What solidified my decision to burn bridges with my grandparents was the fact that they took my male cousin with them when they visited their immigrant son’s family in America and kept me in the dark about it. I only found it out by stumbling upon the cousin’s profile picture on Kakao Talk. It was when I was still pretty much aching all over from the missed opportunity to study in America. I can try to forget all the other hurts they inflicted on me, but not this. At least they should’ve told me. It’d have been nice if they’d asked me if I wanted to join, even as a fake courtesy, which I’m certain it would’ve been. There was no way they’d spend a dime on me, and they went about their usual business of completely neglecting me. The thing is, as those who live in the past, they still think that only sons are worthy because, since Korea became a deeply patriarchal society (it wasn’t always that way), it has had to be the first-born son who observes the tradition of jesa (memorial ritual honouring deceased ancestors). I’m an only child, which means my grandparents can’t pass on the duty of jesa to my dad for lack of a son. Their second son has two sons, but they’re all American citizens living in America. So grandparents chose to hang on to their third son who also has two sons, the eldest of whom is a civil servant. In my grandfather's eyes, there's no loftier profession than civil servant or teacher. My cousin, grandparents’ favourite, is also said to get married soon, which of course translates to ‘normal’ in my grandparents’ book. For all I know, he probably also goes to that dodgy church with a dubious creed, where my grandparents contributed considerably in its having become affluent. Basically, he’s the golden boy that fits right into grandparents’ antiquated idea of how one should lead one’s life. So they took only him with them when visiting America, because he’s worth the investment, whereas I’m not. I’m just a neglected property that they use only for bragging whenever they feel like it, remember? What’s more, I have the wrong gender for them.
It’s true I still hold a grudge over this after over a decade, but I’m already automatically avenged. There’s a fat chance my cousin will actually take over the duty of jesa as my grandparents expect. The tradition is disappearing fast as an increasing number of people, even in my parents’ generation, are abandoning it. It’s already not practised on my mum’s side. I know some of mum’s friends' families who’ve stopped observing it. If you ask the MZ generation if they’re willing to carry on with the tradition, they’d give you a frown meaning, ‘You serious?’ Essentially, the continuation of jesa from my generation on is a highly doubtful prospect. Even if my cousin himself is willing to do it, he’ll have to forget about it as soon as he gets married if he wants to stay married. I tell you, finding a woman in the MZ generation who’s willing to go through all the trouble of preparing a jesasang (ceremonial table for jesa) for her husband’s family to commemorate someone they’re related to by blood but she isn’t at all—on top of working and raising a kid or more—would be harder than finding a needle in a haystack. I’m amused every time I imagine my ghost grandparents enraged by the inevitable fact that not a single soul commemorates them on national holidays or the days of their deaths from my generation onwards. I know I won’t even think about them when they’re gone—why would I give a toss about somebody who disregarded me all my life?
It’s been 12 years since my maternal grandpa passed away, and my family still commemorates him on our own by preparing a little jesasang on national holidays. We don’t do the whole shebang, which entails a big table full of certain traditional foods and a set of procedures to be observed. We just put the food and fruit we’ve prepared for ourselves, along with his picture, on a small low table and do the offering of rice wine and deep bows we learnt to do at grandpa’s funeral. And if we get the procedures wrong? Who cares? It’s the thought that matters, not the formality. After my parents are gone, I’m going to commemorate them by preparing the kinds of food they used to like. My mum’s such a ‘bbangsoonyi’, which means she loves bread (and all other flour-based food) a little too much. Nothing beats cake for her, so there’ll definitely be a whole cake on my jesasang for mum, and I threaten her that I’d put ramyeon on it too if she keeps on eating it often.
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