Sinchon is my birthplace. In 60s, the place was nothing particularly fancy with houses clustered along the long stretch of bank on which railroad track was raid. It was used carrying passengers and cargos to North near 38 parallel. The sphere of trains running on the bank daily was the center piece of my childhood. As I got toilet trained and became comfortable walking, the bank was my first place that I targeted to check out: I walked out of my house and climbed 50 feet up on the bank out of my curiosity what's up there. Facing up a long stretch bank that runs across the town, I started walking where it led to. By 6 years old, I got to know that there is a bridge located half a mile to east and the railroad track on the bank runs to Munsan near Panmunjom, but still I had no knowledge where the outbound train that pass by several times each day was coming from. Long before I was able to walk up to the bank by myself, a picture taken on a late summer day shows how early the presence of the bank came into my life; my Mom holding her baby sitting by the bank next to wildflowers blooming at the foot of the bank. The presence of bank had woven into my psyche like a soft pillow way from the beginning of my life. The bank was my playground as a toddler when it was virtually non-existent at that time. And at one point, I probably had to muster up my courage first to climb up that steep hill to reach the top of the bank. It would be interesting to know go back in time to understand the dynamics involved in interacting with the bank until its presence settled in my mind no longer becoming source of curiosity and stirring of excitements. How much it aided me in developing hands, feet and eye coordination to maneuver myself to climb up to the top? And how much it had spurred my curiosity to climb up to see what lies above the bank? How much contemplation and apprehension were made before attempting to climb up to see the railroad tracks by myself? And how long did it take until I touched the iron track laid out on top of pebbles and felt hotness of it in a hot summer summer day, and seeing a train running fast coming from afar in flurry and passing by throwing a forced wind whipping off my hat in winter as I was caught off guard? I remember coming down the bank with apprehension that I might slip and fall ever so scared. And there were moments I brought my kit or toy to the top of the bank and playing with it after gaining much skills in climbing up and coming down from the bank. There are many small and big stories of my childhood that revolves around the bank. The bank and upon which the train running on spurred up curiosity and shaped my sentiments, and sphere of it has still not forgotten.
Until I reached 11 years old before started taking bus daily going to middle school, boundary of my activity seldom exceeded beyond the town except visiting my grandmother's grave site on Chusok holidays and when school held excursions twice a year. I remember taking to train for the the first time ever in mid 60's when I was about six years old on the way visiting my grandmother's grave-site on Chusok holiday which is located 50 miles north of Seoul in PukJae. It was also the first time I ever went to the Shinchon Train Station. To me Shinchon Train Station is largely associated with death of my grandmother.
She passed away earlier in May of that year following a brutal winter. Relatives and friends of her visited my house at the news and stayed overnights to observe the wake, and some stayed several days for its entire duration. A big canopy was set up in the front yard, in which a large round mat made out of straw was placed on the ground low legged traditional round lacquer panted tables were placed on the mat several feet away from each other. The visitors, after paying the respect in the room, came out of her room through the sliding door and sat under the canopy. Sometimes, as they came out of the room, they found me in the front yard and asked me to do a favor for them bringing their shoes that they had taken off at the main enterance of the house, which was several feet away from where they were coming out. Her daughter-in-laws and daughters were working in the kitchen preparing food for the visitors who were staying for the wake. The visitors met acquaintences and new people, and they were shaking hands and offered cigaretts to each other. Foods were delivered from the kitchen and placed on the tables, and I was often called and handed out a water pot with a long spout to run down to Makgolli store nearby to get a jugfull of Makgolli. The store had several big pots made out of clay, each containing Makgolli and I could smell the liquor as I opened the store door. Because I had taken a sip of Makgolli and experienced sweet taste of it before, watching the owner pouring white colored Makgolli into the pot, my mouth would start watering. Climbing up a little hill in front of my house and delivering Makgolli successfully to their table, the visitors were happy to see that it was arrived and they were busy pouring Makgolli onto a small aliminum bowl. They were drinking and talking in loud voices, sitting around the tables. At nights, lamps were hung on the posts permeating its light through thick smoke bellowing from cigarettes, and voices of drunken guests talking loud could be heard as I was falling asleep in a room nearby.
