A Korean Mother’s Chinese Dream

By Liu Dongli

How would a fifty-yearold housewife who spent a quarter of a century doing housework make use of the rest of her life? Dancing in the park with her peers? Taking walks with her grandchildren? Or perhaps windowshopping at the mall?

A Korean mother named Kang Sun Hee made a shocking decision—to leave Korea and chase her Chinese dream in China.

Kang was born in Gumi City,Gyeongsangbuk-do Province, the hometown of the former president Park Chung Hee. Her father was a huge fan of Chinese culture and language, and was obsessed with Chinese characters. Influenced by her father, Kang Sun Hee started learning how to write Chinese characters when she was in junior high school. In 1985, she was admitted to Chungbuk University,where she majored in Chinese.

After graduation, Kang Sun Hee got married and had children,living a normal life like the other Korean women she knew. She devoted all her life to her family.Unconsciously, 25 years came and went.

Despite time passing by, in the thousands of days and nights she spent as a mother, she never gave up her Chinese dream. She attended private Chinese classes given by the local professors whenever she had time. She learned a lot about classic Chinese literature. Classics like the Great Learning, the Doctrine of the Mean, the Analects of Confucius,Mencius, and Gems from Chinese Culture were treasures to Kang.Time seemed to be fleeting when she immersed herself in these masterpieces.

When her kids all went to college, Kang suddenly was left with just herself to look after.She started to think for herself—why couldn’t she change her role from a mother and wife to an independent individual? After consideration, she made a bold decision: she was going to head to China and learn Chinese.

“What? You will go to college in China?” Kang’s husband and kids were stunned when they learned about the decision.

“Go to college? At your age?”her husband disagreed.

“You should enjoy your life now. Why do you have to make yourself so busy?” the elder son could not understand her.

“You can learn Chinese in Korea. Why do you have to leave home and go to China?” the younger one was unwilling to let his mother go.

年近半百、已在家專心相夫教子25年的家庭主婦，會如何打發自己的晚年時光呢？是和同齡人一起跳廣場舞？還是帶著孫子逛公園？抑或是沖進商場“搶黃金”？

韓國媽媽康善喜做出的選擇讓所有人大吃一驚：離開家鄉，不遠萬里來到中國學習漢語！

康善喜出生于韓國前總統樸正熙的家鄉慶尚北道龜尾市，父親是個中國迷，對漢字情有獨鐘。受家庭影響，康善喜初中、高中時認真學習寫漢字，并于1985年進入韓國大邱慶北大學中文系學習。

大學畢業后，康善喜和大多數韓國婦女一樣，結婚生子，成為一名全職家庭主婦，專心照顧丈夫和兩個孩子的起居生活。這一過，就是25年。

然而，在這近萬個日夜中，康善喜心里藏的“漢語夢”，卻從來不曾熄滅過。只要有空，她便鉆進當地專門教授漢語的私人書堂，學習中國古典文學。手捧著《大學》《中庸》《論語》《孟子》《古文觀止》等中國古代經典著作，康善喜視為珍寶。在這些浩瀚的書卷中，康善喜甚至能將時間遺忘……

終于待到兩個孩子先后上了大學，丈夫也忙于自己的工作，康善喜似乎一下子“閑”了下來。她開始思考自己的人生——為何不能將自己從“女人”的角色轉變成一個“人”的角色。思忖良久，為了心中那個蠢蠢欲動的“漢語夢”，她做了一個大膽的決定：去中國，學漢語！

“什么？你要去中國上學？”當康善喜將這一想法告訴丈夫和孩子后，得到的是三雙瞪大的眼睛，還有三張驚訝得合不攏的嘴。

“你都這個年紀了，還要上學嗎？”丈夫不同意。

“現在是您享福養老的時候，為什么要那么辛苦？”大兒子不理解。

“就算您要學漢語，在可以在國內學，為什么要舍近求遠離開家？”小兒子不舍得。

但康善喜心意已決，義無反顧。

2014年9月，經與三峽大學有合作關系的韓國威德大學中文系成潤淑教授推薦，康善喜離開祖國，來到中國湖北，進入三峽大學攻讀中文系碩士研究生。在這里，她開始了自己的留學逐夢生活。

這是康善喜第一次來中國。初來乍到，難免各種不適應。三峽大學地處湖北宜昌，冬天又冷又潮，讓她懷念家里溫暖的地暖；中國飯菜不合胃口，她只好自己動手做泡菜；圖書館的書籍和韓國的放置順序不一樣，想在圖書館查找資料也不熟悉。

However, Kang Sun Hee had made up her mind: she had to pursue her dream.

I n S e p t e m b e r o f 2 0 1 4,recommended by Professor Seong Yoon Suk of the department of Chinese language and culture in Uiduk University, Kang Sun Hee left home and headed for China Three Gorges University in Hubei Province. Seeking a master’s degree in Chinese, she started her study in China.

