Stories I Wish I Could Tell My Grandfather
By Jen Choi
Every late November or early December for the past 17 years, my family and I drove down from New Jersey to Virginia to visit my grandfather. Always around the anniversary of my grandmother’s passing, the annual trip would begin with a visit to 할머니’s1 grave before sharing a meal with 할아버지2 and spending time together in his home. Korean traditions wrote much of our time with 할아버지, from the deep 인사3 we would give to greet him to the containers of home-cooked 밥4 and 반찬5 that my mother would bring to fill her father‑in‑law’s fridge. This would be the one time each year I would see my grandfather. Yet every year, as we drove down along the East Coast to see him, I would feel a pang of nervousness because of the language barrier that had developed between our generations.
Korean school was forced upon me during my elementary and middle school years, after which I did what I could to resist my heritage. Most of my friends were not Korean American or even Asian American, and Korean felt unfamiliar and awkward on my tongue. A consequence of my rejection of my heritage was that visits to see my grandfather were often uncomfortable, out of fear that he would say something to me that I wouldn’t be able to understand or that he would ask me something that my limited Korean language abilities would leave me ill‑equipped to respond to. Most of the memories that I can recall of 할아버지, especially from when I was a lot younger, consist of 할아버지 giving—like the times he entrusted me and my siblings with prized possessions such as pocketbooks and old family pictures, or the times he gave us 붕어빵6 ice cream to munch on as a sweet dessert. Year after year, my siblings and I would perform 세배7, as our annual visits were shortly before the New Year. And year after year, despite the fact that we had all grown well beyond the age of receiving 세뱃돈8, 할아버지 was always eager to give it to us. 할아버지 filled whatever gaps existed between us due to language with his generosity.
Last year, 할아버지 was 94 years old. Over the years, his condition had declined significantly due to many health concerns, especially with his hearing and speaking. The decline in his physical condition happened to be around the same time as when I started to truly connect with my Korean heritage for the first time. Part of this journey of connecting with my heritage involved relearning Korean as an adult, which saw much progress through self‑study during the pandemic. But as I was making progress with my Korean language abilities, 할아버지 was losing his ability to communicate altogether. The last time I had seen him, in December 2023, he had long been unable to speak and had just been released from one of several recent hospitalizations. Because he could no longer hear or speak, there was never an opportunity to tell him that I was going to live and teach in Korea for a year. 할아버지 ultimately passed away on December 15, less than a month before I moved to Korea for my Fulbright grant.
As I reflect on my time in Korea so far, I find myself feeling incredibly grateful for many things, among which are the relationships I have built with people here. Before coming to Korea, I never had the courage to speak in Korean with Korean adults other than my parents. Now, more than halfway into my grant year, I can think back fondly on memorable experiences and meaningful conversations I’ve shared with coworkers at school and with relatives who I’ve come to visit often.
Yet, for as much joy and gratitude as I feel for these interactions, ones that I couldn’t have imagined just a few years ago, I realized recently that I also feel a deep sadness for the fact that I was never able to experience this with 할아버지. I wish that I could communicate with him with the greater ease that I am now able to with my Korean coworkers and aunts and uncles. I wish that he had known that I would be in Korea before he passed. I wish that I could tell him about how my experience has been here and how I am reminded of him, especially when I spend time with my dad’s side of the family; 고모9 bears a striking resemblance to him and has brought him up in conversation. But it’s not just about the things I want to express to 할아버지—I also want to hear from him directly about the life he lived here in Korea before he emigrated, especially now that I myself have set foot in the motherland. I want to hear him share about what it was like for him to leave his homeland in his late 50s to immigrate to the States. I want to ask him what joys and challenges this experience brought him, in search of a possibility that perhaps there are similarities to my own experience of moving across borders. I realized recently that I mourn not just the loss of 할아버지 but also the conversations we never got to have and the stories I wish I could tell him.
One of the last things that 할아버지 ever said to me was about five years ago, when he expressed how proud he was of me for being a teacher. At the time, I had just started teaching only a few months after graduating college. In the years since, moments of discouragement with teaching have often brought me back to these words, and it has never been without feeling deeply moved. For all the obvious sadness about what couldn’t be shared between us during 할아버지’s lifetime on earth, there is also a comforting hopefulness that he would be proud of me now for living and teaching in the motherland. And at the same time, living in the land of my ancestors has taught me to appreciate my indebtedness to 할아버지 and to all of the other generations that have come before me. I’ve come to recognize that I get to be here because of their legacies and resilience, and I hope that I can continue their legacies and resilience meaningfully through my own journey, both here in Korea and back home in the States. I don’t know what my life will look like after this year—where I’ll be living, whether or not I’ll even still be teaching—but I know that I will look back at this season now, in Korea, with gratitude for how this time has formed me and for the experiences I have had that have become stories worth sharing. And while I may not be able to share these stories with my grandfather now, I look forward to sharing them with the generations to come. May they not be stories I wish I could tell but stories that will have been told, met with stories that I will be privileged to listen to.
- Halmeoni, Grandmother. ↩︎
- Harabeoji, Grandfather. ↩︎
- Insa, Greeting in Korean culture that generally consists of bowing to show respect. ↩︎
- Bap, Cooked rice or a meal, but in this case referring to cooked rice. ↩︎
- Banchan, Side dishes, a staple of Korean meals. ↩︎
- Bungeoppang, A popular fish-shaped pastry that can also be enjoyed in an ice cream form. ↩︎
- Sebae, A Korean tradition on New Year’s Day in which one performs a deep bow to their elders. ↩︎
- Sebaetdon, A money gift given by Korean elders on New Year’s Day to those who perform sebae, generally to children. ↩︎
- Gomo, Paternal aunt. ↩︎