One unique Chuseok for me

Revised

You open your eyes, only to find out that your watch is displaying 13:24. You climb down from the bunkbed, and boil water for ramen. After a few minutes, you take the  pot to the sofa, and eat as you watch a BBC documentary ‘The Blue Planet.' After lunch, you sit on a chair at the window side with a book, peacefully reading and eventually falling asleep due to warm sunlight. About 5 pm, you wake up and eat dinner with your family. After that, you go into a room, actually a ‘study room’ for you and your brothers, and try to study something. Around 10pm, feeling hungry, you open the refrigerator and drink some orange juice. After staying 2 more hours in the ‘study room’, you pick up your camera and go outside, feeling the midnight air. You go to the nearby light source and scrutinize it in order to look for insect, but feel unsatisfied and go back home. You don’t feel like studying, so grabbing a book, ‘Short stories of Guy de Maupassant’ you go up the top bunk, and read until you sleep, thinking that today was almost the same as yesterday during 'Chuseok holiday.'

 On a scale from 1 to 10 in terms of cultural value, I'd rate my Chuseok a -1. But, our family ‘used-to-be’ pretty much strict about Chuseok culture before. In every New Year’s Day and Chuseok, our family which live in Gwacheon, a city near Seoul, had to move down to Daegu. There, our family met our grandparents and headed to Uiseong-gun, where Jipsungchon(집성촌) of the Kim family is located. There, lots and lots of our relatives gathered, did ‘Jesa’ which contained most of the relatives wearing traditional  Hanbok, and wearing ‘Gat’, a traditional hat. After jesa, Family members went up to ‘family mountain’ where, even my great-great-grandfather was buried. There we did bowing and placed the foods on the table and performed several rituals. There were family members buried all over the mountain, and we had to climb at least 5 different places to reach their tombs. We ate traditional foods with relatives whom I only know from their faces(some whom I could only see during these events). Then why do I, who had these ‘traditional’ Chuseok every year, have to stay at home and study?

 It’s hard to tell, but it’s due to my grandmother. She has cancer and will soon pass away. The cancer was found almost 2 years ago, while I was preparing for KMLA. One particular reason which I prepared KMLA, was because I wanted to show her that her grandson was succeeding, with the hope that the fact of me entering KMLA would enhance her status. But it didn’t go well, and she has passed thorough several hard times over the last year. So, this Chuseok, she decided to go on a trip with my grandfather, maybe her last trip. So instead our family going down to Daegu, we scheduled her trip and called her via video call during her journey. She was weak, significantly compared with her strong image which I remember, and it was a bit hard to see her through the phone. My father was looking very happy, smiling, but right after we hung up the phone, he let out a sigh. I simply didn't like this and went right back to my study room. I didn’t want to think about these sad things.

 So, I had a lot of free time available during Chuseok. On the first day I went to Kyobo bookstore in Seoul, in order to buy some books. I bought an entomology book, which is a Korean translation of an English textbook. At the second day, I looked at the book, only to realize that the Korean translation was a total mess. It was so badly translated that I felt angry while trying to figure out what the Korean text’s meanings were. I wanted to go out and take a walk and take some pictures with my camera, but it rained for 2 days. Most of my friends were at their grandparent’s houses or in Hagwons, so I had no one to play with. Even my Facebook and Kakaotalk didn’t have any alarms. I really wanted to find something which I could focus on during Chuseok.

I looked through the bookshelves, but the most interesting books I have were in school, and all the books left at home didn’t catch my interest. I picked up ‘Short stories of Guy de Maupassant’ which I would never read on my own, and decided to try it. It was quite fun though, interesting to take a peek though stories based on old France. I read it when I felt I had nothing to do, usually at night when I simply couldn't sleep, or during the day when I felt bored. Everyday night, I went out despite slight rain, and hoped to find some insect attracted to light. But since rain had lowered the temperature, there was no insect in action.

Instead of studying for SAT or the Calculus quiz, I couldn’t do something which interested me. At least I slept a lot, and ate delicious foods, which is hard to do in school.

On a scale from 1 to 10 in terms of meaningfulness, productiveness, or excitedness, I'd rate my Chuseok a 2. But this Chuseok can be remembered in my mind, as a Chuseok which contained no cultural activity, so different from previous years. Grown in a family which values the cultural activity during Chuseok, certainly it was a unique time for me. But, I really hope not to spend any more Chuseok holiday like this year’s ever again.