2025, the Year of the Snake (乙巳年) A Blue Snake Flying Through the Darkness What are your New Year's wishes? We meet the hopeful New Year's table of those who live while staying in place Even if it is a series of the same days, the New Year is special to some. Even if the sun rises every day, the first morning of the New Year makes our hearts race. With a new starting line in mind, we want to run energetically once again. Isn't that why people go out to see the sunrise on purpose? We will look at the New Year's table of those who live faithfully while silently staying in place in Korea's representative sunrise village and their simple yet solid New Year's wishes. ■ Young fisherman and mother of Pohang Sea - Imgok Port, Donghae-myeon, Nam-gu, Pohang-si, Gyeongsangbuk-do Homigot in Pohang, the easternmost part of our country. After midnight, a boat sets sail into the dark night sea in front of Homigot. Park Jeong-seok (36 years old), a young fisherman catching squid, which is mostly active at night. Jeong Seok, who was carried on his mother’s back and boarded his father’s boat when he was five, returned to his father’s sea four years ago after ten years on an ocean-going fishing boat. The sea off Pohang, where he was born and raised, is his hometown that he always missed even when he was traveling the South Pacific. Unlike before, there aren’t many squids in the East Sea anymore, so even if he fishes all night, he catches more than half of them. There are also difficulties, such as having to rely on an autopilot alone to guard the night sea because young people avoid boating. Still, his first morning of the new year in the middle of the sea is special. His mother, who can’t sleep properly because she’s worried about her son who’s fishing alone all night, waits for him at the port at dawn. For her son, whose body is frozen from working in the bitter wind, she makes a hot squid soup with radish as a new meal. Squid contains a lot of taurine, so there’s no better fatigue recovery agent. The village elders are happy that thanks to the return of the young Mr. Jeong Seok to the port where only the elderly remain, there is more work to do to sort the fish. Mr. Jeong Seok promises to work even harder to protect this simple happiness. The mother, who still feels heartbroken when she thinks of her son who went on an ocean-going fishing boat for his family at the young age of 19, begins to prepare a New Year’s meal with his son’s favorite foods. The story of the mother who did all kinds of odd jobs to avoid being the parent who would eat the life out of her son after sending him out to the open sea is contained in the tuna and radish stew. The story of the son who gritted his teeth and endured the hardships of the ocean-going fishing boat the more he missed his mother’s food and built a raw fish restaurant for his mother is contained in the story of the son who built a raw fish restaurant after enduring the hardships of the ocean-going fishing boat. The story of the mother who feels like she has gained the world just by having her son by her side and being able to cook for him every day is contained in the whole squid stew. Mr. Jeong Seok has been working tirelessly for four years since returning to his hometown sea, working twice a day, day and night. Starting with a 1-ton ship, they are now building a 6-ton ship. The excited hopes of a son and mother about to set sail for their new ship are met at the New Year's dinner table. ■ Children are happiness and gratitude in and of themselves - Baekun-myeon, Jinan-gun, Jeollabuk-do Special Self-Governing Province The Jinan Plateau in Jeollabuk-do Special Self-Governing Province, also known as the 'Roof of Honam'. At an altitude of 450 meters above sea level, there is a family of seven children, not one, not two, but seven. To prepare a New Year's dinner table, the father and five children go out into the snow. There is something green even in the frozen snow! Shepherd's purse, known as a winter tonic, has a strong vitality that survives even in the bitter cold. Kim Gil-su (53 years old), a father of seven children, wants to provide his children with food that is healthy for both body and mind. He believes that people are part of nature and also teaches his children how to find food in nature. He settled in the Muan Plateau 15 years ago. In the city, I didn’t want my children to grow up in fierce competition from a young age, comparing themselves to others, and getting hurt because of it. So I moved into nature, built my own house, and raised my children freely. Ms. Kim Ju-hwa (50 years old), a mother who makes fried food with canned radish with her father and five children. In this house, all kinds of seasonal vegetables and flowers become ingredients for fried