Cutting the grass...

This weekend the weather was beautiful! The humidity dissapeared on Saturday and we were left with cool fall weather; it was a really nice break from the damp air that usually hangs around outside. Friday night I met up with my friend Jeehee, who is a really great woman that I've spent the past few Sundays with. Jeehee has been really nice to show me around, taking me to lunches, and to see some incredible things, like the photo gallery I went to last weekend. This morning, my co-teacher took me to cut the grass on his ancestors' graves. Traditionally women do not go, and I believe some families still abide by this rule, but I went and so did most of the women in Mr.Hyun's family. Almost all of his brothers and sisters were together for this day and some cousins. It was really interesting to see the dynamic of a big family together, because there is definitely a hierarchy. Most of the time the oldest brother at the gravesite would bark orders at everyone, while the younger brothers all worked to cut and clear the grass from the graves. In Korean there is no word for brother, just younger brother, older brother, or oldest sister, etc. Each child's role in the family is defined by the order in which they were born. Mr. Hyun, my co-teacher is the third eldest son, so he barked orders at the first gravesite where he was the eldest, but by the last grave his older brother was there, so he no longer bossed people around, because it was very clear whose job that was. In total there were 15 graves, but the team that we were working with only did a total of 5. We ate a brunch at about 10:30am together, which was delicious and I was back in Jeju City by 1pm.