# Chapter 6: The Taste of Spring Happiness and the Quiet War of Whispered Warnings
Hello everyone, it’s me again! How are you all doing? Today I will continue to walk with you and review Chapter 6 of "Honey in The Wound free digital audiobook". This chapter is a beautiful, aching, and powerful pause before the storm. It opens in a sunlit yard with the smell of garlic, ginger, and gochugaru rising like a prayer, and then it carries us into a town where colonial soldiers march, secrets are traded like rice cakes, and one mother’s courage becomes a quiet rebellion. So settle in, take a deep breath, and let’s step into Cheongju, Chōsen, in the Empire of Japan, 1931.
The chapter begins with Young-Ja sitting beside her mother, Jung-Soon, her small hands buried deep in a clay bowl. She is mixing buchu chives from their own garden into a piquant swirl of gochugaru, ginger, and garlic. With the tenderness of a child who has learned love through food, Young-Ja pinches a few marinade-steeped blades of buchu and raises them to her mother’s lips. Jung-Soon tastes them, smiles, and pretends to nibble at her daughter’s red-tinged fingers.
“You always know exactly how to raise my spirits,” Jung-Soon says, tapping her youngest child on the nose. “The perfect taste of spring happiness.”
Young-Ja grins, revealing a gummy gap where a new tooth is starting to crest. She calls to her older sister, buchu-stained fingers extended, eager to see her joy spread to yet another person. This is who Young-Ja has always been. Since the first time she popped a berry into her brother’s mouth and watched delight bloom on his face, she has taken pleasure from feeding others. It began with small, foraged gifts—fruits, sometimes an extra sweet from the market that she yielded to her siblings. When found fruits were not enough, she taught herself to transform them: drying, preserving, juicing. She presented these little embellishments to everyone with pride. Once Jung-Soon permitted Young-Ja to use a knife and tend to the gamasot, she watched over the fire every day and developed a fine intuition for cooking that far exceeded her parents’ knowledge. Her child hands grew deft, sensing the exact weight of salt to sprinkle in, or the right combination of oil and heat to draw out the flavor of garden vegetables—all to thrill her family’s palates. Her fingertips imbued her food with an exuberance that nourished her family every day. Young-Ja, in turn, grew plump on the satisfaction she alone could render.
“Can we go to the market again today?” Young-Sook asks, an errant gochugaru flake on her shining lips. “I want to see the cows and buy more candies—Young-Ho already ate all the sweets from yesterday.”
“Promise you’ll be back in time for dinner. I’m making something special tonight,” says Young-Ja.
Jung-Soon smiles at her daughters. “No, my sweets, there will be no market for us today. We have guests coming in the afternoon. Don’t forget to make extra buchu kimchi for them, too, Young-Ja. They could all use a bit of your happiness today.”
Young-Ja scrunches her nose in a proud smile as she continues her hand-mixing. Jung-Soon sets down her knife and wipes her hands on a damp cloth before reaching over to Young-Sook and pulling her into her arms. She kisses her giggling eldest on the forehead and suggests she practice calligraphy with the new paper and ink they bought in town. Young-Sook kicks off her shoes and goes inside to set up her writing tools. Jung-Soon drinks in the scene of her three children busy with their own endeavors, free of the shame and confinement she had once known. She is proud of the little domain she has built with Geum-Jin to shield their family from the country’s ongoing turmoil. Her children will have their entire lives to confront a world that seeks to subjugate them; Jung-Soon wishes at least to preserve a sense of dignity in their youth.
Geum-Jin, the father, has taught the children everything he learned of the natural world, bearing the knowledge passed down to him by his own parents. Once, after instructing Young-Sook not to fear the noble spider, he was delighted to find all three of his children urging spiders to spin homes near theirs so that summer bugs would stop pestering them in their sleep. When Young-Ho found eggs in an abandoned quail’s nest, he requested his father’s help to incubate them, later recruiting his sisters to set the hatched birds free in the forest. And little Young-Ja liked to squat with her father and siblings in the family garden, chattering about whose vegetables might grow best despite knowing it would be hers every time.
Jung-Soon, in turn, taught the children what she had schemed to learn of the human world at their age—hiding in the wardrobe during her brother’s private lessons and reading pilfered books by candlelight. The money her father complained about having wasted on her brother had paid out in her stolen mastery of literature, history, and mathematics, all of which she now passed on openly to her children in daily tailored lessons. Young-Sook was quick to absorb all subjects but showed a particular passion for brushwork. Young-Ho struggled with his sums but loved to discuss the meanings of the fables they studied. Young-Ja showed no strong preference and seemed content to engage in any activity by her mother’s side. The desire to protect this life—the fruits of the attentive parenting she had never received—made Jung-Soon all the more eager to see her guests that afternoon.
