March 2002 Archives

Mom gave me the book, GaJeongDokBon because it was written by her grandfather. I wasn't really interested in it: it sounded old and outdated. But somehow, I decided to give it a try because he had an interesting life (or rather the whole family) because he and some of his children decided to join North Korea when the Korea was divided up. This actually created quite a bit of nuisance for the family that stayed in South Korea. But that's another story.

The book is about what family is supposed to be and what the relationships and the roles of its members should be. Because he taught in a women's school for a long time, the most of the focus was on the various roles of women in the household. It also talks about the customs and ceremonies in families.

The book was published in 1941, with his forward dated 1940. So, it was quite interesting to see how little seems to have changed for the past 60 years. I mean, we (i.e., Koreans) tend to think that with so much economical and material changes during the latter half of the previous century, our lives are completely changed and so much progress has been made.

But reading this book, I can't help but think that how much of what he talks about can still apply to the lives of the current, the 21st century, Koreans. Of course, the sentences look very old and the vocabulary sometimes unfamiliar, and some targets of his criticism have been improved or resolved.

Still, the relationships within in-laws, how daughters/women are thought of, the concept of marriages, the role of mothers... I can still see the same issues happening still after 3 generations have gone through.

I guess, it gets tougher, takes longer, to change things closer to who we are. Our external, material, economical lives may have changed greatly beyond recognition, but still our human customs, ceremonies, philosophies, with the bonds within the families, get handed down for generations before there are noticeable changes. How gargantuan "baggages" do our societies have to bear...