My grandmother suffered a long illness which changed the atmosphere in the house. During the time she was ill, my mother often told me to be quiet not to disturb her, and I had to restrain myself from playing in the yard in front of her room, and changed behaviors that would unwittingly committed such as running in the yard, hopping on the floor or slamming the steel door as coming in and going out of the house. My father who see about grandmother with a casual greeting upon leaving for work changed to the way of greeting her in more cordial way as her health deteriorated, spending more time; asking her how she was feeling or for anything that she would like him to buy on the way home in the evening.
The wake disrupted my lifestyle; the whole front yard was occupied with a canopy robbing away my play space in the house, and I had to even share my room with guests who were drunken and smelly. Individuals and groups of people arrived in different times of the day. Upon entering a wooden flooring that led to her room, they took off their shoes as what they would do in any circumstance, and went into the room where her body had been placed behind,평풍, a partition which blocked the view of the coffin to the visitors. A small table was placed in front of the partition, on which an incense burner and a box of incense were placed. As the visitors entered the room, they took turn striking a match and lit a incense and placed in the burner. The whole room was filled with the smell of burning incense and the smell of it can be felt as I passed by her room with a sliding doors outside. I could watch the visitors paying the respect at the alter through the sliding door left open. As visitors came out of her room, they joined the earlier crowd gathered underneath the canopy, greeting and shaking hands to each other.
During her long illness, even though she were a buddhist, she called upon many religious faiths to comfort herself. One time, a member of the bigger family suggested calling a shaman for a Gut, which subsequently triggered a big argument between my mother and father who had to pay brunt of expenses for calling the sharman for the ritual. My mother opposed and my father wanted to go ahead at the wishes of majorty of people in the bigger family. My mother yield to my father, and the ritual was undertaken, which lasted several days with its loud sound and noises. The ritual was taken place on the foyer floor and I could see the sharm dancing on the floor though the glass door. The ritual that started in the morning carried out toward the evening totally disrupting my daily activities in the house. I often wondered when it's going to end and I had to leave the house for the whole day and and came back to find that it was still going on. When the ritual was ended in the evening I became quite relieved. Nonetherless, it started again in the following day, and I had the leave the house again to find peace of mind. When it was finally over the day after, I was wondering how adults can put up with this.As inherent nature with the ritual, loud banging of drums lasted couple days hardly with no stopping during the days. I was totally in awe with the indefatigable stamina of the shaman, and at the same time, feeling for my grandmother clinging onto her life that I knew so little of. The rituals and the bustling atmosphere associated with her illness and death disrupted six years old boy greatly; the cares that I had received was abruptly cut off for my mother was busy with the chores of taking care of the visitors. I was not properly fed on time, and I was told to get my meals from the foods had been served to the visitors with an empty dish handed out to me. For several days, I had to take care of myself on my own, making my own bedding, feeding myself, and helping out bringing food to the tables. Playing in the front yard had been stopped with no advanced notice and having a quite time were out of question. All the bustling while visitors staying for the wake had suddenly changed the atmosphere in the house for me...It was a sudden change in the atmosphere that I had to make senses and adapt myself. Furthermore, I was little mad that the adults invited the shaman to perform the ritual days without a word to me. The whole affair with calling the shaman induced me into thinking how things are handled undemocratically in the family mostly in favor of elders.
All the callings of different faths and shaman ritual could not help my grandmother who was greviously ill. After several days of wake had past, her casket was to be carried out early in early morning as people in the neighbors and guests gathered in the path outside the house to bid farewell to her. When I woke up on that morning, I was glad to find that the canopy was taken away in the front year, and engulfed with a surprise seeing all the adult members of family standing in the place wearing strange looking costumes with straws around their heads and waists instead. The sight of them wearing clothes made out of hemp was so bizarre and looked foreign to me. I stared at them for awhile. When my uncle look to me and said something to me, I stammered and walked away in shyly. As her coffin was taken out from her room, the adults started chanting. For she had been ill for a long time, there was a sense of a relief. As her coffin was taken out of the house near the main entrance of the house, I overheard an old neighbor woman standing by my mother talking to my mother, suggesting to make more saddened facial expressions. The old woman started to wail as though she tried to show how my mother supposed to express her sadness in the traditional context. I was wondering why the old neighbor imposed that to my Mom not to my father or my uncles. Her coffin was taken from the house and carried in procession with banners and chants down the hill and the male members of the family and my grandmother's friends followed immediately behind the coffin, the women of the family further back. After her coffin was bought into the white bus that was waiting, my uncle asked me whether I would come along riding the bus. I told him that I would stay at home for the fear of facing her casket in front of me in a confined space.
