The Picture Bride by Lee Geum-yi

 

It is always fun to participate in a blog tour for a new book, and on this occasion it falls to me to share an excerpt of this fascinating story, The Picture Bride.  You might like to visit jaffareadstoo.blogspot,com for the opening of this passage before continuing here.

When a primary school was established in Jucheon, her father had sent her eldest brother to school. He reckoned that since the world was changing, his children should study the new subjects as they grew up. Two years later, he sent Willow, who had just turned eight. Hongju, her friend, pestered her own father, Mr. An, until she was able to enroll with Willow. Hongju’s family had been commoners for generations, but Mr. An had earned enough money by buying and selling cattle and bought land in Ojin Village. He built a tiled house overlooking the fields and settled down, then bought a genealogy allowing him to be considered a yangban. The local people called him “Wealthy An” because they didn’t think he merited any title.

 Both girls were the only daughters in their families, the other daughters having died early. Willow was the second child among her brothers, and Hongju was the youngest, after her brothers.

 It was much more fun for Willow to learn Hangul, Japanese, arithmetic, and gymnastics with friends at primary school than to study the Thousand Character Classic at her father’s Confucian academy. Although she had to climb over three hills to reach the school, it didn’t bother her. However, when her father passed away, her mother couldn’t afford the monthly school fee for both children. If one of them had to quit, of course it would be the daughter.

 Willow left school without completing her second year and helped with the housework and taking care of her younger brothers. The following year, Mrs. Yun sent Willow’s other younger brother Gyusik to school, but not Willow.

 “What about me?” Willow argued and pleaded. “Send me back to school, too.”

 “It’s enough if a girl can read and write her own name. What more do you need?”

 At that, Willow threw a tantrum. Mrs. Yun tore off her apron and stood up. “If you don’t stop right now, I’m going up to throw myself over the waterfall in Maebongsan Mountain and die.”

 Frightened of being an orphan, Willow embraced her mother’s legs as she prepared to leave the room and swore that she would never again talk about going back to school. After that, the only thing she could do was to comfort herself by writing on the ground with a poker so as not to forget the letters.

 After graduating from the four-year primary school, Hongju had not gone on to the girls’ upper school. She had no interest in studying, and her parents had no intention of sending their daughter to one of the new schools, the threshold of which none of their sons had ever crossed. After being in a place with a school and a market, Hongju returned to her mountain-valley home and felt bored, but Willow had been glad to have a friend nearby. While she was with Hongju, she could forget her situation, obliged as she was to help her mother earn a living. In the evenings, Hongju’s house was the only place that Willow was allowed to visit. Taking her sewing with her, Willow would hurry to Hongju’s place whenever she was free. Sewing was less boring when she was chattering with Hongju than when she stayed with her mother.

 Hongju had a room all to herself opposite the main building. There, Willow had enjoyed snacks such as dried persimmons or cookies, and read novels that Hongju kept hidden in her clothes chest. After reading the books, they would talk nervously about free love, apply lipstick, and imitate the heroines.

 The previous year, when Hongju had turned sixteen, her bridegroom had been chosen. He was from a prestigious yang- ban family in Masan. Her mother had taught her how to keep house lest her daughter be scolded once she was married. Most of all, Hongju had hated sitting quietly and sewing. Willow, who had acquired her mother’s skill while helping with the needlework, spent the evenings embroidering the cushions and pillowcases that her friend would take to her new home.

 When Hongju’s mother left the room to tend to other chores, Hongju would lay aside her embroidery frame and chat away. While Hongju was thrilled to be leaving Ojin Village for busy Masan, Willow was already missing her friend. It would be different from when Hongju had been away at school. Then, there had been a time limit, she would come back after graduating, but getting married meant leaving forever. 

When Hongju’s wedding was celebrated in the yard of her home and she had left the village, Willow cried more bitterly than Hongju’s mother. Now, there would be no one to open her heart to, no moments of respite with her friend. It seemed that Willow would never be able to cast off the shadow of her father’s absence. However, two months after her marriage, Hongju became a widow. Rumors circulated that the groom’s family had concealed the fact that he was sick, or that her father had been so eager to form an alliance with a yangban family that he had concealed the fact that a fortune-teller had said that their horoscopes showed that they were incompatible.

 Tradition dictated that once a woman was married, she “buried her bones” in that house forever. When Willow thought of Hongju, she was reminded of an embroidery left bloodstained after her needle pricked her finger. No matter how well the embroidery was done, it was useless once it was stained. In a flash, through no fault of her own, Hongju’s destiny had become that of a bloodstained embroidery.

