By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
Like many in Korea, Mae Adams and her family were firm believers in dreams and omens. Pregnancy dreams foretold the birth of a child. If a mother-to-be dreamt of picking seeded fruit, she was predicted to give birth to a boy. But if she dreamt of a flower, then she was predicted to give birth to a girl. When Adams's mother, Yi Nam Hyang was pregnant with her second daughter, she dreamt that she picked a Rose of Sharon, the official flower of South Korea. The thorns pricked her fingers, even though Roses of Sharons don't have thorns in reality.
A first born son is important in Korea. He is the heir and is believed to carry on the family legacy. A first born daughter is considered useful, because she is marriageable, but a second daughter is considered unimportant. After Nam Hyang dreamt of the Rose of Sharon, she tried to abort the pregnancy. When that didn't work, she gave birth to her second daughter, Yum Mae Hee, who would one day grow up to become Mae Adams. Adams's mother's dream and her ambivalence about her second daughter's birth cemented their relationship forever.
Mae Adams's beautiful and tragic memoirs, Precious Silver Chopsticks: A True Story About A Korean Noble Family tells about Adams's difficult childhood and youth, and relationships with her family, particularly her abusive mother. She tells her story with memorable description and details that reveal what life was like for a Korean woman in the years preceding World War II and Korean War and afterwards.
Adams's childhood was largely shaped by her parent's dismissive attitudes towards her and their preferences for their other children: oldest daughter, Mae Ree (whom Adams nicknamed "Big Sis") and youngest child and only son, Intaek.
Adams described her father, Yum Suck Jung, as an angry and distant man with great artistic talent, but a strong addiction to alcohol. He painted watercolor art, embroidered fabric, carved figures, composed and played music. Some of his songs were famous, particularly in the Korean countryside. Suck Jung was something of an iconoclast and rebel, not wanting to work in a regular non-artistic job. He was quite well known, but family responsibility and his role in Korean tradition as a husband and father appeared to weigh him down with disappointment.
There was a dark side to Suck Jung's behavior. Many times, he visited the tavern and got drunk on soju. He then returned home with an empty wallet and to an angry wife.
He also wasn't above playing favorites with his children. Suck Jung lavished attention towards Mae Ree by always bringing her beautiful gifts after he returned home from travels, but ignored Adams and beat Intaek. This had a detrimental effect on the siblings's childhood, especially the sisters.
Her father's preference caused sibling rivalry between the two as Adams thought of Mae Ree as rather vain and superficial and Mae Ree saw Adams as argumentative and obstinate when they were children. Mae Ree however longed for attention and inherited her father's musical abilities to become a singer and actress, ultimately becoming a film star in Korea in the 1940's-'50's.
Yum Suck Jung was very frail and succumbed to tuberculosis at the age of 32. One chapter describes a hunt that Adams and Mae Ree went on for a snake to treat their father's illness, maybe a live miracle snake that would cure him. After the hunt, in which the two girls nearly drowned in a river, the sisters eventually bought a dead snake from a peddlar. This incident haunted Adams. "The failure of catching a miracle snake to save our father, which had seemed such a hopeful idea in the morning, totally crushed my spirit," Adams wrote. "Would it be my fault if he died?"
Later as her father lay dying, Adams still remembered that day. She gained immense knowledge through her studies, but considered herself a failure anyway. "Should I have tried harder to catch that miracle snake?" She asked. "But knowing how to count and read was quite different from catching a snake."
Suck Jung's death left Adams confused and uncertain about her feelings for him. She didn't remember him as a loving man, only one who was a drinker who preferred his oldest daughter over his other children. "Whether I was a filial daughter or not, I had to mourn his death and forgive him for the wrong things that he had done to me," Adams wrote. "For his death canceled all his sins and debts. But it wasn't easy to do so, because I harbored complex feelings about Father's indifference towards me."
As complex as her relationship with her father was, Adams's relationship with Nam Hyang was consistently contentious.Adams believed that much of her mother's behavior was because of her youth, as the daughter of a noble family and a fourth daughter. She was held in little regard except as a target for marriage and to be cared for by a husband and family.
However, Yi Nam Hyang wanted more out of life. She received a college education, despite objections from her traditional family.
"Mother had full of aspirations at one time in her life," Adams wrote.