On that day, I stayed at home alone with my great grandmother without knowing what the rest of the day would unfold; all my siblings and cousins had left on that morning even my four years old younger brother. I pretty much remember everybody somehow went away following their departure; I don't have any recollection that any of my sibling had stayed with me. After the bus had left, all of a sudden, eerie quietness surged into the house after all the bustling atmosphere had vanished. After all the people had left, a sense of boredom rushed in with sudden change of atmosphere; the path in front of my house, on which the casket was carried looked deserted, and seeing the spot where the bus had been waiting looked very empty. I went up on 툇마루 and looked around totally oblivious to the fact that they were heading to a distant place for the burial and the ceremony would last hours; a sight of some people wearing in white hemp, like the ones I saw on that morning, standing on the hillside of a mountain in far distance was caught in my sight and I rushed out of the house and ran down a little hill leading to the front of the tunnel underneath an embankment for a railroad track and looked again yonder at the hillside of the mountain and stared for quite a while; I saw them coming down the hill and getting out of sight. For awhile, I mistakenly thought that the people were my relatives and assumed that they had finished burying my grandmother and they were on their way coming back home. However, they still had not returned home even much time had past since I returned back home..and I grew anxious and stepped up on the 툇마루 repeatedly every fifteen minutes interval for chunk of time in the afternoon until growing very tired. Noticing my frustration, my great grandmother shouted at me to be patient that it will be a long time before they come home. I went into my great grandmother's room in disappointments and fell asleep. On that afternoon, I took a long nap until it became dark undisturbed by my great grandmother's sound of doing her chores. A loud noise coming from the entrance door woke me up late in the evening as all the people were returning talking and making noises as they were entering through the steel door with a small bell attached making clicking sounds.
Until I reached 11 years old before started taking bus daily going to middle school, boundary of my activity seldom exceeded beyond the town except visiting my grandmother's grave site on Chusok holidays and when school held excursions twice a year. I remember taking to train for the the first time ever in mid 60's when I was about six years old on the way visiting my grandmother's grave-site on Chusok holiday which is located 50 miles north of Seoul in PukJae. It was also the first time I ever went to the Shinchon Train Station. To me Shinchon Train Station is largely associated with death of my grandmother.
She passed away earlier in May of that year following a brutal winter. Relatives and friends of her visited my house at the news and stayed overnights to observe the wake, and some stayed several days for its entire duration. A big canopy was set up in the front yard, in which a large round mat made out of straw was placed on the ground low legged traditional round lacquer panted tables were placed on the mat several feet away from each other. The visitors, after paying the respect in the room, came out of her room through the sliding door and sat under the canopy. Sometimes, as they came out of the room, they found me in the front yard and asked me to do a favor for them bringing their shoes that they had taken off at the main enterance of the house, which was several feet away from where they were coming out. Her daughter-in-laws and daughters were working in the kitchen preparing food for the visitors who were staying for the wake. The visitors met acquaintences and new people, and they were shaking hands and offered cigaretts to each other. Foods were delivered from the kitchen and placed on the tables, and I was often called and handed out a water pot with a long spout to run down to Makgolli store nearby to get a jugfull of Makgolli. The store had several big pots made out of clay, each containing Makgolli and I could smell the liquor as I opened the store door. Because I had taken a sip of Makgolli and experienced sweet taste of it before, watching the owner pouring white colored Makgolli into the pot, my mouth would start watering. Climbing up a little hill in front of my house and delivering Makgolli successfully to their table, the visitors were happy to see that it was arrived and they were busy pouring Makgolli onto a small aliminum bowl. They were drinking and talking in loud voices, sitting around the tables. At nights, lamps were hung on the posts permeating its light through thick smoke bellowing from cigarettes, and voices of drunken guests talking loud could be heard as I was falling asleep in a room nearby.
My grandmother suffered a long illness which changed the atmosphere in the house. During the time she was ill, my mother often told me to be quiet not to disturb her, and I had to restrain myself from playing in the yard in front of her room, and changed behaviors that would unwittingly committed such as running in the yard, hopping on the floor or slamming the steel door as coming in and going out of the house. My father who see about grandmother with a casual greeting upon leaving for work changed to the way of greeting her in more cordial way as her health deteriorated, spending more time; asking her how she was feeling or for anything that she would like him to buy on the way home in the evening.
