Tag: family history

Mother-In-Laws

My childhood memory starts when I was maybe three or four years old. After my maternal grandmother and her daughters moved to the U.S. and stopped living with our family, my paternal grandparents moved in. According to my mother, my grandfather was a kind and gentle man, although he had a bit of a weakness for alcohol. But he was apparently still relatively a gentleman when he was drunk. He apparently loved my mother and through his influence softened his wife’s sharpness toward my mom. 

It’s strange how so many Korean mother-in-laws are nasty to their daughter-in-laws. You’d think they’d swear to be nice to their own daughter-in-laws after experiencing mistreatment from their mother-in-law. But instead of not repeating the mistake, they equally mistreat their own daughter-in-laws. And the cycle continues. Perhaps they are taking revenge for the time they were miserable as a daughter-in-law. Perhaps they don’t know how else to behave, since that’s all they learned.

Thankfully, my paternal grandmother couldn’t treat my mother too badly. My mother was a highly educated woman from a good family and she was also as much of a bread earner as my father was, especially since most of his salary went to supporting his family of origin and my mother’s salary went to pay for supporting our family. Still, my grandmother wasn’t a very kind woman and, at least for the first few years they lived with us, my paternal grandfather was a soft influence on her.

In contrast to what most people would think, my mother was not happy when I got married. I think she was worried about me experiencing so many difficulties she’d faced as a married woman. I can’t count in my two hands how many times my mother packed her bags and grabbed us from school, with the intention of never coming back. Of course, that would never have worked in Korea since women had absolutely no rights then, even a working woman. I sometimes wonder if my mother would have broken the cycle of mother-in-law abuse if one of her children had been born as a man and had gotten married.

Concubine or two

I’ve written about my great grandmother, who was a bit of a child bride. As often it was with arranged marriages, their marriage was… shall I say, the typical marriage of a rich man? Perhaps it’s because the choice was taken away from him, or perhaps he was just a rich man of his time.

My great grandmother did have three children by her husband, including the last child, a boy, who’d died. But my great grandfather was never content with the marriage. I’m told he was rich, tall, handsome, and an incredible singer. Obviously, there would be tons of women following him? And in those days, it was a common practice to have a concubine or two. So that’s what he did. He spent a lot of time with his second wife/concubine and had children with her. Of course, my grandmother knew all about it as she sometimes fetched him home from various concubines’ houses.

Then what happens when there are no sons by the first wife? You adopt the sons of the other wife to be the sons of the first wife. And that’s what happened. Essentially, these sons sort of became the sons of my great grandmother, on paper, of course. And well, that’s where inheritance (if there had been any left after the war) would have gone as well.

And both my grandmother and my mother’s generation all knew of this as they were well acquainted with who my mother called her “uncles”. I suppose in modern times this type of practice would be possibly unthinkable? Boys at any cost? But that was quite common in the olden times. So common that an exorbitant amount of money was spent in bringing back these uncles from the North when the border was nearly closed.

In the end, they were the inheritors of the family legacy, whatever was left of it. Thankfully, they were nice people and exceptionally smart, taking after my great grandfather. I vaguely remember meeting one of them and I always wondered why I had great uncles when my great grandmother didn’t have any sons.

Seaweed Soup

Seaweed soup is a must-have dish. It’s not fancy and easily made so we used to eat it ‌often. All you need is good 미역 (seaweed) and meat broth – and there is plenty of stale seaweed that will make you believe seaweed soup is not good, so beware.

Not sure how much people’s eating habits have changed in Korea these days with westernization, but when I was young, we still had rice, soup and side dishes three meals ago. Obviously, as a child, I often preferred something different. Did I tell you I didn’t even like Gimchee when I was young? That obviously changed now. Now, I crave Gimchee, just not always able to get it.

Although it was a typical dish, the seaweed soup was very important. Usually you must have some on your birthday and after giving birth. Why? Well, the explanation given to me was that it was good for our body, cleanses blood, clears skin, etc. So traditionally when a woman gave birth, it was a must-give. But I suppose not always? That was the case for my maternal grandmother.

