My old house was built with clay where straws sticking out on the surface of foyer ceiling. Swallows built a nest high up on the ceiling where bare electric wire was running. The swallows came every spring to the same nest. I am like a swallow who just arrived to the nest after a long trip from the south. On a nice spring day, the swallow would fly over to GyungBok Palace nearby and perch on a titled roof and stare at a clear court yard and become reflective of the yesteryears.
Life is made up of a bunch of stories. There are sweet ones and sour ones. The sweet ones are treasured and they are taken out to be reminisced like my daughter's drawing that was made when she was little. The sour ones are buried deep and never to be taken out so often; they are the ones that keep pulling me back making mr stand still and pause to think while I am on the bus looking outside of the window, or sitting at a park bench, but neither two cases are often have been rendered into my daily living nowadays. However, I have come across another sour grape that I had to chew and take it out of my mouth; I would bury deep and take out in the future or perhaps never be taken out as I have already accumulated lots of them and I don't have a place to put it in the jar as it is full.
Have you ever been fired? Yes, I have been, but today I am sitting in a library reading the New York Times after being dismissed from my work in the morning. Upon arriving at work, my boss summoned me to her office upstairs and talked about an incident that happened this other day claiming that I was being insubordinate to the supervisor. Couple of days ago in an earlier meeting with her about the incident, I told her that I did not know she was my supervisor and she did not dispute the claim. I thought things were going fine as I was having an interaction with the "new supervisor" and followed her order as I told her to do something conceding to be subordinate to her. However, it seems that resolution did not go through and the issue came resuscitated by the upper managers: it looks like "insubordination" is a big thing in this business.
When I went to work this morning on 2/24/2020 just to be pulled into an office, he told me that my behavior was not proper and I would be on what is called "leave of absence for the day" and she commanded me for dismissal without saying anything else. Immediately, I left the workplace and got in my car to get out of the parking lot, but thoughts came across my mind where I was supposed to be heading. After driving aimlessly for a while, I pulled into an empty parking spot to catch a breath trying to keep myself calm: I am not fired but I had a trepidation of getting fired, which is rather an odd thing to happen: for all the cases that I have encountered in this situation, there was no such thing as this sort of thing "prelude" termed as in music called "leave of absence for the day." Capitalism has come a long way, and as it developed further its jargon has increased. One thing true is that my boss has not fired me yet. What is also true is that my boss knows that I am such a valuable worker for the company, and they would surely feel sorry for letting me go since the company is in the depth of needing more manpower to run the business. They may have to carry out more discussion today with additional people, and I will find the outcome tomorrow as I was told to come back in the morning. I have been working for the company almost one year and my review is due immediately: the company is taking this as an opportunity to reevaluate me and decide to send me home permanently or keep me for another year.
Anyway, I can't go home now to tell my wife that I was dismissed at work: I am stuck in the library. My lunch is kept out of the refrigerator in the trunk. I feel that capitalism has become so tyrannical lately although I have been fortunate to not experience it for a good chunk of my career, but nowadays it seems like an avoidable element in my life. I live with it thinking that not much of its trade has been left in my life to withstand corporate manipulations, exploitation and racism as my time is drawing near to walk out of the quagmire, and say enough is enough.
This morning, we are gathered here to bid farewell to my mother. Our lives are shaped and moulded by various events took place and by circumstance into which we are born, and it rings bell more true for anyone who were born in her generation: her life marred with tragic events happened in Korea and in her personal life caused great suffering that no one would desire. Nevertheless, if you are a man and woman with common sense, you would not avoid listening to her story because there is so much we want to listen to her story: we renew ourselves to draw lessons from her: we want to find a reference point in our lives and in our history as a citizen and as an immigrant. A person said that young people do not understand the hardships and sufferings that the older generation went through. I, myself, in young generation with respect to my Mom, and has not clear understanding what my Mom's generation had to go through, born after the war and never had lived under Japanese occupation. Nevertheless, I listened to stories how the country and the people had suffered from all sorts of turmoils. We can not avoid suffering in our lives, and I think it is important to listen to anyone's story of suffering. She lived through such tumultuous time in Korean history as a woman. She was born in Korea during the Japanese occupation. She was not allowed to speak and write in Korean at school. She started learning to write in Korean- after Japan surrendered as a result of dropping two atomic bombs in Japan- in her middle school. Then the war broke out..that was just about the beginning of a long tumultuous time lied ahead, but she endured all the hardships all along the way as a woman. She advocated woman's right to her friends and to neighbors saying that woman need to have her own occupation and have her own financial independence to raise a family. She was a little giant lived among us. She demonstrated two key elements in character that I will be in awe for a long time, that is her willingness to sacrifice for her family and her indomitable will to survive. The womanhood was still hard; having to follow mores of the society instilled on women, having to have will to survive with resilience and perseverance that were asked for every woman in hard time of her generation. What was a chance of living a happy life for anyone who were born in a country torn by war and being colonized, one in a thousand probably? Everyone has his or her own story to tell in her generation. The sad memories of her time is not too distant even to us sending shrills down to our spines.. That deep scars that the history have left in hearts of the every women remained throughout their lives, and the echo of their pain reverb in our ears.