The wake disrupted my lifestyle; the whole front yard was occupied with a canopy robbing away my play space in the house, and I had to even share my room with guests who were drunken and smelly. Individuals and groups of people arrived in different times of the day. Upon entering a wooden flooring that led to her room, they took off their shoes as what they would do in any circumstance, and went into the room where her body had been placed behind,평풍, a partition which blocked the view of the coffin to the visitors. A small table was placed in front of the partition, on which an incense burner and a box of incense were placed. As the visitors entered the room, they took turn striking a match and lit a incense and placed in the burner. The whole room was filled with the smell of burning incense and the smell of it can be felt as I passed by her room with a sliding doors outside. I could watch the visitors paying the respect at the alter through the sliding door left open. As visitors came out of her room, they joined the earlier crowd gathered underneath the canopy, greeting and shaking hands to each other.
During her long illness, even though she were a buddhist, she called upon many religious faiths to comfort herself. One time, a member of the bigger family suggested calling a shaman for a Gut, which subsequently triggered a big argument between my mother and father who had to pay brunt of expenses for calling the sharman for the ritual. My mother opposed and my father wanted to go ahead at the wishes of majorty of people in the bigger family. My mother yield to my father, and the ritual was undertaken, which lasted several days with its loud sound and noises. The ritual was taken place on the foyer floor and I could see the sharm dancing on the floor though the glass door. The ritual that started in the morning carried out toward the evening totally disrupting my daily activities in the house. I often wondered when it's going to end and I had to leave the house for the whole day and and came back to find that it was still going on. When the ritual was ended in the evening I became quite relieved. Nonetherless, it started again in the following day, and I had the leave the house again to find peace of mind. When it was finally over the day after, I was wondering how adults can put up with this.As inherent nature with the ritual, loud banging of drums lasted couple days hardly with no stopping during the days. I was totally in awe with the indefatigable stamina of the shaman, and at the same time, feeling for my grandmother clinging onto her life that I knew so little of. The rituals and the bustling atmosphere associated with her illness and death disrupted six years old boy greatly; the cares that I had received was abruptly cut off for my mother was busy with the chores of taking care of the visitors. I was not properly fed on time, and I was told to get my meals from the foods had been served to the visitors with an empty dish handed out to me. For several days, I had to take care of myself on my own, making my own bedding, feeding myself, and helping out bringing food to the tables. Playing in the front yard had been stopped with no advanced notice and having a quite time were out of question. All the bustling while visitors staying for the wake had suddenly changed the atmosphere in the house for me...It was a sudden change in the atmosphere that I had to make senses and adapt myself. Furthermore, I was little mad that the adults invited the shaman to perform the ritual days without a word to me. The whole affair with calling the shaman induced me into thinking how things are handled undemocratically in the family mostly in favor of elders.
All the callings of different faths and shaman ritual could not help my grandmother who was greviously ill. After several days of wake had past, her casket was to be carried out early in early morning as people in the neighbors and guests gathered in the path outside the house to bid farewell to her. When I woke up on that morning, I was glad to find that the canopy was taken away in the front year, and engulfed with a surprise seeing all the adult members of family standing in the place wearing strange looking costumes with straws around their heads and waists instead. The sight of them wearing clothes made out of hemp was so bizarre and looked foreign to me. I stared at them for awhile. When my uncle look to me and said something to me, I stammered and walked away in shyly. As her coffin was taken out from her room, the adults started chanting. For she had been ill for a long time, there was a sense of a relief. As her coffin was taken out of the house near the main entrance of the house, I overheard an old neighbor woman standing by my mother talking to my mother, suggesting to make more saddened facial expressions. The old woman started to wail as though she tried to show how my mother supposed to express her sadness in the traditional context. I was wondering why the old neighbor imposed that to my Mom not to my father or my uncles. Her coffin was taken from the house and carried in procession with banners and chants down the hill and the male members of the family and my grandmother's friends followed immediately behind the coffin, the women of the family further back. After her coffin was bought into the white bus that was waiting, my uncle asked me whether I would come along riding the bus. I told him that I would stay at home for the fear of facing her casket in front of me in a confined space.