"She'd wanted to conquer the world. She'd wanted to smash the social inequity, and become the first woman to achieve fame and to stand tall, right beside any great man in the world. But by the time she grew up, Korean society had already brainwashed her with its stringent Confucian doctrine, and didn't even realize until it was too late."
While this doesn't excuse her behavior towards her daughter, Adams allowed herself to see her mother, as she saw her father. They were people who were disappointed by life. Her father had the talent and her mother the education, but neither were able to do much with it. Nam Hyang especially lived a life of disappointment, made even worse by an education that gave her a thwarted ambition and then told her that she could do more with life and was unable to do so. She took her frustrations and anger out on her second daughter.
Adams explored the ambivalence that her mother felt towards her birth with wry observation.
"Saddled with another girl, (Nam Hyang) grumbled, 'Who needs more than one daughter?' Although she had been born a fourth girl and her mother endured a full term, she felt no appreciation for her mother's labor. Her mother had two sons to show off before she gave birth to daughters," Adams wrote.
"Mother knew that it was every mother's duty to give a child a place in the world as a wife and mother, and her birth family and her in-laws all upheld the principles, but that call could sail down the river for all she cared. Mother thought that she had little to look forward to in life with the impending arrival of a second daughter, useless in every way."
Even after Adams was born, Nam Hyang still wasn't happy. She refused to bond or feed her newborn child, leaving Adams's grandparents to search for a wet nurse. No sooner than her daughter was born, than she took off for Seoul leaving Adams to be raised by her grandparents. She returned a year later, not wanting her children to grow up as country kids.
She periodically allowed Adams to return to her grandparents' country home. Adams hovered between her city home with a cold unloving mother and her country home with her grandparents, who became the loving adult figures in her life that her parents could not.
Nam Hyang subjected Adams to frequent physical and verbal abuse.
Adams's first memory of her mother was when she was 2 1\2 and she tried to collect rainwater. She slipped and hit her head knocking over a metal dustpan. Nam Hyang took her to the doctor, but only after she gave her a few blows to the head.
Like her husband, Nam Hyang too had a favorite among her children, particularly after her husband's death. That was her only son, Intaek She smothered the boy with maternal affection and indulged his every whim. As he grew and became a commercial artist, Intaek became a spoiled entitled brat unable to accept adult responsibility, because of his mother's influence.
There was a ray of hope during Adams's childhood and that was in the form of her paternal grandparents. Yum Hyung Kee, her grandfather came from an Imperial academic family and worked as an herbal doctor, Christian missionary, and Kung Fu instructor. Go Jaesoon, her grandmother came from a family of commoners and worked as a sea diver. Despite their different backgrounds, they had close marriage and were able to give young Adams the love that she lacked from her parents.
After Adams was born, Go Jaesoon declared, "Being a second daughter is nothing to be ashamed of," and held the newborn close, the way that her mother should have.
Adams's grandparents always greeted her with embraces and cries of joy, when she visited them. They allowed her to eat and sleep whenever she wanted and didn't criticize her when she made a mistake or broke something. They defended her firom her mother. They treated Adams as a daughter, better than her mother did.
The title of the book comes from a gift that Go Jaesoon gave her grandaughter on her birthday. The silver chopsticks were made by the best silversmith in the country and were decorated with pretty drawings on the upper and wider sides and the words "Happy Long Life" in Chinese characters on the back. The chopsticks were a sign that portended Adams would never go hungry. They also changed color if the food being served was poisoned.
Adams considered the chopsticks as symbols of her grandmother's love for her. Adams kept the silver chopsticks with her, everywhere she went as if keeping Go Jaesoon's spirit with her. She never sold them, even through war and poverty. To Adams, selling or losing them would be like selling her grandmother's spirit.
The tensest moments occurred during the war years and had a detrimental effect in Adams's family. World War II. The Japanese had control over Korea. They forced people to labor for them by making weapons and other military supplies. They drilled children in school in military fashion. While, they introduced voluntary enlistment originally, the orders changed to mandatory conscription by 1942.
"Many Koreans died in the war, and many young Korean girls went to the factories or served as 'comfort girls' for the Japanese soldiers," Adams wrote. "....The Japanese companies greedily stripped our forests for export to Japan, but they didn't allow Koreans to cut trees for their use. If the Japanese caught a Korean man cutting down a tree in the night for fuel, they beat him and put him in jail."
