“No more, no less just be like Hangawi (Chuseok).” Korea’s
mid-autumn thanksgiving holiday for the year’s harvest is in full swing. Back
in the North, this author remembers enjoying Chuseok, which was considerably
more relaxing than festivities for the Day of the Sun – the largest national
celebration for Kim Il Sung’s birthday. Chuseok was always kept free of
burdensome political commitments such as daily chonghwa (self-criticism
sessions) and flower laying, allowing people to spend time with their families
and honor their ancestors.
Seeing crops ripening in abundance and the full moon
shimmering in the night sky brings back sweet memories of my hometown. I wonder
how the old women who used to share stories at night are passing their time
under the full moon, as it glides silently across the sky. I still yearn for
the days when I used to eat the delicacies prepared for the ancestral rites
table after the Chuseok ceremony with these women, complaining about our
husbands under an elm tree and sharing a good laugh.
North Korea’s Chuseok was all about paying respects to our
ancestors and sharing time with our neighbors. Wives invariably devoted their
attention to preparing the food for the ancestral rites tables with the belief
that honoring one’s ancestors brings good fortune and prosperity. For those who
are well-off, preparations are not too difficult, but for those scraping by on
daily earnings at the marketplace, setting aside small sums for Chuseok can be
a tough challenge.
Homemakers in the North typically begin their Chuseok-saving
efforts one month ahead, knowing that the basic requirements will be skewered
meat and vegetables, fish, rice cakes, and other meat dishes for the table
setup. The belief that food served up to ancestors must be free of seasoning
ensures that dark wild greens are an essential addition to the table. In
provinces like Ryanggang where the supply is plentiful, this is not
particularly difficult, but in North and South Pyongan provinces, dried bracken generally costs
more than meat. The expectations from one’s own children, who are eagerly
waiting for delicious foods, also adds to the pressure on those making the
preparations.
Even after securing all the ingredients for the food, the
struggles faced by women in the North are endless. With intermittent
electricity, they usually end up grinding rice with their hands to make rice
cakes like songpyeon (small rice cakes with a sweet filling) and jeolpyeon
(steamed, imprinted rice cakes), mung bean pancakes, as well as other side
dishes, giving them barely enough time to stand up and straighten their backs.
One often hopes for some help from their husband during such times, but more
often than not (even on the day before Chuseok), you’ll find them nodding off –
fully inebriated. Wives gaze at their husbands wistfully and think to
themselves, “It would have been nice to have been born a man.” It’s a sad
reality in the highly patriarchal society of North Korea.
Men usually come up with their own arguments regarding their
share of work for Chuseok. “Every Chuseok, it’s imperative to perform beolcho (trimming
the weeds around ancestors’ graves). We have to tidy up all of the weeds that
have grown for a year so that our ancestors feel like they’ve taken a bath,”
they would explain. Preparation for beolcho only requires a sickle. Men soak a
whetstone and sharpen the blade and head up to the burial sites early in the
day. Once all the weeds are cut, the tombstone is straightened, and the grave
is lined with rocks, bringing a sense of pride for the caretakers of the site.
These conventional roles of the husband and wife are slowly
changing in the North. A source from South Pyongan Province has commented that
people now more frequently using beolcho to make money, although these services
had existed in the past. Friends or men in the neighborhood with no Chuseok
duties to attend to can take care of beolcho for others, allowing their clients
to instead enjoy some more drinks with their family.
However, the growing tides of commercialization can be felt.
“When the Chuseok month rolls around, you’ll see beolcho workers waiting
around,” the source said. “If you tell them where the grave is and what the
name of the site’s guardian is, they can take care of beolcho before Chuseok,”
he explained. The price is at least 10,000 KPW (worth 2 kg of rice). The
service is strictly limited to men, and more specifically those tied to the
markets.
North Korean women, on the other hand, are still
single-handedly laying out tables for ancestral rites but trying their best to
be good wives. I am slightly relieved to hear that the trend of marketization
is shaking up some of the deeply-rooted male chauvinist ways of life, but from
the South this author yearns for the day when North Korean women can also enjoy
freedom and equality under a unified Korean Peninsula.
