Fish East, Meat West: Laying My Grandfather's Table — Epoche B1
Eleven at night at my uncle's flat Once a year, on the eve of my grandfather's death anniversary, the living room of my uncle's flat in Daegu is rearranged. The television is unplugged, a folding screen goes up against the window wall, and the long low table comes out in front of it. What is laid on that table is not a meal. It is a geography. The first rule of the room: the screen counts as north. Nobody on the twelfth floor of a tower block knows where true east is, and it does not matter — stand facing the screen and ritual east is on your right. Everything else follows from that. Then the sayings take over, four characters each, recited like spells while dishes move. My father says eo-dong-yuk-seo — fish east, meat west — and the fried fish slides to the right of the table while the meat goes left. At the fruit row it is hong-dong-baek-seo: red east, white west, so the apples drift right and the pale pears left. My aunt points out, as she does every year, that the sayings do not agree with each other about every fruit, and my father answers, as he does every year, with the phrase that settles it: ga-ga-rye. Every house, its own rite. Near eleven my uncle lights the incense and the family bows in turn, eldest first. My grandfather's sister watches the table the whole time. "Your grandmother stood the soup on the other side," she says. Nobody argues; that was another house's north. By half past eleven the screen is folded away, and the geography becomes supper. The apples of the east and the pears of the west go back to being fruit. References Kim, Y. (2019). Friendship and Social Support Among Korean University Students. Journal of Youth Studies, 28(3), 123-138.