Gitae Shin/p.153 Essay Assignment/Narrative Composition(2) Tuesday & 09:00-11:00

A Ray of Sunshine in Life

 

It was yesterday when I had my last phone call from my mom and the conversation was casual as usual. However, after a long time, today I decided to call her first with a specific purpose. She did not know the fact that she was chosen as personal interviewee for my assignment. A series of tones were followed by my mom's voice.

"Gitae, my son! It is surprising that you call me first. Did you have dinner?" my mom said with little bit of delight and gladness from my unexpected phone call.

"Yes, mom. I had dinner with my friend. How about you?" I replied in a nervous voice although shy may not have noticed.

Mom and I carried on an ordinary conversation for about 1 more minute. When she tried to hang up, I stopped her and asked her for a favor to be an interviewee for my project. She laughed at first and asked me for the reason why she was chosen. In fact, until this interview essay came before me, I had not paid attention to her life: how she was when young, what happened to her before and after I was born, how she supported me, and so on. As my topic was interviewing someone about his or her life and write about an important theme in that person's life, I came up with members of my family: grandfather, grandmother, father, and mom. My grandfather told me about his life many times, and so did my father and grandmother. Only my mom had not talked to me about her life and I knew that she put a lot of effort and sacrificed herself to support me, my sister, and my family. So I said to her that for this reason I would like to know about her life this time not just for my project but also for myself as her son.

She paused for a moment and seemed to begin to retrospect her life. I waited and a voice came out from my receiver, "Well, I don't know what to say, but I should start from the story of my teenager."

She was born in a small village in 1960. Compared to the fact that most people suffered from poverty caused by the Korean War which ended in 1953, she was raised in a wealthy family. Her father, my grandfather, ran a traditional pharmacy and owned almost 4 acres of land. In addition, there were more than 4 workers whose family belonged to my mom's family for generations even after the abolition of the status system. She told me that her early childhood was a very good memory because she needed not worry about money and never wanted for anything.

When she was 14, she alone moved to downtown quite far from her village in order to go to middle school. From that time, she lived in a lodging house, which meant that she had to stand alone. It seemed like she was good at studying during middle school, but she did not go to an academic high school. Instead, she chose commercial high school. Considering women's low entrance rate of high school at that time and high chance of getting secure job after graduation, her choice was never a bad one. Even though many graduates had a job as Korea was on the track of the industrialization, very few students were able to work in big companies. She was one of the few people who got a job in Seoul, the capital city of South Korea.

At age 19, my mom already earned relatively more money than her older brothers and sisters, and her annual salary was decent enough for her to live alone without economic burden. Nevertheless, it was not easy for her to adapt to city-life. "Seoul city was unimaginably bigger than and different from where I used to live, and people in Seoul were so indifferent one another. They seemed without heart," she recalled. She had no friends to hang out, so her life was routine: home, work, and home. She said to me that if it had not been for the earlier experience of living alone in her teen, she would have returned to her hometown within few months. Fortunately she already learned the true value of patience to endure hardships ahead, so she paved her way to new life in Seoul little by little. Not long after, she was known to her coworkers as a diligent and competent worker with 'lovely' dialect.

After 10 years, her life took a huge turn as she married a guy who is now her husband and my father. He and she had known each other since their high school period. My father managed to keep in touch with her for more than 10 years even when he was in army to serve the country. My mom and dad were so different people in many aspects. Unlike her, he was raised in a poor family, graduated from college, and worked as a public servant with poor salary in very small town near my mom's birthplace. She told me that at that time she was paid 3 times higher than him. So technically speaking, she was in a better situation than him in many ways, which meant that he could not give her incentives to marry him because she was able to meet better candidates. At all events, love is so strange thing that we hardly understand.

"Well, I guess I must have been blinded by love. I could have married better guy!" she said with playful voice. "Anyway, as soon as I got married, I had to give up everything I have achieved and built so far. That was the life of being a wife for one man." I could feel a sense of her frustration which she slipped out unconsciously. I could tell that for her it must have been a tough decision for sure.

Once again, she had to stand up and face all the difficulties by herself in new place where she had no friends but her husband and family-in-law. Although she lived apart from her family for a long time, dealing with things while carrying a baby was a totally different from what she had underwent. Also, living with family-in-law put her into isolated position. This time, her mother-in-law kicked into her life and became the main source of the pain. My grandmother treated her like a servant and criticized her all the time for no reason. My mom never fought back no matter how absurdly her mother-in-law acted. Except my grandmother, other people in the town became my mother's side because they knew how hard my mother worked and sacrificed her to support the family-in-law. After 2 years of this hard married life with my grandmother, my father was transferred to Andong where my mom used to live in her teen and she was finally able to take a small breath of freedom.

My family settled down in Andong and maintained relatively stable life, but it did not last for long. When I was 8, my father invested his and mostly my mother's money in the stock market. All of sudden in 1997 IMF crisis hit the Korea and the stock market collapsed. The money my mom saved for her family disappeared all at once like a vapor. Her voice was shaky on the phone, "I said to him over and over to stop investing money in stock market and, instead, asked him to save money as the way I have done." I could feel her desperation and frustration. "But anyway it happened and I couldn't just sit back and fall down because I have you and your younger sister. Although your father lost most of the savings, he had his job and I could work," She continued. She literally begged for a job by visiting many shops from door to door and applied for jobs advertised in help-wanted advertisements. She worked as clerk in underwear shop, insurance planner, and so on. Because of her limitless effort and sacrifice, the family became better off slowly. She opened her own small underwear shop in 2010 and put her all effort in running the shop. Now her business is stable and pays her quite a lot of money per months. Moreover, my father was promoted to higher position in his job last year.

After finishing listening to her story, I was so touched and impressed. At the same time I came to wonder something: "Mom, you have never tempted to escape from the reality? Like, for example, getting divorce with dad or abandoning family to find a new life for you?"

"Oh why not, Gitae? Of course. From time to time I dreamed being free from the reality because that was not the life I wanted to sustain." She continued, "But abandoning family was the very last thing on my list."

I did not know what to say with full of gratitude and sorry. With a joyful and happy voice, she talked over the phone, "You and your sister were lovely creatures which always made me smile after a very exhausting day from the work, and gave me strength to go on life. The value of my family is priceless. Look at you guys! I am so proud of you, Gitae. You are like a ray of sunshine in my life!"