By Alymzhan Zakirov
CHEONGYANG: The wall between our houses is low, made of old Korean bricks, green from the rain and evenly covered with fine moss. The neighbor’s yard looks like a small rhombus, with many things planted on one side, sandwiched by a strip of earth: peas, lentils, corn stalks that peek from one side to the other, and most importantly, neat bunches of Korean peppers. Looking at them, one wonders how carefully each root has been tended: like a soldier’s parade, both length and width are equal.
The yard is cut on the other side by an asphalt road that descends from the first hill of the neighbor’s Dong (chicken coop). The lower part of the yard, bent apple tree branches to the ground, with a kitchen window overlooking the neighbor’s yard, leads to our small house.
The neighbor’s wife, Doona (respectful treatment of older women, elder sister) works all-day long in the house and in the yard. I respectfully call my master Sajanim (master, owner of an enterprise – nim is a form of respect).
Mr. Kim, is a hard-working man. He winds up Korean miracle single-wheel tractor and drives to his rice fields in the suburbs as usual, picking up his wife’s regular remittances and lunch allowance. My neighbors are miracle people. They don’t have a minute to spare, especially in spring and autumn. But sometimes you can hear the sound of the tractor in the yard-that means our neighbor has arrived two hours early.
Such days is a feast for farmers because Kim’s wife makes a special drink that is not like wine, beer or makkoli (a drink similar to Kyrgyz bozo – national Kyrgyz drink) it’s something with a taste of cherry, apple and something else in between.
But after two cups, this drink makes you sit firmly in your seat and think of all the good things which happened in your life, and sing long Korean songs about your first love, which has gone too fast or about a reed broken by a raging wind.
In the hamlet there were six houses, nesting on the slope of a small hill. The rest of the hill is a grove of bamboo reeds, and somewhere in the middle of them is the grave -panteon of the villagers.
On a small wooden platform- like Kyrgyz sörü – tapchan, neighbors indulge themselves in entertainment as if it were the pleasure of the gods. These amazing Koreans know how to work and how to find time for the soul.
My neighbor twice invited me with my wife to attend their feast. In fact, you wouldn’t even call it sitting down – back then, Doona’s famous ‘singing’ drink, pieces of dried octopus, and shrimp dried in a special way. After a couple of cups, the neighbors shake the dust of the day off their shoulders, the wrinkles on their faces disappear, the worries of life have gone also somewhere, their hands fly free, sparks in their eyes give the playful idea that all is not yet lost in this life.
Watching them is a pleasure itself, and you will witness the time lapse between work and sleep. After teasing everyone with their tongues, singing all the songs and sitting for three hours, the neighbors start to head home. But sometimes (“to hell with this life”) they go to the nearest shiktan (A small restaurant, like a café) to clear their pots from Kim’s booze. Luckily for them, there is cheap soju – (cane vodka with a strength of 20-21 degrees).
This spring, the buds on the trees were blooming early and the apple orchard above our window was trying to turn pink. After 15-20 days, the purple flowers turned into blue berries. Neighbor Kim came to our window one day and asked with his eyes like mine, “Sonsen (Teacher) Ali, do the apple stems hanging from the window bother you, or should I cut them off?” We heartily clipped our hands saying: sajanim andeyo. (Do not do that (polite address to an older person). We said: “The apple gives us a shady chill on summer evenings and will do us good.”
Doona beside him calms down and nods her head. Then I cycled to the middle school and he goes to his field on his famous tractor.
In October, we had some heavy berries hanging over our windowsill. The juicy pink apples, without worms, were ripe enough to attract my flamboyant wife like a magnet. She looked at the ripe apples and pleaded: “Let’s pick a couple of apples, Kim won’t notice anyway.”
I objected indifferently: Kim had already counted all the fruit in front of our window, so what could he say about viguk saram (foreigner). It was the fruitless struggle that went on for two very sweet apples. \My wife hated the apples hanging over us but was afraid to cut them. Playing with our patience and annoying us, the apple tree swayed in the evening wind. My wife closed the window tightly but it became stuffy inside the room. And we would open the malicious window to see the apples again. This story continued until the day when Kim and his wife began the solemn harvest.
I smirked at Kim, pulled my wife away from the window and wished him lots of money. That is the nicest popular wish in Korea. We had had our supper and were about to relax when someone knocked on the door. – “Who was it?” – I said to myself, opening the door. My wife came closer and then we saw our neighbors in the entryway. Kim and his wife were smiling, holding a large basket of well ripened, large apples.