On that day, I stayed at home alone with my great grandmother without knowing what the rest of the day would unfold; all my siblings and cousins had left on that morning even my four years old younger brother. I pretty much remember everybody somehow went away following their departure; I don't have any recollection that any of my sibling had stayed with me. After the bus had left, all of a sudden, eerie quietness surged into the house after all the bustling atmosphere had vanished. After all the people had left, a sense of boredom rushed in with sudden change of atmosphere; the path in front of my house, on which the casket was carried looked deserted, and seeing the spot where the bus had been waiting looked very empty. I went up on 툇마루 and looked around totally oblivious to the fact that they were heading to a distant place for the burial and the ceremony would last hours; a sight of some people wearing in white hemp, like the ones I saw on that morning, standing on the hillside of a mountain in far distance was caught in my sight and I rushed out of the house and ran down a little hill leading to the front of the tunnel underneath an embankment for a railroad track and looked again yonder at the hillside of the mountain and stared for quite a while; I saw them coming down the hill and getting out of sight. For awhile, I mistakenly thought that the people were my relatives and assumed that they had finished burying my grandmother and they were on their way coming back home. However, they still had not returned home even much time had past since I returned back home..and I grew anxious and stepped up on the 툇마루 repeatedly every fifteen minutes interval for chunk of time in the afternoon until growing very tired. Noticing my frustration, my great grandmother shouted at me to be patient that it will be a long time before they come home. I went into my great grandmother's room in disappointments and fell asleep. On that afternoon, I took a long nap until it became dark undisturbed by my great grandmother's sound of doing her chores. A loud noise coming from the entrance door woke me up late in the evening as all the people were returning talking and making noises as they were entering through the steel door with a small bell attached making clicking sounds.
In the fall of the year, on a Chusok holiday, the death of my grandmother, in a sense, expanded my usual periphery of childhood; for the first time in my life, I went out of Shinchon taking a train heading out to Pukjae. On that day on, observing the ritual at the alter early in the holiday morning had become a secondary nature and traveling to Pukjae had become the main thing of the holiday; it mostly meant traveling and enjoying a fine day in autumn: riding train, hiking and sightseeing, getting more physical. Due to the lack of transportation medium available at that time taking the train was the most viable mean; any further visits to the cemetery had to be made through the means of taking 교외선, a raidroad transit that ran from Seoul Station in the downtown with its destination to Munsan, near Panmunjom which is the meeting place where North and South Korean delegates meet to discuss various issues since the end of the Korean War in 1952. Shinchon train station is located a mile from my home, within a walking distance, and it is the 1st train station for the transit to stop leaving from Seoul Station in downtown. Pukjae is a couple of stops before Munsan. The railroad track that ran in front of my house is laid on top of embankment. There were two railroad tracks, one for inbound and one for outbound. The embankments were located only about 100 feet away from my house, and there was a street going across through two tunnels that cut across those embankments; walking down through the first tunnel reached the other tunnel. The place is ingrained in my psyche for I had spent growing up in my childhood; my mother took pictures of me and my brothers holding her babies sitting on low-rise concrete shield that kept the pebbles from falling unto the street at the foot of the embankment, and my aunt opened up a convenient store in front of the tunnel. The embankments stretched out far on both directions in front of my house. In spring, all sorts of wildflowers would bloom on both sides of embankments and butterflies would hover over the flowers, and scent of flowers spreads all around in the neighborhood. The place spurred up quite a bit of the children's curiosity throughout year. Even in summer time, some children, out of their bordom, dared to climb up on the embankment. As they climbed up, pebbles would roll down and be scattered at the bottom of the embankment as their steps push down dirts with pebbles embedded in the soil. As soon as they went up on the embankment, they were enchanted with serenity the surrounding offered, which perhaps they hadn't felt for a while; the stifles that they had been feeling from walking narrow paths for many days down on the narrow streets in between the houses is suddenly expunged and replaced with soothing feeling coming from the surrounding as if they were walking on a path of a garden, and they would walk savoring the feeling of quietness that it exuded for quite a long time if they were lucky not to be disturbed by the sound of a train coming from far distance heading its way. In the tunnels, people gathered in hot summer days to escape the heat in August playing chess; some vendors were flocked in the tunnels to set up stalls to sell fruits to passerby.
The sound of the train running was often heard but it never bothered people in the neighborhood and often times I noticed it much time after it had passed away in far distance when it was barely heard. Sometimes, I heard the sound in my bedtime while lying down, coming from far distance in minute tone and getting louder and louder until it pass by my house, and then getting smaller and smaller until it is barely heard coinciding the time falling asleep. Sometimes, the sound came into my consciousness when it was loud just passing by my house, at that time, I noticed that the traditional Korean paper windows vibrating until the train had passed and gone far away. The sounds of train must had played a great role of singing lullaby to all children in the neighborhood at at their bedtime. I remember one day when a guest came over my house visiting my mother, a bussing sound was heard from somewhere in the room and my eyes were rolling to find where it was coming from while I was epsedropping their conversation until I sew a tiny secion of ripped paper from the window that was playing cazoo.
