MIT Open Course — Excercise on POV
The class exercise this week was to choose a single incident or event and write it from my own perspective or point of view. My ‘story’ or scene was inspired after reading Patriotism by Mishima Yukio. The story was extremely beautiful but so hard to read. The reader is told from the very start that it is the story of the double suicide of a newly married couple. The story is leading to that critical moment. The language is simple but also rich with description. The couple is heroic and so passionately in love with each other. They live with a certain code of honor and way of conduct which is impressive. Ironically it is the same honor that compels them to commit suicide (I won’t spoil the story for those who haven’t read it). The last few pages were so graphic and vivid that I almost put down the story without finishing it. I was weeping by the end.
Korea was deeply rooted in Confucianism until the beginning of the Korean War. My maternal grandparents escaped from North Korea and are still very conservative and traditional. My grandfather likes to tell my brother and me stories of his childhood, the Korean war, ancient Korean heroes, and Korean (sometimes Chinese) children famed for their filial piety. Filial piety is still very much a big deal in Korea; more so in my family because of my grandparents who tried to instill the values of Confucianism upon their children (my mom and her siblings) and later on to my brother and I (all of my other cousins are in America). One of my favorite stories was of the young daughter who fed her flesh to her dying mother. It is a story of love, devotion, and filial duty.
Red Hope
My mother’s skin looked more waxen than I could have wished. The broth that I had left by her bedside remained untouched. The beauty that she had once been renowned for was only discernible in the clean slope of her nose and the unblemished clarity of her skin. The medicine the doctor had prescribed no longer held the pain at bay, and deep grooves of suffering marred the thin, white mouth. In desperation, I had gone to see a shaman renowned for her cures for illnesses that the doctors announced as incurable. I had had to leave at dawn to make the trek to the other village if I wanted to be home by evening. I had told my mother where I was going and left her food and drink, but she had remained silent and remote. I pulled out the cloth bag which the shaman had given me. Inside was a rough wooden bowl and a scrap of paper upon which the shaman had written slashing incantations that held magic and power. Chanting the words which I was taught, I struck a corner into the candle and watched the sliver of white disappear into a smattering of ash that rained into the cup. The last object in the bag was a small knife that gleamed in the dim room. With a prayer, I took up the chant again as I began to make an incision into the inner flesh of my upper arm. The bowl caught the blood as it dripped onto the ash making a cloudy crimson puddle. When the cut began to clot, I found another section and cut deeply into the tender flesh. Ignoring the raw stinging pain, I sang the incantation oblivious to the tears dripping down my chin and falling into the red cup. When I began to feel faint, I staunched my wounds with the cloth strips that the shaman had thoughtfully provided and then held the cup up to my mother’s mouth. She had been unable to eat or drink anything for almost three days now. As the red liquid sluggishly ran into her mouth, I held my breath. A bloom the color of poppy sprouted on either side of her wan lips but I held the cup unflinchingly. The slightest tremble of my mother’s eyelashes was the only indication that she wasn’t dead. Tracks of red bled down my mother’s chin but I held firm. Slowly, faintly, I felt rather than saw my mother’s pale throat convulse as she gave an imperceptible swallow. Then another swallow followed by another until the cup was drained.