And here we are again to listen to another story of her generation, from a life of a woman who went through the time. Their sorrows, pains, hopelessness, and courage and fine qualities that she demonstrated in midst of their hardships. This is what I know as her son:
My mother was born in Mapo, Korea, as a 서율 토박이, 1932, at the time when old were interwoven deeper than new, she was a beloved child of a family. Her mother, being a dress maker, dressed her well on every holiday occasion with beautiful Hanbok. She must have been like her granddaughters, a very talented and cute; she was very good with sewing machine and knitting. A Singer sewing machine has been her long time companion all throughout her life, and her knitted wool sweater was my favorite thing to wear in cold winter. She was an honor student and she won a prize for not skipping a day in school. The prize is meaningful in a sense that, for six years taking more than two hours each way, she commuted to the school changing two buses, first at Sodaemun, second at Eulziro 6 Ga going to WangshipRi. Getting off at the bus stop, she then walked for 20 minutes to her school. In winter times, the bitter cold poked needles on her face. Like all woman of her generation, she was a deeply family oriented person. Her dedication to herself and to her family shown throughout her life was beyond any measure. For instance, there were times when North Korean soldiers coming after young men hiding searching door to door. The men found were taken to the communist army, but she safeguarded his brothers hiding them and bringing food to them for six months. It was a horrible time. Routinely, she walked 8 miles from Anyang to Mapo carrying a heavy bad of rice on her head in order to feed his brothers. Once, she carried a sewing machine in order to exchange it with rice taking all day long. Can you imagine walking the distance carrying such heavy thing on your back? Once, I was in a grievous danger when a pea got stuck in my throat, her motherly instinct saved me: poking her finger down to my throat to unblock out of the passage in her desperation. I would have died on that day chocking. I can imagine her helping her mother doing chores and cooking for the family. She knitted to late at night waiting for her husband to come, and sound of her sewing machine running was often playing lullaby to my ears. Not only she dedicated herself to her Maiden family, but also to the family she married into as a good mother, good wife and good daughter-in-law. She could have been easily found to be a good member of family and welcomed as a hero, for instance, saving my life, giving love and care to her younger brother who lost his parents over the war and became an orphan. She would have been found easily as a jewel of the family in modern time, but things did not correlated well; she had not been much appreciated by the people around her. She demonstrated all the good qualities as a woman of her generation, following rules with unyielding endurance as an educated woman, yet the people were dissatisfied with her, being blind-sided by their lack of maturity and ignorance. To the plant, she was a cactus living in a barren desert, and to animal, she was an elephant who traveled far looking for food and shelter for her family. The only other thing that I wish my Mom had possessed was a sense of humor. I wish that she had been more playful and taking things easy. Perhaps, it was hard because her life had been already painful born into a country occupied by Japan, and then a war broke out at her tender age 18. Taking a look at the pictures taken with my Mom dressed in beautiful Hanbok in her childhood or impeccably worn high school uniform, a moment of thoughts would pass across my mid thinking how these seemingly happy moments eclipse only momentarily the hard life that she had to endure during tumultuous chapter in Korean history. It is something to look closely into for every man and woman of her generation, of their lives that had been torn by war and smitten in poverty. Marrying to my father who was an eldest son of a large family further deepened her hardship taking part of brunt of her responsibilities as his wife. When I was dating in Korea in 1990, and attribute of being eldest son of a family would still make the man not a favored bachaular for a woman to marry with. As someone said to me, ?\"Your mom is the last woman of Chosen Dynasty." In fact, she was born in 1932. There maybe last thing in each women's generation, but the pain of her generation would not be forgotten. A composer would have thrown a peaceful melody or rest marks at this juncture if it had been a musical progression, or a writer would have taken her away to a wonderland if it had been in a fantasy story. The society demanded obedience to elders - that was a virtue, taking car of them daily and dealing with unwelcome criticisms from members of the family when the demands were not met- that persisted for centuries and still was going on string in my Mom's generation! The people who were much older did not accept her well with love and kindness; the people around were arrogant fools, hardheaded with no appreciation for their blessings received because their lack of understanding and comaredry, as bystanders of general inconsiderate mores of the society to women. My mother followed the mores imposed on her, like a soldier serving military duty, following the womanhood dutifully for more than twenty years rain or shine. She mentioned about the ills of the mores time to time, but I could not comprehend much as a boy. After all, she was an educated woman of her time. Once I asked her, "Why you did not make an educated guess about marrying an eldest son of a family?" But it was an easy thing for me to say: marriage was only alternative to most of women at that time until turn of the century and still it was couple of decades ago. She had a critical mind of her own about the society that was lopsided in human rights of women: she mentioned instances of young boys and girls not allowed to talk one another, and her high school friend got kicked out of school after having been found that she met a boy after school. It some like a light years ago that such mores ruled the society, and yet it happened only three quarters of a century ago.