The railroad tracks were probably built during the colonial time for the purpose of carrying goods and servicing imperial expansion by imperial Japanese in Manchuria, which used to run far up north to Sineju in North Korea during that time. For all along, I had used the transit, the historical aspect of it never occurred to me until much later, then it became clear to me that the transit had its past history. The transit resumed its operational only up to Moonsan right below the 38th parallel after the Korean War.
Chusok holiday is largely devoted to honoring ancestors who passed away. The holiday kicks off very early with women already got up as early as 4 O'clock in the morning preparing foods to be placed on alter. As the noises coming from the kitchen was getting unbearably loud, one child gets woken up and started becoming playful tickling nose and feet of others and soon all the children get up before a loud call is heard asking to come over to the grandmother's room. When we get in the room, grand-father was already up dressed putting the food delivered at the door on the alter. As the foods were delivered, father set up an alter writing names of ancestor on pieces of narrow strip of rice paper, each with an ancestor's name. Once alter has been set up and foods are placed, members of the family take turning bowing in front of the alter with the head of men first. After finishing the ritual, the family gather in a big table for their breakfast. After having a feast in the morning, the members of family prepare for a day trip to the burial site packing up bags. For easier carrying in long walking, the goods were prepared in backpacks; all the foods containing liquid were carefully sealed to avoid leaking, and incense was checked in double for its presence in the bag. The children were excited to carrying the backpacks, and the adults were happy that the children take part in efforts carrying the good as they headed out to the train station leaving the house. When we arrived at the train station, my uncle bought tickets at the counter and handed out to us with a word reminding us not to loose the ticket. We were all waiting in the train stations sitting on one of old wooden benches all facing the ticket counter by the ticket office. The floor was not paved and it had been sprinkled with water to keep dust from flaring up. My aunt was talktive and she talked with my father and grandfather, and we got bored and went out of the station through the main entrance to a big open space with many shops along its periphery that had been swept with no debris laying giving me a freshness of the morning. There were people walking and we saw shops were closed for the holiday. Looking at the train station from outside, the train station looked small and has a titled roof. Walking back to near the train station, we noticed an extra waiting was made outside with green slated roof; the waiting area were more like a small area of a ballpark with seats laid out on steps, I saw a bunch of glass soda bottles with one of them half full lying on the ground that were left by earlier passengers.
As the small iron gate for ticketing was opened, we all stood up in excitement and walked toward the ingress as a ticket collector standing by the gate collecting the tickets. We were all happy to be standing on the platform with much anticipation that the train would be arriving in any minutes. There were benches on the platform and we felt the freshness of the early autumn morning looking at the long railroad track that disappeared in the darkness of a tunnel on one end. When we heard sound of train coming and stared at the tunnel and made a gleeful sound as the train was coming out from a tunnel showing its sight in far distance. As we got on the train, we looked for the best seats were available. The train was already more than half a full, yet still few window seats were available: the adults let the children sit by the windows. As the train wheels started rolling, we made gleeful similes. For we all knew that the train passes by the railroad track nearby my house, we all looked outside though the windows in much anticipation of passing by the house. I remember seeing my house's roof quickly coming in sight and went by in a flicker of a second seeing a glimpse of my great grandmother walking in the front yard and I shouted: " there, there I saw great grandmother in the yard." The train soon passed by the segment of embankment where my earlier my childhood had been spent, on which I used to go up and waved my hands at the train passing by or flew a kit on Solnal, Luner New Year day or doing some firework in celebration of 대보름날. Passing by the house and looking at the very spots gave me a feeling of traveling not only in distance but also in time. The train stopped 수색, 송탄, 백마, 벽제,일영,장흥 along the way passing lucious golden rice fields and farms with stalks of corns growing in the back of farmhouses in those days. Sitting by a window watching the views in clear blue sky in the autumn day is the most exhilarating experience.
