I was reading some reddit posts, mainly from westerners about their oldest family heirlooms, with people talking about artefacts from the civil war, centuries old engraved bibles, chinaware, and so forth. I couldn’t help but notice that most of my Korean friends, as well as my own family (for context myself and my friends are all Gen Z gyopo), don’t really have many heirlooms or items dating back more than a few decades. Perhaps due to the unforgiving postwar conditions our grandparents lived under, which led them to throw out most of their antiquated furniture/items in favour of newer, more practical gadgets in the 70s and 80s.
I think it’s sad that not many family artefacts with their own lore ended up surviving because I heard many stories from my grandparents (who were born in the 30s and 40s) of growing up in neighbourhoods where hanok was the norm, rice was cooked in big stone pots with firewood, laundry was done by the river on big stone tables, and everyone wore hanbok. My grandmother told me that when she was a kid, she recalls seeing Joseon-era coins with the square hole in the middle lying around in her house. If our grandparents grew up in a country with little electricity, running water, or modern appliances, where did the traditional tools and furniture they once used all go?
I’d love to hear stories of old family heirlooms people here have. Does your family own anything from before the Korean War or the Japanese colonial period? I feel that for many younger Koreans, there is a blackout regarding family lore from before the Korean war.
submitted by /u/Ordinary-Hair2527
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