Tales of a Korean Grandmother Page 7

  Halmoni had provided bits of old pottery which the boys pounded into tiny sharp bits for coating their kite strings. Running the strings first through sticky glue, then through the powdered pottery, they gave them a good cutting edge. For in kite fighting it was the string that could cut in two any other string crossing it, which won the day. Yong Tu was proud because he managed to keep his kite longest up in the air. Of all the kitefliers of his age, he thus became the champion.

  "The very first of such 'flying ones' was made hundreds and hundreds of years ago," Halmoni said to Ok Cha and the other girls, as they stood in the Inner Court and watched Yong Tu's kite make its triumphant flight from the street beyond the bamboo gate. "It was during one of the many times when the 'dwarf men of Japan' came here to try to conquer our country. The battles were not going well for the soldiers of our Little Kingdom. One night a star shot across the sky like an arrow, over their heads. An arrow star, as everyone knows, is a sign of bad luck. All were discouraged. They were sure they would lose in the next day's fighting. The general it was who thought of a way to lift up their spirits. He made a large kite, and he tied a small lantern fast to its frame. Then he sent it flying high in the sky.

  The seesaw was in constant motion during the New Year holidays. The girls standing upright upon it were tossed higher and higher into the air.

  "When the soldiers saw the lantern's light, they shouted, 'Here's a good sign! A new star hangs in the sky. A sure omen of victory!' And the next day they fought with renewed courage and might, and the enemy was driven away."

  Halmoni liked to explain about the different doings of the Great Fifteenth Day to the children.

  "Tonight, out on the hills, the farmers will gather to watch the full moon rise, my blessed ones. By its color on this night they will know whether their crops will be good in the coming season. If the moon is too pale, that means there will be too much rain. If it is too red, there will not be nearly enough, and the rice plants will dry up. But if it is a rich yellow, the color of a golden chrysanthemum, there will be just enough rain and more than enough rice to keep the spirits of hunger away from their gates.

  "And the farmers will dig up their bamboo and their beans to find out in just which months the good rains will come," the old Korean grandmother continued. She described how each farmer had split a section of young bamboo and laid twelve little beans side by side within it. He then had tied the halves of the bamboo together again and covered it lightly with earth, where it could be moistened by rain and by dew.

  "Each of those beans stands for one of the twelve months," Halmoni said. "When the farmer digs it up tonight and opens the bamboo case, he will examine each little bean. The ones that are dampest will be the months in which the most rain will come."

  In the city, too, there were special doings on the night of the Great Fifteenth Day. The men and boys "walked the bridges," crossing once for every year of their age. They carried with them picnic baskets filled with good things so that they might eat and drink with friends whom they met upon the bridges.

  Of all the events of the day for Yong Tu, most exciting was the great stone fight outside the city on the bare wintry fields.

  "You should have seen that fight this afternoon, Halmoni," the boy said to his grandmother when they were eating their evening rice. "Ai, it was like a battle, and many people were hurt. The teams lined up facing each other. The men had pads on their shoulders and special hats to protect their heads. You should have heard them shout when those stones began to fly. You should have seen how clever they were at dodging them, too. One stone—but only a little one, Halmoni—flew so close to my father's head that it knocked his hat off. He, I was almost afraid. But the hat was not hurt," the boy hastened to add. "And my father did not mind. He was shouting as loudly as the rest of the crowd."

  "Too many heads are broken in the stone fights," the old woman declared. "It is not as if it were a true battle. It has no such good purpose as had the very first stone fight."

  "Tell me about the very first stone fight, Halmoni," the boy begged. "Was it long ago?"

  "Very, very long ago, Dragon Head," the old grandmother said, nodding her head. "How long ago nobody seems to know. Perhaps it was when the tall horsemen galloped over our land from that northern place called Mongolia. Perhaps it was their chieftain, Genghis Khan himself, who led those fierce horsemen to conquer us. Or, it may have been later when the Chinese came across our neighbor-land, Manchuria, in quest of our treasures.