She’d given birth to a third daughter, my mother, that is. And her parents-in-law decided to neglect her. Apparently, it was her fault that she didn’t end up having a male child. You probably can’t tell from my writing, but this type of treatment upsets me. And it apparently upset my maternal great grandmother too. Beware of the wrath of mothers! 

So hearing that her daughter was being neglected by her husband’s family – at that time, my grandmother had gone to give birth at her husband’s main family’s house), my great grandmother decided to intervene. She bought expensive seaweed and hired a man on a motorcycle. My grandmother’s husband’s family was extremely well-off and mighty, which meant they had their large main house situated away from the city with large land, and her husband had been studying in the city. On the motorcycle my great grandmother went, and essentially barged into her son-in-law’s house. Then she took charge of the kitchen – trust me, this is not something you do as a woman’s family in those times.

But my grandmother got her seaweed soup, finally after several days.

Chamberpot

It’s been a while since I blogged. Life… what can I say? And unfortunately, some stories I write in my blog sit a little heavy within me and I sometimes avoid writing. Love and hate relationship, remember? But today, I wanted to write a funny and maybe crass story of my childhood. If you don’t like a bit of bathroom humor, please stop reading now.

So when I was young, despite living in a two-story house with a flushing toilet upstairs (which really was constantly broken), our whole family mostly lived downstairs during the winter. I mean, heating was expensive and, well, families usually slept together in those days. My parents would sleep in another room on the first floor, but grandma, me and my sister would sleep in the slightly bigger room. 

Downstairs rooms did not have a flushing toilet, nor even an attached toilet. Basically, we had 뒷간 (meaning back house, but really means an outhouse with a hole in the ground). So if you wanted to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, you’d have to put on some extra clothes, shoes, take a little flashlight and go to this separate structure/room you’d call bathroom. Then you wash your hands as you come back, since the sink is near your room and nowhere near the outhouse.

As a child, I was terrified of falling into the said bathroom, as it was really a giant hole you squat on top of. Especially in the dark, it was even more terrifying since there were many stories of ghosts hanging about in the outhouses. And if you add freezing (-15 C) weather to that, you really didn’t want to go to the bathroom at night. Unfortunately, I always had a tiny bladder.

One evening, my dad was sleeping with us. This is rare since he was a very light sleeper and hated sleeping with others. We were all terrified of waking him up since he got really irritable and angry. Let’s say my bladder was not listening to my fears. It decided that it needed to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I didn’t know what to do. If I were to try to go outside, which I didn’t want to, I’d wake up my dad who’d get angry, etc.

So my grandmother came to the rescue… Because the bathroom situation was impossible, she always had this thing called Yo-gang (essentially a chamberpot, but it’s shaped like a round pot made of stainless steel). She said I should use Yo-gang quietly since that would be less likely to wake up dad. Since I was also terrified of going outside in the cold and dark, I was quite happy with her solution.

Dad wouldn’t wake up and I wouldn’t have to go outside.

Let me just say I hadn’t considered one problem…
The sound of pee hitting the stainless steel container.

You can probably guess the ending to the story. My dad jumped up from the loud noise, got angry anyway. Then, he got angrier because grandma had me use the chamberpot which, well, modern people wouldn’t use. 

There’s really no moral to the story except to tell you what honestly happened. The Korea of my childhood was not like the Korea of now. Even living in the middle of the capital city of Seoul, our two story modern house still had an outhouse. We had constant shut off of water so had to install a pump system. Our electricity went out rather often. There was really no hot water to speak of. And well, there was that one chamberpot.

Memory of licorice flavored jelly

Several years ago, I asked my dad what he’d like me to bring from the US. It’s a typical thing, when I visit Korea, I typically try to bring items from the US that my parents want. Initially it was because there were many things here that didn’t exist in Korea, but later, it became more for my parents to be able to tell their friends and acquaintances that their daughter brought something. They are very happy when they can pass out small pieces of dark chocolate, candy or coffee direct from the US.

So when he asked me to bring back black jelly that has something like the fragrance of 5 spices, I was thinking…what is that about? My dad tells me often he doesn’t like sweets (even though he does), but I had no idea what black jelly was. Well…I figured out that it is licorice flavored jelly. 

