Seesaw Girl

Seesaw Girl

Jade Blossom is twelve and lives in Korea. Her home is a beautiful house in Seoul. She lives there with her parents, two brothers, three sets of uncles and aunts, and twelve cousins. A gatekeeper, cook, stableboys, maidservants, gardener, and schoolmaster live there, too. This house was the whole world for Jade Blossom and her girl cousins. There is an outer courtyard where stables house the livestock and servants perform their duties, and an inner courtyard and gardens. Jade and the other girls are allowed in the outer courtyard only until they are about eight years old, and then they are sequestered in the house and only allowed in the inner courtyard until the day they will marry and move to their husband's family's house. Of course, the schoolmaster is only for her brothers and the boy cousins.

            And then her best friend and aunt, Willow, who is fifteen, announces that the matchmaker has made her a match. She is going to be married and leave for her husband's house. She and Jade Blossom may never see one another again.

            After Willow's departure, Jade Blossom begins to wonder about the world outside her house. She questions her eldest brother, Tiger Heart, about the world outside the walls of the house. He goes with their father to the mountains on feast days to worship at the family shrine. He also accompanies the servants to the market. But his stumbling descriptions do not really satisfy Jade Blossom's curiosity.

            Two months after Willow's wedding, Jade Blossom hatches a terrible plan to visit her. She stows away in a large basket going to market, emerges in the marketplace, and manages to make her way to her cousin's new house. But the gatekeeper stops her and then Willow, as is proper, won't see her. So Jade Blossom's journey was in vain. 

            But the things she saw and experienced on that excursion would change Jade Blossom forever.

            I must admit, I don't think I'd ever read a book set in seventeenth century Korea before, so this was a valuable addition to our study. At a time when Colonial American girls were helping their families to carve homesteads out of the wilderness, noble Korean girls were relegated to the courtyard, with no freedom, no education, and no friends but siblings and cousins. They spent much of their time embroidering, gossiping, and preparing themselves for an early marriage.

            This is a fascinating glimpse into a time period and culture that most of us have no conception of. Jade Blossom's longing to visit the world outside is perfectly understandable to us, who hop into our cars on a daily basis. Just the process of washing the laundry is mind-blowing! A traditional wedding ceremony is described in detail – the bride may not talk or laugh through the whole reception.

            The Author's Note describes the historical context for the sequestered lives of aristocratic women and girls for hundreds of years in Korea, the closing of Korea to outside influence, the actual documented occurrence of the shipwrecked Dutch sailors, and the seesaw game.

            This is a great addition to any study about Korea, the far east, or the 1600s.

CONTENT CONSIDERATIONS

The fate of captured Dutch sailors is debated; if the king decides for a death sentence, they will be beheaded.