The Persimmon Tree House in My Heart

On weekday afternoons, the inside of the deserted church is quiet. Walking briskly along the corridor, I happened to glance out the window and saw a few persimmon trees in the small garden. I thought, 'Isn't it the time when persimmon flowers bloom?' and stopped to take a closer look, but the persimmon flowers hadn't bloomed yet. It seems they are young trees that haven't been planted for a long time, as they haven't started flowering.

 

Long ago, when I was in elementary school, the house where my uncle's family lived had many persimmon trees. There were many large persimmon trees in the backyard of the main house and in front of the annex, where my cousins and I used to climb and play under the shade of the trees. When the pale yellow persimmon flowers bloomed in May, we would pick them, string them on thread to make crowns, and wear them on our heads. We also made necklaces and bracelets with the flowers. Although persimmon flowers were edible, they weren't very tasty. In the fall, when the persimmons ripened, it was fun to twist the long pole split into two at the end to reach the branches and pick the persimmons. During times when there was little to eat, we would sometimes chew on bitter persimmons, but when the persimmons were ripe, we would put them in a large jar, mix them with warm water and salt, and soak them for several days to remove the bitterness, turning them into snacks.

 

Peeling off the skin and drying them carefully to make dried persimmons made them a precious treat during a time when sweet things were scarce. Persimmons that turned into ripe persimmons because we couldn't pick them in time at the top of the tree were fetched by my cousins climbing the tree.

 

My uncle's house was very large. The entire house was built on a large rock, so the main porch and the long porch of the annex were high. There was a fairly spacious vegetable garden in front of the annex, and various vegetables grew from early spring to late autumn. In a corner of the vegetable garden near the low fence, there was a small pond where persimmon flowers fell and floated on the water. Closer to the gate, there was a reasonably large chicken coop. When signs of the hens laying eggs were seen, my cousins would sneak into the chicken coop, take out the eggs, and secretly feed them raw to us. Sometimes a chicken would be made into a boiled chicken soup, and we would be invited to eat together.

 

There were five sons in my uncle's family. The eldest cousin was younger than me by a year, and below him, there were four younger cousins, two years apart. Since it was a house with five boys, it was always noisy, and the brothers fought among themselves. Whenever they fought, my aunt would grab the nearest one and scold them, hitting them without favoring anyone. When snacks like sweet potatoes or corn appeared, they were divided equally among the five, so my uncle always pondered over how to distribute them. Despite frequent fights; there was a strong brotherly bond, probably because they were treated equally by their parents. Growing up in a family with no regard for birth order, they fought well. Although the eldest son and the youngest son were favored by their parents, who did not discriminate between the children, I was envious of that. My uncle, who only graduated from elementary school, was not highly educated, but he always kept books close to him. He had a calm personality and a gentle demeanor. Despite being from a fallen family due to the war, he had the air of a scholar. Even when his children made mistakes, he never hit them and patiently reasoned with them, examining the situation step by step. He was very different from my father, who would lose his temper almost irrationally when angry.

 

Two years ago, when I went to Korea for a visit, I met my uncle's family for the first time in almost 30 years. The mischievous kids who used to play with me were all gray-haired, and it was hard to distinguish between who was the older or younger brother, making me realize that a long time had passed.

 

A few days before being invited to the home of my fourth cousin in Gyeonggi-do, I visited Mirinae Shrine. Seeing several persimmon trees laden with ripe persimmons, it reminded me of the persimmon trees at my uncle's house when I was young. When I asked my younger cousin, whom I met on this occasion, about what had happened to the old house, he said that the house had long been torn down, and five houses were built on that site. The scenery of the neighborhood had completely changed, and the traces of the old house were no longer visible.

 

The autobiographical novel "Changnangjeonggi" by Yu Jin-oh, included in the middle school Korean language textbook, ends like this: "It took more than twenty years to find the long-lost Changnangjeong. However, it was not the place filled with memories and nostalgia that I had dreamed of. I couldn't help but be surprised at the tremendous change." If I were to revisit the place where my uncle's family lived, I would likely be immersed in such emotions. Now, the persimmon tree house of the old days must remain buried in my heart.

 

(November 2010)