Oh Misook’s Work and Economic Independence

This thread traces how Oh Misook turns constrained opportunities into the family’s material security while carrying the costs of labor that others routinely overlook.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

Factory Girlhood

Factory Girlhood Work Before Opportunity After finishing elementary school, Oh Misook moved from the countryside to Seoul and joined her older sister at a textile factory near Cheonggyecheon. She lived in a crowded dormitory with other young workers and endured heat, dust, exhausting hours, and meager pay. Wages for Her Brothers Much of the sisters’ earnings went toward educating their male siblings. Oh Misook believed supporting her brothers was worthwhile, but the arrangement also narrowed her own prospects: the family invested in the sons’ futures while the daughters’ ambitions waited. She later studied at a company-affiliated school while continuing to work, then prepared independently for a high-school certificate. Her persistence brought educational credentials, but not the career opportunity her academic ability might otherwise have earned.

A Teacher’s Abandoned Dream

A Teacher’s Abandoned Dream A Confession at Home While reading a teacher’s comment on Kim Jiyoung’s school journal, Oh Misook admitted that she had once wanted to become a teacher. She said she had earned the best grades among her siblings, yet worked to send her brothers to school instead of pursuing further education herself. A Repeated Sacrifice When Kim Jiyoung asked why her mother did not become a teacher now, Oh Misook answered that she had to work to educate her own children. The repetition made her sacrifice visible across generations: first she supported her brothers, then her children. Kim Jiyoung understood that her mother’s life had been shaped by obligations presented as ordinary family duty. Oh Misook’s candid answer was not an abstract complaint; it carried regret about the possibilities she had put aside.

The Home Hairdresser

The Home Hairdresser A New Skill Oh Misook took on piecework at home while raising three children and caring for an elderly mother-in-law. When her husband saw the children among the debris and fumes of her weather-strip work, she stopped taking that contract, though she had been its fastest worker. A delivery driver suggested that she had a talent for crafts. Rather than follow that suggestion literally, Oh Misook enrolled in hairdressing lessons and began making inexpensive house calls around the neighborhood. She learned practical techniques without pursuing a license. A Local Business Her skill and instinct for serving customers helped the work spread. She offered trims alongside perms and used product knowledge to distinguish her service from the neighborhood salon. The enterprise turned domestic proximity and social trust into income, demonstrating how she made opportunity where formal routes had been limited.

The Failed Businesses

The Failed Businesses A Risky Second Act When public-sector restructuring put Oh Misook’s husband’s job under pressure, he eventually chose early retirement. He wanted to invest his severance in an import-export venture, but Oh Misook opposed risking the family’s savings and threatened to divorce him if he went ahead. She persuaded him toward opening a business and sold an investment apartment to help purchase a commercial unit. Their first ventures—a chicken-stew shop, a fried-chicken bar, and a franchise bakery—each struggled or closed. The effort strained the family while the children’s education remained a continuing expense. Holding the Family Together Oh Misook’s decisions did not eliminate financial uncertainty. Instead, she repeatedly assessed what the household could risk, while her husband tried different businesses and endured the consequences. Their disagreements were serious, but her practical judgment remained central to the family’s survival.

The Porridge Shop and Apartment

The Porridge Shop and Apartment A Better Business Fit Oh Misook learned that a pediatric hospital would open across from the family’s commercial property. She persuaded her husband to try a porridge franchise, and the hospital’s visitors and nearby apartment residents became a steady source of customers. The shop succeeded where earlier ventures had not. Its income supported the household and helped pay for the children’s needs, while Oh Misook’s knowledge of the neighborhood and her willingness to change direction proved decisive. Claiming Her Share She had also bought a large apartment in the nearby complex and paid down its mortgage over several years. When the family moved there, her husband celebrated their success, but she reminded him that she had proposed the porridge shop and purchased the apartment. Her joking claim that the family’s success was mostly her work carried a serious point: the household’s apparent security rested on her judgment and labor as well as his. Her achievement did not erase the sacrifices that had preceded it, but it made her contribution harder to dismiss.

At age fifteen, before her marriage

During Kim Jiyoung’s elementary-school years

When Oh Misook was thirty-five

After the 1997 Korean financial crisis, as the children approached adulthood

In Kim Jiyoung’s early adulthood