The Age of Innocence
201302991 Hyewon Chang
When I visited my grandparents' house, first thing I saw was 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. He said that the only thing he could remember about the historic event, to be exact, the Civil War in Korea was that there were some refugees came to the village where he was teaching students. Even though most of them were not able to concentrate fully on the class, they are worked hard. One day, a young female teacher came to the school. "She was really the belle of the town when she first came here." Grandfather said. He said that even my mother and her friends went to the class to see her. One day, students found out that the next week is teacher's birthday. Therefore, because they didn't have money, they went to the mountain behind all together. However, they had to go to the mountain after they finish their chores, so it was already late at the time. "Some parents came to my house and asked about them. Thankfully I was able to recall some conversations about the flower and the mountain." Luckily, children were on their way home, but because they went to deep, it took time to come back.
Even though parents were not very happy, and concerned, they thought that it would be good to keep it a secret for the new teacher. So the day after, in the class, the teacher was able to get a big wild flower bouquet. "It was really beautiful. One who made it is now an artist. I haven't seen her for years, but I heard that she mainly work in abstract paintings." Grandfather told me that even in those dog days, people thought that loving each other is important. He said nowadays, it is too hard to find some innocence in children and adults. "In life, there are some venues that you cannot buy with money. I think children's innocence is one of it."
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