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Authors: Linda Sue Park
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mother.
The visitors would be staying for nearly the whole holiday. The house filled with noise and activity as the adults bustled about putting away bags and parcels. Then the cousins changed into their holiday clothes. Everyone met in the Hall of Ancestors for the bowing ceremony.
The adults sat at one end of the room on cushions. One by one, each child came forward and bowed low, all the way down to the ground. Upon rising, he or she received a gift of money from each adult, with the child's age determining how much was given.
Kee-sup, as the eldest son of the eldest son, began the ceremony. Each child took a turn, and with his
mother's help even the baby bowed, causing great shouts of laughter from everyone.
After the bowing ceremony ended, the games began. Children and adults alike played the board game
yut,
and throughout the day everyone collected "nines."
Kee-sup had written the Chinese character for "long life" on a large piece of paper. He showed it to everyone and explained it to the younger cousins.
"You see this symbol? It means 'long life' in Chinese. This"âhe pointed to part of the symbolâ"means 'life.' And these two parts at the beginning are 'nines.' That's why nine is lucky. The more nines you collect today, the luckier your year will be."
The collecting of nines began.
"I've picked up nine stones."
"I counted nine birds in the sky."
"I kicked the shuttlecock nine times without missing."
Even the adults participated, with the boys' mother presenting a tray of nine different kinds of cakes, and their father giving each child a bag of nine nuts. And their aunt got the biggest laugh of all when she announced that she would change the baby's diaper nine times that day.
Chapter Eleven
The games and feasting would continue for fifteen days. But on that first day, as Young-sup was kicking the shuttlecock with his cousins, Kee-sup beckoned him, and they slipped away from the game playing.
Kee-sup sent him to the kitchen for a bowl of leftover cooked rice. "Then find Hwang and ask him for a wooden mallet."
"A mallet, brother? What for?"
"Just go," said Kee-sup impatiently. "Meet me back in our room."
When Young-sup arrived, out of breath and with mallet and bowl in hand, he found Kee-sup wrapping the pieces of broken pottery in a cloth.
"Now tell me," Young-sup demanded.
Kee-sup shook his head. "It will be easier to show
you." He tied the corners of the cloth securely, put the bundle on a piece of paper on the floor, and took up the mallet. Then he smashed the bundle as hard as he could.
There was a sound of breaking porcelain, muffled by the cloth. Kee-sup hit the cloth again and again. From time to time, he poked gingerly at the bundle. It took a long time and many blows of the mallet, but at last the pieces of pottery had been broken and ground almost to a powder.
Kee-sup untied the cloth and left it on the floor. He cut a length of line from his reel, then took a few grains of rice from the bowl. With the rice on his fingertips, he rubbed and rolled the line repeatedly until it was coated with stickiness.
"The broken stuffâspread it out on the paper," he ordered. Young-sup complied, using a spoon to scoop up and spread the ground pottery.
Kee-sup held the line taut between his hands and rolled it in the powdered pottery until the center section of the line was well coated. He inspected it critically, rolled it again, and hung it up to dry. Young-sup watched all this in silence.
Kee-sup tidied up the work area a little, then spoke.
"When you cut your hand last night, it gave me an idea. If a single tiny piece of broken pottery
could cut your hand, maybe a lot of them together could cut through a kite line."
Young-sup's eyes widened in surprise and admiration. "That's a great ideaâif it works."
The boys each checked the line a dozen times that day. It wasn't until the evening that the heavy mixture of rice paste and powdered pottery was completely dry.
Kee-sup
The visitors would be staying for nearly the whole holiday. The house filled with noise and activity as the adults bustled about putting away bags and parcels. Then the cousins changed into their holiday clothes. Everyone met in the Hall of Ancestors for the bowing ceremony.
The adults sat at one end of the room on cushions. One by one, each child came forward and bowed low, all the way down to the ground. Upon rising, he or she received a gift of money from each adult, with the child's age determining how much was given.
Kee-sup, as the eldest son of the eldest son, began the ceremony. Each child took a turn, and with his
mother's help even the baby bowed, causing great shouts of laughter from everyone.
After the bowing ceremony ended, the games began. Children and adults alike played the board game
yut,
and throughout the day everyone collected "nines."
Kee-sup had written the Chinese character for "long life" on a large piece of paper. He showed it to everyone and explained it to the younger cousins.
"You see this symbol? It means 'long life' in Chinese. This"âhe pointed to part of the symbolâ"means 'life.' And these two parts at the beginning are 'nines.' That's why nine is lucky. The more nines you collect today, the luckier your year will be."
The collecting of nines began.
"I've picked up nine stones."
"I counted nine birds in the sky."
"I kicked the shuttlecock nine times without missing."
Even the adults participated, with the boys' mother presenting a tray of nine different kinds of cakes, and their father giving each child a bag of nine nuts. And their aunt got the biggest laugh of all when she announced that she would change the baby's diaper nine times that day.
Chapter Eleven
The games and feasting would continue for fifteen days. But on that first day, as Young-sup was kicking the shuttlecock with his cousins, Kee-sup beckoned him, and they slipped away from the game playing.
Kee-sup sent him to the kitchen for a bowl of leftover cooked rice. "Then find Hwang and ask him for a wooden mallet."
"A mallet, brother? What for?"
"Just go," said Kee-sup impatiently. "Meet me back in our room."
When Young-sup arrived, out of breath and with mallet and bowl in hand, he found Kee-sup wrapping the pieces of broken pottery in a cloth.
"Now tell me," Young-sup demanded.
Kee-sup shook his head. "It will be easier to show
you." He tied the corners of the cloth securely, put the bundle on a piece of paper on the floor, and took up the mallet. Then he smashed the bundle as hard as he could.
There was a sound of breaking porcelain, muffled by the cloth. Kee-sup hit the cloth again and again. From time to time, he poked gingerly at the bundle. It took a long time and many blows of the mallet, but at last the pieces of pottery had been broken and ground almost to a powder.
Kee-sup untied the cloth and left it on the floor. He cut a length of line from his reel, then took a few grains of rice from the bowl. With the rice on his fingertips, he rubbed and rolled the line repeatedly until it was coated with stickiness.
"The broken stuffâspread it out on the paper," he ordered. Young-sup complied, using a spoon to scoop up and spread the ground pottery.
Kee-sup held the line taut between his hands and rolled it in the powdered pottery until the center section of the line was well coated. He inspected it critically, rolled it again, and hung it up to dry. Young-sup watched all this in silence.
Kee-sup tidied up the work area a little, then spoke.
"When you cut your hand last night, it gave me an idea. If a single tiny piece of broken pottery
could cut your hand, maybe a lot of them together could cut through a kite line."
Young-sup's eyes widened in surprise and admiration. "That's a great ideaâif it works."
The boys each checked the line a dozen times that day. It wasn't until the evening that the heavy mixture of rice paste and powdered pottery was completely dry.
Kee-sup
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