I can still hear my mother calling me in that little alley of Jegi-dong.
When I reflect on why I enjoy hosting people as much as I do, I realize this trait traces back to my maternal grandmother. Ironically, I wasn’t fond of her when I was young. It makes me sad to look back on now that I am a grandmother myself. I couldn’t bear the thought of my grandchildren not liking me. In my defense, my grandmother wasn’t very kind to us girls. She showed gender discrimination in obvious ways, like giving more Sebae* money to the boys during holidays. (*Sebae – Formal new year’s greeting)
Still, my mother always praised our grandmother. She often shared stories of how grandma constantly showed care to those who were poor and needy– “The nasty old lady in the house behind us tried to marry off her housemaid with nothing, without even paying her any of her overdue salary. When grandma found out about it, she made this poor girl clothes from her own hanbok. When the water delivery man would ask for a bowl of water, grandma would prepare a whole meal for him.” They were stories like these, but since I didn’t like my grandmother, I didn’t give them much thought.
It makes sense that my mother, having learned from hers, similarly fed and took care of people around her. Part of this was necessary because of my father’s occupation as a congressman, but I believe my mom would have taken care of people anyway. It was just in her nature. Like the old saying, “you emulate your parents even as you complain about it,” it seems my grandmother’s genes were passed down to me through my mother.
My parents bought a small plot and built a house when I was a baby. This humble house was our family home for 35 years. It was located at the end of a small alley in Jegi-Dong next to the open market.
I loved that home– its low and flimsy door, the gate that was always left open for visitors, the sounds of children running around the alley, even the dog poop that littered our streets. People flowed in day and night as if it was their own home. The sweetest and warmest of my memories are in that little alley.
My mother later built a new house on the site of the old one to accommodate our growing family. This new house wasn’t stylish so much as it was functional, kind of like a simple inn since it had so many bedrooms. Ten people made up the base of our family– my parents, us six girls, my cousin, and my grandmother– and even more guests stayed with us throughout the years, various cousins and family friends. One cousin came to stay when she was twelve and lived with us until she finished college and got married. It was only after my own marriage that I realized how kind my dad was to take in and raise his wife’s niece.
It’s no wonder my oldest sister’s request after a long college trip was to ask my parents if we could eat a meal with just our family alone. In response, my mother bought a table where our family could dine with some semblance of privacy. I think that was when I was about 12 years old. Until then, there were usually other people eating at our table.
Before this new house was built, there were only two bedrooms, so we all slept close together. It doesn’t sound comfortable, but I loved the nights I shared with my family, even if we were packed up like sardines. I have fond memories of my mom mixing up a large bowlful of bibimbap and all of us digging in together with our spoons as if in a contest, laying in bed with the lights off and chatting with my sisters until late, and being scolded by mother for staying up. .
Those days when my family lived in a crowded house together were the happiest times.
I have so many childhood memories of my mother feeding and taking care of people. Whenever she saw people, my mother greeted them, asking, “Have you eaten?” Throughout the course of an average day, the table would be set multiple times for different people to eat.
Our house was practically across the road from Korea University, my father’s alma mater. On the day of the entrance exam for the University, dozens of students from my father’s school ended up at our house for lunch. Knowing that all four restaurants in the neighborhood were full on exam days, my mother would prepare a table of hot soup and rice for the boys and hand them an apple to eat on their way out. I remember my heart pounding just a bit in high school, seeing those boys in my house.
Another time, a circus troupe came to the market behind our home. After several days of performance, my mother invited the troupe for a meal. They ate so well and so much that, after they left, mom shook her head and said wistfully, “they really should get proper meals more often . . .”
On New Year’s Day, she always held a big feast. This was because New Year’s was the day when the many young people who had been welcomed into our home at one time or another would pay a visit to greet my parents with their new year’s bow. In today’s terms, they were interns, i.e., political aspirants. These people whom we called uncles were mostly juniors from my father’s college and some later became congressmen, members of the National Assembly. There was no official invitation– my mom just knew to always prepare food, and every year without fail, many people came through all day long to bow to my parents and share our table. In the kitchen, there was the constant sizzle of frying and cooking throughout the day. When the sliding door of the room was opened and the table was set, people crowded around the table to eat, and the atmosphere was lively.
