Annoying Chuseok

 You wake up at your grandmother’s place at 7 am. Your brother is sleeping next to you. Your mother peaks out the door and tells you to fold the blankets and wake him. You fold yours and yell at your brother to wake him up. He's still dreaming. Your father comes in. He tells you to wake your brother up. You put your blanket in the closet. You wake your brother once more. He rolls over with a groan, but doesn’t wake. You give up and pull out your phone to watch some youtube. All you see is ‘Sorry, check your internet connection’ Oh right, no Wi-fi. It’s your time to groan now.

 On a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of annoyance, I’ll give my Chuseok a 6. Meaning, it wasn’t completely annoying, but annoying to quite some extent. Of course, it’s harder to be not annoyed at all in family meetings, especially in big families. I have a really big family on my father’s side. I’ve got two uncles, three aunts, and… wait for just a minute (counting) exactly 10 cousins, if I don’t count cousin nephews. I’m the youngest of the younger generation, meaning I was the spotlight of attention for my childhood. In the past, it was nice to be loved and getting attention. But as I experienced puberty, that attention started to become annoying. For example, the parents in the family always called me to take out the table and lay out the dishes and utensils. Was it because they’re still wrapped up in that so-called traditional Korean Confucianism, or simply they just liked to see the youngest baby work hard, I don’t know. Even to this year, some aunts still call my name out loud to get the table ready. Thankfully, my mom and other uncles bring out my cousins to come and work too. The job itself is quite of a workload too. All those cousins and parents, I have to lay out more than 20 pairs of spoons and chopsticks.

 Another reason to add to my annoyance, there was no Wi-fi. You may think that I’m stressing over such a petty problem, but you don’t understand. For most of the times when our families meet, all the elder people gather in the living room or kitchen, to cook or talk around. I don’t know when this tradition started, but it became a thing for the younger generation to go inside the TV room for the time being. It was like that when I was 5, 10, 15, and this year as well. That’s not the annoying part. It’s actually quite fun to have your cousins and watch TV. But alongside the TV, the primary element for this condition to prolong is holding tight to each of our phones. Not something to brag about, I admit, we always do something with our phones when we’re in that room. ‘Cause there’s nothing really to do. Of course, grandmother tells us to go outside and have some fun, and we would do that, but eventually, we come back inside where the air conditioning is running. And guess what, the Wi-Fi at grandma’s place went down 2 days ago. Perfect.

 Well, I was going to write this essay about how dreadful my Chuseok was, but I have to be honest with myself. Even with all those annoying factors, I love going to grandmother’s place. I like spending time with my cousins, going outside to PC-bangs and karaoke. I like how grandmother would check in our room to see if we didn’t need any more fruit. I like how uncle would secretly hand me an envelope, asking not to tell my mother. Especially, I love the meals that grandmother and my aunts make. All sorts of jeons stacked upon each other, cold kimchi in one plate, piles of galbi in the other, a huge fish on my right, a pot of crab soup on my left, bowls of white, steaming rice being passed around. Every dish is of my grandmother’s own recipe, and the main menus never change every time there’s a family meeting. There are so many people that we have to split into two tables. Grandmother always grabs one of us and asks if the kimchi is good, if it’s not too spicy or not. We always answer, “Great as always, Grandma” and she would smile. There is a reason that you gain weight in myungjeols. (Sorry to go astray from my main point, but I had to add in this paragraph. Now I’m worried how I’d write the conclusion)

 Imagine again. Your brother is starting to wake up. You steal his blanket from him just to make sure. You wash up and change clothes as the doorbell rings. You greet your cousins and ask them if they had a good sleep. Your grandma calls out to you. “Breakfast is ready!” But you already know that from the smell of the delicacies coming from the kitchen. It’s not just you. Everyone knows it before grandma called. You leave your phone on the table to help lay out the table. “It looks great grandma!”