In Korea, when May 5th rolls around, you can feel it before you even step outside. The streets get a little louder and brighter—balloons bob in the breeze. Parents juggle snack bags, picnic mats, and small hands that keep slipping free. It is Children’s Day, and for once, the whole country feels like it belongs to the little ones.
Children’s Day is exactly what it sounds like. A day when kids are not rushed off to cram schools or left to wait at the dinner table while the adults talk about grown-up things. It is their day, and Korea makes sure they know it.
Parks fill up early. By mid-morning, families are spreading out on patches of grass, opening boxes of kimbap, fried chicken, and every snack a kid could possibly beg for. Somewhere nearby, there will always be a stage set up. Maybe it is a puppet show, maybe it is a dance contest where shy kids get dragged onstage and end up smiling so hard their faces hurt. Somewhere else, a line for free ice cream snakes its way around a corner, growing longer by the minute.
Malls and museums join in, too. Most offer special events, such as free face painting, discounted tickets, and workshops where kids can pretend to be scientists, artists, or superheroes for a day. It does not matter what town you are in. Whether it is a small community event or a full city festival, there is a feeling that the adults have agreed to step back for a while and let the kids run the show.
Parents spend the day half-exhausted and half-glowing. You can see it in the way they chase after their children with one arm outstretched and a proud grin that they could never hide even if they wanted to. Grandparents sit back a little more, watching the chaos with a twinkle in their eye, maybe remembering their childhoods when Children’s Day was starting to be celebrated after the war.
As the sun starts to sink behind the mountains, you will find families still sitting in the grass, sticky with ice cream and dust, shoes kicked off, too tired to move but too happy to leave. Children clutch prizes they won in games that were rigged in their favour. Parents gather the leftovers, laughing as they try to convince their kids that it is time to go home.
[Photo by Khoa Nguyen]
