It’s June.
I like May which is called the queen of the seasons, but in June, it’s more dazzling with the trees that didn’t use to stand out suddenly blossoming with verdure.
Whatever alley I choose, my home always leads to Mount Inwangsan. Around this time of the year, I usually choose the route to Hwanghagjeong Archery field in front of Paiwha Girls’ High School. It’s because there’s an ‘Acacia Road’ in that route. Acacia trees start lining up around the Jongno library to the entrance to the archery field for about 30 meters. The road exudes the scent of acacia.
While the scent of the road is so sweet that I want to buy a perfume of the scent, I like the road because my father and I used to take walks on that road a long time ago. He was a man of relentless optimism and had a bright personality even though he never saw his parents again after leaving Pyeongyang, and had lived through a lot. I now feel his scent like the scent of acacias.
When he came back from work, he played songs like “I want to go” with the piano, ate dinner, and went on a walk in the neighborhood. With me, he chose the acacia road. He talked with a pleasant voice, and picked the long green acacia leaves that lined the road, and played rock, paper, scissors with me – that was when there wasn’t many games to play. We also played a simple game in which we each plucked leaves out of an acacia stem and the person who finished plucking the leaves first won.
He might have wanted to cheer his young daughter up by letting her win, but I remember my father doing his best to win. I also did my utmost to beat my father.
I go there to try to remember the stories he told me then, and to see the white flowers in blossom from May to early June, and to feel my father’s bright figure and warm hands.
The road has been repaved since then, and now there’s a bus stop that goes to town. The road leads to the archery field to Mount Inwangsan; those acacia trees that filled up both sides of the road were chopped down and only those on the right side remain. Now that I am all grown up, the road feels short. I am still thankful that a few acacia trees remain to greet me, the memories of walking along my father who shouted “Rock, paper, scissors!” makes me wonder if it was a dream. What comes to my sight is the acacia flowers and leaves that come to life every season.
My father is a pioneer that ploughed ‘patent and intellectual property rights’ up in the barren land of Korea, which has become globally important in this age. My father contributed to designating May 19th our ‘invention day’. While invention day is celebrated every year, it’s sad that my father who made it is gone.
I always feel my father’s DNA inside me, and whenever something mortifying and sad happens, in addition to pleading to God in the sky, I also talk to Yunmo Lee, my beloved father.
Walking along the sweet acacia road of June, that I used to miss when I was living in the US, I call my father’s name. June 20th is my father’s birthday.
Acacia Leaves
Sunshine Lee
A day passes by
With an acacia leaf plucked
A life passes by
With all the acacia leaves plucked
Rock Scissors Paper
The acacia leaves that I plucked with my father
Climbing the road to the archery field
'May comes, May, the month in which you were born comes,
the dazzling May comes even when you are gone'
'You were born in the dazzling May and you were gone
before the color faded'
'The bamboo leaves that neatly sprouted are fresh
just like you born in May 9th were'
Son Hoyon
- May 9th from the one line poem of Son Hoyon is of the lunar calendar.
The acacia road leading to the archery field
The end of ‘acacia road’ leads to the archery field
Hwanghagjeong Archery field
