweighs flair.
But even within monotone simplicity, quiet aesthetic codes exist. Subtle differences in quilting, the exact length of the coat, zipper quality, collar height, and minimal branding reveal personal style while still fitting into the collective rhythm of winter dressing.
Long padded coats (long paeding 롱패딩) travelled from school playgrounds to idol airport fashion and now dominate sidewalks everywhere. Their purpose is simple: warmth first, noise later.
Winter fashion here is never loud — it’s intentional, minimal, and quietly expressive.
3. First Snow (첫눈 cheotnun)
The term "first snow" has much deeper meaning than being just a weather report. It is a culturally significant moment that has an emotional connection with communication, chance, nostalgia, and the experience of fate unexpectedly interrupting a person's everyday life
Group chats instantly fill with “첫눈 왔다!” (cheotnun watda!). People rush outside, even for a few seconds, just to confirm the season’s arrival with their own eyes. Couples treat it as a small milestone, believing that seeing the first snow together strengthens the relationship.
Social media shifts into softness — blurred city lights, snow on gloves, quiet captions. Adults use the moment as a small act of introspection, grounding themselves before the year clicks to an end.
The first snow becomes a pause in motion, a simple ritual everyone instinctively honours.
4. Sauna Culture (찜질방 jjimjilbang)
Jjimjilbang (찜질방) is winter’s warmest refuge — part bathhouse, part rest space, part healing ritual. These 24-hour complexes offer rooms of dry heat, mineral steam, ice baths, and heated floors, each designed to slow the body down from the inside.
People transition through cycles of heat and cold, ending with naps on warm (온돌, ondol) floors. The familiar pairing of rice punch (식혜 sikhye) and steamed eggs marks the “reward” phase of the ritual.
Families visit together, treating jjimjilbang as an affordable winter outing. Students camp inside to escape cold dorms. Office workers use it as an emotional reset — a place where the mind can finally unclench.
The towel sheep-hair wraps, (양은머리), adds a playful touch, softening the seriousness of winter outside.
5. Year-End Performances & Awards Season (연말 시상식 yeonmal sisangsik)
Winter in Korea doubles as the entertainment finale of the year. The country enters a month-long sequence of performances, retrospectives, and cultural celebrations.
Music shows — MMA, MAMA, SBS Gayo Daejeon (가요대전), and KBS Gayo Daechukje (가요대축제) — fill screens with winter-themed stages, emotional performances, and unexpected collaborations. Families and friends gather under blankets and heated floors, turning these shows into warm group rituals.
The season expands beyond idols. KBS, MBC, and SBS host their drama, film, and variety award ceremonies, bringing red carpets, speeches, daesang winners, and yearly highlights. It’s a nationwide ritual of looking back — not just at entertainment, but at the stories and moments that shaped the year.
In a culture that moves quickly, this reflective pause becomes meaningful.
6. Lunar New Year Preparation (설날 Seollal)
Seollal (설날), the Lunar New Year, is one of the most important family holidays. Though the festival arrives in late winter, its emotional groundwork begins long before.
Families start planning travel, gatherings, and traditions:
• wearing traditional clothes (한복 hanbok),
• bowing to elders (세배 sebae),
• receiving money gifts (세뱃돈 sebaetdon),
• eating rice cake soup (떡국 tteokguk), the soup that officially adds “one more year” to your age,
• visiting ancestral graves (seongmyo 성묘).
Winter becomes the gentle ramp into renewal — a season that prepares the heart for a fresh beginning.
7. Winter Sounds, Scents & Treats (Seasonal Micro-Rituals)
Winter in Korea is also defined by smaller sensory traditions — changes that aren’t dramatic, but deeply felt.
• Season’s Greetings Sets (시즌그리팅) At the end of each year, K-pop groups release limited-edition “Season’s Greetings” packages: calendars, DVDs, winter-themed photocards, and photo books. It becomes an annual ritual for fans to collect and start the year fresh with their favorite artists.
• Tea Season Cafés shift their menus to warm, soothing drinks: yuzu tea (유자차), ginger tea (생강차 saenggangcha), jujube tea (대추차 daechucha). These aren’t just beverages — they signal the season’s emotional transition.
• Winter Café Aesthetic Interiors turn warmer, more wood-toned. Seasonal desserts appear. Windows fog. The atmosphere itself becomes part of the ritual.
• Iced Americanos No matter how cold the weather is, Koreans still always have their emotional support iced americano, or for short, "ah-ah" (아-아), with them.
Small, sensory shifts like these shape how winter feels on a daily level.
What These Rituals Reveal
1. Winter is shaped as much by people as by weather.
Gimjang, saunas, first snow, Seollal prep, performances — all experienced together.
2. Winter creates a natural slowdown.
Heat rooms, snowfalls, warm jackets, and award shows — everything encourages stillness.
3. Predictability becomes comfort.
The same foods, same jackets, same seasonal releases, same rhythms come back each year like clockwork.
4. Practicality becomes aesthetic.
Muted colours, simple foods, warm spaces — understated beauty defines winter.
5. Winter becomes a quiet reset.
Through rituals big and small, the season prepares the mind for renewal.
Winter doesn’t just cool the air — it reshapes behaviour, rituals, and the emotional rhythm of a culture, returning each year like a familiar, comforting pattern.
~Hiyaa
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