Su Hui Choe, 12, left, and Yon Sok Choe, 11, play a traditional South Korean game Wednesday at Camp Red Cloud, South Korea. (Seth Robson / S&S)

Su Hui Choe, 12, left, and Yon Sok Choe, 11, play a traditional South Korean game Wednesday at Camp Red Cloud, South Korea. (Seth Robson / S&S)

Camp Red Cloud-based recreation specialist Yong-Ae Black plays a traditional South Korean card game Wednesday to celebrate the Lunar New Year at the camp's Community Activity Center. (Seth Robson / S&S)

Su Hui Choe, 12, left, and Yon Sok Choe, 11, celebrate the Lunar New Year Wednesday at the Camp Red Cloud Community Activity Center. (Seth Robson / S&S)

CAMP RED CLOUD, South Korea — Area I soldiers got to experience Korean food and games at Camp Red Cloud Wednesday, as South Korean base workers dressed in traditional costumes to welcome the Lunar New Year.

CRC-based recreation specialist Yong-Ae Black donned a flowing Hanpok dress and cooked a traditional Lunar New Year lunch for soldiers and civilians visiting the base Community Activity Center (CAC).

Black said her Hanpok was a modern version of the dress.

“It is more comfortable than the traditional ones. They have paper in them that you have to replace every time you wash them,” she said.

Black’s lunch included hok kuk (rice cake soup), kimchi (spicy cabbage), several kinds of chon (Korean pancakes), and sweet rice cakes for dessert.

Black said most South Koreans spent Wednesday morning worshiping their ancestors by bowing in front of a table covered with food offerings at home. In the afternoon. she said, they took more food to their ancestors’ graves.

More than 20 million South Koreans jammed the roads to visit their families during the three-day holiday, Black said.

CAC visitors were offered free lessons in South Korean games such as Hwato (Go-Stop), a card game in which players attempt to collect the most points by matching cards bearing pictures of flowers, butterflies, rabbits, deer, people and pigs.

Nearby, CRC Garrison Headquarters management assistant Chong Hui Pak played another South Korean game, Yut, with her children, Su Hui Choe, 12 and Yon Sok Choe, 11.

The game involves throwing four sticks in the air, then moving counters around a board based on which way the sticks land.

Pak said her family visited her in Tongduchon, near Camp Casey, and that the children played traditional South Korean games with their cousins.