The Morning Basket: Uncovering Lessons about Respect and Expectation
At OK Farm, my day began at 5:30 a.m. After completing my morning routine, I would make my way to the living room where I would sit on the couch and wait for the signal to depart for the farm. This signal was, more often than not, a plastic shopping basket.
The contents of this basket included a loaf of whole grain bread, mulberry or raspberry jam, various vegetables, and anything else Mrs. Shin would need to prepare our meals for the day. It wasn’t until returning to America that I realized this plastic basket held within it more than just food supplies; inside were lessons about respect and expectation.
The rules surrounding this basket were implied, never spoken out loud. Once Mrs. Shin placed it by the doorway, it was up to me or one of the other WWOOFers to complete the basket’s journey. The first leg was from the top of the stairs where we kept our shoes, to the passenger seat of the car waiting just outside, parked on the sidewalk. Once the basket was secured, Mar, Parn and I would pile into the back of the silver vehicle for the three-minute drive to the farm.
We frequently took these drives in silence, but not because we were women of few words. I attributed our lack of conversation to the awkward morning tension, or our general uncertainty surrounding Mrs. Shin. Intrinsically, I am reserved, and offer little to conversation until I have developed comfortable relationships with those around me. The speed at which I open-up is dependent upon others, and may take days or even months.
I have been this way for as long as I can remember, and each time I try to change this behavior and be more social, I revert to my old ways. While I have accepted that I do not thrive in social situations, my passion for the Korean language has helped me recognize that I still yearn to connect with others.
With Mar and Parn, I felt at ease very quickly and we became fast friends who conversed constantly. With Mrs. Shin, I never became comfortable or grew into the talkative and energetic individual she expected me to be. I did, however, grow in other ways.
“She expects me to be talkative, energetic, thankful, and hard-working…I am struggling to meet her expectations.” — June 24th, 2019
In South Korea, age is more than just a number. The more years of life experience you have, the more you are respected by those around you. In Korean, this distinction is made evident through speech levels and honorifics — essentially, changes in grammar and word choice that reflect the speaker’s relationships with both the audience and subject of conversation. Respect is also apparent through the institution of bowing; the deeper the bow, the deeper the courtesy given. Mrs. Shin is a Korean grandmother and, as such, she commands respect. This hierarchy of age was an unspoken rule of the basket.
The concept of ‘respect your elders’ is not foreign to me; I adhere to it in my life because it is socially expected, but I do not readily think about it. After deconstructing the morning basket ritual, I recognized that individuals of both American and Korean society conform to this social pressure in vastly different contexts that are apparent through language and even agricultural policy.
As in many countries around the world, the South Korean agricultural sector is suffering from an aging population of farmers. Between 2003 and 2015, the average age of Korea’s farm managers increased from 59.9 to 68.3 according to the Farm Household Economic Survey (FHES), and today anyone under the age of 50 is considered a ‘young’ farmer. Rural-to-urban migration and the globalization of agriculture are two of the main contributors to this phenomenon.
Although South Korean policymakers have tried to encourage youth participation in agriculture, most policies are still targeted towards older farmers. Other barriers deterring young people are the uncertain future of Korean agriculture and its associated income instability. To reinvigorate the farming population in Korea and improve their chances of achieving sustainable development in agriculture, many are recommending policy makers incentivise youth involvement through programs like the “Return to the Farm and Rural Program.”
A recent study concludes that older farmers have negative effects on farm efficiency and are thus a hindrance to sustainable agricultural development, but I would argue that my hosts at OK Farm were an exception to these results. While Mrs. Shin and Mr. Lee are a part of South Korea’s aging farming population, they are also members of the urban-to-rural migration that has begun to gain traction in their country. The fast-paced life they tried to escape by moving from Seoul to Yeoncheon is still integral to the management of their farm, and easily felt during their summer raspberry harvest.
References:
Cho, O. (2017). How migrants from cities become potential innovators in Korean rural communities. Journal of Asian Rural Studies, 1(1), 13. https://doi.org/10.20956/jars.v1i1.720
Lee, T. (2015). The aging of agriculture and the income instability of young farmers in Korea. Retrieved from http://ap.fftc.agnet.org/ap_db.php?id=441
Seok, J., Moon, H., Kim, G., & Reed, M. (2018). Is aging the important factor for sustainable agricultural development in Korea? Evidence from the relationship between aging and farm technical efficiency. Sustainability, 10(7), 2137. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10072137