food. While city children eat fast food delivery, Gil-su’s children grow up eating nature. For children, nature is a canvas and playground where they can develop their imagination, and it is a living school where they learn about the ecosystem. Even a single mountain deodeok is a good learning tool for children to learn about nature. The sizzling sound of mountain deodeok grilled over charcoal is music. Thanks to the vast embrace of nature, Gil-su and his wife were able to have and raise seven children. The eldest son, Kim Su-nam (22 years old), went on to college without ever attending an academy. After going to the city, I experienced some confusion, but thanks to growing up without being compared, I realized that I am not afraid to make friends or try new things, and I rediscovered the meaning of time spent in nature. For Gilsu’s family, neither their New Year’s meal nor their New Year’s wishes are grand. They prepare their meals with things that nature gives them, and all the parents want for their children is health in body and mind. They do not push them to dream big. They are confident that their children will grow naturally in nature, just as trees grow rings and deodeoks grow brains as the year goes by. To the couple, their children are a source of gratitude and happiness in and of themselves. ■ This year, too, will be the same as yesterday - Songseok Port, Maseo-myeon, Seocheon-gun, Chungcheongnam-do As the sun rises from the East Sea and rises over the tidal flats of the West Sea about 10 minutes later, the sea in front of Songseok Port in Seocheon-gun, Chungcheongnam-do becomes busy. This is because the winter seaweed, seaweed, is in season. Seocheon, Chungcheongnam-do, is a representative seaweed production area in Korea. Kim, called the 'semiconductor of the sea', is also exported in great quantities, exceeding 1 trillion won as of 2024. Women are busy digging clams in the tidal flats. When you scrape the tidal flats with a hook, bamboo shoots pour out. The tidal flats of Seocheon, rich in minerals at the point where the Geumgang River and the sea meet, have been famous for seaweed and various shellfish since ancient times. Thanks to these golden tidal flats, the people of Songseokhang were able to dream and live with hope. However, behind that glory, extraordinary efforts are hidden. The people of Songseokhang prepare a New Year's meal by boiling seaweed rice cake soup with seaweed just caught from the sea. Seaweed rice cake soup is the representative New Year's food of the Songseokhang people, and the hard times of the village elders are fully reflected in it. In the past, seaweed production had to be done entirely by hand. So mothers harvested seaweed by dipping their bare hands in cold water in the bitter cold, and made seaweed by pounding the seaweed. It is common to go to the mud flats three days after giving birth. However, as I make dongjuk hoe-muchim (spicy stir-fried dongjuk with various vegetables) that makes my mouth water, my children come to mind. Since winter is particularly busy, I couldn’t even prepare a proper meal for my children in the new year. The only reason I lived so tenaciously was this: the mothers’ hope was to send their children to a foreign land after educating them. Since their lives were difficult, they wanted to give their children a better life. To console themselves for those difficult days, the women’s association members make seaweed pancakes and make clear catfish soup with various ingredients, as if they had moved the entire winter sea of ​​Seocheon. Catfish used to be a bycatch that was thrown into the sea, but now it is treated as a precious fish that cannot be eaten without it. Just like the catfish that has turned its life around, this village has now become prosperous enough to be passed down to its descendants with pride. As a result, the elders have a new wish: for many young people to come and enjoy the abundance of this place together. Let's meet the hope and new wind that have supported the people of Song Seok-hang at the New Year's table. ※ This video is [Korean's Table - Filling the New Year's Table with Hope in 2025] that aired on January 2, 2025. #KoreanTable #NewYear #Tteokguk #Cooking ✔KBS is a documentary KBS Official YouTube Channel [KBS Documentary] 🔔Subscribe👍Like➡️ / @kbsdocumentary 📝Contact: [email protected] Copyright ⓒ KBS. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction, redistribution, and use (including AI training) are prohibited. ∙Unauthorized reproduction, redistribution, and use (including AI training) are prohibited. ∙The current situation and content may be slightly different depending on the time of broadcast. ∙Defamatory and malicious comments may be deleted by the operator to protect the cast.