Hyewon Chang / A Little House near the Small School / Narrative Composition / Tue 11am

           When I visit my grandparents' house, first thing I see is cars filling up all the available spaces in the village. They are living in a satellite city named Gwacheon and the exact county where their home located is a hot spot for the retired senior citizens. Therefore, whenever I go there on Korean holidays in my parent's car, we had a hard time finding spaces for parking. Usually villagers there do not have to visit to other families but can just wait for the others to come. However this time, I went there by subway so I didn't experienced a traffic jam. Because my grandfather was in a dove park, where lots of pigeons inhabit, I met him there and slowly walked back to the house where my grandmother was waiting for us.

           Grandparent's house were white and clean. Since my grandfather worked as an elementary school teacher for his whole life, his wife had lots of occasions to meet children's parents. Maybe it's the reason why the house is always remaining so clean. With cups of tea, grandfather first started to talk about the watercolor painting he recently started. He told me that when he was at school, he didn't have enough time for painting. "Our house was just round the corner of the school. Some students came inside the garden and played with our dog. Have your mother told you about 'Bodi'?" When I answered no, he said about the story. "The dog was 'Baduggi(it means black and white dotted dog in Korean.), but your mother was not able to pronounce it properly.'" He told me that he was not able to eat good foods like nowadays, but sometimes he gave some chicken breasts when the day was hot and everyone is having chicken soup.

           My grandfather said that it is hard to talk about some historic events since he forgot most part of it. Other reason is that he was doing his job in the southern region of Korea so he did not experienced much of the battle. However, he said that still, there are some stories that I would feel interesting. "Have you watched a mouse? Not white ones used in lab, but the real ones. Rats." I answered after some time. "I think I caught a glimpse of him in my middle school., but no." He soon told another story about my mother. When she was young, she was fond of cute, little creatures. Mostly it was about Bodi, her dog, but one day, she found light pink colored, little bit white furred creatures. About five of them were sleeping inside the warehouse and she thought it was really cute. She gave them some whole milk powder with hot water and raised them. When my grandfather went into the storage, he found out that my mother was raising rats, so he through them out. Later, he bring cat into the house, but he said that my mother didn't like that quite much.

 

           While he was talking, he mostly talked about his second daughter, my mother. I thought the interview went quite private, not historical. However, it was good to know about my mother's new episodes when she was young.