At the market the day prior, Jung-Soon handed the rice cake shop granny a few branches of forsythia to hang over the entrance of her store. To passersby and customers, the yellow blossoms were a welcoming sign of spring freshness. To a select few of Cheongju’s working women, they signaled an invitation to tea in Jung-Soon’s mountain home in one day’s time. No one paid much mind to the odd pairs of women who walked up the forest trail outside of town. If they did, the women would appear to be gossiping wives out to forage for herbs in the woods. But their conversations were not the casual prattle one might overhear at the market. These women’s tongues bore a more defiant intent.
Teatime was inspired when Jung-Soon first returned to the Cheongju central market after Young-Ja’s birth nearly a decade ago. For each of the three years she welcomed her children into the world, Jung-Soon had not left her new mountainside home. Geum-Jin insisted on handling all supply runs into town, sparing his nursing wife any need to make the two-hour journey herself. Geum-Jin strove to keep Jung-Soon wanting for nothing. So when she declared her wish to enjoy time to herself for a long-overdue trip into town, he just as eagerly took all three children into his arms and sent her off without a worry.
Jung-Soon descended the mountain at a rapid clip, buoyed by thoughts of Cheongju’s vibrant market. Although she wished to visit all her favorite vendors, she would stop by the book trader first to browse at her leisure, unburdened by the weight of any other purchase. But Jung-Soon’s tread slowed as she crossed the threshold into town. Strokes of kanji and hiragana swept across storefronts that were no longer manned by familiar faces. The rhythmic cadence of Japanese drowned out the passing whispers of Korean, while no street was left free of a stony face in uniform. The book trader she had long relied on to learn about the world now offered only a modest collection of government-approved Japanese-language books. Her chest tightened at the many townspeople shushing through the market with downcast eyes, seemingly wary of being perceived. Jung-Soon scanned the street for something that could help her regain her bearings. A young soldier shifted his weight from foot to foot at the market’s main entrance.
“Excuse me, sir, I’m terribly sorry for the intrusion, but I seem to have lost my way. Could you please tell me how to get to the railway station?” Jung-Soon asked, layering her voice with honey.
The young man softened at Jung-Soon’s unaccented Japanese, making himself amenable to what looked to be a finely dressed, wealthy woman. Likely the wife of some official visiting from Japan. He politely set his eyes on hers, trying not to look at the burn scar splotched across her face.
“I only just got here last night, so I don’t know these streets well myself. But I think if you turn right at the next intersection and keep walking, you should be able to see it down the road. I can accompany you, if you’d like.”
“Oh, thank you kindly, but no, I couldn’t trouble you so.” Jung-Soon flashed an innocent smile at the soldier. “You said you arrived last night? What brings you to town?”
The soldier smiled back, glad to break the boredom of his post. “A large group of us were sent here to seize the textile factory. They needed men to help arrest all the workers.”
“Arrest all of them?” Jung-Soon willed steadiness into her voice, forcing a tone of casual curiosity. “What have they done?”
“The official line is criminal dissent. But it’s mostly to scare the Chōsenjin in this town into submission.”
“That’s... quite the undertaking. What will you do with the arrested workers?”
“Some we’ll execute as an example, some we’ll send to labor overseas. We’ll strike tomorrow morning.”
“Ah. Well, you must be quite busy then, so I’ll be on my way. Thank you for your assistance.” Jung-Soon bowed and slipped back into the crowd before the soldier could realize his tongue had not loosened of his own volition.
Jung-Soon rushed down the street with no destination in mind, only the instinct to flee. The urgency of what she had learned caught at her throat. What could she do? Was it her place to get involved? Where could she go with this knowledge? If a single soldier she had randomly selected on the street revealed such a hand, what would the many others reveal? Part of her wished to flee town and gather her babies to her chest in the refuge of the mountain forest, far from the concerns of this world. But her gait slowed as she wrested command of her breathing. Jung-Soon knew she could not leave until she passed on what she had learned.
To her right was a small shop where an old woman hunched over to steam a new batch of rice cakes, somehow not yet run out of business despite the rice shortages under Japanese rule. Jung-Soon stepped into the shop and asked the woman for the price of her treats. When she leaned over to pay and take the warm tteok into her hands, she whispered into the old granny’s ear. “If you know anyone who works at the textile factory, please tell them not to go into work tomorrow. Something terrible will happen if they do.”
Jung-Soon left grimaces in her wake as she stooped down to whisper into the gnarled ears of the other working women across the market. As each purchase added to her load, she passed on her heavy words. She made her rounds of the stalls and shops until she could carry no more. Arms straining, she hastened home to her family’s embrace, wondering if her words had taken root.
When Jung-Soon returned to the market the following week, she received an additional scoop of millet from the grain seller, an extra stretch of hemp fabric from the tailor, the freshest cuts from the butcher. The rice cake shop granny refused her money and sent her along with a steaming batch of songpyeon rice cakes, one for each of the fathers, brothers, and sons Jung-Soon’s warning had spared. She tried to decline these gifts—business was hard enough in those days—but the vendors would not take back what they had given. They asked her to pay instead with whatever else of value her singular voice could extract.
