good schoolwork, and a chipped jade comb my mother had given me long ago, and slipped them through the neighbor’s front gate wrapped in a piece of paper marked only with his name.
One Hundred Days
MAY 31, 1919
UNCEASING GRIM NEWS OF THE FAILED MOVEMENT BLANKETED THE city. A solemn household and intermittent rains during three days of preparations for the baby’s One Hundredth Day naming ceremony chastened my anticipation of the occasion. Earlier, I’d heard my parents discussing the propriety of hosting such a party at all, but Father said, “It’s in such times as these that we must rely on our traditions and continue to observe them.”
“I worry that we appear to feast when others have suffered much more than we,” said Mother.
“We aren’t feasting, Yuhbo,” he said after a characteristic long pause.“We’re flaunting our way. They cannot suppress forty-five centuries of a people in one season of violence.”
I had felt renewed purpose then in my search for the tokens that were needed to forecast the baby’s future. When Mother had enlisted me to gather the items, she said our paths were carved by God, not fate or folklore, but this was tradition and harmless. After the naming, the gathered objects would be spread on a table in front of the baby, concealed by a cloth. The cloth would be lifted, and the item the baby chose would foretell his professional destiny. If he grasped the brush in his chubby fist, he would be a scholar. The abacus meant businessman; the brick, a mason; the pen, a clerk; the nail, a carpenter; the coin, a man of wealth; and if he chose the skein of thread, he’d be guaranteed a long life. Mother had added to the list of items a wooden crucifix for pastor, and Father would place on the table a small gift that the Daewongun, Emperor Gojong’s father, had given to my grandfather: a polished bronze signet to commemorate his scholarship, painting and calligraphy. This token was what Father himself had chosen on his own One Hundredth Day.
I cleaned the objects, found a suitable length of pale green silk to cover them, and wondered what I would have reached for if Han girls were allowed a One Hundredth Day celebration. Before I delivered the items to Mother, I arranged them on my study desk and tried to spontaneously pick one with my eyes closed. But no manner of turning the table or shuffling the objects blindly in an attempt to fool myself gave authenticity to my choice of the pencil I’d added to symbolize teaching, and I gave up with a sigh.
WHEN THE SUN reached its zenith on the day of the celebration, it melted a haze of cloud and fog. Soon, warm breezes from the south dried the rain-soaked flagstones in the courtyards. Streaks of water evaporated and puddles swirled with wind. The guests arrived. I helped arrange tables and mats, and carried platters from the kitchen. The elders gathered in the rarely used audience room for the naming ceremony, and to witness the forecasting.
I squeezed between the women in the courtyard, who hovered around the younger men on the porch, who in turn jostled for position aroundthe wide-open doors and windows to watch. Seated inside, knee to knee, were men who were fathers, brothers, uncles and grandfathers of victims of Sam-il—the failed March First movement. Many of the older men were dressed in the straw sandals of mourning, their pristine white hanbok a somber backdrop to the food tables stacked with delicacies. Oranges, apples, plums and buns stuffed with sweet bean paste or dates towered in neat columns among platters piled with rice cakes that had been rolled in green, red or beige pulverized peas and powdered grain. Displays of pure white rice cakes the guests would take home were positioned like guards by the doorways and gate. It may have been sinful, but I felt proud when I heard the murmured exclamations over the lavish party food; the men impressed with the cost, the women impressed with the artistry.
Plump as a dumpling, my
One Hundred Days
MAY 31, 1919
UNCEASING GRIM NEWS OF THE FAILED MOVEMENT BLANKETED THE city. A solemn household and intermittent rains during three days of preparations for the baby’s One Hundredth Day naming ceremony chastened my anticipation of the occasion. Earlier, I’d heard my parents discussing the propriety of hosting such a party at all, but Father said, “It’s in such times as these that we must rely on our traditions and continue to observe them.”
“I worry that we appear to feast when others have suffered much more than we,” said Mother.
“We aren’t feasting, Yuhbo,” he said after a characteristic long pause.“We’re flaunting our way. They cannot suppress forty-five centuries of a people in one season of violence.”
I had felt renewed purpose then in my search for the tokens that were needed to forecast the baby’s future. When Mother had enlisted me to gather the items, she said our paths were carved by God, not fate or folklore, but this was tradition and harmless. After the naming, the gathered objects would be spread on a table in front of the baby, concealed by a cloth. The cloth would be lifted, and the item the baby chose would foretell his professional destiny. If he grasped the brush in his chubby fist, he would be a scholar. The abacus meant businessman; the brick, a mason; the pen, a clerk; the nail, a carpenter; the coin, a man of wealth; and if he chose the skein of thread, he’d be guaranteed a long life. Mother had added to the list of items a wooden crucifix for pastor, and Father would place on the table a small gift that the Daewongun, Emperor Gojong’s father, had given to my grandfather: a polished bronze signet to commemorate his scholarship, painting and calligraphy. This token was what Father himself had chosen on his own One Hundredth Day.
I cleaned the objects, found a suitable length of pale green silk to cover them, and wondered what I would have reached for if Han girls were allowed a One Hundredth Day celebration. Before I delivered the items to Mother, I arranged them on my study desk and tried to spontaneously pick one with my eyes closed. But no manner of turning the table or shuffling the objects blindly in an attempt to fool myself gave authenticity to my choice of the pencil I’d added to symbolize teaching, and I gave up with a sigh.
WHEN THE SUN reached its zenith on the day of the celebration, it melted a haze of cloud and fog. Soon, warm breezes from the south dried the rain-soaked flagstones in the courtyards. Streaks of water evaporated and puddles swirled with wind. The guests arrived. I helped arrange tables and mats, and carried platters from the kitchen. The elders gathered in the rarely used audience room for the naming ceremony, and to witness the forecasting.
I squeezed between the women in the courtyard, who hovered around the younger men on the porch, who in turn jostled for position aroundthe wide-open doors and windows to watch. Seated inside, knee to knee, were men who were fathers, brothers, uncles and grandfathers of victims of Sam-il—the failed March First movement. Many of the older men were dressed in the straw sandals of mourning, their pristine white hanbok a somber backdrop to the food tables stacked with delicacies. Oranges, apples, plums and buns stuffed with sweet bean paste or dates towered in neat columns among platters piled with rice cakes that had been rolled in green, red or beige pulverized peas and powdered grain. Displays of pure white rice cakes the guests would take home were positioned like guards by the doorways and gate. It may have been sinful, but I felt proud when I heard the murmured exclamations over the lavish party food; the men impressed with the cost, the women impressed with the artistry.
Plump as a dumpling, my
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