On days like this, people always asked my father to sing a song. My dad, who was famous in the political world for his singing talent, and mom, who was shy about her voice, would stand together and sing. I’ll never forget the sound of applause and laughter and the dozens of pairs of shoes scattered outside the door. . . it was New Year’s Eve, but the scene in my memory is as warm as a spring night.
My mother’s claim that we went through more than one gama* of rice (*a very large sack of rice) a month was not an exaggeration at all. Aside from the interns, we always had various guests for various reasons. Perhaps we went through so much rice because we lacked sufficient banchan, or side dishes.
Years later, these “uncles” (interns) who passed through our house would return to treat my mother to a meal, and with a playful sense of humor they would tease her, “In those days, we only got to eat vegetables ( meat was expensive..) so grasshoppers used to run around the table!”
My mother would respond, “Yes, that’s true. But did our kids get meat?”
Then they would all respond: “No, they didn’t either!”
Since she had to feed so many, our side dish offerings were naturally pretty poor. Even our lunch boxes were embarrassing compared to our friends’. But my mother did not discriminate between family and those who lived with us. We all ate the same food. Years later, a childhood friend told me she used to feel sorry for me because usually all we had to eat was rice, kimchi, and bean sprouts. “We occasionally had some meat and fish …” I thought to myself.
No matter how many times I host, I can’t even begin to compare with the generosity of my mother. Seeing how often I was hosting guests in my house later on, my mother said to me during one of her visits, “This is the best season. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was a really good season when people were crowding my house. They stopped visiting once I grew old and lost my strength. So, be grateful and be hospitable when you still can.”
My parents believed kindness shouldn’t be limited to your own family, and their actions are proof they lived out their values. Even though they met penniless in their early 20s and had the burden of raising six daughters, they didn’t let their situation stop them from sharing what they had with others. The older I get, the more I respect my parents for the way they always treated people with kindness and respect.
When we were young, it was common to keep housekeepers. In a large household like ours, there was usually an “aunt,” ajumma, who was in charge of housework, and a young maid who ran small errands. It was not unusual for a child to be sent to someone else’s house to eat and sleep and work since her family was so poor. By the time I was into high school, some of those maids were younger than me. My mother always told us when a new maid came in: “That unni didn’t come to serve you. You must clean your own rooms and be nice to her. The only difference between you and her is that you had the privilege of being born to wealthier parents.”
On rare occasions when things went missing, mom scolded us for not keeping things secure rather than cast blame on the help. When a very young girl arrived to work for us, my mom could not bear to see her miss out on studying for labor, so she sent her to a technical academy. If anyone came to work for our family not knowing how to read or write, mom made sure they attended school. Bonuses were given during Chuseok (Harvest Fest) and Christmas, and large sums of money were also given to those who stayed at our house for a long time, like a severance pay. These practices, though more common now, were unheard of back then.
One time, a woman came to work for us because she was kicked out by her mother-in-law for not bearing children. When my mother heard her story, she rented a room in our neighborhood and called her husband from the countryside so they could live together. She even got her husband a job at the power company as an electric meter reader. Not long after they started living together, they gave birth to a beautiful daughter and named her Hyeon-kyung.
My mother sure did take care of so many who didn’t have a place to lean on. It’s been three years since my mother passed away. I feel so proud to have had such a mother. Why didn’t I tell her how thankful I am that she is my mother while she was still alive? I wish I had told her what a good teacher she was. She would have liked that very much…
After I moved to a large house in New Jersey, mom told me: “With a big house like this, you can’t just treat your own family with favor.” At that time I didn’t give much attention to her admonition, but I guess it still became engraved in my heart without realizing. It’s like a sacred burden given to me by my mother.
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