  "But whenever it was, it was in the midst of a war. The battle which was the key to the victory was being fought. A brave Korean general had lined his men up above a narrow pass in the mountains. His soldiers were as courageous and strong as any tiger, but their gunpowder gave out. A tiger could not fight without teeth or claws. How could our soldiers fight without any gunpowder?

  "That is the question the general asked himself when he lay down to sleep on this night. His heart was indeed heavy, and his rest was disturbed. But in his dreams, a good Spirit came to him and said, 'Be not dismayed! Under a tree, not far away, you will find a heap of stones. Throw these down on your enemy, and you will drive him away.'

  "With his dream fresh in his mind the general called his men to the tree and showed them the pile of stones. Like rain, the brave soldiers sent the sharp rocks flying down on the heads of their advancing foe. More and more stones were hurled until all the foe had been killed.

  "When the strange battle was reported to the Emperor, he took delight in seeing it enacted before him again in his palace courtyard. Each year thereafter, when the rice fields were bare and there was time for such sport, stone fights were held for his amusement.

  "To meet future attacks from enemies from the north, that Emperor had many other piles of stones laid up beside the roads. The story of the good Spirit in the general's dream spread over the land. Travelers passing the stone piles began to throw pebbles upon them, with a prayer that the Spirit would protect them as it once had protected the general. Your father, Yong Tu, never fails to take this precaution when he travels out into the country to inspect our rice fields."

  A KOREAN

  CINDERELLA

  THUMPITY-THUMP! Thumpity-thump! The song of the ironing sticks sounded throughout the Inner Court. On the narrow veranda outside her apartment, the mother of Ok Cha and Yong Tu and one of their aunts sat facing each other. Their white-stockinged feet were tucked comfortably under their full white skirts. Their hands flew deftly up and down, their ironing sticks pounding the strips of fine white grass linen folded upon the low oblong ironing stone between them.

  Not far away two maidservants also were ironing. They were pounding smooth the red, green, and blue garments of the boys and girls of the household.

  "The maids can be trusted to launder the clothing of the women and children," her mother said to Ok Cha who stood near by watching her, "but it is better that I myself iron the outer coat of the Master of this House. It would not be fitting that he should go forth from our gate with wrinkles in his garments."

  Thumpity-thump! Thumpity-thump! On and on sang the ironing clubs, two in each pair of hands.

  "We are never done ironing here, Halmoni," Ok Cha said to her grandmother, who had come to see that the women were doing their work well. "Why do grown-up people always wear white? It grows dirty so quickly."

  "Why should it be, save that it is the custom?" the old woman replied. "Some say that in earlier days men and women, like children, wore bright-colored garments. Then it so happened that the Queen died, and all laid aside their reds, blues, and greens and put on the white of sadness. No sooner was their time of mourning for the Queen over than the King died. Then all must put on their white mourning garments again. There was one death after another in that royal family, and the people of our nation became so used to their white clothes that they never changed back to bright colors again.

  "But I never believed that tale, blessed girl. White is the color we love best of all. It stands for goodne
ss and wisdom. Our people have preferred it above all other colors for thousands of years. That is why we like to wear white."

  The women of the Inner Court of the Kim family were seldom idle. Each garment had to be ripped apart before it was laundered. And it had to be sewed up again when it had been ironed. It was far easier, they thought, to give the proper shine to flat pieces of cloth than to coats, jackets, skirts, and full pantaloons.

  "How would you like to do all our family ironing, Little Ok Cha?" the Korean grandmother asked, as she walked with the child around the corner of the women's houses and into the Garden of Green Gems.

  "I could never do that, Halmoni. Nobody could." Ok Cha looked horrified at the very thought.

  "But that is what the poor girl, Nan Yang, or Orchid Blossom, had to do for her cruel stepmother and her selfish stepsisters. The story was told to me by my grandmother, and I have no doubt she spoke truly. But then, of course. Nan Yang was bigger than you. She had seen fifteen New Years, and she was old enough to be married."

  "Tell me the story about Nan Yang, Halmoni. Let's sit down under the pear tree, here in the shade."