Her life would have been easier had she been politically savvy dealing with people in such environment, but isn't the lack of it we found ourselves in quite often, putting using in conflicts and uneasy relationship with our family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers and other in our modern daily lives too? One of my relatives would argue that her large part of suffering is self-induced, being a sensitive nature and should could have taken things easy, not making a big deal out of it, but it was easy thing to say as a man. When was last time that men in general really pay attention to women and be kind to them? It is not that her second half life was a smooth ride either; countless curved balls were thrown at her; she had to handled each with all her might against all odds, like a tightrope walker walking on a rope 50 feet above ground. My mom is the one who made a bold decision to move out of the country, like a sunflower turning it face toward sun, to start a new life for her family when she was forty years old. She mad a bold decision, and it was an expression of her individuality. We often wonder what in the world her decisiveness and boldness would have come from? Those were her strength that we can not duplicate well. What could we ask for more in a woman of her generation, who dedicated herself to her family nurturing her children and keeping her brothers safe and alive? How could characterize the modern woman nowadays? What is characteristics of a successful woman nowadays? She handled all the consequences of her decisions, good or bad. She stepped into the uncharted land. Hoer decision coming to the U.S. led to my uncle have a new house that my family used to live. Her reaching the decision created a new dynamics, solving problems for may relatives. I have worked in may high tech start-up companies, and my Mom demonstrated may traits making the companies to succeed and thrive, which at the hallmark of the companies: weight risks, taking risks, taking measures, endurance, perseverance and etc. This woman saved her brothers, her children, parents-in-laws, brothers-in-law and other relatives back in Korea working hard every day, even on weekends. Her children are not here by themselves, it is through her hard sacrifices and insurmountable loneliness that she lived through that she made we are here today. Korea has its societal mores that demanded obedience, patience, airing personality in womanhood; a culture that demanded sacrifices to women dedicating to family raising kids and taking care of husband; she handled them all like a soldier at a war front. The burden fell much much bigger on her plate than others. The thing is that it was always her plate was much bigger! Her sacrifices touched so many lives in the family. As her son, I would say that if there had been a committee for Confucian mores which award its citizen, should would have won a dozen medals. Our suffering from out lack of maturity, shortcomings and imperfections were lessened because of her endurance and bold actions taken. Her unyielding will to survive; she made many people fell at her feet, affecting so many lives positively. She lived like a true general with a bunch of people pretending to be general, yet in real, they followed and took orders from her instead. She lived her life demonstrating WILLS TO SURVIVE taking responsibilities against all odds and chaos given its politically, economically very crude and harsh environments. She won 개근상 in her high school, which demonstrates her characters, such traits of dedication carries on so may facets in her life; she never dosed off reaching the final destination, displaying epitome of motherhood, sisterhood, and brotherhood that Koreans would put high esteem, yet so many people fail short in reality. Her life mostly revolved around her family, but she is a hero of her generation, a pioneer and a trail blazer. Nobody would carry such burden like her nowadays. We don't live as a big family any more, out family units have gotten much smaller...it's a new paradigm. The society can not demand much to people in old ways; whether they should marry or lead a certain life style. The people have much more rights as individual and freedom. She transplanted us to a new place to grow freely. It's now our turn to make ourselves and out next generations to grow more freely and happily, but we will never realize our happiness unless we are aware of the immense sacrifices that she made for us. There is no doubt that a dozen blockbuster K-drama can be made out of her life story. We will always fall short of understanding how the sacrifices that our forbearers have made transforming us, and that's how we become arrogant fools! In light of her sacrifices, our achievement to make better society and better human being fall far too short! After all we all have our own weakness, maybe her weakness largely due to circumstantial due to loss of parents, but very few people can ride high against all odds. The sacrifices that she made for us was epitome of her generations as a mother and a woman.
