Spam for the Chinese New Year

Today is Sollal—the Lunar New Year or Chinese New Year—in Korea one of the nation’s most celebrated holidays and noted for the mass migration of families to their hometowns and subsequent notorious traffic gridlock on the highways.

Equally celebrated to a lesser degree is the giving of gifts (which is also done at Chusok, Korea’s Thanksgiving holiday)—more specifically—boxed gift sets including, but not limited to toothpaste, soap, tuna fish, sesame seed oil, coffee, whiskey and Spam. That’s right, boxed gift sets of Spam. I guess if Spam was your thing, it would be really cool to get a gift set of it for Sollal or Chusok (Spam is one of the main ingredients in budae-chigae, a spicy stew which also consists of kimchi, hot dogs, onions, thin rice cakes, and ramen).
With the entire nation on holiday, most stores are closed today. However, yesterday those stores, which were opened, were crowded with customers doing their last minute shopping before they took to the roads or before family members came to Daejeon. Down the street at GS Mart, Korea’s equivalent of a Costco or Carrefour, there was a sizable crowd finishing up their shopping. Amid the throng of shoppers about a dozen Korean women—young and old—decked out in their colorful and elegant hanboks were busy touting these gift boxed sets to any customer who walked by.
A few of the younger ladies spoke a little English and tried to get me to buy some of the gift sets they were selling. They were pretty cute and charming as they tried out their limited language skills talking to me, and perhaps hoping that I would buy one of the gift sets. Sorry ladies, just looking today. As much as I would like to receive such a gift (believe it or not, I have never received such a gift for as long as I have been in Korea) I wasn’t about to buy one for myself.
I might not have bought anything from these ladies, but at least I got them to pose for a few quick photos. What could be more Asian than having them flash the “peace sign” when they’ve had their photo taken?

In the meantime, I will leave the Spam, the coffee and the little dried fish sets for another time. With most shops and restaurants closed for the next two days, I have other more pressing concerns: what and where am I going to eat today?