When Autumn Starts at 32 Degrees

It is 32 degrees in Busan. The air is thick, the humidity sticks to your skin, and simply walking 200 metres feels like a poor life decision.

And yet, according to the traditional Korean calendar, autumn has already begun.

Today, 9 August, I am having lunch with Nara and her mom, my mother-in-law. On the table is samgyetang (삼계탕): a whole young chicken in a steaming broth, filled with rice, garlic, jujube and ginseng.

Outside, the temperature is well over 30 degrees.

Naturally, we are eating boiling hot soup.

This is Korea.

Twenty-four seasons, not four

The traditional East Asian calendar divides the year into 24 seasonal periods, called 절기 (jeolgi) in Korean.

Twenty-four.

Coming from the Netherlands, where we generally manage with spring, summer, autumn and winter — plus several months that can best be described as “grey” — this takes some getting used to.

One of those 24 periods is Ipchu (입추), literally the beginning of autumn.

This year, Ipchu fell on 7 August.

Now, nobody in Busan seems to have informed the weather.

There are no cool autumn breezes. Nobody is reaching for a jacket. The air conditioning is still doing overtime and walking outside around lunchtime remains a questionable decision.

But according to the traditional calendar, we have crossed the line.

Autumn has officially begun.

Unfortunately, summer has not finished

And that brings us to today.

Korea traditionally has three particularly hot summer periods, known together as Sambok (삼복).

The last of these is Malbok (말복).

That is today: 9 August.

So we are in the slightly confusing situation where autumn has already started, while at the same time we are marking one of the hottest periods of summer.

Korean calendars apparently cope quite well with contradiction.

Malbok is also one of the traditional days for eating samgyetang.

The reasoning is straightforward: when the summer heat is draining your energy, eat something nourishing to build it up again.

There is even an old expression for the approach: 이열치열 — fight heat with heat.

Which explains why, while every instinct tells me that a cold beer and an ice cream would be the more sensible response to August, my lunch is currently bubbling.

My mother-in-law does not find any of this strange

For me, there is a story here: the traditional calendar, Ipchu, Malbok, ginseng, old ideas about the seasons.

For my mother-in-law, it is basically lunch.

And that is often how you stumble across Korean traditions.

Not at a cultural festival. Not in a museum. And certainly not because somebody announces: “Today I will explain an interesting Korean custom to the foreigner.”

You simply find yourself sitting at a table, eating something, and discover that there is a reason why everybody else is eating exactly the same thing.

Today it is samgyetang.

The chicken is stuffed with glutinous rice and served in a rich broth with garlic, jujube and, importantly, ginseng. It is filling, warming and surprisingly pleasant even when the weather is doing its best to melt you.

And judging by the number of people eating it today, we are not exactly alone in this experiment.

So is it summer or autumn?

Technically: both.

Ipchu tells us that autumn has begun.

Malbok tells us that summer still has one last serious attempt to cook us.

That sounds about right for early August in Busan.

The traditional calendar is not really saying that summer suddenly ends and autumn starts. It marks the point where the year begins moving in that direction.

The thermometer, meanwhile, has its own opinion.

So today I learned two things over lunch with my mother-in-law.

First, according to the traditional calendar, autumn is already on its way.

Second, autumn apparently begins with a boiling chicken.

I am still working on that one.

— Riemer Kramer, Our Busan Life