The Kim family album

On the first Sunday of November we go to the cemetery on the hill above our village, where the Koryo-saram have their own rows, facing east. Nelli brings the food: rice, fruit, a little meat, a bottle, three small cups. I bring a cloth and a brush for the stones.

The custom is old: you bow three times, deeply, to each grave. My mother taught me. For my father I do it slowly, because I never said to him what I wanted. For my grandfather Ivan I do it quickly, because he would not like the fuss. For my mother Aleksandra I do it twice and the third time I just stand there.

Then we eat at the grave, a little, and leave a little for them. The Iradi neighbours bring white ribbons and a small cup of milk to their own graves on those same days, and the two rows, ours and theirs, are separated by one path. Last year a grandmother from the other row gave Nelli a boorsok, and Nelli gave her a piece of rice cake. They did not speak the same language. They did not need to.

I am not sure what I believe. I know that the cloth must be clean and the stone must be seen. My children say: Appa, you do it for yourself. Maybe. A man needs a place where the dead are not an argument.