Yu Seo Young/The first draft of the oral interveiw with my grandma/Thursday 1pm-3pm

 

Intermediate Writing (II)

Thursday 34, December 1, 2015

Professor Jonny Bahk-Halberg

Yu Seo Young (유서영, 201102144)

 

 

My grandma on my mother's side raised me when I was a kid. Many of my personal values came from her such as forgiveness, generosity, mercy, tolerance, and love. She just had her surgery two months ago, and now she has fully recovered. Thanks to the prayers and great support by our family and friends. Full credits, endless assignments and presentations, and part-time jobs have always been keeping me busy. Nonetheless, I try to visit my grandma at least twice a month. Her house is located in Bucheon and it takes more than four hours for a round-trip. Sometimes I missed living with her. I miss her and I miss her warmth.

Last Saturday, I visited her before getting way too busy to visit. I planned to ask her some questions about her youth. When I came to her house, I noticed how it was neat and well-organized as usual. She just loves to keep the house clean and nice. Many plants and flowers are at the balcony, showing her love to the plants. It proves she is such a green thumb. At one side of the room, there are some fishes swimming in the fishbowl covered by a cloth knitted by her. "Grandma! I am sorry I came late. I brought you some gold kiwis!" I exclaimed. I was late for lunch so I called ahead and told her to have meal with my cousin first.  I did not want to keep her waiting, so I just brought her some gold kiwis instead.  As soon as I took off my coat and make myself comfortable on the ground, I started working on my laptop. "Grandma, this is the brand-new laptop I just bought and you know, it is the lightest laptop for now. And take a look at this one! This is called galaxy tab that I won for the grand prize at the Chinese Literature Translation Competition last summer. Please try to write on it with this pen."  She was amazed by all the technology, "Oh my world! This is just incredible even if I do not know anything about it!" Whenever I enjoy so many nice things and go to new places, I feel a bit sorry for her that she was not able to have all of these.

             When I was a younger kid, I remember her as she was telling me how she was able to get an education. Two years of elementary education was the only proper education that she received. My mother and I wished so bad that she would have received more education as she desired, but it was really difficult for a girl to have higher education in her generation. At least, she is literate and able to recognize the numbers. I think she is quite good at math, which are already such privilege for a female in her generation. I am very happy and proud that she is literate. I even remembered how she taught me some math when I was in elementary school. Marvelously, she did a great job raising her girls – my mother and aunt – she tried so hard to let them get an education. My mother kept studying, she is a professor in a university now. My aunt also got her university diploma. I wanted to ask her more about the environment that she grew up with, I wanted to know her thoughts towards education. When I was busy with some of my stuff, my grandma fell asleep. Even if I had so many questions going on in my mind, I decided to wait until she wake up from her nap, I wanted her to take a sweet nap. When my grandma woke up, I told her I have some questions to ask.

             "Grandma, where were you born and what year was it?" I started my inquiry. "I was born in Hongcheon and… … let me see," she replied. My cousin and I started counting the year that she was born in, "She was born in 1929", my cousin finally calculated. "But, didn't you live in Hapdeok, Dangjin, where I also spent some of my youth?" I asked her. She briefly answered,"Yes, sweetie, because my parents I moved there when I was 11." Being inquisitive, I asked further questions,  "11? So it was 1940 when you moved to Hapdeok, but why grandma? Why did your family move there? Wasn't it uncommon for people to move to new places at that time?" I asked her because I always wondered about it. "Oh, honey, we moved there because there was a superstition that a married couple would get a son when they moved to a new place. And Hapdeok was where my aunt, my dad's sister lived, so we moved there, and I got brothers later on," she replied. My great grandmother enjoyed a long and healthy life; she passed away at the age of 108. How I vividly remember her positive posture when I was 17 years old. I often visited her and stayed during vacations. Nonetheless, I never got to know what my great grandparents did for living.  So I asked her, "Grandma, what did your parents do? Were they poor?" I do not know why I had the idea that they were poor, I guess it is because I am so aware of her having such hardships in her life. "No, my parents had better life condition than most of the people in the neighborhood", she said, "They farmed, and they had owned their land so that they did not have to farm for Japanese people but only for themselves. We basically had rice and sometimes we even had some meat for meals. We did not have the grains given by Japanese people because it was not a good quality. However, the poor families had to rely on them, she concluded. Then I got so curious about her education so I went on asking, "Grandma, when did you go to school then?" She immediately said, "I went to elementary school at the age of 13." I asked more questions like "and that was in 1942, right? Were the teachers Japanese? Did you need to learn all of the subjects in their language? Were common people able to speak Japanese then?" She tried to touch the childhood memory of hers and answered all of my questions. "Yes, the teachers were all Japanese, and we were taught in Japanese language. Unfortunately, the common people were not able to speak Japanese, only the educated ones were able to. I learned mathematics, music, Japanese, drawing and so on… you would never imagine how terrific my drawings were!" I felt saddened by her last sentence, but I held my emotion and kept asking, "So how were the teachers? Did they often punish the students? And how was the classroom like? Did you have desks and chairs at that time or just sat on the ground?" She looked as if thinking deeply, but answered immediately, "They were usually very nice and they only punished us when we used Korean, because we were forbidden to use Korean language at public. I was very loved by my teachers because I was a very hard working student and my performance in classroom was very good. We already had desks and chairs by then. There was also a stove in the middle of the classroom so that during winter, we only needed to go to the mountains to get firewood so that we could keep the classroom warm."

             When my grandma recalled back her memories in school, she seemed joyful but she expressed it in a very calm and melancholy tone. "Anyway, I needed to quit school after two years, because I needed to take care of my brothers at home and went on the fields with my dad. My mother always insisted that a beyotch is useless and the money is wasted on girls' education", she sighed, "that had been my biggest sorrow in my life, you know… That is why I never called my girls "beyotches" and tell them girls are useless. I believed girls can do things just like men, especially my girls were so charming and bright. That motivated me to give them longer and better education." I felt very moved, and finally realized why my grandma never called my mother and aunt "beyotches" when they grew up. She let them try it if they wanted to have a shot and she helped them until they get diplomas. Actually, the people from her neighborhood talked bad things behind her back for letting her girls get education, but she never doubted about her decision. In that perspective, my grandma has a quite progressive mind and I think she is really cool. No wonder she never compared me with my male cousins and she never limited me from doing things while some of my friends were telling how their grandparents love their grandsons much more than granddaughters.

             The interview with my grandma leads me to understand how "the woman power" in my family constituted, and I am really grateful for having such a grandma. It also led my mother to believe in the power of education that is why she wanted to give me a better education. She also tried really hard. And now, I am very satisfied with my school and majors that I have given many thoughts into. And currently, I am taking educational courses. I also did pre-teacher practice in my high school for a month so that I will get teachers' licenses in English and Chinese when I graduate from college. When I see limits that the world set for female, I wonder, 'why can't we?' Now I found out that this wonder and courage to try new things are from my grandmother and my mother, and I feel very lucky to be their granddaughter and daughter, and I wish I could achieve more under their support and love. As my mother and grandmother being my inspiration, I will explore more of the world, and I hope to help the world towards more equity so that women in the next generation will be able to explore more, learn more, and achieve more.