When I was a girl going in and out of the port for leaving-home water-work, Jeju City had seemed so much more advanced than Hado. It still was. Jeju City had the largest five-day market on the island, where I could buy just about anything, but the city also had souvenir shops, photo studios, beauty parlors, and places to buy or repair toasters, fans, and lamps. Cars, motorcycles, trucks, buses, and taxis moved through traffic that also included horse- and donkey-pulled carts, as well as hand-pushed wheelbarrows piled high. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, perfume, diesel and gasoline exhaust, and dung from the dray animals. Raw sewage still ran through the gutters down to the harbor, where ships spewed oil and fish waited to be off-loaded to canneries. The alleyways were chockablock with bars serving our local rice wine, beer, barbecue, and girls. I had to be careful as I passed those places, because customers liked to throw chicken, pork, and beef bones out the door to the sidewalk, where poor kids scurried and darted to scavenge these discards and take them home to their families.
By the time I boarded the bus, the sun had set. Outside the window, lights sprawled to infinity—from cafés and houses, to the port, and then offshore to the squid and shrimp boats, which dotted the sea all the way to where the ocean met the star-filled sky. The road circling the island had been paved the previous year, and the ride was smooth and fast. I got off at Hado and walked home through the olle. Oil lamps glowed here and there, but the old quiet was gone. People were frugal, so they didn’t always use their new electricity to light their homes, preferring instead to play radios and record players.
I heard the racket from my house even before I reached it. I sighed. I was tired and didn’t want to face a crowd. I entered the gate, and the entire courtyard was filled with people, sitting with their backs to me. The new sliding doors into the big house had been pushed open. More people sat on the floor inside the house. Whether inside or outside, everyone faced the television like they were in a cinema. They’d all brought food too—buckwheat pancakes with shredded turnip and stews filled with rice cakes and fish floating in spicy red sauce and topped with fried chilies. The television picture was in black and white, and the reception was fuzzy, but I recognized the show right away. Maybe tonight Marshal Dillon would finally kiss Miss Kitty. I spotted Min-lee, her husband, the twins—now eight—and her daughters, five and two. Min-lee’s husband rubbed her back. Their fifth child was due in six weeks, and Min-lee stood on her feet all day in the gift shop in the hotel where she worked. They all lived in the big house now.
I picked my way through the crowd to the little house that Do-saeng and I—two widows—now shared. I put away my tubs and added the cash I’d earned today to the tin box where I kept my savings. When I was done, Do-saeng said reproachfully, “They’ve been peeing in the courtyard again.”
“Tell them to use the latrine next time.”
“Do you think I didn’t?”
Not only were we the first in Hado to get a television, but our compound had been among the first to be affected by Saemaul Undong—the New Village Movement—which the regime had recently inaugurated. We’d been told we couldn’t promote tourism without upgrading the island. We were to have indoor plumbing, electricity, telephones, paved roads, and commercial airlines. This meant, among other things, that thatch roofs had to be replaced with those made of corrugated tin or tile. We were told tourists wouldn’t like our three-step farming system, and that we had to get rid of our pigsty latrines. Tourists wouldn’t want to see or smell pigs, and they certainly wouldn’t want to put their rear ends above the pigs’ greedy snouts. I didn’t know one family willing to tear down its latrine, and I’d continue to keep mine for as long as possible. So much change so fast was unsettling, and it undermined our way of life, our beliefs, and our traditions.
“You spoiled your children, and now you’re spoiling your grandchildren with that television,” Do-saeng complained.
I absorbed the criticism. Yes, I gave a spoonful of sugar to Min-lee’s twins and to her two daughters whenever I saw them, which was every day. I didn’t begrudge my grandchildren their treats, but the television had clearly been a mistake.
“Look at it this way,” I said. “You get to see your great-grandchildren every day, and you’re healthy enough to enjoy them. Not every woman your age can say that.”
At seventy-three, Do-saeng was in remarkable shape. Her braids had gone gray, but her body was strong. Even though she was well past retirement age, she’d begun diving again. That broke the rule of having more than one diver per household, but the man in charge of the Village Fishery Association let her join us from time to time because we needed her, and women like her, since it was impossible to find baby-divers these days. This, more than giving sugar to children, would have been unimaginable back when my own grandmother was alive.
“Tomorrow is going to be a big day,” she reminded me. “You need to tell everyone to go home.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “But I think I’ll join them for a while first.”
“Hyng!”
I took some tangerines from a bowl and tucked them in my pockets. Then I waded through the courtyard and into the big house.
“Granny!”
“Granny!”
I sat with my legs tucked under me, my bottom nestled between my feet. My granddaughters climbed into my lap, and my grandsons cuddled close.
“Did you bring us anything?” the oldest girl asked.
I pulled out a tangerine. I unpeeled it in one long string. Once I was done, I rolled the peel back into its tangerine shape and set it on the floor. The children loved when I did that for them. I gave them each a couple of wedges, then repeated the process three times.
How lucky I was to have such beautiful grandchildren. How fortunate I was that Min-lee had married a teacher like her father, who taught right here in Hado. I missed Kyung-soo and his family, though. When he’d sent word that he was getting married, I’d thought the wedding would happen here. But when the goddess brought him home, he was already married to his mainland wife. I’d participated in no discussions about matching birth dates or seeking help from the geomancer for a propitious day to hold the wedding. Naturally, my feelings were injured, but I let all that go when I met my daughter-in-law for the first time and saw she was big with a baby in her belly. After they returned to Seoul, she gave birth to a son, giving me another grandson. Now she was pregnant with a second child, and Kyung-soo worked at his father-in-law’s electronics company. I wished my only son didn’t live so far away, but there was nothing I could do about it.
I missed Joon-lee most of all. For the last four years, she’d also been in Seoul. In the fall, she’d attend the Graduate School of Public Health at Seoul National University. Tomorrow she’d be coming home for a short visit. The note she’d written to Min-lee had said, “I have a surprise for everyone.” My guess was she’d won another award.
“Do you have more tangerines?” the five-year-old asked. I turned out my pockets to show they were empty. She sucked her bottom lip in disappointment. I kissed her forehead.
Do-saeng was right. I did spoil these little ones. I gave them and their parents everything—fixing up our houses to meet the new standards, buying tricycles and bicycles, getting the television so they could learn more about our country and the world—and it had left them soft. Children these days wanted easy lives. They didn’t have the physical or emotional strength of their grandmother or great-grandmother. That said, I loved them and would sacrifice anything for them, even if it meant selling seafood to American soldiers on a street corner.