[Having fun at a water stream encountered on heading back home after paying respect at the ancestral grave-site on Chusok holiday, 1968]
Chusok is a biggest holiday in Korea, on this day, you can feel the air in the dawn, in my case, with my great grandmother already got up at 4 O'clock in the morning getting the work on the way making noise to my ears in slumber. The days before Chusok the roads would be already getting heavily congested with people visiting their hometown, or planning on visiting their ancestral grave sites to pay respect on the following day, preparing food in festivity with newly harvested crops and fruits, which will be offered on alters in early morning at home and later at the tombs on Chusok day. The women of families get busy preparing food for Chusok, and often under strain making the money available and doing shopping at the marketplace. Sometimes, they have to get physical carrying a bucketful of rice has been ready on their head and bring it over to millstore in market place to be grounded for making rice cake. The forth-nights of Chusok tend to be the buiest for them with the amount of food needs to be prepared, and relatives would come to give helping hands preparing the food. The elder of family, my great grandmother, used to orchestrate the whole event every year even though she was too old to travel to visit the ancestorial graveyard. She was the one who do the checking making sure that that things are ready on time since some Korean food take a whole month to prepare. I used to seeing my great gandmother preparing food especially the ones that my mother was not so familiar with like 빈대떡and 도토리묵, both of them require elaborate procedures to make. For making 빈대떡, my great grandmother often relied on my assistences since she needed to get the two grinding stones (맷돌) ready; each one wighs about 40 pounds.
맷돌 (MatDol)
She would first ask me to carry those stones to the water faucet in the front yard to be washed. Once the washing was completed, she would ask me to carry it to the 대청마루 and put it in a big container and stack them on the top of the other one. Once the 맷돌 has been set up, she would then start griding beans...the fun part comes in when I saw her grinding holding her hand onto the grip and pushing it making circular movement while she was feeding beans into a small opening in the middle with the other hand. When I notice that her hands seem to be getting tired, I would ask her that I can do the turning, and she would let me do the turning.. the grounding gets done much quicker with both of us working together by 맷돌; I push the handle and she would do feeding the beans...and my hands would sore and I had to resort to using both hands...soon both of hands get tired needing a rest, which had to be repeated until all the beans are grounded...whoooo iiii Once the bean are all grounded, putting away 맷돌 is another big task since they both need to be brought over to the faucet and washed thoroughly before putting them away, which requires using more of my muscles again.
Chusok is an exciting time of the year for children as scorching summer weather of August in Korea has considerably receded with arrival of cool air giving sense of comfy feeling. They get heightened sense of the holiday festivity as days coming near especially when they are taken to maket place following their mother and seeing newly havested fruits and nuts sprawled out in big containers along alleys before reaching clothing shops for an annual treat of buying a new jacket or a pair pants for the occasion. In Chusok morning, children are awakened not by adults, but rather by sweet smell of soup (미역국) being boiled in the kitchen, that is almost ready to be placed on the alter for the ritual to be taken place. Children wake up 5 O'clock in the dawn and gather in the room with sleepy eyes while the alter is being set. As food is repared and placed on the alter, they watch alter is being set. Once the alter is set up, adults take turn bowing in front of the alter.
After we got off at the station, we walked six miles to the grave-site taking more than an hour. Along the way, we encountered a old historical tomb believed to have been build hundred years ago during Yi Dynasty. I have seen something similar to this out skirt of Shinchon where guards statuses chiseled out from limestone such as rams and sheep standing in front of tomb in orderly fashion. There were even some statuses of human guarding the tomb. A sense of strange and yet feeling of respect spurred up seeing the elaborate display of guard, and yet our temptation to climb up on some of the small statues could not be resisted. The height of the rams was almost to my shoulder and we hopped on the rams with all might to feel what would be like sitting on. Looking down, I gazed up on the hill that we climbed on: the hill was covered in golden brown as the autumn has arrived. As I heard the adults shouting to hurry up, we got off the statuses and lay down and started to roll down the hill all the way to the bottom of the hill lying down. Upon encountering a stream along the way we had to go across. One time, all the kids got undressed and went skinny dipping at the stream. Luckily, there was nobody passing by. On the way, we also ran into an elementary school with the whole front lot empty with a parallel bar in the corner. My uncle mounted on the parallel bar and showed off his atheleticsm by swinging several times. We hopped and hang on the parallel bar just soon to lose the grip and fall down. For the last stop, we sat under a big acorn tree, and my relative would tell me we are almost there. Once we arrived there, all the food that were preared the day before laid out in front of the 봉분 and took turn bowing three times. After the ritual was over, we eat the food as though we were on a picnic.
small stream catching a shell fish
dotori mookbig chestnut tree
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