Chapter 8 daughter of the president

Living in Cheong Wa Dae is a very special thing because it is not an experience for everyone.Perhaps as the president's daughter, I can enjoy some preferential treatment to some extent, but for me, who was still young at that time, life at Cheong Wa Dae was not all good.Life there is full of taboos. Since childhood, my mother has warned us: "Don't show off what you have to others." In that difficult period of life, the identity of the president's daughter was a dangerous business card. If we don't pay attention, it is easy for us to have a sense of privilege. One day when I was studying at Sacred Heart Girls’ High School, some good friends came to the Blue House. After seeing the living room and my room, a friend said with a disappointed face: “What, it’s no different from my house, I thought it would be furnished. Like a princess' room."

Whenever it’s lunch time, my friends would think that my bento dishes should be different, and would often sneak a peek at my bento, but it’s actually the same as my classmates.Multigrain rice mixed with barley, egg rolls, honey black beans, radish kimchi, that’s all. When I entered the school, Sacred Heart Girls' High School was run by nuns, and there was a student dormitory in the school.My mother thought that I needed group dormitory experience, so I left Cheong Wa Dae and lived with my classmates in the school dormitory for a year. I was very happy at that time. At that time, several people slept in the same room, and each bed was separated by curtains. Occasionally, we would secretly eat supper and chat without telling the nuns, and we would pass romance novels to each other. Open one eye and close one eye.

When I was in the second grade, the school decided to abolish the dormitory in order to expand the size of the classroom, so I moved back to Cheong Wa Dae and lived a life of taking the tram to school. This incident spread among the tram conductors. Some people began to pay attention to every student of Sacred Heart Girls High School. It was very interesting to guess who was the president's daughter. One day, the bus captain saw the school badge of Sacred Heart Girls’ High School on my body, and leaned over and asked, “I heard that your school has the president’s daughter?”

"yes." "I heard that she always takes the tram to and from school. Is that true?" "Seems." "Is she pretty?" "I don't know." "How about your homework?" "That sounds good." "How tall is she?" "It should be about the same as me." I replied pretending to be ignorant, secretly nervous in my heart, afraid that someone would recognize me. When I went home for dinner that day, I mentioned what happened to me when I went to school that morning, and everyone laughed.Although my father and mother were laughing, I could tell from their eyes that they were glad that no one recognized me, and my mother even praised my witty response.

Spring, summer, autumn, winter... The seasons change, and the days of living in Cheong Wa Dae pass day by day.After moving to Cheong Wa Dae, the biggest regret of the family is that they cannot often eat the dishes cooked by their mother.In order to be a competent hostess of the Cheong Wa Dae, the mother has almost the same workload as her father, and she is very busy every day. People in the Cheong Wa Dae even nicknamed her "Shenwengu" because she would personally check every letter , and will quietly visit and inspect everywhere. Mother has to play several roles at the same time, and is also in charge of the Blue House menu, so the time for cooking by herself is relatively reduced.But as long as it is a holiday when the whole family gets together, she will still cook dinner herself.Cooking wormwood soup or shepherd's purse soup in spring, and making cold noodles in summer, and helping us prepare snacks every night is also one of the important tasks of my mother.When I read late into the night, she would squeeze a cup of tomato juice herself or prepare one or two rice cakes with chrysanthemum tea and other traditional refreshments for me.

My father was always proud of my mother's cooking skills in Xindangdong.When guests came to visit, my mother would go to the seafood market to buy fresh fish and cut the sashimi herself. She would also make pork blood sausage or share medicine and food with the neighbors.Those who have eaten the food prepared by their mother will be full of praise and unforgettable.Whenever my mother served her handmade dumpling hot pot for dinner, my father would eat it with gusto, which made her very happy. Because my mother was so busy that she couldn't even eat well, no one in the family would clamor for my mother to cook delicious dishes for us every day like before.

"Half of the husband's mistakes are the wife's responsibility." As the hostess of the Blue House, the mother has a very strong sense of mission.I still remember that one day, a secretary who accompanied my mother on an overseas tour said: "When visiting overseas, sometimes you have to stand for a whole day and work until late to return to the dormitory. Your feet will be very swollen. At that time, our country The elasticity of domestic leather shoes is not so good, and it is very troublesome to wear hard leather shoes the next day. One day, the wife of the president’s feet were very swollen. I asked to find a pair of comfortable leather shoes for her, but she refused She said: 'What if word spreads that the quality of Korean-made leather shoes is not good?' Just relying on ice compresses every night to eliminate swollen feet, she never showed her hard work."

My mother never shopped abroad, and my father and mother never sent us any gifts when they came back from foreign tours.Mother's luggage is at most a few extra spoons. Her only hobby is to collect spoons from all over the world. These spoons have also become excellent exhibits in the Blue House.Mother considers that her every move will affect the image of the country, so she manages herself quite strictly. In high school, my mother became my ideal image of a woman.If her words and deeds are not consistent with the content of education, I will feel very confused when I spent my adolescence in Cheong Wa Dae.At that time, many people paid attention to the behavior of our family.Living under various rules and being watched by others at any time is a suffocating thing after all. The "President's Daughter" may be a princess in the eyes of others, but to the person concerned, it may also be a prison.

My mother was not affected by the surrounding environment, and tried her best to let us grow up in an ordinary environment. Thanks to her education method, I was able to safely pass through my adolescence, which was easy to wander.

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