Jung-Soon took to chatting up unsuspecting soldiers throughout Cheongju, though never the same one twice lest they recognize her distinct burn scar or her designs. While the market women expanded their web of whispers to disperse Jung-Soon’s warnings, they were not content to sit idle, waiting for the next tip. Like so many across the country worn down by the subjugation of foreign rule, these women did what they could to engage in their own acts of resistance. With Jung-Soon’s help, they gave decoy tips to soldiers who were sniffing around too close to a dissident group. They reallocated food to families that had been forced to surrender their harvest. They sewed writings on Korean liberation into the lining of podaegi baby wraps—the authorities would never suspect old ladies carrying their grandchildren to be distributors of anti-Japanese literature. When it became too risky to conduct such affairs in town, Jung-Soon led the women into her mountain forest for tea. For years they schemed to help their neighbors and protect their families, evading the notice of the police. For years they supported one another through a thousand such little acts, quashing the fears that would have paralyzed them in isolation.
While they took very seriously their duties to their community, the women also looked forward to their congregations simply for the pleasure of one another’s company. Their camaraderie brought out in them certain qualities they had not always recognized within themselves—the women were delighted to discover their own daring. The oldest among them, the rice cake shop granny, once mixed dog droppings into her specialty red bean rice cakes and sent them to the Cheongju police chief as tribute.
“If I’m honest, I was so nervous at being caught I shed a layer of skin just wringing my hands,” she said. “But then that son of a bitch came to my shop and demanded that I prepare the same rice cakes for him again. So I make sure to deliver the exact recipe every Monday morning to the station.”
Jung-Soon laughed so hard at this story that she tumbled back into a screen door and broke its thin wooden panes. Their capacity to experience joy, no matter how fleeting, was a sign of the inextinguishable spirit of their people. Something they swore would never be taken from them.
Then the chapter shifts to Cheongju, Chōsen, Empire of Japan, 1931. The day after the forsythia hung, the women assemble in Jung-Soon’s home to discuss the latest spike in police home raids.
“It’s just like what happened after the student protests in Gwangju a few years ago,” says the vegetable farmer. “Soldiers are barging into homes without any warning. They’re hitting multiple houses a night.”
“They nabbed the fisherman just the other day. The one who owns multiple boats,” says the tofu vendor. “You remember Pak Chul-Soo.”
“Oh no, poor Mrs. Pak. She has a fifth child on the way... We’ll have to send her some extra barley, maybe help look after her youngest.”
“Jung-Soon-ssi, can’t you just go ask and figure out who’s next?” the seamstress pleads. “Some of my neighbors have stopped leaving their homes to avoid getting noticed. I heard they’re taking old ladies and kids too. Even if they have no idea what they’ve done.”
The rice cake shop granny waves her hand to dismiss the thought. “You know we can’t just send Jung-Soon-ssi everywhere. Someone who recognizes her will get suspicious, and then where will we be?”
“I’m afraid I may not be so useful at the moment anyway,” Jung-Soon sighs. “The last few men I spoke with had no idea which homes would be next. These low-level soldiers are going out the minute they get their orders and it’s unclear who’s making the list of families to target. They don’t know enough in advance to pass anything on to me in casual conversation.”
“So maybe we need to get you in front of someone who does know,” says the seamstress.
“No,” the rice cake shop granny interrupts. “She’d draw too much attention if she forced any real secrets from them. We have to stick to small talk. Things...”
And there the chapter leaves us, hanging on that unfinished sentence, with the women staring into the dangerous unknown of what comes next.
As a reader, I was deeply moved by this chapter. It is a masterful blend of tenderness and terror. The opening kitchen scene is so sensory and warm that you can almost taste the buchu, feel the clay bowl, and hear Young-Ja’s proud little laugh. But beneath that warmth, the chapter builds a quiet, relentless tension. Jung-Soon’s transformation from a sheltered mother into a honey-voiced gatherer of secrets is breathtaking. The rice cake shop granny’s dog-dropping tribute is darkly hilarious, and the image of women sewing liberation words into baby wraps is both heartbreaking and triumphant. This chapter reminds us that joy itself can be an act of resistance.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4.9 / 5 Stars
For the next chapter, I predict the women will be forced to take a greater risk. The seamstress’s suggestion—getting Jung-Soon in front of someone who actually knows the raid lists—will not disappear. I think they may try to identify the official or clerk behind the targeting, perhaps by using Jung-Soon’s flawless Japanese and her scarred but elegant appearance to infiltrate a higher circle. But that same scar could become her undoing if someone recognizes her. We may also see the fate of Mrs. Pak and the textile factory workers, and I suspect a raid will strike too close to one of the women’s families. The chapter will likely end on a cliffhanger that forces Jung-Soon to choose between protecting her children and protecting her community.
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