May this spring come with a great blessing.

It looks like spring!, Myungja Anna Koh

May this spring come with a great blessing.

  In Korea, today is Ipchun(立春), which marks the beginning of spring. Ip Chun is the first season of the new year, so there are many farming-related events.

 In Ip chun, families, regardless of the city or countryside, put their writings (Four chinese letter) on walls or thresholds as a blessing event. As shown below, Ipchundae-gil was written in prominent Chinese characters and pasted on the door. I saw this kind of scenery a lot when I was a kid, but this custom holds up in the fortress.

Image: Namu wiki

  It is also called 'Ipchunbang' or 'Ipchunchuk.' It refers to writing a phrase to pray for good things to happen on the walls and doors of the house on Ipchun.

 Ipchundae-gil (立春大吉) Meaning: When spring begins, make it a big blessing (meaning that when spring begins, good things will happen).

  ​Farmers used to pull out the barley roots and use the number of roots to predict whether the crop would go well in the next year. 3 is a bountiful crop, 2 is an average crop, and if there is none, a poor harvest.

  A prediction related to this spring is Groundhog Day in the United States. 

 It derives from the Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day and sees its shadow due to clear weather, it will retreat to its den, and winter will go on for six more weeks. Otherwise, if it does not see its shadow because of cloudiness, spring will arrive early.

  February 2nd every year is Groundhog Day. In the United States, this day is not a National Holiday, but on February 2nd, related events are held in each region.

  ​The groundhog, also known as a woodchuck, is a rodent of the family Sciuridae, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels known as marmots. The groundhog is a lowland creature of North America; it is found through much of the Eastern United States, across Canada and into Alaska. (by wikipedia)

 It looks just like a cute mixture of a hedgehog and a mole.​

  ​Ground Hog Day is a fortune-telling event with this animal called Ground Hog, and a movie related to it was released in 1993.

  Groundhog Day is a 1993 American fantasy comedy film directed by Harold Ramis and written by Ramis and Danny Rubin. It stars Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell and Chris Elliott. 

 The main character, Phil Connors, a cynical television weatherman went to in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania covering the annual Groundhog Day event. But after the winter storm, he is stuck in the village and also becomes trapped in a time loop mysteriously, forcing him to relive February 2nd repeatedly. 
​
 In Korea, this movie was introduced under the title Black Hole of Love because it has a motif of a time loop.

 The Groundhog Day is depicted in this film.

  ​Germany has many dark and rainy days, so more and more people eagerly await spring. That's why we hold a big festival to commemorate this day. In addition to spring, summer, autumn, and winter, Germans consider the long festivals held throughout Germany as another season and say there are five seasons in Germany. The fifth season in Germany, the festival runs from November to the end of February. The last two days of the festival signify the end of the long winter and the welcome of spring.

Below is a picture of Fashing I attended while living in Germany.

  ​Waiting for spring in various forms and announcing the beginning of spring, the feeling of overcoming the long winter and waiting for the beautiful flowers to bloom seems to be the same.

  In the past, there was a time when I drew a picture with a heart waiting for spring desperately.

The beginning of spring, 2007, Myungja Anna Koh

  When I lived in Germany for the first time, spring in Germany felt too short. Even in April, Germany is still cold and snowy. It is not until late May that you can see birds chirping and flowers blooming. The flowers blooming at this time were bright and beautiful with long waiting and hope.

 ​In the sense of waiting for spring, I made a digital image of spring. It is an image of trees with yellow-green leaves that can only be seen in spring, rabbits and animals that appear out of nowhere, young fish, festivals, and flowers.

 Below are the results of the year 2022 of the Groundhog Day described above.

Source by https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/groundhog-day-2022-results

  Most of the results suggest that we may have to wait another 6 weeks for spring.