Happy Chuseok

I just celebrated Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) this past weekend. It was a full moon, and I spent it with my grandmother and grandfather for the first time that I can remember... I must have been 2 or 3 years old the last time I spent Chuseok with them.

It makes me a little sad that the people who raised me when my parents first immigrated to America are so strange to me. I've seen all of the photographs and heard all of the stories of my own childhood, but I know nothing about my own grandparents. This weekend, I learned their names for the first time. Not "halmuni" and "harabuji" but Yang Soon Boon and Kim Jin Woo. Fifty years ago, Korea was poorer than Ghana. I learned that when my grandfather was young, he moved to China looking for work because there was not enough food to eat in his village. He labored in China, and when he felt he had a little money, he took half of it back to his village in Kyungsangdo and left half with a good friend, in case he should be robbed on the way back. His friend later made it back safely as well. With the money he had saved, he bought some farmland and was able to get an arranged marriage.

My grandmother did not care for him at first; he was eight years older than she and she thought him an old man. She was only 20, and 28 seemed so far away. Considering the life expectancy at the time was under 50 years, I suppose my grandfather was middle-aged. I saw an old black-and-white photograph from their wedding. I did not recognize my grandmother, although my grandfather still looks much like his younger self. They were solemn, unsmiling, two children who hardly knew each other and were about to be committed to one another for life. And here they are, half a century later, although the dynamics have changed.

When they were young, my grandfather was stern and unforgiving. My grandmother did exactly as she was told without any complaint. Now, my grandfather is mostly reticent, speaking only when absolutely necessary... mostly to tell my grandmother to stop nagging my uncle. My grandmother, perhaps from having been silent for so many years, is constantly speaking. Sometimes she is complaining, sometimes she is nagging, but mostly she is just happy to be with the rest of the family. I don't always understand what she is staying because she speaks with Kyungsangdo saturi, a countryside accent. It is often difficult for me to understand proper Korean, so the unfamiliar accent/ dialect is particularly straining. Still, I want to know her. When I look through her photo albums, I imagine the life she once led, and it is so deliciously foreign and antiquated. What was it like to grow up in a time of war? When did she realize she finally loved her husband? What must it feel like now to have seen Korea go from rags to (nouveau) riches, from villages to cities?

Maybe I will ask.