The war and Japanese occupation affected Adams's family. Her aunt and five children moved to her grandparents's farm, to get away from the constant blombing and air strikes. Christians were under attack and many were killed by Japanese soldiers. Hyung Kee's mission escaped human casualties, because he swore that he would not support the Korean independence movement and that he would continue providing opium for the Japanese.
After World War II ended and Korea was divided between North and South Korea, Adams and her family fled to the South. Her grandmother and aunt, Little-Ma, remained behind as bait to distract the soldiers as the rest of the family fled. Go Jaesoon succumbed to suicide (though not before poisoning several Japanese soldiers). Adams's never learned what happened to her aunt.
Adams's uncle, Little-Pa summarized the protectiveness that Go Jaesoon felt towards her family, particularly Adams. He quoted her final words, "A wife just protect her husband and children. It's her duty and privilege. I now have the privilege of protecting all of you. Why do you question it and make it more difficult for me?'"
Adams detailed the fear and anxiety that her family held as the world around them changed.
"The world we had known was no longer in existence and anything valuable in it was useless," Adams said. "We were fugitives in the eyes of the new world that had replaced the old world. The large house that had been our home could shelter us no more."
Adams, her brother, sister, and mother lived in poverty in Seoul. Nam Hyang worked in a machine embroidery job and barely earned enough to provide nourishment for her family. However, she retained her haughty attitude.
Adams admitted that her mother's inability to humble herself helped her family escape the grimness and she was determined enough to accomplish certain things. She challenged her brother to help her grow cabbages and radishes to get past the food shortage. Nam Hyang eventually bought and managed a tea shop with Mae Ree providing the entertainment.
War once again rocked Adams and her family. Adams led the rest of her family to escape via ferry down the Han River. They spent a tense time living in a mountain village, hiding from the Communist soldiers. Eventually, they returned to a destroyed Seoul, devastated by war and destruction and reunited with her grandfather at a refugee camp.
The war ended after three years, but Korea remained separated. Adams wrote about Mae Ree's visit 47 years later to the Demilitarized Zone which separates North and South Korea. It is considered one of the most unspoiled green spaces left in Asia and is one of Asia's most hospitable homes for plants and wildlife.
"Every year more than two hundred thousand people visited the DMZ, about thirty miles North of Seoul to see the world's most dangerous border, where North and South Korean soldiers stared at each other eyeball to eyeball," Adams wrote. "The sceneries were spectacular with the steep ravines and valleys covered with thick firs, pines, and aspens as if only the hands of the Three Gods had created them. Big-Sis couldn't help, but wonder at the incongruity of it all."
After the War, Nam Hyang borrowed money and enrolled her second daughter in Sook Myung's Women College. Adams speculated that her mother wanted her to get a decent job, so she could live off of her money, which proved to be true. Nam Hyang and Big-Sis's teahouse closed and Big-Sis and Intaek left for a business opportunity leaving Adams with their mother.
Adams got a job in the construction office of the 226th Battalion of the United States Army. She became fond of the American soldiers and they reciprocated their affection by gifting her with a classic rice chest and a fluffy white dog, named Snowe. Adams doted on the dog despite her mother's dislike for him. In a fit of spite, Nam Hyang sold Snowe to a place called the Dog Stew House. She then sold the rice chest for a handsome price. Adams's only relief was that she never let her mother know that she still had the silver chopsticks or she would have sold them too.
After defending Mae Ree from her abusive boyfriend, Adams retained a good reputation. Nam Hyang couldn't resist riding on her now famous daughter's coattails. She enticed Adams to pay for her brother's education and force him to become a doctor. Adams however, allowed Intaek to make his own decision and study fine arts.
Adams worked for the Cosa Export Company, managing to pay for living expenses, Intaek's education, and Nam Hyang's luxuries. Nam Hyamg began to sponge off of her by buying exorbitant items and leaving Adams to pay for them. She also constantly subjected her daughter to financial abuse by taking the money Adams earned and spending it on herself, Intaek, and a preacher who may also have been her lover.
Adams recounted her stormy love life, some of it because of her mother's interference. Adams's first marriage to an American named Dex ended just as quickly as it began. She married him mostly to get away from her mother, but Nam Hyang guilt tripped her into remaining in Korea. They got a divorce and Dex married his girlfriend. Mae Ree however married an American and moved to Hawaii.
