Today is 초복, an auspicious day here in Korea. 초 meaning candle and 복 meaning lucky. It marks the start of the hottest period of summer. Koreans believe in the old adage “fire fights fire” and light lucky candles today to protect themselves from the scorching summer to come.

There are two other auspicious days of summer - 중복 and 말복 - which translate respectively to “lucky monk” and “lucky horse”.

On 중복 many Koreans will make their way to the local temple to receive blessings to protect them from the summer heat.

On 말복 Koreans used to celebrate the end of the hottest part of summer with horse rides down to local streams to cool off.

Nowadays, though, many Koreans prefer to head to the racetracks to bet on their favourite lucky horse.