It seemed like a strange request since I think flavors like licorice or root beer are a bit of an acquired taste. If you aren’t exposed to it when you’re a child, you don’t tend to like it. I personally haven’t been so I don’t like either of them. Licorice flavor isn’t a common thing in Korea (at least up until my childhood) so I was wondering how my dad got exposed and was wanting this? So I bought the best licorice flavored jelly, the more high end kind that’s all natural, etc. When I brought this, he looked at it funny, took a bite and said this is not what he’d asked for. 

At this point, I’m perplexed. Was there some other kind of licorice?

He explained why he wanted this jelly. The memory goes back to post war time. After the war, there really wasn’t much to eat, which means dessert or sweets were not even part of the picture. But my dad remembers the American soldiers he’d met. They’d have these small packages of round flat disk fruit jellies (ones that come in different colors and covered with sugar) that come with their food packages. And the soldiers would often hand these out to the kids they meet. These candies were untold treasures to children and they’d savor them. The reason licorice flavor was what my dad wanted most was that it was not a common one in these packages. So it was like a treasure when he’d get one. 

And even now after so many decades past, my dad is still seeking a little piece of sweet memory, which he could only find in the fake licorice fruit jelly, not the real licorice jelly.

Sadness of Having a Third Daughter

Despite all her brilliance, my grandmother initially had two daughters. Not having a son was of course a woman’s issue in those days. The science now shows it is really a man that is crucial to determination of sex, but in those days, people just assumed it was woman’s fault if she could not have a son. When my grandmother was about to have her third child, she was called to her husband’s household to have the child there. Everyone had wanted a son and thought the third child must be a son and therefore should be properly birthed at the family house. Although my grandparents lived in the capital, my grandmother traveled to my grandfather’s rural family holding.

Unfortunately, the third child also ended up being a daughter, my mother to be exact. Having birthed another daughter, my grandmother was not exactly treated well. Normally after birth, if it was the birth of a son I suppose, women are given seaweed soup (helps with blood loss, etc.) and taken care of. None of that happened for my grandmother. She was essentially ignored at my grandfather’s household out in the middle of nowhere. He was not there obviously since he was still studying in the capital. I can just imagine what my grandmother had felt. especially after growing up in a rich household with more freedom than other women and having studied medicine abroad.

Thankfully, my great grandmother came to the rescue. My great grandmother (everyone called her 진진 할머니) bought a very expensive dried seaweed, a package that was about half her body size, and other food items. Then she literally hired a motorcycle man out of nowhere to motorcycle her way into the mountain top household. Entering her daughter’s husband’s household, she took over the kitchen, made the seaweed soup and proceeded to feed her daughter. Normally this would be unthinkable. Usually the mother of the married daughter should act humble so that her daughter does not get mistreated. My great grandmother, although she is the most womanly and motherly person, defied such custom. Needless to say, no one dared oppose her as she stayed with her daughter for a while to take care of her after the childbirth.

Go great grandmother! Maybe I take after both of these great ladies…one can only hope.

Noble Family Tree (족보, Jokbo)

In noble families, 족보 (Jokbo, family tree) that recorded the family tree was passed down. Essentially, the first son of the noble family would inherit this. I suppose in the olden days, it was probably an actual book, like family bible in the west. With Korean war and change in society, I am not sure that families still have some sort of old book they keep. However, the heritage, the noble class…all of that still exists today even though Korea is supposedly a democratic society with no class distinctions. All you have to say is which Gim (Kim) or Yi (Lee) you are and well, people know your family history. 

That is, at least up to my generation. I grew up in Korea during the modernization so it is likely that much of this has changed now, but considering that only a few years ago, there was a startling news of “now daughters can inherit Jokbo (family tree)”, I don’t think the society has changed so much. Other than, now it is not only the sons who can inherit the family tree and Korea has finally realized that gender equality is a thing to consider. It used to be that as a daughter, you got literally crossed off (like a red x mark) from your family tree if you got married.

I know some American genealogy enthusiasts might be overjoyed by the concept of Jokbo and I do agree it is nice that you can trace your lineage far (well, if you have a certain family background). But Jokbo is not just so that you can trace your family history. The matchmakers (and yes, they still do exist at least up until a few years ago) used it to weed out certain health issues, or to make sure the match had this and that features. As a matchmaker, you wouldn’t recommend a woman for a marriage if she had too strong an astrological sign,had family history of not being able to birth a child (especially not able to birth a male child), or other issues in mental and physical health of the family. Essentially, Jokbo enabled what I would call eugenics. Feeling as though I’m a product of eugenics in my history sometimes makes me feel a little strange.

