Honoring Ancestors in Many Ways

As a sign of utmost respect for their ancestors, the descendants performed four bows facing north and then a patrol of the tomb grounds.

To overcome the steep slope and keep the mower balanced, the workers relied on ropes and cut from top to bottom.

The two workers carried out the job precisely in close coordination, preventing damage to the mound.

Relying only on ropes to handle the mower, workers kept spacing like a spinning top so they would not cut diagonally, paying close attention to the work.

As the jujubes grow heavy, workers are busy tying the stems to keep the branches from tearing under the weight. The farming couple is excited to set this unusually bountiful jujube harvest on the ancestral table.

To prevent branches from tearing under the weight of the growing jujubes, they tied the stems and branches in place, and the couple expressed hope for putting the jujubes they grew themselves on the ancestral table.

Kim Su-hyang made a jujube and chicken feet jelly, rich in collagen, simmered from chicken feet and the jujubes her late mother loved.

She also made a fragrant jujube yakshik with the water from steeping jujubes, a traditional dish she learned from her mother, honoring precious memories.

Her son-in-law bought mango bingsu in memory of her mother, and the couple, sitting before the food, felt a warm sense that her mother was always close by.

The method of boiling syrup by blending sorghum and bellflower root extract instead of rice was inherited by Seong Sam-seop from his mother. He keeps the arduous tradition of lighting the wood-fired stove himself to make sorghum syrup.

This syrup uses sorghum and bellflower root extract instead of rice, and the extract is made in a ratio of 5% radish to 95% bellflower root, then simmered for six hours.

Seong Sam-seop and his wife insist on the laborious work of lighting the stove by hand to preserve the traditional method, carrying on their mother's devotion.

Seong Sam-seop's daughter experienced firsthand the hardship her parents endure by insisting on traditional methods, and she felt on site the intense heat and the value of arduous labor that photos or words could never convey.

Through this experience, the daughter decided to help make sure the traditional work her parents keep does not disappear.

Even when pulling weeds, he feels sorry, and through a deep connection with nature he is finding the meaning of life.

His mother, who was visually impaired, would check on her son by touching his face and legs with her hands. Jeong Hwa-seok remembers her warm touch and calls the pine tree in his garden "Mother."

His mother, who was visually impaired during her life, checked her son's face and legs by touch, and he said the warmth of those hands still remains vivid in his memory.

The artist Hwa-seok draws his mother's appearance as he remembers her in life, depicting her eyes, full lips, and neat clothing.

At the tip of his pencil, he redraws his mother's face from memory and soothes his deep longing.

Honoring his mother-in-law's wish, who loved the garden in life, he placed her beneath a pine tree, and he said he regards both of them as his own mothers without distinction, sharing his daily life with them.

Hwa-seok regards soil as maternal and works with it, finding comfort in the gentle feel of the earth.

He places works depicting his mother's smile throughout the house, including at the entrance of his studio, and continues his artistic life with his wife as both the source of his work and his helper.

Whenever he sees corn or tomatoes he has grown, Hwa-seok thinks of his mother, and he enjoys imagining her eating delicious food.

He said the feeling that his mother is always watching over him becomes the driving force that steadies his life.

Hwa-seok named "I'm sorry" as what he would most like to say to his mother if she were still alive.

He expressed a fervent wish that his mother's face will become clear again someday, as a child's heart remembers his wrongs before his good deeds.