I have seen glimpses of her life, and I am an agent linking between her generation and the new generation in the family. A girl grew up in Ma-po, Seoul, Korea has demonstrated qualities that made Korea to be proud of themselves in modern age; making our lives turn, turn, turn; she did it all in her own way given the situation. Thank you very much, Mom, for all your sacrifices that you've made for us. You're a champion, undoubtedly a hero of your generation. The sewing machine that you gave me works well. RIP, Mother.
When a person is hit by a car and hurt badly, there is a place has been set aside for the injured person to be taken immediately like an emergency room in hospital. However, when it comes to injuries from hate crimes, there is no such place would come to mind easily, and no person will pull over to rescue the victims in the dire situation. Despite hate crimes can be common occurrences in our daily lives for minorities living in the U.S., they often go unnoticed and victims are rarely exposed in the media. The cruelties of the crimes are not publicized getting brushed under the rug. In fact, such practice has been the norm for the century. However, I believe that the norm has to be broken and whatever the dark has to be exposed in order to bring changes the environments with free of the hate crimes. The society has to take many measures that can eliminate racism, but one of the ways that I would suggest is employing ancient rituals for shamanism as a tool to vanquish racism.
One of the major problems of blocking racism is that there is no effective tool to do it. As much as the country is smeared with racism, there should be a greater force out outcries that put the racism under bay not only in the police force but also enforcing the people not to engage in the hate crimes.
I come to concept of employing shamanism as a way for the society to tackle racism because racism is a human disease that would not be easily expunged, like a terminal illness, that has elements of enigmatic in human sphere. I participated in celebrating the first day of new millennium in a large crowd at downtown, wishing for better world coming ahead, but the racism is still prevalent in the U.S. even after twenty years later.
Growing up in Korea, I saw many religions coexist in peaceful manner, and even loud banging sound of the shaman ritual would be heard walking in the neighborhood. Witnessing a shaman ritual was being performed in my house when my grandmother was ill influenced me making it to be a part of my cultural identity.
Recently, I watched a primitive performance of Nam June Paik on Youtube video: he wore a traditional Korean clothing and performed a ritual when he was involved with Avant-Agrde artists in Germany. The ritual was performed in Western soil in Germany. The snippet of the ritual was performed by the artist ushering in a kind of society that he envisioned in the world, that is the western and eastern culture would be merged in the future as communication media become more advanced and widely used. After a decade of his parting, the reality is such that East and West have become closer than ever before culturally. I think that Nam June Paik performed this ritual as a way to hasten the arrival of dynamical cultural exchanges would be unfolded in the future when internet was not well developed.
As a way to showcase the event of his work, a hanging of a slaughtered cow's head was displayed at the entrance of the building. Such bizarre display may have been seen when he was young, living in Korea, even though it appeared new to me. I find this fascinating that a collaboration effort involved: putting the bull's head hung on the door: the man narrating on the video tells that he was involved in the event as a participant of the cultural merging, i.e. holding the dripping blood of the bulls head. This enactment is a symbolic gesture as if telling the world that world has come closer in understanding i.e. fetching a decapitated bull's head at the slaughter house for the first time, and carrying the blood dripping head 'to the location and hanging over the door, which seems to me that willingness for human understanding is widening, experiencing the task that used to be done solely by local exclusive people in Korea. It looks to me that Nam June Paik performed the elements of the ritual as a step toward merging different cultures. However, I am not trying to bring up his foresight or his artistic here, instead I want to mention the ritual was performed as an artistic gig, shedding fresh dimension of human expression. The idea that Nam June Paik showcased the event of his work with the ritual. I find it interesting to watch the ritual performed again, which gave rise of thought to me that what it means to watch the ritual performed by an artist instead after having lived in U.S. for more than four decades experiencing various racism including hate crimes.
I want to link the primitive ritual as an antithetical force against racism. I think a rebirth of the ritual is to be made in modern time especially in the Western countries, as a way of dealing with racism, as an antithetical force to the infliction. The ritual can be performed like a play: it can be developed further as some sort of a performance on stage dealing with angst from racism such as hate crime. There is so much toxicity to take from the racism, and the ritual can be utilized dissipating forces from the toxicity that would exert psychologically. My personal interpretation in the symbolism of presenting a slaughtered bull's head is to fend off the forces that hit upon us in crude way at calamity, such as in hate crime, trying to retaliate them in the gruesomeness, making them to retract and stop any further exertion or retroactively dissipate of negative power that the offender would want to exert to them. The problem with hate crime is the lingering effect of harmfulness in one's spirit, and I think that the gruesome display of the head can be interpreted as symbolically intervening to vanquish such negative forces.