Success Through Husband

My maternal grandfather was apparently a romantic soul. Having grown up as a second son to a very prominent family, he was not at all realistic, but loved poetry and knew nothing about earning a living. My grandmother was always perplexed why he would send her love letters as she was more like a man than a woman in that sense. In early 20th century, she was a woman who went to study at a medical university in Japan during the age of Japanese occupation in Korea, despite the discrimination. Unfortunately, her family lied to her about her grandfather being sick so that they could bring her home to marry her off.

That was the life of a woman then. 

My grandmother halted her medical study after a year and the only way for her to succeed was through her husband whom she thought was smart, but terribly unrealistic. While raising two daughters and working as a teacher, my grandmother pushed my grandfather to become a lawyer. Then, as he was somewhat useless as one (accepting chicken and whatnot as a fee for representation rather than money), she pushed him to become an interpreter, using her own large dowry to pay for the exams. That is how my grandfather came to be an interpreter to general Hodge, who was the military governor of South Korea under the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK).

Sadness of a Second Daughter

I have mentioned before, the Korean tradition of putting importance in having a male child since a female child could not inherit the family tree. That was changed only a few years ago. Now I suppose I could carry on my family tree (족보) if I feel inclined, except the honor would then fall to the first child and I am certainly not the first child of my family. I would like to blame this sexism on the acceptance of Confucianism into Korea, but the importance of men in the society started much before Confucianism. Things just got worse for women after the Confucianism.

My grandmother was a second daughter of a prominent rich family in the North. Her younger brother had died and she only had an older sister. Having no son from the legitimate wife in the family, my great grandfather’s son from his concubine had to be brought into the legitimate family tree. As my grandmother was quite an independent character even in those days, I can only imagine how she had felt about that when she had single-handedly fed her entire family after the war even though all of the lands and possessions became the adopted son’s possession.

My Great Great Grandfather

My maternal great great grandfather, my grandmother’s grandfather, is a figure shrouded in myth for me. He is said to have been over 6 feet tall. 6 척 장신 is the term my mother and grandmother use to describe him. So what is 6 척 장신? I had no clue when I heard the term. From the descriptions I heard, I gathered that it meant over 180 cm tall, which is around 6 feet, which was quite tall for a man in Korea in the 19th century. 6 ft tall was quite tall for a person even when I was a child.

I actually looked up what 척 is as I got curious writing this so click here to read a short digression on that topic.

It could be a family tall tale (that was a totally inadvertent pun since I still don’t get pun whatsoever) that he was that tall, but honestly, I believe it. My maternal grandmother who was born in 1915, was 163 cm tall (give a centimetre or two since one shrinks with age). That is very tall for a woman of that time. I heard that she was taller than my grandfather. Of course, as I write this, I had to verify. And no, she was not taller than my grandfather whom I had never seen. I was able to get a copy of their wedding photo and will write more on that in a different post.

Before I further digress, I want to go back to the topic of my great great grandfather. What do I know about him besides that he was considered a very tall man. Well, I really meant it when I wrote he was like a mythical figure.

To summarize (which I might or might not elaborate on my later posts):

  • North Korean: Well, in those times, it was all just Korea. He just lived in a region which is now in North Korea.
  • Landowner: He owned vast area of land where you could roll continuously for a day and not reach the end (yes, this was the literal description my grandmother gave me).
  • Banker: He acted like a community bank. In those days, people didn’t necessarily have “money”. They owned livestock, field goods, perhaps some jewelry, and maybe very few had money. And none of these people had vaults or somewhere they could safely deposit their precious items. So my grandfather’s house acted like a bank vault. People would bring bags of rice and such and deposit them at my grandfather’s house, which had huge storage. They were then able to withdraw or deposit as they they needed. I have a feeling little more were withdrawn as supposed to deposited.
  • Owner of local 양조장 (essentially a brewery): I heard this is one of the reason why he was so rich.

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