청평이야기: My childhood memories of Chung-pyung
I have been to ChungPyong several times. The first time was in early 70's, when I was in 6th grade. My uncle rented a room in a thatched-roofed farm house. As with most houses in countryside around the time, the houses had thatched-roof and some of them had goads growing on the roof; it was time before Samaul movements was started in the countryside that prompted replacing all the thatched-roof to slates for convenience. My uncle had four children, and he sent them away to spend part of their summer vacation away from home in a countryside for they could spend time in more meaningful way in the nature. He suggested that I tag along with them. Come to think of it, my uncle played pivotal role in planting sentiment of Korea deep within me as rural atmosphere was so uniquely Korea. He was smart sending us there since we spent all year round living in the city with not much exposure to natural environment or countryside living year after year of living in hectic lifestyle in the city. To this day, I want to thank him for his thoughtfulness: without the experiences I had at ChungPyung, I would not have known what the Korean countryside living is like; though the experiences I connected deeply to the Korean rustic living. After all, Korea had been a farming country for centuries, and come to think of it now, I was then walking on the edge of eclipse that wane one of the aspects that characterized Korea forever. The farmhouse was surrounded by a stout fence, creating a farmyard around the porch where threshing and winnowing are done at havest time and where, near the house in giant earthware jars, the pickles(kimchi) are stored; these form an essential part of Korean diet. The house had a cow stables right next to the room where we were staying. Like everywhere in Korea, this place is no exception with mountains can be seen from anywhere in the town, even in rice patties. ( 매미) cicada humming sound coming from the mountains nearby can be heard even standing in the middle of the rice paddies, and occasionally sound of a small airplanes passing by interleaving the humming sound in hot summer days make a signature atmosphere. The house was located quite a distance away from the train station. We arrived in ChungPyong at night taking two hours of train rides from 청량리 train station. ChungPyong is located about 50 miles west of downtown Seoul. Once we got off the train, we started walking and we soon found ourselves walking along the 2 feet wide narrow path in-between the rice paddies. With dim moonlight shining to show the way, we trudged and yet walked cautiously, heading our ways to the house listening to frog rib biting relentlessly in the dark. The floor of rice patties is irrigated growing rice in half of foot in water, which is a foot below the path; one misstep could make us fall in the rice patty and get ourselves completely wet with mud. When we arrived at the house, we washed with water pump. After having the late dinner that was served by the host, everybody, except me, quickly fell asleep sleeping soundly from the trip.
As I was lying down to fall asleep, the unfamiliarity of new place with different atmosphere and bedding was not conductive to fall asleep readily; there was smell of cow from the stable adjacent to my room, where cows were mooing once a while, and crickets sounded constantly in the dark while mosquitoes were buzzing. With a little bit of sleeping after much tossing and turning, I woke up early in the morning and stepped out of the house gently pushing the entrance door made with 쌀문 to find myself in a midst of glistening rice paddies all around me. As I was walking in opposite direction the narrow path that led to the house last night, the sun had already started doing its daily work shooting its rays on the rice paddies. Standing in the midst of it, the reflection of bright green lights dazzled my eyes with a bout of dizziness. Looking yonder at the mountains that has nice smooth curvature like a blossom, the rising sun’s rays jabbed right into my eyes with a dab of poignancy as if a precursor sending a strong message that another scorching summer day had already started, asking me to step out. The mountains, brooks for irrigation and a river that flow to Chungpyung reservoir made the landscape making me feel totally in awe with place, making permanent imprints in my memories. We stayed in the place for several weeks, eating food that host provided us with no basis of our familiarity; the rice bowl contained high mixture of other grains other than white rice and there weren't that many side dishes. I would have liked it now since the white rice has been determined not healthy diet. There was a big stream where clear water was flowing with gentle cacophony as water flow running over rocks that are round and shinny. Some days, we would go to by the streams to catch fish in a stream. We would put a glass with a bait attached and put it gently in the steam and put couple of stones at the bottom of the bottle in order not to slip and break. Then we would go away prance in the mountain and come back two hours later to see fish got trapped in the bottle. At the bottom of the stream, in between the small pebbles of rocks, we saw minnows swimming in upstream. We were playing by the sallow area of the river where there was s boat rentals and souvenir shops during the day.
The second time I visited ChungPyung was about five weeks after a horrible accident happened to one of the workers in the photo slide factory in front of my house: the worker accidentally pressed the pedal while his thumb was still underneath the press that was used to cut paper. The manager got freaked out and an ambulance came to take him to the hospital nearby. For a week after the accident, I didn't hear any sound of radio coming from the factory, which implied to me how much people was shocked and saddened by the accident, and it affected general mood for the people working in the factory. All the workers were very quite for weeks after the incident. I was wondering when the atmosphere at the factory would turn cheerful again. When I pass by the factory, I peeped in to fee the air inside, but it reflected with no noise other than the churning sound of the press as cold as dead winter night with gloomy atmosphere. After several weeks had passed, the general atmosphere at the factory started to thaw out; the people started listening radio as usual and chat while they were working. I ran into the boss of the factory on the path that my house shares with the factory. He asked me "are you going to school?" I haven't heard his voice for several months and it came to me as an indication that the atmosphere is starting to thaw out. But it had to take several months to be actually started hearing Mr. 고바우 singing. Once I heard him singing, I overcame my hesitation and stepped into the factory one day after their workday was wrapping up to see all the people there. Still I did not speak anything about the incident. The employee got hurt was still had her hand wrapped in bandages. I asked one of the employees whether we could go camping together in coming weekend. Once we unanimously decided to go Chungpyung. It was in 2nd grade in middle school, I revisited ChungPyung again, this time with 삼식 who work in the photo slides factory in front of my house. We pitched a tent by the lake. After having a dinner, I was trying to cheer him up by singing songs, but I would just listen barely sang along with me. I flipped through the songbook to find a more cheerful song. We didn't talk at all about the accident. We hope that he recuperate and become well again. I remember seeing a thatched roof house at that time by the lake in Chungpyung when it is nowhere to be seen in the vicinity of Shinchon. It was nearby the rice patty by a water stream. Turning my head looking the other side, I saw some people enjoy water skiing.
