When the Family Encountered a New Lifestyle

I used to have the farmer’s market at my home. When my mother ordered me to go get any vegetables, I promptly said “Yes,” and went out to the yard. At that time, I didn’t appreciate how wonderful it was. As economic development was happening in Korea, people attempted to move to big cities to get a better job or opportunities to have a better life. Apparently, moving to big cities seemed necessary. As a result of that, Seoul, the capital city of Korea, was rapidly getting bigger and bigger, and the cost of living was getting higher and higher. Necessarily, the government announced plans to decentralize the population in Seoul. Constructing bedroom communities for distributing residential districts around Seoul was the core plan, and my hometown was picked because people could reach Seoul within one hour from my hometown by car. In addition, the highway goes all the way across my hometown. I still remember the day clearly when my father delivered the news from the residence meeting. I was shocked, but contented. As a teenager, I always admired urban life like the people in the TV dramas, and I believed that new circumstances would bring a lot of exciting experiences to me. My family was uprooted from our deep-rooted ground, but we found another way to keep up our traditional activities while we were gradually adapting to new circumstances.

Adapting to the new lifestyle took time, but it wasn’t that long for us. Whenever my mother came back from grocery shopping, she complained a lot about the price of vegetables. She didn’t seem to understand why green onions cost a lot more than she expected. Although we were surrounded by all kinds of convenience stores, she didn’t appreciate it. However, I was just grateful, especially when I flashed back to my high school life. I went through hard time those days. I had to get up before the sun came out like 5:40 to catch the first bus of the day; otherwise, I was tardy. The first class began at 8:30, but most Korean high schools forced students to be there at 7:30, and compelled students to stay at school until 10:00 p.m. even midnight because principals and parents believed that spending more time at school brought a better achievement. If I had lived close to the school, I could have stayed in the bed at least one more hour. It was all my wishes. As the time went by, my mother realized how to take advantage of the new circumstances. When she is not in a mood to cook dinner, she didn’t need to do. Instead, all she had to do is pick up the phone and say what she wanted to order. Surprisingly, my grandmother was the fastest one who embraced the new lifestyle. She made bunch of friends the day after we moved into a new apartment, and she became the leader of the senior group. Her sorrow which was showed in her eyes when she left our hometown faded away quickly.

After we moved into a modern style apartment in a tall building, our favorite family activity of farming was stopped for a while. My uncles, aunts, and their families used to get together at least twice a year to plant and harvest sweet potatoes. Once when we had this activity, more than twenty family members got together at my father’s farm, and worked together all day long. To some little family members, like my two-year-old nephew, it was a joyful picnic, and they made the day splendid. The most interesting part of farming was at the end of the day in our fall activity, everyone pleasantly put the sweet potatoes in their cars until the cars were full. However, my father always insisted that we give more sweet potatoes to everybody. It was so much fun, so over the years more and more relatives wanted to join the activity, and of course, the door was open for everybody. After we were uprooted from our ground, my father missed the feeling of the day a lot, so he decided to purchase a small farm to revive the activity. My husband also joined the activity since he was my boyfriend. After we came to the U.S., around thanksgiving season, we enjoyed talking about the memory, and started wondering how many members are going to join this year. If somebody asks me why of all sweet potatoes, I just can say that we love them.

The modern style apartment neighbors seemed to have a totally different culture form my old neighbors. I hardly can see the people who live next door, and I hardly greet them when I meet them in the elevator. In contrast, this wouldn’t be the case if I lived in my hometown. We were so close to each other, so if I didn’t greet my neighbors politely, no matter where I ran into them, my parents would scold me right away as if I ignored my relatives. This culture was applied to other households in my hometown, and it was a valuable lesson for kids. In addition, we did many things together like seasonal trips and attend each other’s family events. On my wedding day, my father rented two big buses to transport my neighbors to the wedding venue, which was located in Seoul, and they wished me good luck. Moreover, we still kept our old customs by electing an unofficial representative. The representative would organize seasonal trips, plan for regular meetings and transmit news to everybody. I think keeping the old custom and accepting new one was my neighbors’ strategy to adjust their lives, and it worked well.


I had always wished to live in a big city, and my dream has come true. All my family members have adapted to the new environment well, and it brought great results. Frankly, I have to admit that my old rural home is always depicted as a home in my dream, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t like my new home. It is just like a childhood which everyone misses all the time. The government urban development plan affected my family and me in a various ways, but life has continued positively.