"Sakura here, sakura there, sakura everywhere," Kim Bok-in sang when she stepped outside her home for the first time in months. Across the field, one cherry blossom tree waved at us from beyond the hill as soon as we stepped out into the sun. I pointed the flowers out to her with excitement. She rarely leaves her room. But she seemed rather unimpressed.
Born in 1934, my grandmother recalls her childhood under the 1910–45 Japanese occupation but forgets where she puts things. It's a struggle these days to convince her to step outside. Yet she putters inside my aunt and uncle's countryside home with no cane or walker. She continues to embroider daily. I cherish the days we get to spend together.
Taiwan observes Tomb Sweeping (Qingming) as a national holiday in April, so I decided to travel to South Korea. It was pure luck also that my visit coincided with Taiwan's worst earthquake in 25 years, with a magnitude of 7.5, about the magnitude of two atomic bombs. Responding to concerned text messages from friends, I boarded the bus to the countryside to visit her, my aunt, uncle and cousin. I felt delighted and taken aback seeing so many cherry blossoms in bloom. Last spring, I'd spotted a man in white in Gwanghwamun Square, holding up a flag against cherry blossoms. This spring, a dazzling display of flowers alongside rivers and roads exploded across the country, sometimes sending a spray of white petals resembling snow.
Like that lone Gwanghwamun protester, my grandmother thinks of these trees as sakura, not by their Korean name, "beot-kkot." As I said my goodbyes to her this time, I promised I'd call her, not from the United States but from Taiwan.
"Taiwan, isn't that Chinese ground?" she asked.
"Oh, I see. It isn't anymore? Why are you in Taiwan?"
She raised her eyebrow with interest.
Back in the old days, she explained, many Chinese used to own farms in Gwangju, her childhood home. The Chinese lived among the Koreans. We looked alike, she said. Just our clothing and style of dress differed. The Chinese couldn't speak a lick of Korean, but the farmers were diligent — she repeated this about 50 times — "hardworking," "incredibly hardworking." Koreans didn't know how to farm back then. We knew how to cultivate silkworms for clothing. But the Chinese were excellent farmers, so they lived quite well, she said with clear, lingering admiration.
Each time her memory skipped, she repeated what they grew: melons, watermelons, cucumbers, large radishes the length of your arm, spinach and cabbages. The Chinese farmers were hard workers, better than the Koreans at farming. Her father didn't know how to farm, no. He was a classical scholar. He taught classic Chinese characters, to his children and the town children, too.
In these few spring days, listening at her feet, I learned about this buried chapter of Chinese Korean history. Like many, I'd known there had been many Chinese communities in Incheon and Busan, port cities after all, and in Manchuria, but I had no idea that immigrants settled as far inland as Gwangju.
According to the director of the Gwangju Folk Museum, writing in Gwangju Dream, about 10,000 Chinese people came and lived on the Korean Peninsula in the 1910s, with close to 100 in Gwangju alone. Many came from Shandong province. With no connections or resources, the Chinese took up farming abandoned plots of land around Gwangju. The secret to their success was using manure for fertilizer at scale. "Hardworking," my grandmother repeated, "they grew melons, watermelons, cucumbers, radishes the length of your arm!'
"You said the Chinese used to live in Gwangju? Where did they go?" I asked her.
"After the Korean War broke out, they all left," she said.
The Cold War buried this chapter of Korean-Chinese history in her hometown. Where in the puzzle of Korean ethnonational history and identity, might we fit highly successful Chinese farmers who lived and farmed among us?
The funny silver lining of my grandmother's memory loss — specifically, her tendency to forget what she'd just said — repeating her words simply and consistently — coupled with her vivid childhood memories is that I learn more: a new word, "bujireonhae" (diligent). A rich history. For a heritage language learner like me, I could depend on her to repeat herself without her losing patience. "Do call, and don't be afraid. I'll take care of the telephone bill," she promised. "Call when you have the chance."
Esther Kim is a freelance writer based in Taiwan. She was a senior manager at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in New York and Tilted Axis Press in London and a publicist at Columbia University Press. She writes about culture and the Koreas.
The surprising Chinese roots of Korean agriculture in Gwangju
18
0
28.04.2024
"Sakura here, sakura there, sakura everywhere," Kim Bok-in sang when she stepped outside her home for the first time in months. Across the field, one cherry blossom tree waved at us from beyond the hill as soon as we stepped out into the sun. I pointed the flowers out to her with excitement. She rarely leaves her room. But she seemed rather unimpressed.
Born in 1934, my grandmother recalls her childhood under the 1910–45 Japanese occupation but forgets where she puts things. It's a struggle these days to convince her to step outside. Yet she putters inside my aunt and uncle's countryside home with no cane or walker. She continues to embroider daily. I cherish the days we get to spend together.
Taiwan observes Tomb Sweeping (Qingming) as a national holiday in April, so I decided to travel to South Korea. It was pure luck also that my visit coincided with Taiwan's worst earthquake in 25 years, with a magnitude of 7.5, about the magnitude of two atomic bombs. Responding to concerned text messages from friends, I boarded the bus to the countryside to visit her, my aunt, uncle and cousin. I felt delighted and taken aback seeing so many cherry blossoms in bloom. Last........
© The Korea Times
visit website
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Rami G Khouri
Mort Laitner
Donald Low
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
