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When I look up at the endless Vancouver sky, the world feels impossibly vast. And somehow, that clear blue sky brings back the sky of my childhood in Korea — so different it feels as if it belonged to another world. A world that seemed small and grey, even to a child.
Our house sat halfway up a remote hillside, alone under the wide sky.
A few steps from our house, a steep clay path ran sharply downhill.
Years of footsteps had worn it into narrow grooves, like shallow trenches carved into the earth.
Following that path led to a duck farm. Beyond a rusted wire fence, the harsh chorus of quacking and the sharp stench of droppings spilled out onto the road. After heavy rain, duck eggs would sit at the edges of puddles, as if they might roll away at any moment.
Further down, at the foot of the hill, low roofs clustered tightly together.
Somewhere among those houses was a small candy workshop tucked inside someone’s home.
As the musty smell of the ducks faded, it gave way to the thick, sugary scent of boiling syrup, filling the narrow alleyways.
Even now, when I close my eyes, I can feel the fine yellow dust rising under my feet and smell the sweetness of sugar in the air, mingling with the cries of ducks.
From the edge of our yard, the blue sea stretched out before us.
A bridge connected the mainland to a distant, forest-covered island.
I knew it only as Yeongdo Bridge, because my family used to tease me, saying they had found me there—abandoned beneath it.
Facing that wide sea stood our humble home. It was small in every sense—a single room with a worn wooden sliding door and a cramped kitchen.
When you stepped onto the narrow porch and slid the door open with a low rattle, the whole room came into view at once.
My father lay on the left side, often weak. Across from him stood a large cutting table and an old sewing machine against the wall.
My father would slice through fabric with a steady rasp, then move to the machine and press the pedal.
As his feet worked the heavy cast-iron base, the sharp clatter of the machine filled the room.
The cutting table, made from thick plywood set on wooden legs, reached my chest.
From time to time, my father would hammer loose nails back into place and shake the table to test its strength.
Its surface was marked with dark burn scars left by a hot iron. Scattered across it were heavy black scissors wrapped in cloth at the handles, a worn piece of white tailor’s chalk, and a smooth wooden ruler with fading lines.
When he wasn’t working, my father sharpened his scissors on a whetstone.
Scrape, scrape.
The sound made the air feel sharp and cold.
The floor was always scattered with colorful scraps of cloth.
Late at night, my mother would gather them with a rag and push them into a corner, then spread a thin mat over the linoleum. On that narrow mat, we lay side by side, our shoulders pressed together.
Once the blankets were pulled up to our chests, our tired bodies gave in to sleep.
In the middle of the night, we would gravitate toward the centre of the floor, drawn to the warmth without even realizing it.
Sometimes we kicked off the blankets when it grew too warm, only to curl tightly into ourselves later when the cold crept back in. A heavy leg would fall across someone’s stomach, followed by a sleepy groan and a gentle shove. We slept like that, tangled together, until morning.
Sometimes we kicked off the blankets when it grew too warm; sometimes we curled tightly into ourselves. A heavy leg would fall across someone’s stomach, followed by a sleepy groan and a gentle shove. We slept like that, tangled together, until morning.
Even as we slept, the sewing machine went on—its steady hum and rat
About this series:
These stories are part of my childhood memoir about growing up poor in 1970s South Korea.
Thank you for reading.
Keep Reading the Journey:
#family #father #Sewing machine #cloth maker
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