 Willow sometimes felt guilty wondering whether her friend’s misfortune might have been caused by her own negative attitude, because she had disliked seeing her get married. “How will she spend her whole life in that household without a child?” Willow sighed as she sewed. Her mother had long been in the habit of saying that if it had not been for the children, she would have thrown herself over the Maebongsan Mountain waterfall long ago.

 “Stop sighing,” said Mrs. Yun as she cut a knotted thread. “That’s just Hongju’s destiny.”

 It turned out not to be the case. Hongju returned to her parents’ house shortly after her husband died, thanks to a divination by the Surijae shaman, who declared that if a young widow remained in the house, a yet greater disaster might befall them. Not only Hongju’s in-laws, but even her own family reckoned that her husband had died because of her. There was also a rumor in the village that Wealthy An had offered his in-laws a large sum, enough for them to live on, in return for bringing Hongju home.

On the evening she went to see Hongju for the first time after her return, Willow’s heart and steps were heavy. Willow had grown up seeing her widowed mother. More tenacious than the suffering of the one who had lost her husband was the wide-spread gossip about the woman who had devoured his vitality. The title of “widow” that she would have to bear like a yoke all her life was like the name of a great crime.

 As Willow made her way to Hongju’s house, combining her own sorrow with Hongju’s misfortune, she imagined all kinds of sad things. She prepared to hug her friend and cry. As she entered the gate, she could not help being struck by the sight of Hongju’s mother’s grief-stricken face. She seemed to lack the energy to say anything, merely greeting her with a look and nodding in the direction of Hongju’s room. When she saw Hongju’s elegant leather shoes lying on the stone step in front of the room, she felt tears rising. Willow left her straw sandals beside them and entered the room.

 Hongju, wearing mourning dress and with her hair in a bun, sat in the darkened room with one knee raised. She didn’t look around even though she knew that Willow was there. Her hus- band had died two months after the marriage. It was as though her whole world had collapsed. Willow, sympathizing with her friend’s unfortunate situation, scarcely daring to breathe, sat down next to her. A housemaid, coming in behind her, put down a plate of dried persimmons and looked briefly at Hongju. Once she had left the room, Willow prepared to speak.

 Just then, Hongju shook out her skirts and relaxed her formal posture, lowering her knee. With both fists resting on her crossed legs, she gave vent to her fury. “That guy had always been sick. I didn’t kill him, so I don’t see why I should stay locked in here like a criminal. If his family had not turned me out, what would have become of me? If I had to spend my whole life in that house, I would have suffocated to death.”

 Hongju was unlike any widow that Willow had ever seen. As Hongju spat out without hesitation ideas that she had barely dared formulate, Willow felt relieved. She was right. Even if someone became a widow, even if the children were left fatherless, it was not their fault.

 “That’s what I think, too. They did well to turn you out.” Willow and Hongju hugged and laughed, instead of crying. Without knowing that, Hongju’s mother, fearing that her daughter might reach some bad decision on account of her changed situation, asked Mrs. Yun to let Willow visit her every day.

Once again, as before, Willow and Hongju sat embroidering or chatting together or reading novels. The only thing that had changed was that Hongju now had experience of a man, so her words were more forthright.

 “I got through the first night as best I could because it was my first time. Having read love stories, I was better prepared than that sickly bridegroom smelling of milk. He was shaking so much he couldn’t even undo my dress. . . . Really, it was so frustrating.”

 Willow listened with red cheeks and sparkling eyes. 

This episode occurs early in the book, and gives some insight into the life of a teenaged girl in Korea a century ago.  Women's lives have changed massively since then, of course, in most parts of the world.  

Korea is somewhere I know little about, and it is interesting to learn of the Japanese  occupation which was experienced.  I had no clue about the migration of Korean workers to Hawai'i to work on sugar plantations, nor that marriages were arranged for these workers with girls from back home.  Those marriages were with the Picture Brides, who travelled to a strange land, far from their families and friends and with only a photograph to tell them about their spouses-to-be and nothing to tell them about what their new lives will be like.

This book is beautifully written and translated, and I am really enjoying reading the story, which is primarily Willow's tale, but also those of the small group of friends she makes on the way from her old life to the new.  I am learning about history and the world, women's lives and social mores and expectations.  It is good, an enriching experience.