Episode 13: The Five-Day Market
At my call, the aunties turned around.
I had thought they were strangers at first, but when I saw their faces, I recognized them.
One of them in particular looked familiar—she was an auntie who had been close with my mother when I was young, and she was currently serving as the president of the Bonghwang Village Women’s Association.
I quickly ran over to greet her.
“Hello.”
“Well, if it isn’t Minu. How have you been?”
I had seen the Women’s Association president at my father’s funeral, but this was the first time I’d met her since returning to the countryside.
“Yes, I’ve been doing well. But what brings you all here?”
I was curious why the aunties had come to our field, and one of them showed me her basket as she spoke.
“We came to pick bracken.”
“Bracken?”
“If you go to the end over there, it grows everywhere. We come to pick it every spring. Want to come with us, Minu?”
At her words, I recalled the seasoned bracken Mandeok’s grandmother had given me a while back. When I had no appetite, I had mixed it with gochujang, sesame oil, and an egg, and it was incredibly delicious.
“Yes, I’ll come too.”
I followed the aunties along the field ridges, and after passing the fields and climbing partway up the mountain, we reached a flat area where tightly coiled bracken shoots were poking up.
I had occasionally glanced at this place while visiting my parents’ graves, but I hadn’t realized so much bracken grew here.
The aunties settled in and started picking bracken, and I joined in.
It looked like you grabbed the tip and snapped it off to pick it—hence the saying “going to pick bracken.”
I started snapping off the tips and collecting them one by one, but the stems were tougher than I’d expected and didn’t break easily.
Perhaps seeing me struggle, the Women’s Association president came over and asked.
“Picking them well?”
“It’s my first time picking bracken, so I’m not doing too well.”
“You can’t pick bracken by forcing it. See how the bracken leans slightly in one direction? Snap it downward in that direction, and it’ll break with a clean pop.”
The auntie came to my side and demonstrated, and without using much strength at all, the bracken snapped cleanly.
“Oh, it really works like that.”
“Try it.”
I started picking bracken using the method she’d shown me, and it was definitely much easier than before.
“Thank you. But do you pick bracken to make seasoned vegetable side dishes?”
“We eat some ourselves, and every spring the Women’s Association makes bracken rice to share with the elders.”
“Ah, I see.”
Come to think of it, when I called my father to check in on him from time to time, there had been a few occasions when he was at the village hall.
I had heard that on special days like Jeongwol Daeboreom, Dano, and Boknal, the villagers gathered to share food, and the Women’s Association president was kind-hearted and took good care of the elders.
“Minu, if you have time, come by and have a meal next Saturday.”
The auntie was looking out for me, but to be honest, the thought of eating with elderly seniors felt a bit uncomfortable.
“Oh, unnie. If Minu eats with the village elders, he’ll be so uncomfortable the rice won’t go down his throat.”
One of the aunties took my side, and I felt grateful.
“We’re going to keep living here and seeing each other, so it’s good to greet the villagers at times like this.”
“Young folks should just be left to do as they please.”
The aunties raised their voices over the matter concerning me, so I quietly stepped in to mediate.
“Thank you for your concern. I have something to do that day, so I’ll attend next time if I have the chance.”
“Is that so? Then it can’t be helped.”
The aunties focused on picking bracken again, and after some time had passed, they started a different conversation.
“Unnie, how are the rice planting preparations coming along?”
“The seedling beds have been ready for a while, but I’m worried because of the village headman.”
“Why, what did the headman say this time?”
“Nothing major yet, but last year he had a huge fight with my husband over the irrigation channel.”
I was quietly picking bracken, but perhaps because it was village-related talk, I naturally found myself listening in.
“Well, it’s especially worrying this year since the weather is dry.”
“That man didn’t used to be like this… Has greed gotten to him…?”
“He probably just showed his true colors after becoming village headman.”
The aunties seemed dissatisfied with the village headman and talked about this and that, and I listened quietly.
I had also nearly had a problem with the village headman over the village development fund, but I hadn’t seen him since drilling the well.
I had forgotten about it since then, but it seemed there were villagers harboring grievances against the headman, whether openly or not.
I was curious what had happened, but I decided to stay quiet since it didn’t seem right to meddle in the adults’ affairs.
‘I should just pick bracken.’
****
“Take care.”
“Sure, let me know if you need kimchi.”
“Yes, I will.”
After picking all the bracken, the aunties headed back down to the village, and I returned home.
I immediately went to the storage shed to get a straw mat and spread it out on the wooden porch. Then I began drying the bracken I had picked.
Earlier, the aunties had told me that bracken was toxic and shouldn’t be eaten fresh.
They said that if I dried it crisp like this for about a day and then soaked it in water again, it would be delicious.
I looked it up online and found that you could also parboil fresh bracken to remove the toxins, but this too needed to be soaked in cold water for half a day, so my plan to eat delicious bracken rice for dinner was foiled.
I opened my phone.
Various delivery apps were visible—back in the city, I could have simply ordered delivery to solve dinner.