Adams's second marriage to a man named Chang was rough from their first meeting. Nam Hyang forced her to get back money that her mother leant and give it to Intaek. Despite the frustration from her mother's manipulative request, Adams had tea with Chang and had what she thought was a pleasant time, but later was revealed to be less pleasant.
Adams realized that she married Chang mostly to play the role of the dutiful daughter and help provide for her mother and brother. During a fight, Adams told Nam Hyang off saying that unlike her who tried to abort and then abandon her, Adams never would do the same.
Adams told her, " I will never abandon you even if you become a shriveled up, helpless old woman with meanness dripping out of you. I refuse to stoop that low. So, stop lying, scheming, backstabbing, and blackmailing me. It is beneath the dignity of a highly educated woman like you!"
Adams made it perfectly clear that she was marrying Chang and caring for Nam Hyang solely out of duty and not for love. Her mother showed her no love, so Adams let her know that she would receive none in return. She compared the narcissistic Name Hyang to the selfless Go Jaesoon. "Everyone in the village would jump in the river if Grandma told them to because she would never have let them drown," Adams told her. "Do you think that you can earn that kind of trust? Never!"
Besides her mother, Adams realized that she was also being manipulated by Chang even from the beginning. During their marriage, she realized that he had spiked her tea with opium. When confronted about it, Chang admitted that he not only had been doctoring her tea throughout their marriage, but the day they first met as well.
She also learned that contrary to his earlier claim of being a childless widower, he in fact had a wife, two daughters, and a concubine. Even though current Korean law dictated that Chang's second marriage was technically illegal, there were exceptions if the marriage did not produce sons. "Many people who came to my wedding knew that Chang had a wife and concubine," Adams wrote. "I was the last one to find out."
Adams gave birth to a son, Hooney, but she and Chang were estranged at the time. Nam Hyang kept insisting that the two get back together, but Adams had enough of being manipulated by her mother and soon to be ex-husband.
However, Chang played one final trick. When Hooney visited his father's village, Chang had him registered in his family's registry under his wife's name. Adams was no longer considered his mother and ended up separated from her son.
Adams took over Chang's business and made a profit from it. This success gave her financial satisfaction and became the first step towards her independence from her mother. The second step came from her desire to study business management and textile design in America so she could learn to create and sell handicrafts and run an export business. She settled her affairs with Nam Hyang and Intaek by offering them a house and money if they allowed her to go. She paid her respects to her grandfather, uncle, and her grandmother's spirit. Adams finally obtained her freedom from her family.
Besides freedom, Adams's plans allowed her to get acquainted with the man who would eventually become her third husband: Hewitt Dayne Adams, a Marine colonal. Introduced by a mutual American friend, Hewitt not only proved to be a kind sympathetic man, but was useful for her business. One of his responsibilities was to help Korean citizens begin and operate businesses.
While she found him to be a charming man, Adams knew that Hewitt was married to another woman. Unlike the passivity that was forced upon her by Confucian doctrine, her abusive mother, and previous unhappy marriage, Adams refused to continue the relationship while Hewitt was still married. Her newly won independent spirit would no longer accept being a mistress or a concubine.
They separated while she continued her ecucation. He obtained a divorce and the two resumed their relationship, eventually marrying. Hewitt became a professor in Asian and American History at Clemson University and Adams ran a successful business. They had two children, Michael and Mae Lee, along with Hewitt's two daughters from his previous marriage.
There were two incidents in Adams's life that helped provide closure towards her unhappy past. The first concerned her mother. After her children grew, Nam Hyang hovered between them and friends continuing to live off of other people's money and kindness. In 1998, as the older woman lay dying, Adams wrote a letter condemning her for all of the abuse and manipulations that she submitted to her all those years. Even though she never sent the letter and later learned about Nam Hyang's death, Adams believed that the letter finally gave her a chance to liberate herself from all of the anger and negative feelings that her mother bestowed upon her.
The second incident concerned Hewitt and her grandparents. Adams gave the silver chopsticks to Hewitt while they were dating. She told them that if he didn't want to see her again then he was to return them to her. She never got them back until after his death in 2003. While going through his belongings, she found the silver chopsticks realizing that he kept them close all those years.
With tears streaming down her face, Adams placed the silver chopsticks inside her husband's urn. The once traumatized young girl shared a gift of love from her grandmother with another person that she truly loved, allowing that love to continue beyond death and into the next world.
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