  All about the old woman and the little girl were the flowers of early summer. The soft air was filled with the perfume of the garden, and it was pleasantly cool under the pear tree.

  "Nan Yang was the daughter of a village official, my precious," Halmoni began. "Her own mother had died, and her father had married again, a shrew of a woman with two vain, selfish daughters.

  "Ai-go, those newcomers had no love nor pity for that poor motherless Nan Yang. They made her work from the first light of the dawn to the coming of dark, and even far, far into the night. She must clean the rice, and she must fetch the water. She must bring the fuel for the hungry mouth of the stove, and she must sweep clean the courtyard, all by herself.

  "Instead of using her own name, Nan Yang, or Orchid Blossom, they nicknamed her 'Dirty Pig.' As everyone knows, that is even worse than to be called a dog. Oh, they found many ways to make the girl weep.

  "When her other work was at last done, they gave her the ironing sticks. To the sound of her pounding, these three selfish creatures fell asleep night after night. Nan Yang's father could do nothing, for he feared the sharp tongue of his new wife, as much as did the poor girl.

  "Now in their country village one day, there was to be a fine fair. All the people were going—to hear the bright music, to see the comic acrobats, and to listen to the good tales of the traveling storyteller. There would be candy and cakes and other strange foods to buy.

  "'You may go to the fair, Dirty Pig,' the unkind stepmother said to Nan Yang, 'but only when you have husked this sack of rice, and only when you have filled this cracked jar with fresh water.'

  "Nan Yang's father, clad in his new hat and his best long white coat, looked very sad. But he dared not oppose his shrewish wife. Poor Nan Yang wept as she watched them all depart for the fair, and she envied her stepsisters in their pretty new dresses of bright pink and green.

  "With a sigh the sad girl began the tasks her stepmother had set her. But she had scarcely poured the sack of unhusked rice out on the ground when there was an odd swishing noise and a deafening twittering. These strange sounds came from the wings and the throats of ten thousand little birds, which lighted upon the great pile of rice. With their tiny sharp beaks the birds pecked off the husks. Almost before Nan Yang could dry her tears, the rice grains were white and clean. She had only to put them back into the sack again.

  "Taking hope, the girl turned next to the broken water jar. But when she saw its great crack, she began to weep. 'However much water I pour into that jar, it will never be full,' she said aloud. But when she came back from the well with her first bucket, she found the crack mended with firm, hardened clay. No doubt it was a good tokgabi from the kitchen rafters who had taken pity upon her, like the ten thousand birds. No doubt it was that tokgabi, too, who bewitched this first bucket so that somehow there poured from it enough water to fill the great jar to the brim.

  "Now Nan Yang could go to the fair to hear the music, to see the acrobats, and to listen to the storytellers' good tales. You can imagine, my pigeon, how surprised and displeased her stepmother and her stepsisters were to see her there so happy and enjoying herself.

  "The next feast in that village was a picnic on the hillsides to view the summer scenery.

  "'You may go to the picnic, Dirty Pig,' her unkind stepmother said to Nan Yang, 'but only when you have dug out all the weeds in our rice field.' The cruel woman nodded her head, satisfied that the girl could never finish that task in time. And she had good reason to think this, for the rice field was large and the weeds were many.

  "Nan Yang took up her hoe but when she struck its point into the very first clump of weeds, a huge black ox appeared close to her side. With mighty bites the animal dug all the weeds out of that field. In a dozen mouthfuls every weed had disappeared down its great throat.

  "'Come with me, Orchid Blossom,' the huge black ox commanded. And it led the girl off to the hillside and into the woods.

  "When Nan Yang came at last to the picnic, her basket was filled with the ripest, the rarest, and the most delicious of fruits. All tne picnickers marveled at its excellent flavor. They made much of Nan Yang, to her stepsisters' dismay.

  "At home that evening her stepmother demanded that Nan Yang tell them how she had managed to rid the rice field of weeds and where she found the fruit.

  "'We shall stay at home next time ourselves,' the selfish stepsisters declared when she told them the story. Nan Yang shall go ahead to the picnic before the black ox comes again.'"

