Enlightenment

For Eternal Life

Gulliver’s Travels is a prose satire written by Irish writer Jonathan Swift, which begins with Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput and leads up to Part 4. This satire was adapted into a children’s story and has been read by many children. When I was a teenager, I had a chance to read the full text of Gulliver’s Travels and there was a very impressive part. The third nation Gulliver goes to after traveling in Lilliput and Brobdingnag is a flying island, where he hears from a high official about the Struldbrugs, people who are immortal. Gulliver starts to admire them, but he soon changes his mind. At first, Gulliver envied them at the thought that they would stay young…

Choi Jae-ung from Incheon, South Korea

Mom and Light

When I was little, my house was located in a deep mountain valley. My village had only fourteen households, and there was no bus there. I had to walk forty minutes to go to the elementary school, and it took me almost one hour by bike to go to the middle school. The high school was too far to commute from my house, so I stayed at the school dormitory. During the week I stayed in the dorms, and on the weekends I went back home, where I received rice, side dishes, and pocket money to spend the following week. Every Saturday, I had to hurry to go back home. There was the bus that went near my neighborhood, but…

Ju Jeom-yeol from Yangsan, South Korea

Only After I Became a Mom Myself

I was born in a remote village in Gangwon Province. There were many good things about living in the countryside, but I wished I would have many chances to eat delicious foods that were only sold in downtown. My favorite days were the national holidays and my birthday, when my uncle visited us with snack gift sets. Knowing how excited I was about special food, my mom prepared delicious food on my birthday every year. I moved to a city when I entered middle school and lived with my sister, who is two years older than I am, until I got married. My mom felt so bad that she couldn’t take care of me as she let me, her youngest…

Gi Geum-ju from Chuncheon, South Korea

When We, Who Are Different from Each Other, Are United

A sigh came out when I opened the refrigerator door. There were sesame leaves and a little bit of bean sprouts, which were left over after I cooked spicy chewy noodles; some carrots and baby vegetables, which were left over from when I cooked bibimbap; and some water parsley, crown daisy, and a cabbage. A little bit of all kinds of vegetables that were left over was taking up space on one side of the refrigerator. After wondering how I could utilize those ingredients that would go bad if I left them in the fridge any longer, I decided to make buchimgae [Korean pancake]. It was perfect menu for the weather, for it was drizzling outside. There are many different…

Lee Hye-gyeong from Seoul, South Korea

Hiking

“Mom, can’t you take my backpack?” One holiday when my husband went away on a business trip, I decided to go hiking after much thought over how I would spend time with my child. However, she whined from the moment we began. “Is it too heavy? We’ll get to the spring soon. Be patient a little more. Let’s take a rest there.” My child, who was not accustomed to hiking, felt burdened to even carry her backpack that just contained her own things like drinking water, snacks and so on. I was reminded of myself in my childhood days. Shortly after my younger sister was born, my mother gave birth to twins. With the newly born crying babies and my…

Cho Eun-jin from Changwon, South Korea

Breathing of My Soul

“Mom, the doctor said that I have pneumothorax, and that I might die if I don’t have surgery right away.” I received a phone call from my son who went to hospital for having breathing difficulty. Then the doctor talked to me over the phone. “Hello, Ma’am. We just took an X-ray, and he is in a critical condition. He needs to have surgery right away. We will have him go through the admission process and get things ready for an operation, so please come right away. We will start the operation as soon as you arrive.” My mind went blank when I hung up the phone. ‘Pneumothorax?’ I pulled myself together and quickly searched for pneumothorax. It is a…

Kim Eun-mi from Cheongju, South Korea

Happiness That I Learned in the Military

When I joined the military, my parents didn’t look sad while seeing me off. I entered the training center, thinking, ‘It’s good that my mom and dad didn’t get too emotional.’ But on the day we had the completion ceremony of the basic training, my parents ran to me, looking like they were about to cry, and gave me a hug. That was when I realized that my parents were actually hiding their feelings at the admission ceremony. Ever since that day, I tried harder to get myself adapted to the hard trainings, thinking that they would be very concerned if I couldn’t adapt myself there. I called them four or five times a week at least to ask them…

Kim Seung-hyeok from Busan, South Korea

What Is Important to My Mom

When I came back home from meeting my friends on a Sunday evening, my mother had several layers of bandages on her pinky finger. “Mom, what happened to your finger?” “I got a little cut while doing something.” Glancing at it, however, it wasn’t just a little cut, and so I asked her to see a doctor quickly. But she said it wasn’t serious and she could go tomorrow. She said so as if nothing really happened, so I thought she was okay, but that was not the case. When I came home after work the next day, her condition was really bad. It was not just her finger; her whole hand was wrapped in bandages. When she went to…

Lee Sun-mi from Seoul, Korea

Home & Mother

On a day off, which I don’t usually have, I was busy doing all the house chores that had piled up and didn’t even notice my phone was ringing. I checked my phone later and found there was a missed call from my mom. “You called me?” “Yes, did I wake you up? Did you get up?” “Of course! Look at the time!” My mom felt bad that I had been working part time for a few years to help with my children’s education fees. She said that her neighbor gave her some big and nice radishes and so she made diced radish kimchi for me and sent it. She asked me to call her to let her know when…

Kim Hyang-sun from Uijeongbu, Korea

Lost Memories

When I was a kid, I liked animated TV shows a lot. Whenever I came home after school, I was always excited to watch them, and whenever they ended, I felt so sad. I tried to figure out how to save those episodes so that I could watch them over and over again, and I learned about video recording. There is a square hole on a video tape. When I covered that hole and recorded the show, what was originally recorded was deleted and the animations were recorded over it. We had various kinds of video tapes: my kindergarten talent show, bowling guide, foreign movies, my parents’ wedding, etc. I started recording animations with them. Of course, I was only…

Hong Sun-tae from Gangneung, Korea