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One day in early March, at dusk, even the light rain suited to germinating flowers felt cold to Hwasandaegi. 

Bok-sul had definitely told her that this was the house. But Hwasandaegi still didn’t dare enter the house, just peeking in hesitantly. 

This isn’t it. 

No matter how hard she thought about it, this wasn’t an ordinary home where her son lived.

For Hwasandaegi, who picked mountain herbs in spring and reaped grains in autumn to sell at a streetside market in Gyeongju, ten li away from the secluded mountain village, the high-rising walls or the painted gate or the shining glass windows resembled a public office, let’s say a village resident center in a rural community. 

휘높은 판자 천장이며 유리 바른 문이며,

싸늘해 보이는 횟가루 벽이며, 다다미방이 잠을 설레었다.

화산댁이는 자꾸만 쓸쓸했다.

She couldn’t sleep in the tatami-floored room with its high ceiling, paned windows, and unfriendly lime-powdered walls. Hwasandaegi felt all alone. 

애써 잠을 청해 본다.

그러나 잠 대신 화산댁이는 어느새 오리나무 숲 사이로 황토 고갯길을 넘고 있다.

She tried to sleep. But she was already walking over the unpaved hilly road among the alder trees. 

보리밥이 곧 마당인 낡은 초가집이다.

빈대 피가 댓잎처럼 긁힌 토벽,

메주 뜨는 냄새가 코를 찌르는 갈자리 방에 아랫도리 벗은 손자들이 제멋대로 굴러 자고

쑥물 사발을 옆에 놓고 신을 삼고 있는 맏아들, 

갈퀴손으로 누더기를 깁고 있는 맏며느리,

화산댁이는 그만 당장이라도 뛰어가고 싶다.

아들의 등을 쓰담아 기침을 내려 주고

며느리와 무르팍을 맞대고 실컷 울고 나면 가슴이 후련해질 것만 같다.

It was an old house with a thatched roof with a barley field as the front yard. Mud wall streaked with the bedbug blood, her grandchildren with their stomachs bared and limbs tangled sleeping in a room stinking with fermented soybean blocks, her oldest son weaving straw shoes with a bowl of mugwort water beside him, his wife mending tattered clothes with her dry, bony hands. 

Hwasandaegi wanted to run to that place right there and then. She wanted to calm his cough by gently massaging his back. She would feel much better if she could sit knee-to-knee with her daughter-in-law and cry her heart out. 

# Interview with literary critic Jeon So-yeong

There are several elements in the story meant to show the gap between Hwasandaegi’s remote mountain village and her son’s city life. Her straw shoes were made by hand and the rubber shoes given by her son were manufactured in a factory. Unlike her ondol-heated room in her house, her son’s room had unheated Japanese-style tatami floor. Her homemade acorn cake, made with love, is thrown away by the son. Writer Oh Young-soo contrasted the mountain village and the city by vividly describing their different surroundings in detail.

어느 새 화산댁이 눈앞에는 두메 손자들의 얼굴이 자꾸만 얼찐거렸다.

도토리떡을 흥흥거리고 엉겨들다 줴박히고 

떠밀려 찌그러지고 우는 얼굴들이었다.

화산댁이 눈시울에는 어느 새 눈물이 핑 돌았다.

Images of her grandchildren left in the mountain village wavered in front of her. They were crying, having fought over the acorn cake. Hwasandaegi’s eyes began to tear up. 

해가 한 발쯤 돋았을 무렵,

어제와 꼭 같은 보퉁이를 들고 

어제와 꼭 같은 짚세기를 신은 화산댁이는

경주 가도를 향해 걸음을 빨리하고 있었다.

When the sun was midway up the sky, Hwasandaegi walked quickly toward Gyeongju, carrying the same bundle and wearing the same straw shoes she had yesterday. 

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Oh Young-soo (Born in Gyeongsangnam-do Prov., 1911~1979)

Debuted with short story “Wild Grapes” in 1950