This is a rough draft for an English essay. One of those rare opportunities I had this year to actually write about something I felt passionate about.


I was told I was born of a royal line. I was one of the most direct ancestors of a great Korean Emperor, a man who brought scholars together to create the written language of Hongul, a man revered for being loved by the people and loving the people in return. My great grandfather was a man of substantial wealth and influence, but when he died, my great-uncle took the fortune leaving nothing for my grandfather, the younger brother. My mother and her siblings had to grow up working fields, scratching out a meager living while their relatives lived a life of gluttony. I was unsure of how to act when meeting such distinguished people.

“Annyong ha shimnikka!”

The warm cheerful voices welcomed us as we exited the airport terminal. There were shouts and cheers as my mother and father embraced faces they hadn’t seen in years; faces I had never seen. Though the language and culture barriers were awkward to overcome, they seemed insignificant hurdles to leap. This was my family, these people shared my blood, and for that I loved them.

The next few hours whizzed by, an unintelligible blur of movement as we grabbed our bags and packed up, heading for my Korean grandfather’s house in the mountains. My mother told me of the hundreds of acres of beautiful forest, the streams, the birds calling, the misty mountaintops, and all the other wonderful flavors that might tempt my thirsty senses.

Still, nothing could prepare my mind for the beauty of what I saw.

As soon as we exited the car, I could see the little mountain abodes of my family. Small and simple, they might seem unimpressive to a passerby (though passers by were a rare and impressive sight in the mountains). To me they seemed as castles, châteaux’s at which Louis the Sixteenth would stare in awe.

What was truly amazing was the area surrounding the little palace. Orchids, Birds of Paradise, Monkshoods, and thousands of other flowers were scattered in a forest filled with towering Pines and Gingkoes and Persimmon Trees and Mulberry Trees. It was a arboreal tango, the evergreen interspersed with the tropical, the warm, humid climate calmed by a cool mountain breeze.

The days were filled with endless fun, making fortresses in the streambed rocks, catching the slippery and evasive frogs, painting rocks, paper, nails, faces, and clothes with crushed mulberries. Even the work was fun when with my uncles Cuk-Jin and Sok-Jin. We gathered mulberries and put them in giant vats to be squished up into jelly, joking and laughing all the way.

The meals were perhaps the most amazing. Breakfast was light, as was lunch, everyone at on the move, they were small meals, enough to get to the next break. But dinner was a truly important event. The whole family, my father, mother, sister, and my grandfather, uncles, aunts, and cousins, we all gathered around the table and prepared for a feast.

The table was just above ankle height; everyone kneeled together, no person at a more advantageous seat than anyone else. Each person was happy for what they had, expectant of nothing, appreciative of everything.

There was a bowl of rice for everyone, hot, steaming, fresh, nothing warms a soul and rejuvenates the mind the way a bowl of family raised, picked, threshed, and cooked rice can. With the rice there was pulgoki (beef), kimchi, spicy burdock, fresh fish, quail eggs, black beans, pickled fern roots, plain pickled and spicy pickled daikon (radish), bamboo, and all other sorts of wonderful foods. For dessert we had Persimmons and fried grasshoppers rolled in sugar.

“Annyeonghi kaseyo.”

The parting a few days later was bitter. I had said hardly a word to anyone. At first I was even scared of my grandfather, his left arm cut off between the hand and elbow by machinery. But now the bonds of family had grown strong, and leaving then was worse than leaving the United States had ever been.

**************************

It was fifteen years ago that I visited, fifteen years since I have seen anyone in my Korean family aside from my mother. Now more than ever I long to return, to see my family, to love them, to just be with them. Reflecting on my visit, I have begun to truly appreciate the lifestyle I am able to lead. In Korea, no one in my family has an iPod, or a home computer, or their own personal car, or even some of the amenities like an indoor toilet. Since that visit, I never lost my love for Korean food, never lost the close attachment I feel to them as my family. Even now, I have begun to adopt their religion, reading Buddhist texts and finding a better way to lead my life through the writings of such wise individuals. But I in reality, the true reason I have chronicled my visit, is that I have vowed not to wait another fifteen years to visit. I refuse to ignore such an important part of me. There is a burning desire to return. I don’t just want to go back; I need to go back. I love my family, and the least respect I can show is another visit before the next decade has past.