When a person falls into a victim of racism, the person will become loss of beauty of surrounding and beautiful memories; smell of flowers, faces of his friends, and ability to smell the flowers. It will perhaps take a long to be rediscovered. In order to usher in the effect and restore one's spirituality, a ritual can be performed. For Farmers, it was called upon when their patience is running out after a long period of drought. For a woman who suddenly became a window, it was called upon to withstand the attack of devil swallowing up her spirit in despair.There comes in point in time when we run out of patience. What do we do then? Korean resorted to this primitive form of ritual. The first of its kind is performed with respect to nature when in drought. Korean culture is rooted with farming,so the ritual comes into play when in drought: I have seen in the neighborhood back
in Korea, where a performance of these rituals were performed, and in fact, a shaman performed the ritual when my grandmother fell seriously ill. As a person who was brought up in a culture that primitive religion such as shamanism survives and had been exposed, there have been times when I was seeking a spiritual refuge. The ritual has been performed mainly throughout the history to alleviate human suffering of various sorts such as bringing cure for diseases; however,
there are rituals that are emotionally charged. Such rituals are there as a means of expression through which our calamity is to put behind us for good. However, the latter kind of ritual is what I am
pointing at, which can be developed and employed depending on circumstance, like there are different flavors of ice cream and types of bandages, in such events as hate crimes for the victims(what I call this is third case): in handling angst associated injustice of society due to racism. The idea the second case is to call upon the spirits by shaman, and their victims or family members or friends are participated in reenactment of a certain incident or at the calling to resolve emotional issues that have been lingering, at the hands of shaman mitigating the two parties during the ritual.
For a typical scenario of latter case is as follows: when a husband( or a family member dies) died suddenly, the insurmountable sorrow fallen on family members would have to be addressed quickly in order to stop psychological damages and making come to terms with the unfortunate situation has risen and thus be comforted. To do that the shaman would ask the family member to bring a piece of clothing that the husband used to wear and perform the ritual to call his spirit to be present among the family members and explain what happened, and the shaman would in return convey his messages to the family member to lay their worries in rest for them to start a new life without him. The ritual is employed to avert psychological damages would be inflicted had no measure been taken, when an accident has rendered to ourselves suddenly in crude way in the first place, by creating an event through a ritual of which is conducted in gentle way for a party or an individual to be able to
understand (or to come to grips with) a certain tragedy "putting it down and "letting go" of it in gentle fashion. The gruesome way hanging decapitated cow's is hung at the door might signifies the gruesome way the tragedy has encroached upon so suddenly. When my grandmother was ill, a shaman was called upon and performed a ritual;however, not in the way of hanging a newly slaughtered bull's head on the door, but it was rather a pig's head laid on a table at which ritual was performed. I want to insert a new genre in the ritual, the third case,as a performing art that address racism, especially hate crime. The victim of hate crime is dejected, and can become depressed with emotional wound that has been inflicted upon, at the loss of faith in humanity. The individual is no different from a widow who become depressed at the loss her husband or a person like my grandmother who fell grievously ill. The problem is that remedies for averting emotional toils at the onset of the event is not readily available. For hate crime, there is no prospect that hate being thrown at them would be dissipated anytime soon that there could be a long road ahead for recovery in the aftermath. The objective of the ritual is to chase away the bad spirits that would hunt victim, in part, by applying gruesome element employed in the ritual. The gruesomeness in the ritual signifies an antithetical force of racism. The ill-effects of hate crime that is so damaging to the psyche, and putting the bad memories behind and recouped oneself to normalcy in life is hard. The effects of hate crime renders a shade of aspect that is so disheartening to the victims. The loss of faith is a major problem for them, and the solution to make oneself on the path of recovery may be varying depending upon one's religious background. As a person who have seen the ritual performed in Korea, I have been seeking ways in which I can part myself with bad memories from the past, and Nam June Paik's employment of the ritual rendered me a possibility of ritual evolve into a ritual performance that address the issue. Hanging a cow's may have been seen when Nam June Paik was young and it came to me as new, but I can correlate to fending off the forces that harmed us trying to make the retreated and stopped. The problem with tragedy is the lingering effect of harmfulness in victim's psyche, and I think that the gruesome display of the head is to vanquish such negative forces being exerted to the victim.
