A life through the table

Throughout life’s important moments, tables are set before us: the Baegil celebrating a baby’s first hundred days of health, the Dolsang for a first birthday, the wedding table wishing harmony for a couple, the sixtieth-birthday table honoring a long life, and finally, the ancestral table for those who came before. Each marks the relief and joy of passing another stage, with a quiet wish for peace ahead.

On those days, family and neighbors gather to share the abundance before them, celebrating together. In the end, everyone sits around the table and smiles for a photograph—quiet proof the rite is complete, a keepsake to remember.

From birth to death, we sit before countless tables. Each one is a small celebration and a quiet reward for having lived and endured. They may not be dazzling, but the images of tables piled high with food tell the story of a life—short yet long, like one continuous photo album.