It was the first time that she had ever come to China and she felt uneasy. In the cold and wet winter in Yichang, she missed her heating at home in Korea. She had to make kimchi by herself because she wasn’t accustomed to the Chinese food. The library was also different from that at home, which made research difficult.

Besides all these troubles,there was another big challenge:communication. Although Kang Sun Hee had learned Chinese, it was still very hard to communicate in a Chinesespeaking country. During conversation, she had to request her partners to slow down so that she could catch up with them.Writing course papers required extensive reading. However it took her about a month to finish reading one Chinese book. What’s worse, the obscure writings in classical Chinese took her even more time and efforts to read and understand.

The uneasiness in life,challenges in study, and isolation from her family brought her great psychological stress. She didn’t even have a friend in China when she arrived. Helplessness and loneliness often hit her at the beginning of her journey in China.However, these did not hamper her from pursuing her dream.

To deal with the cold and wet winter, she put dehumidifiers in every corner of her room and aired out her quilt as often as possible. She even bought many down jackets. When she had trouble using the library resources, she resorted to her Chinese classmates and the librarians. Gradually, she became a regular of the library and befriended several teachers.They helped her to cope with her loneliness and provided plenty of practice speaking Chinese.

Since she was the same age as the mothers of her classmates and also as gentle and nice as their mothers, the students all called her “Mother Kang.”

“I played and ate with them.Some of them even invited me to their homes and I would make Korean cuisine while they made Chinese food. I loved hanging out and communicating with them.”In her interview, “Mother Kang”told the correspondent that she had fallen in love with Chinese food, among which her favorites were steamed stuffed buns and dumplings.

She often talked with her family using WeChat. Noticing her improvement in mood, her husband and sons started to understand her and become more supportive. One of her sons,who was majoring in English in college, also started to be interested in Chinese.

Kang Sun Hee loves traveling and adores her second hometown Yichang. “In Yichang City, you can enjoy the beautiful scenery of The Three Gorges. Many Chinese poets left epic poems of this place and I want my families to learn about that. I want to visit Qu Yuan Temple because I read “Li Sao”and “Tian Wen,” written by the patriotic poet Qu Yuan. I’d also like to visit the historical relics of the Three Kingdoms Culture.”

After graduation, Kang Sun Hee left China for Korea,where she found a job a s a C h i n e s e teacher. She’s also applying for a doctoral program on the Chinese language.Despite all the difficulties she’d had, she never gave up her Chinese dream and now she is spreading the seed of it to more and more people in Korea.◆

(Translation: Yu Lan)

除此之外，最大的挑戰還是漢語交流障礙。雖然康善喜曾學過中文，但要在一個完全是漢語環境的國度交流并不容易，她不得不一次次要求對方放緩語速；寫課程論文要閱讀大量書籍，而她要一個月才能看完、理解一本中文書，而對于中國中文系的學生來說都算是攔路虎的文言文古籍，對她更是難上加難……

諸多的不適應、學業的挑戰和對家人的思念給康善喜帶來巨大的心理壓力。剛來不久時，她因為語言不通連傾訴的朋友都沒有，無助和孤寂時常襲來。然而這些都沒有阻擋住康善喜求學的步伐。

冬天濕冷，她便在房間各處都放了除濕劑，一有機會就曬被子，甚至還買了很多羽絨服；不會使用圖書館資源，她就找中國同學和圖書館管理員幫忙。漸漸地，她成了圖書館里的“泡館”常客，甚至與圖書館里的好幾位老師成為了好朋友。這不僅讓她孤寂的情緒一掃而光，還有了漢語的練兵場。

因為她的年齡幾乎和同級的研究生同學的媽媽們的年紀相仿，加上她待人親切溫和，同學們都親熱地喊她“康媽”。

“我跟她們一起玩，一起吃飯，還會去她們家，我做韓國菜，她們做中國菜，一起吃飯。和她們溝通，很開心。”采訪中，“康媽”告訴記者，現在她已經愛上了中國的飲食，最喜歡的是包子、饅頭、餃子等面食。

為了排遣思鄉之情，她和家人常常通過微信通話。通過微信視頻，康善喜的丈夫和兒子看到她的漢語水平越來越好，笑容也越來越多，開始理解她當初的決定，并為她加油。受她影響，在大學讀英文系的兒子也開始對中國文化感興趣，想要學習漢語。

康善喜熱愛旅游，更熱愛她的第二故鄉宜昌。“宜昌有很美麗的三峽風光，很多中國的詩人在這里留下了美麗的詩篇，我要帶自己的家人來看看。還要去參觀秭歸的屈原祠，在韓國時我就讀過‘憂國’詩人屈原的《離騷》和《天問》。還有三國文化的歷史遺跡……”

碩士畢業離開中國后，康善喜在韓國順利找到中文教職，同時打算繼續攻讀漢語博士。漢語是她心頭不曾熄滅的夢想，如今，她要將這一夢想的種子播撒到更多人的心頭。◆