It would be interesting how one's experience with racism encountered affect one's emotion and lead to further formulate one's character. I don't think that afflictions of racism would go away easily. it will manifest in some way or another molding the shape of the society exuding distinctive flairs in their culture as here I am writing down and have people to read in order to finger point of those memories to I have encountered a garden variety of racism living as an Asian in the United States, and certainly I feel that it affected my sense of perception of the world and the surroundings. For instance, I would avoid or reluctant to visit certain places where I have encountered racism, or hard time visiting the places with clear mind without apprehensions. When I think of racism, the first thing that comes into my mind is being stared at overtly by shop keepers without smiling at me. I am not a handsome person in Korean standard, but my physique does not seem to any relevance in any minuscule level attracting suspicious stares from the shop keepers. They were not pleasant experiences at all. The worst of it happened on one day afternoon at a store of university where I was attending. I was just killing time off in the store in between two classes. Apparently, I was followed by an attendant of the store while I was browsing picking stuff up and putting them down. As I was exiting the store, I was stopped by two tall men, and asked to follow them into a corner room. The manager waiting in the room asked me to take out everything in my pockets to have my body searched. I took out all my stuff out from my pockets and placed them on a table as I was asked to by the manager. When nothing unexpected came out of all my pockets, the store manager then let me go just saying "sorry." I was new to the country at that time, although the incident came as an event that I had never experienced back in Korea, I knew that I had to suck it off and treat it as a mere incident wishing never to happen again brushing myself off at that time: I could not defend myself verbally as I could not speak English well. However, nowadays, it bugs me making me feel that I should have done something other than merely walking out of the store as if nothing had happened. Although I am feeling regrets once awhile not having thrown a punch at the manager's nose to feel compensated from the humiliation felt, the incident has made an indelible apprehension on my part whenever I go to a store in the U.S.
Nowadays, the technologies have advanced as stores equipped with many sophisticated surveillance cameras and tens of monitoring devices are equipped in corners of the area around the country. Before such facilities came about, the horrible stories of under scrutiny of suspicions were prevalent and often broadcast in the media. Such experiences are less likely encountered in major department stores and grocery stores anymore;however, they are still experienced in Mom&Pop stores or in public places where such facilities are not equipped. Being stared at stores or in public places is not a pleasant experience of which disturbing effect could induce tossing and turning at night lasting couple of weeks, knowing that its spawning is largely based on casting a dark could over one's head of criminality. The suspicions often based on faulty reasoning will not only impact negatively to the society damaging interracial harmony but also it will breed fears based on biases and damaged trust upon one another. The advancement in surveillance technologies may have not reduced underlying causes of racism, but, I think, that it has reduced hassles from racism on superficial level, on daily encounters of various sort, which, in fact, make up large racial glitches that are not reported in newspapers or on television. I would call this as a "feel-effect of racism." Handling the work of the suspicions set aside in a remote secluded area has made a great stride in advancement in surveillance capabilities, which, in turn, allowed reducing the feel-effect of racism, getting fewer wooing nights with steam rising above one's head when one think about how day has past.
I love eating grapes, especially the Korean grapes. The Korean grapes taste very sweet with its distinct flavor and taste, which makes me to suck the last drop of juice out from the outer layer covering. There aren't that a whole variety of grapes sold in Korean market other than this kind of grapes, of which name I found in English: Concord Grapes. I grew up eaing the grapes in every summer in Korea before the cool breeze starts blowing in late August ushering in fall season. After I came to America, I missed eating the grapes as the grapes not sold in the supermarkets in my neighborhood, augmenting my homesickness. Nowadays, the local Korean markets sell the grapes imported from Korea. One time, I eat more than I had ever had eating a whole box of the grapes. Eating the grapes reminds me of the sweet summer days I spent as a child in Korea. It reminds of of a grape vine that as given to my great grandmother: she planted in the garden of my old home in Shinchon; she dug a hold near the root of the vine, and the following summer grew grapes much more wholesome than before. My great grandmother had loved in a farming village, and she knew how to take care of plants and animals. She knew how to get the dinner ready when someone brought over a live chicken. I saw her making all sort of food during holiday season.
Several years ago, I bought a grapevine sold in a store. I picked up the vine for it says Concord grapes on the label. I waited for good several months as the instruction says to plant in spring. Fortunately, the vine grew well baring grapes after couple of years. The tiny grapes grew and became large. When I picked them up and tasted it, the grapes taste so sweet and tasty almost comparable to the kind of grapes I had back in Korea.