Half-hoping, I opened a delivery app, but of course, there wasn’t a single shop that delivered here.
It wasn’t a house in the township center but deep in a valley like this, so I had known delivery wouldn’t work, but seeing the empty list of shops was still a little disappointing.
“I’ll keep dinner simple today and go to town tomorrow to eat something good.”
I was planning to go to town tomorrow to look into buying a tractor, and I thought I might as well eat something delicious while I was out.
I wondered what to eat, and the first thing that came to mind was jajangmyeon.
I couldn’t recall eating jajangmyeon since moving to the countryside, but I used to eat it often for lunch when I worked at an accounting office.
“Right, tomorrow’s lunch is jajangmyeon and sweet and sour pork.”
****
“You’ve really made an excellent choice, sir.”
As soon as the sun rose, I went to the largest agricultural machinery store in Haenam.
Mandeok had bought his tractor here and told me the owner was trustworthy, so at first I was only planning to look at the prices.
But the next thing I knew, I was signing a tractor purchase contract.
Well, it wasn’t like I was getting ripped off.
I had already made up my mind to buy one—perhaps you could say the owner gave me the final push?
Since I needed a tractor to keep farming anyway, I decided to place the order while I was here.
The owner said deliveries were backed up right now, so even if I ordered, it would take at least a month, possibly longer, and that made me feel a bit of urgency.
“Thank you. Now, how would you like to pay the deposit?”
“Could you give me your account number?”
“Yes, it’s written here on my business card.”
I ordered the biggest and best tractor they had. I also asked them to fully outfit it with a front basket, a rotary tiller, and a fertilizer spreader.
Thanks to that, I ended up spending well over one hundred million won, but the owner said that with this setup, I should be able to get a decent price when reselling it used later.
I had thoroughly researched approximate tractor prices before coming here, so I had no major complaints about the contract.
“Thank you. I will contact you again when the delivery date is confirmed.”
“Yes, by the way, there are a lot of people in town today. Is something going on?”
Last time I came, the town had been quiet. But today there were many cars and people; it was extremely crowded.
“It’s probably because today is market day.”
“Ah, so today is market day. I had completely forgotten since I just moved back to farming.”
“Yes, the five-day market opens on the 1st and 6th of every month. Since it’s Sunday, there seem to be more people than usual.”
Today was April 16th, and as they say, it was market day right on cue.
“You just returned to farming, then. We also sell tillers and chili dryers, so please contact us anytime if you need them. I’ll make sure to give you a much better price than anywhere else.”
“Yes, I’ll be on my way now. Take care.”
“Sir, please have a safe trip.”
The owner of Arirang Machinery seemed older than me, but unlike a typical rural person, he treated his customers with utmost respect.
I had come because Mandeok said it was good, and the owner definitely seemed like someone who knew what service meant.
I was about to go straight for jajangmyeon after leaving the store, but it seemed there was still some time before lunch, so I decided to look around the five-day market.
I used to look around the market on market days when I was in middle school, but that was over ten years ago, so my memories were a bit hazy now.
Following the market street inside, I saw people selling various goods.
An old lady selling cabbage, radish, and various other vegetables laid out on the ground.
An auntie insisting the octopus was freshly caught that morning at Bukil Harbor and offering it cheaply.
It was a sight you might expect to see on a local TV program if you lived in the city, but looking at it now, some old memories seemed to resurface.
“Come one, come all! The new cassette from Gang Sujin, the daughter of Haenam, the queen of trot, is here!”
The voice of a man selling cassettes laid out on a stall echoed through the air, and it was amazing that there were still people selling tapes.
How long had I been walking like that?
As I approached the center of the market, a large sign came into view.
When the five-day market opened, people flocked to sell their wares, setting up on the streets and laying out their goods.
Unlike them, this daily market was a place where people did business year-round, and memories of coming here often in the past came back to me.
“The tteokbokki here was delicious…”
Inside the daily market, there was a snack alley where tteokbokki vendors gathered, and I used to eat tteokbokki here before taking the bus home after school.
Especially, if you ordered fried foods together, they would mix them in with the tteokbokki, and it was incredibly delicious.
‘I wonder if it’s still there…’
I walked to the end of the snack alley, and the shop I frequented was the last one.
‘It’s still here.’
Arriving at the shop, I checked the owner’s face—she had aged a lot, but it was the same auntie who had sold me tteokbokki back then, still running the business.
‘She probably won’t recognize me.’
I had been a regular and she used to acknowledge me, but too many years had passed. I sat down and ordered, wanting to recall old memories after a long time.
“One serving of tteokbokki and one serving of assorted fries, mixed together, please.”
“Yes, coming right up.”
As expected, the auntie didn’t recognize me, but I wasn’t disappointed.
That much time had passed, after all.
The middle school me was now thirty years old; if she had recognized me, that would have been the more amazing thing.
I was sitting quietly waiting for the tteokbokki when suddenly, I heard my name from somewhere.
“Hey, Lee Minu. You’re Minu, right?”