Reflections on the School Picnic Bag from My Elementary School Days

Childhood.

In our country, as a developing nation, everyone had to tighten their belts and work desperately hard. If I trace my memory back, my parents' lives were like that too. My mother had to endure grueling, exhausting work at the pharmacy from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. all day long, and my father, too, spent the entire day in a cramped examination room of barely one pyeong, with cigarette smoke as his companion, devoting himself to writing and medical practice.

Because I was the youngest child, born much later in life to parents who were both working tirelessly, my parents could not even expect the spare time needed for basic contact with the parents of my classmates during my elementary school days.

But I had one great lesson that has always preserved my pride throughout my life and enabled me to find simple happiness even when circumstances were lacking... It came from my mother's warm and generous teaching in my childhood.

At that time, there was absolute poverty and a shortage of all kinds of food, so when children had birthdays, jajangmyeon was the most grateful and precious gift of all.

In those days, by chance, I went through a drawing in the admissions lottery for elementary school and ended up attending one of the prestigious elementary schools in Daegu, my hometown at the time.

Because my parents were both working, I was able to go to school in an environment that was not especially impoverished, but considering that it was a prestigious elementary school, I did not feel that our family was particularly well-off compared to my classmates' financial situations.

For elementary school students at the time, the school events they looked forward to most were picnics and the autumn sports day.

The day before a picnic, the feeling of fullness and happiness I felt when I went to the market holding my mother's hand and chose, one by one, the snacks to put in my picnic bag was beyond comparison with any feast today.

I would prepare my picnic bag with a fluttering heart. On the day of the picnic, walking along the road while sweating, finding a spot on a grassy field amid fresh nature, and unpacking our picnic bags with friends to share and eat delicious snacks was the highlight of the outing.

However, when I was still immature in the lower grades of elementary school, I came to realize after a year or two that the contents of my picnic bag were somewhat different from those of many classmates my age. Back then, bananas were rare, so the most prized item in a picnic bag was a banana. As I moved past my timid lower-grade years, the day before my 4th-grade autumn picnic, I gathered my courage while going to the market with my mother and carefully asked, "Mother, why is there never a banana in my picnic bag? My friends always bring one or two bananas..."

Although my mother must have felt pained by the unexpected question from her naive youngest son, who had likely kept his hurt to himself all that time, she kindly and warmly bought me a bunch of bananas. "I didn't know soyoung wanted to eat bananas that much. I'll buy you some bananas, so I think it would be better not to put them in your picnic bag and instead eat them at home. If you take bananas to school for the picnic bag, how much would the friends who can't bring them feel hurt, just as you did?"

Even with my young heart, those words from my mother made me feel as if I had the whole world, and ever since then, as I have lived my life, I have come to believe that consideration for others, more than envy, can make our lives happier.