It has been over eight years since the U.S. economy was tethering off the cliff at the verge of collapsing due to subprime mortgage. The shock wave it sent in aftermath of the crisis is still felt psychologically and monetarily, giving deep doubts about capitalism that went haywire and direction it is heading. The housing bubbles burst largely due to American lust for buying big and expensive houses to show off one's social status, which is common behavior in the American culture. The lifestyle of American is to have everything within reach in their backyard: swimming pool, mini theater and etc. Americans want to show off in their material possessions. One of the surest ways American classifies themselves in through possession of materials such as a good car and a big house. In a capitalistic country, money can mean everything, which can dictate human relationships, and it means power and success. The banks and mortgage companies took advantage of this universal weakness in ordinary people. Despite knowing what ordinary Americans are craving for, the folks in finance reached their dark hands to suck the blood off of the ordinary citizen by rigging the system through deregulating lending policies. The perpetuation of rising bubbles as they continued taking advantages of people's greed and desires until the bubbles finally burst in 2008, which triggered rippling effect sending Sunami in global economy. Millions of people lost their jobs and houses in the economic turmoils. The folks in the financial systems were culpable of creating the financial crisis, but their were busy protecting their assets asking the government for bailouts. Nothing of this major scale of magnitude was felt since the great depression in 1920. The Great Depression in 1920 was not as sinister as the financial meltdown occurred in 2008. The reason that the great recession in 2008 was sinister is that the folks in the finance were well aware of the consequences would be like when the system is rigged. Perhaps, they did not care much. As the subprime mortgage lending practice got worsen, it shook very the foundation of economic system, Capitalism. The Feds, banks and mortgages companies, particularly those people who were involved in deregulation of the lending polices brought damages to the economic system, faltering the wheels of economy running though their greed. In normal sense, those people should have been weeded out making the system run smoothly, but the system was jabbed at by the very own people who suppose to take care of them. The Fed knew what was going on; however, they never took the actions to prevent the collapse. They were supposed to be monitoring the system and blowing the whistle at any moment when it runs off the track. Many ordinary people were oblivious to the fact that subprime mortgage was toxic and dangerous. The banks did not give any information to ordinary home-buyers nor they explained the nature of subprime mortgage and risk involved with them. If the bankers rejected loan applications that do not show a person's credit in good standing, those people would not have been allowed to house easily, but the bank deregulated the policy. This rigged system created huge house bubbles without anyone intervening way before the bubble burst. The buyers would have responsibilities buying houses, but it was largely at the faults of mortgages and bankers who never willing to blow whistles to stop the financial collapse, making snowball getting larger and larger until it hit the boulder and crashed. The subprime mortgage happened as a result of the interplay between people's foolishness and a corrupt system. The ordinary people are wondering why it happened, and they want to see those responsible people get punished as affirmation that the government and the system have been restored.
In late January afternoon when sunlight is shining through the windows lazily touching upon the wooden floor of my house, I think of my great grandmother who sits by sliding door in her room on sunny days holding a long bamboo smoking pipe. As often she was smoking in her room, I remember the most of her smoking when heart of winter has just passed and warm winter rays started thawing the frozen landscape. She would gaze upon outside puffing her long bamboo smoke pipe sitting on Ondol floor in her room. As shadows from the barn hanging lose in the evening in my house, I think about image of her head gently swaying like a tugboat anchored ashore on rippling effects. Her hair still not turned entirely white yet and her stooped back for so long gives her long enduring life. She picks up her smoking pipe as sliding door made with rice paper vibrates due to sound of a train passing by in distance. She would strike a match as the bulb of match sparks injecting the burning smell into the air, puffs of smoke rises above her white hair, and I would reach above her hair to disturb its movements that swirls like clouds as particles of dust in the air are shown with its vivid color in between the lights emitting through shadows of window panes. As I sit by her, I would then smell the smoke rise above her head as she puffs the bamboo pipe.
My great grandmother was a kind lady. Her innate calm demeanor had calming effects on my soul like the puffs of her smokes coming out from the bamboo pipe. She was when I was born and she had lived a long time since then until I emigrated to the U.S. She and I had lived together under a same roof in a big family; it was a last period in Korea when unit of a family was much larger than now. I had lived with her ever since I was born for seventeen years, I would remember her the most as someone who impacted me the most socially and psychologically.
She had lived through almost one hundred years without proper medical technologies were available. I remember asking her age when she was eight five years old, which make that she was already almost 80 years old when I was born. She was a first and far most old lady all along ever as far as I could remember her. In fact. Her longevity was probably a product of her harsh life working daily in farm and doing chores in her house in poverty. She knew how to do chores from making all different rice cakes, red bean porridge for celebrating winter solstice, making Kimchi in Kimjang season, making soybean and etc.
