200900252 Kim Geonwoong
Do you want to feel exhausted? You want to do tons of works without appreciation? Try Chuseok, Korea's national holiday. Actually it's a very good day. In it, you visit your parents and sweet home you missed long. Theoretically, this holiday is for family reunion and wishing to ancestors for better days. Now, it draws great emotional distress to many people. It's even becoming one of reasons of divorce. It's about how it happens to a married couple.
Before a week or two from the holiday, wives begin to worry. Typically people bring presents to their parents and parents-in-law for the sign of their gratitude. In many cases couples visit the husband's home first or only, it becomes her share to choose what to bring. To make it easier some woman often call to their parents-in-law, and secretly ask if there anything they would need. Husbands start to look up ways to drive with the least traffic. Within first two days in three days of the holiday, an innumerable number of homecoming cars are on the road, so the choice of the road and the date of departure fairly matter to men.
On the way to the husband's home, it would take more than three or four hours to drive, it takes even longer than six hours to unfortunate some. It's relatively peaceful at this stage, before arrived. Once they're arrived, the husband get knocked down for driving fatigue usually, and the wife begins to prepare the ritual for ancestors which would take place the next morning. The preparation mainly consists of culinary works like making traditional food like rice-cake soup and pan-fried food. Women should prepare the whole food for the ritual and breakfast, or even launch table, this preparation takes hours. For the deep-rooted Confucian influence, men's involvement are limited, and ironically, men's mothers usually make it such a women's work. To the wives of newly-weds, who don't have a good culinary skill, it's a big burden for their mothers-in-law judged them by how they're good at it. This labor is so hard that some women even skips their period for the pressure. At the ritual, family wishes their luck to their ancestors providing the prepared food, and all the ritual room alone some time so that ancestors would eat and drink enough. After, people have their breakfast with the food on the ritual, and women cleans afterward.
After the ritual, men hurry to hit the road before it's full of returning vehicles. Before saying good-bye, men's mothers pack scores of food and ingredients they stocked, and give them to their son. Then they wave their hands, and men face even now more cramped roads. On the road husbands drive alone for wives usually get knocked off for their labor. They arrive home exhausted. It's even so after they order the food they brought. At this very point, most rows happen. Until now, things were inevitable labor they had to go through, but after they're home, their comments and complaints bring unnecessarily excess emotion they got from their own parts. The holiday ends, but argues begin.
It doesn't apply to all the marriage couples in Korea, but it happens. It happened to my family once or more, and news articles recently talked about it, and I can see a fair amount of complaints in the internet right after this holiday. The reason of this writing is not telling that it's a sort of serious problem we're facing, or we can solve it or something. It happens. Maybe it won't that hurt if you know what's coming.
From Yujin Park
ReplyDelete1. The thesis statement is ‘It draws great emotional distress to many people’.
2. Yes, the writer mentions that the meaning of holiday for people is for reuniting and wishing to their ancestors. However, nowadays, it regards as a burden for some people.
3. Yes, each paragraph presents a different part of the process.
4. Yes, the part of process is well organized in a logical sequence. The writer explains us clearly how wives and husbands get stressed until the holiday ends. (Before the holiday, on the way to the husband’s home and after the ritual.)
5. Yes, the body paragraphs are well organized with using many details.
6. In the conclusion, the writer includes his/her comments on this problem. I’m impressed by the last sentence ‘it won’t that hurt if you know what’s coming’.
I also wrote about Chuseok, but I'd have to say that your hook caught my attention straight away. I thought my hook was pretty good, but two thumbs up for your hook! The way your writing can be seen from two perspectives, the wife's and the husband's, was an interesting way of approach, but I personally thought that it didn't have as much impact in terms of the story compared to the way your hook did. A suggestion would be that maybe you could touch a bit more on details of the traditional aspects of Chuseok as the purpose of this essay is to explain to people, who may be hearing about Chuseok for the first time. Good overall! :)
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