Ever Green School

The other day, before I left the library where I studied, I looked around an exhibition held in the first floor.
It was an exhibition of students of a school called '늘푸른 학교 (Ever Green School)'. 
The students were mostly old ladies doing primary or secondary school level studies.
While watching the exhibits, I was in tears without awareness.
I took photos of some of the exhibits without permission.
Actually, there was no one in the exhibition room.

"A part of my heart was dark. I held back and hid my mind. I blamed my mother a lot. I'm sorry, mother, who is in heaven. Now, I feel that I can understand your heart."

"I thought everything would be over at the dusk of my life, but looking back over my life, the tough days with heavy burdens have come to the end, and it is spring days now."

"My heart has become bright since I began studying. My heart, which was hard like stone, has become filled with joy. I know that this change is good medicine for me and that our teachers are trying to teach us as much, even one more word, as possible."

"I have felt sad about my loss of the chance to study, which had resulted from the duty to take care of younger siblings. I wanted to study so much that I used to walk 10 ri (리) to school carrying my younger sibling on my back, and when I happened to make an eye contact with a teacher, I used to run away back home."

"When I climb a stiff mountain path, a cool breeze passes me. I feel that this ascending path is like my life path."

"I vividly remember that, as a primary school student, when I came back from school, my mother was melting salt, making soybean source at Jangdokdae (장독대), and asked me 'Come here and taste this salt water, Ockja'. Mother passed away in her illness when I was 10. How did you close your eyes leaving this small child when you left along the road to Hades?"   

"Roses are my favorite flower. Their flavour is nice, and their look is pretty. Looking at them, I always feel like I am young. I miss the days when I used to be pretty like them."

"In the small park in my neighbourhood, a pigeon family has ongkijongki (옹기종기) gathered. The pigeon children are as many as those of Heungbu (흥부), while things to eat are very little."

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Being impressed by the courage and enthusiasm of the students of the school, I'm also writing down what I wrote in my note a few weeks ago. I don't remember when I wrote it, but it might have been around the time when I returned from the UK. It kept raining at the time, and I wrote with mixed feelings.


The evening sky is getting darker after it stopped raining.
If we are given a limited amount of happiness,
longer do I want to enjoy it
by tasting it little by little till the end
rather than using it up at once.

The days of pain and joy are silently gone far away,
and now I want to enjoy this serene moment.
Whatever a moment may be deemed is destined to pass me by,
and I know the next moment a piece of hope would come to fill my heart.

It would be fine even if my life were not full of hope at times.
Even if I were only allowed
to hold a tiny piece of hope,
I would still be thankful.

My life is, as such,
filled with hope
little by little .

It's fine
even if it would be filled
more slowly.