She passed away several years after I emigrated to the U.S. I had never seen her crying nor seen her outside, but on the day when I left Korea for emigrating to the U.S., she came out
crying. Much of my Great Grandmother's life prior to I was born remain in mystery to me largely for the reason that no one had ever told me much about her life, not even she. Perhaps, nobody had any inquisitive mind about her because her life had been revolving around doing daily chores in the house, day after day and year after year, and nobody found anything special. There probably had not been much things going around with her; nobody got yelled and spanked by her, she didn't even complained about anything to anyone; she was not talketive and always doing chores in the house quietly. However, her presence was large in the house; nobody showed disrespect to her not because not only of Confucian mores but also she spoke loudly by action. For instance, when a relative brought a live chickens, she was the one who carried the mission of doing the chores that nobody would want to do; killing them for them to be cooked. She was just an old grandmother to the generation above me, and the young people in my generation was busy playing and minding their own lives and spent little time talking with her. Even for me, her presence was largely taken for granted when I was growing up in Korea, and I had become to bogged down with myself living in the U.S. thereafter. Her past life would be presumed to had been very simple living in a farming country in North Korea and there might not be much to talk about. However, as I grow older, especially having lived away from the country where we both had lived together for almost four decades under the same roof, I can't relegate her large presence in my life; I cherish the wonderful memories that came from her sphere in my youth. To me, no one else exceeds grandeur of a old person than my great grandmother: her back was stooped bending almost 90 degree angle forward with wrinkled face, which might had caused partly from Osteoporosis in combination with perhaps largely working in farms over three quarter of a century, and yet she was still filled with full of energy working until late in the every evening, and defied the time causing infirmity seemed to have halted, never seem to be growing any older, looking same even ten years after. I have never seen her making anyone laugh, nor I have never seen her smiling or crying, showing a glimpse of what her past life had been like, darkened rugged skin reflective of harsh reality of survival; she probably had to endure poverty throughout of her life. She never smiled, and yet her face was showing glow of peace all the time, perhaps, due to living in countryside always with plants, flowers, beautiful natural things despite all the terrains. She probably had no time to complain and knew life other than what she had to overcome ,which might had formed callousness in emotion that would not surface any traits of her natural mischievous nature that might had in her youth even in twilight of her life. She was not educated and never tried to influence others busy making her own ends meet, but her living transcends far beyond showing her wonderful way of life; taking care of her children and carrying the old tradition of making food, and all the sphere that revolved around her.
Her walking holding a goad bowl in and out of kitchen or to the 장독대 ingrained my my memories as her signature. Her face was wrinkled and darkened with years of hardships, perhaps clamaty of losing her husband when she was so young, and much toils in labor working in countryside in North Korea for much all her life before she moved to South before the Korean War, which were largely unspoken part of her time in life. Presumably, she was born in 1881, before Korea was annexed by Japan, and during the time when the chapter of Choson dynasty was about to be ended. She wasn't a talkitive person at all.
I had seldom seen her talking other than relating to meeting our ends meet, such as food, clothing, living and heating , which would give a glimpse of what her life had been like in those years largely revolved around the sphere of surviving in harsh winters and feeding her children at the time when Korea had been a agricultural land. I've heard that her husband died when she was only in twenties, taken away by a tiger, When she was resting in her room, it was like her a taking a rest at the farm yard after a long backbreaking work that she had taken so many times before, feeling the breeze running through her hair and cooling her off; she would stuff her long bamboo pipe with a few ounces of tabacco and strike a match to light it up. I could see her sitting by sliding doors opened as puffs of smoke coming through in between two sliding doors made with rice paper as I was playing in the front yard. She would gaze me playing and i could see her head lightly swindling in silence. As soon as I got on my feet and about to walk anywhere I want to go, I was often called upon to go down to the convenient store nearby in my neighborhood to fetch a bag of tabacco for her; pungent smell of tabacco stung my nose as I drew the bag wrapped in a brown bag to my nose as I walked uphill leading to the entrance door of my house . I seldom saw her going outside of the house. She lived all her life in a big family. At the time when I was a toddler, there was 10 people living under one roof. The economic condition was not as harsh as perhaps when she was living in North. She haven't had any education to influence others and teach something, but she showed me wonderful tradition of Korea through her cooking and hardworks in the household. She would often ask me what day was a particular day to keep track of the date for a certain thing to be done according to the luner calendar.
Every year, in the beginning of December, I watched Kimchi pots getting buried underground in the front yard as flurries stated popping up from the overcast sky while my uncle was huffing and puffing digging the ground bellowing steam out from his mouth, and watched my great grand mother walking up to it drawing a bowl of Kimchi as a dog housed at the corner of the front yard noticed her coming and started barking to call her attention and then the sound of it turning into a growl in disappointments as she went out of sight going into the kitchen with no regards for him. On the fortnight, as the hallowing wind was blowing in the depth of cold winter, the dog, having not received much of attention from her, would moan sporadically interleaving its sound in the wind, upon which my great grandmother would open the sliding door from her room and peer out making a brief kind statement for him which surprisingly quelled the night.
My grand mother used to get the fire going on the inlet of Ondol outside at the front yard burning woods for heating her room every evening in the winter and some time later, she would gather the embers in a Wahro that made out of clay to be brought into her room for additional heating inside, and we would often gather around the Wahro after dinner and talk with great grandmother. She would toss in a sweet potatoes or chestnuts for a treat. What a bonding experience that it was!!
