Cheonggyecheon

Cheonggyecheon is associated with the textile factory where Oh Misook and her older sister worked after moving to Seoul. The place marks an early chapter in Oh Misook’s life and connects the family’s rural origins to the industrial work that supported its sons’ education.

Setting and Association

Oh Misook moved to Seoul in the year she turned fifteen, after finishing elementary school and helping with work at home and in the rice paddies. Her sister, two years older, was already employed at a textile factory on Cheonggyecheon. Oh Misook joined her there, making the site a point of entry into the city’s factory labor force for both sisters.

Factory Life and Family Support

The sisters shared a dormitory described as a chicken coop with two other girls. The young factory workers had little sleep, rest, or food, and the work was understood as an ordinary part of employment. Their wages, earned through long hours, went toward educating male siblings, reflecting the family’s belief that sons would bring honor and prosperity.

Oh Misook took pride in supporting her elder brothers, who went on to become a doctor and a police chief; their success helped the youngest brother attend teacher training college. But when the brothers began earning, Oh Misook and her sister understood that their own opportunity for further education would not come. Cheonggyecheon therefore anchors not only the sisters’ work but also the family arrangement that directed the benefits of that work toward their brothers.

Narrative Significance

The brief reference to Cheonggyecheon places Oh Misook’s experience within Korea’s rapid shift from agriculture toward industrial employment. The factory setting makes visible how daughters’ labor could sustain a family while their own prospects remained secondary. It also gives the later family history a concrete beginning: before Oh Misook became a mother, she was a young migrant worker whose earnings helped educate the men in her family.