'Hello! Enjoy! I am your new neighbor'

A teenage girl, balancing a plate in one hand, pushes an apartment doorbell. She shouts into the intercom, "I'm a new neighbor, so I brought you some rice cakes!" The door opens and a woman walks out into the hallway. Accepting the flat, square rice cakes covered with red bean sauce, she says,"So, you are a daughter of the family that has moved into the apartment upstairs. Do you attend school?" After a moment of conversation, somewhat awkward but warm, the girl returns to her apartment and grabs another plate of the tastey gifts and heads off to another neighbor's door.

"I'm accustomed to presenting rice cakes to neighbors, because our family has frequently changed houses," said the girl, Park Su-jin, a high-school student who lives in Seocho-dong, Seoul. "I don't know why we have to do it. Mom just says it is an old custom that brings good luck. And it is nice to hear kind words from my new neighbors when I visit them with the cakes."

In Korea, it is a tradition for families moving into a new house to distribute sirutteok to their new neighbors. Sirutteok is made of alternating layers of ground rice and sweet red beans cooked in a siru, a traditional rice steamer.

Sirutteok is more closely related with folklore than any of the other dozens of types of rice cakes eaten by Koreans. The read beans of Sirutteok are believed to drive out evil spirits. People who move into new houses, open new stores or start important projects offer sirutteok to the good spirits. It is not uncommon for movie producers and professional base ball teams to offer sirutteok and other sacrifices to bring good fortune.

But the rice cakes presented to neighbors are a gesture of friendship, not an insurance policy against the Satan who might be living next door, and fewer families are keeping this custom.

"Ten years ago most families moving into new houses distributed sirutteok," said Kim Sun-rye, who has operated Matna Rice Cake Shop in Banpo-dong for more than 20 years. "But those orders have declined by half."

"I regret it, because rice cake distribution is a good chance to make friends with new neighbors," she said.

by Moon So-young