The Kim family album

This custom is old. In Korean it is called tol (or doljanchi), the first birthday party: you put objects on a table, and the child chooses. The thread means a long life. The coin means money. The pen, the book mean learning. The spoon, food. In the old days a bow meant a soldier. Today my son put a car key on the table as a joke. The child ignored it.

We did this in my son's flat in Almaty, because he lives there with his wife and the child. We ate seaweed soup (my mother cooked it for every birthday, and she told me "it is for the mother, who had a hard day") and rice cakes with red bean. A Russian neighbour came in the middle with a bottle of champagne, because the Koryo-saram always seem to be having a party.

I tell this because customs travel with us in the strangest ways. In 1937 we lost almost everything, but not the table. Whether the child takes a pen, or a spoon, or the key, I do not mind. She is one year old, and the table is full.