Hwangap: Korea's 60th Birthday and the Sixty-Year Cycle

Hwangap: Korea's 60th Birthday and the Sixty-Year Cycle

Hwangap is the Korean celebration of a 60th birthday, based on the sixty-year cycle of stem-branch pairs. It is the birthday that comes sixty years after you were born, and by the way Koreans count age, it falls at 61. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture says Koreans regard hwangap as a milestone to be celebrated greatly in life, and hold a big feast for it. This guide connects it to saju (Korean four-pillar astrology), the tradition that reads the year, month, day and hour of birth.

This is a tour of a custom and a calendar, shared for curiosity and reflection; it does not predict anyone's future.

What "hwangap" means: the cycle comes home

In the tradition, each year is named by a pair of two characters: one of ten heavenly stems and one of twelve earthly branches. Run the two lists side by side and the pairs repeat every sixty years. (We explain the stem-and-branch math in a separate Learn article, so we will keep it light here.)

The Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture glosses hwangap as meaning that the "gap" (the first heavenly stem) of the sixty-pair cycle has returned, and as a name for age 61. In the tradition, this is the year when the stem-branch pair of your birth year comes around again. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture describes hwangap as the birthday a person meets sixty years after birth, which by the Korean age count is the birthday at 61.

The day has several names. Besides hwangap, you will see hoegap, hwagap and jugap. The folk encyclopedia notes that hoegap is the word preferred by intellectuals and middle-class citizens in the capital region, while ordinary people across the country use hwangap. The person celebrating is sometimes called the gapju, and the birthday itself the gamnal.

How old is the custom?

The folk encyclopedia traces the earliest written mention to the Goryeosa, the official history of the Goryeo kingdom. In an entry for 1296, King Chungnyeol was 61, and a fortune teller said that the hwangap year was a year of misfortune. In response, the king granted pardons to prisoners.

For the word hoegap, the same encyclopedia points to the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty for 1682. It was recorded that the next year would be the hoegap year of Queen Dowager Jaui, and that even the humblest commoners, when a parent reached hoegap, would strain wine, prepare food and gather their relatives to celebrate. So by the late 1600s, the record treats the party as something common people did too.

The traditional hwangap party, step by step

The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture gives a detailed picture of the traditional feast, called the hwangap janchi. The party was hosted by the person's own children and grandchildren. The encyclopedia says that although the cost was great, they showed the greatest filial devotion in hoping the feast would go well. On the day, the whole family dressed in their finest clothes and set work aside.

Days of preparation. The family began brewing wine and cooking several days ahead, and neighbors and relatives came to help. Every room was tidied for the guests, and an awning went up over the yard to make more seating.

An early morning report. Early on the day, the person celebrating went into the family shrine and told the ancestors that they had reached hwangap. Breakfast was richer than usual, and the soup was miyeokguk, the seaweed soup Koreans eat on birthdays.

The towering table. The birthday table was the largest kind of table a household had, and sometimes two or more were used. Chestnuts, jujubes, pine nuts, walnuts, dried persimmons, sweets and honey cakes were stacked into cylinders, with decorations made from octopus legs in the shapes of flowers, dragons, turtles and cranes. One encyclopedia gives the height of the stacks as about 40 cm (16 inches); the other says heights of five, seven or nine chi (a traditional unit of length). The folk encyclopedia adds that the dishes were set out in odd numbers, that characters of celebration, long life and good fortune were spelled out on the front of the stacks, and that families sometimes hired a specialist cook, because the height of the food was seen as a measure of the children's devotion.

Offering cups. The person celebrating sat with their spouse in front of a folding screen while musicians played softly. The eldest son and his wife came forward first, bowed deeply, offered a cup of wine, and bowed again. Then the other children and grandchildren followed in order of age and generation. The folk encyclopedia calls this ritual heonsurye, the offering of wishes for a long life.

Playing the child. If the person's own parents were still alive, something charming happened. The 60-year-old put on rainbow-striped clothes, bowed to their parents, and even crawled about like a little child to make everyone laugh.

Open doors. Guests were served rice cakes, wine, fruit and special dishes, and even strangers and passing travelers were invited in. The encyclopedia explains that many guests on a happy day were a sign of a household's generosity and standing. The party usually lasted one day, but wealthy or well-known families might keep it going for three, with music, tightrope walking and acrobatics.

A good day, chosen with care. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture records that if the year's fortune or the birthday itself was considered unlucky by yin-yang reckoning, the family did not hold the party. If they still had to hold one, they chose a lucky day before the actual birthday. The encyclopedia records an old belief that holding the party after the birthday would bring bad luck.

The celebrations did not end at sixty. The year after hwangap was called jingap and also had its own party, which the encyclopedia describes as less grand than hwangap but grander than an ordinary birthday. Later milestone parties could follow at 70, 77 and 88.

How hwangap is changing

The folk encyclopedia describes clear shifts. From the mid-1980s, as Korea industrialized quickly, peers and guests other than the children and relatives began to greet the celebrant with a nod, a handshake and congratulations instead of a full bow. After the 1997 to 1998 economic crisis, many city families stopped holding the big party and instead gathered at a nearby wedding hall or buffet restaurant for a family-centered ceremony and meal. Around 2007, many families in both cities and villages began marking the day with a family trip, or by sending the parents on a commemorative trip of their own.

Hwangap and your saju year pillar

In saju, your birth moment is turned into four pillars: year, month, day and hour, and each pillar has one heavenly stem and one earthly branch. Your year pillar is the stem-branch pair of your birth year, the same kind of pair that names years in the sixty-year cycle. So, in the tradition, the pair of your hwangap year comes around to the pair of your birth year.

One detail: our calculator treats the saju year as changing at Ipchun, the start of spring around February 4, not on January 1 or Lunar New Year. If you were born between January 1 and Ipchun, your saju year may be the previous year's. Because the saju year turns at Ipchun, someone born between January 1 and Ipchun has the previous year's pair as their year pillar. Sixty years later their birthday again falls before Ipchun, so the saju year in force that day carries the same pair, even though the calendar year has a different name. Only a birthday within a day or so of Ipchun can fall on the other side.

The folk encyclopedia also describes the hwangap ceremony as a rite of passage that wishes for renewal.

If you want to see which stem-branch pair sits in your own year pillar, try our free saju calculator, or read The Four Pillars for how the year pillar fits with the other three.

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