  "Did the black ox come to the selfish stepsisters, Halmoni?" Ok Cha asked when her grandmother paused to take breath.

  "Yé, the ox came, Jade Child," the Korean woman replied. "And it led the selfish stepsisters also off into the woods. But it was not as it had been with the dutiful Nan Yang. To follow the black ox, the two selfish sisters had to crawl through tangled thickets. The twigs pulled out their hair, and the thorns tore their fine clothing. Their sullen faces were scratched. There was blood on their soft, idle hands. They made a sorry sight when they arrived at the picnic place. And there was no fruit at all in their battered baskets."

  THE

  RABBIT

  THAT RODE

  ON A

  TORTOISE

  TENDER green leaves cloaked the willow tree in the Garden of Green Gems beyond the Inner Court. Bright blossoms, like the pink-and-white clouds of the sunset, covered the fruit trees there. The waters of the little brook that fed the lotus pond was "clear as a teardrop," so Halmoni put it. On the damp garden path the earthworms had come forth to take their first looks at the Spring. All day the girls played blindman's buff and the boys spun their tops in the garden.

  Out beyond the city the hillsides were carpeted with red, white, and purple azaleas. On bright afternoons little processions of picnickers wound their way out to them to view the mountains and valleys in their Spring beauty. Yong Tu had already brought back many azalea petals for the women to dry and use in making sweet, spicy cakes.

  "Ai, this is the happy season," Halmoni said to the children one morning. The old woman was sitting on the steps of her little veranda, breathing in the soft scented air of late Spring.

  "And this is a happy day, Halmoni. It's the Eighth Day of the Fourth Month. You know what day that is?" Ok Cha looked eagerly into her grandmother's calm face. The old woman seemed thoughtful. There was a twinkle in her dark eyes, but she also tried to look puzzled.

  "What day is this?" she asked. "Oh yes, it's the birthday of the Wise Teacher, the Great Buddha." She smiled at the little girl, for she knew well that this old meaning of the day was not what Ok Cha had in mind. She enjoyed gently teasing her beloved small granddaughter.

  "No, Halmoni, no. It's the Day of the Toys. What toys have you bought for our holiday this year?" The Korean girl's black eyes danced with delight at the thought of the pleasures of this holiday that was
particularly for the children like her.

  "Call Yong Tu and the others and you shall see, curious one," the grandmother replied. She rose from the steps and went into her room.

  The children came running. In their red, green, and blue jackets, pantaloons, and full skirts, they looked even gayer than the bright blossoms in the stone pots beside the veranda steps.

  Out of the drawers of a small brassbound chest Halmoni took one toy after another. She set them down in the center of the circle made by the children, squatting down on the floor.

  "For me, the tiger with the Mountain God on his back." Yong Tu made his choice first because he was the oldest.

  The girls were playing blindman's buff in the Garden of Green Gems.

  One of his boy cousins reached for a little clay whistle made in the shape of a dove. The hollow gray bird had a hole in its back and a mouthpiece in its tail, so that when its new owner blew it, there was the sound of a dove's call, "Coo-roo! Coo-roo!"

  Even fifteen-year-old Mai Hee was not above taking part in this giving of the toys. She chose a clay horse with a gaily dressed singing girl, a gesang, sitting upon it. The gesang held a bright-colored umbrella over her head. Only such singing girls and country girls who worked in the rice fields could go about freely. Girls such as Mai Hee always traveled shut up in a sedan chair. Perhaps Mai Hee secretly envied these less fortunate girls their greater freedom.

  "I'd like the rabbit that rides on the tortoise." Ok Cha chose the same little toy every year. "And I'd like Halmoni to tell us the story about him."

  "A rabbit is a clever animal, blessed girl," the old grandmother began, taking the little toy up in her hands. "He was far more clever than the tortoise he rode upon, who thought to get the best of him.

  "It was on the seashore one day that this rabbit saw a strange tortoise crawling towards him. Now all rabbits are curious, as you well know. And, being so curious, this one stopped hopping and wiggled its nose. It waited to see what the strange tortoise would do.