Chuseok still is a headache for couples 추석은 부부들에게 여전히 골칫거리

[김우정]

추석이 오면 부부들에게 다가오는 골칫거리들이 있습니다.
시댁과 처가에 몇일간 머물까? 차례준비는 어떻게할까? 등등...
저는 차례나 제사를 없애면 어떨까 합니다.
돌아가신분들도 자신들을 추억하는 일로 자식들이 힘들어 하는 것을 원하실까요?
 
Chuseok still is a headache for couples
추석은 부부들에게 여전히 골칫거리

By Choi Si-young 최시영 기자
Published : Sept. 15, 2024 - 21:16
Korea Herald
  

A reenactment of a charye scene at the Lotte World Folk Museum on Sept. 16, 2013. (Lee Sang-sub/The Korea Herald) 2013년 9월 16일 롯데월드 민속박물관에서 열린 차례장면 재연 (이상섭/코리아 헤럴드)

The conversation was one of the most jarring moments since her wedding in 2020, recalled Seong, a 35-year-old office worker, who said her exchange last week with her husband, five years older, left her perplexed at first, then indignant as she slowly digested what her husband had alluded to.
이 대화는 2020년 결혼 이후 가장 충격적인 순간 중 하나였다고 35세의 회사원 성모 씨는 지난주 5살 연상의 남편과 주고받은 대화가 처음에는 당황스러웠다가 남편이 암시한 것을 천천히 소화하면서 분노했다고 회상했다.

“He said we should call his parents and ask for their understanding because we would not be staying at their home on Chuseok day, Tuesday, even though we’d be there from Saturday to Monday,” Seong said of the five-day Chuseok break ending Wednesday. The couple failed to book the return train tickets from Daegu to Seoul that would have allowed them to stay with the husband’s parents on Tuesday.
성씨는 수요일로 끝나는 5일간의 추석 연휴에 대해 "토요일부터 월요일까지인데도 화요일인 추석 당일에는 집에 머물지 않으니 부모님께 전화를 걸어 양해를 구해야 한다고 말했다,"고 말했다. 이 부부는 화요일에 남편의 부모님과 함께 지낼 수 있는 대구에서 서울로 돌아오는 기차표를 예약하지 못했다.

"Two nights and three days are enough already,” Seong added.
"이미 2박 3일이면 충분하다,"라고 성 씨는 덧붙였다.

The case of Seong, who insisted on using her surname only, sheds light on the patriarchal tradition where the husband’s parents are given priority. Every year, Korean couples grapple with the stress of visiting parents and the gendered responsibilities that go with it. But now, some couples and families are considering forgoing Chuseok traditions altogether.
성만 밝힌 성씨의 사례는 남편의 부모를 우선시하는 가부장적 전통을 조명한다. 매년 한국 부부들은 부모를 방문하는 스트레스와 그에 따른 성별 책임으로 어려움을 겪고 있다. 하지만 이제 일부 부부와 가족은 추석 전통을 완전히 포기하는 것을 고려하고 있다.

Shifting perceptions
인식 변화
 
What vexed Seong more was how her husband, a millennial just like her, cast her as unreasonable for not seeing a reason to ask for his parents’ understanding. He believed their absence should be acknowledged as it caused an unwarranted change to his family’s Chuseok tradition -- something the husband says needs to be carried on because “it is a well-established norm that has been around for a long time.”
성 씨를 더욱 화나게 한 것은 성 씨와 같은 밀레니얼 세대인 남편이 부모님의 이해를 구할 이유를 보지 못한 것에 대해 불합리한 태도를 취했다는 점이다. 성 씨는 "오랫동안 이어져 온 잘 정립된 규범이기 때문에" 가족의 추석 전통에 부당한 변화를 초래한 만큼 이들의 부재를 인정해야 한다고 생각했다.

“The better part of millennials and Generation Z wouldn’t agree with that,” Seong said, referring to the population generally defined as those born between 1980 and 2012. Seong argued the younger population identifies itself as less bound by Chuseok traditions, especially when it comes to holding “charye” or ancestral rites conducted on Lunar New Year’s Day and Chuseok.
성씨는 일반적으로 1980년에서 2012년 사이에 태어난 사람들로 정의되는 인구를 언급하며 "밀레니얼 세대와 Z세대의 대부분은 이에 동의하지 않을 것"이라고 말했다. 성씨는 특히 설날과 추석에 '차례'나 제사를 지내는 데 있어 젊은 층은 추석 전통에 덜 얽매여 있다고 주장했다.

Seong isn’t entirely wrong.
성씨의 말이 완전히 틀린 것은 아니다.

In a 2022 report by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, roughly 60 percent of people aged 20 to 39 approved of ending charye. The figure has since stayed at similar levels.
여성가족부의 2022년 보고서에 따르면 20~39세 인구의 약 60%가 차례 종료에 찬성했다. 이후 이 수치는 비슷한 수준을 유지하고 있다.

Women, especially, decry the burden of preparing for charye.
특히 여성들은 채리 준비에 대한 부담감을 비난하고 있다.

A charye table. (Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation) 차례상 (한국 농수산식품유통공사)

Married in late 2017, a banker surnamed Kim, who observed charye every Chuseok until 2022 at his parents’ home in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province, still vividly recalls his same-age 36-year-old wife shedding tears on the way back to Seoul, where the couple lives.
2017년 말 결혼한 은행원 김모 씨는 2022년까지 매년 추석마다 경북 구미에 있는 부모님 집에서 채례를 지냈지만 부부가 사는 서울로 돌아오는 길에 눈물을 흘리던 같은 나이의 36세 아내의 모습이 생생히 떠오른다.

“She felt alone in having to deal with the peer pressure that forced her to commit herself to hourslong charye preparations,” Kim said. “She had expected me to intervene but I just couldn’t -- at least not in the way she had hoped,” Kim added, saying he could not just swoop in when family elders all took for granted having the daughter-in-law organize the family ancestral rites.
"그녀는 몇 시간 동안의 차례준비에 전념해야 하는 동료의 압박에 대처해야 하는 외로움을 느꼈다,"라고 김 씨는 말했다. "그녀는 네가 개입하기를 기대했지만 적어도 그녀가 원했던 방식으로는 그럴 수 없었다,"라고 말하며 가족 어른들이 모두 며느리에게 가족 제사를 주관하는 것을 당연하게 여겼을 때 그냥 끼어들 수는 없었다고 덧붙였다.

For his family, Chuseok charye was discontinued last year when Kim’s grandmother passed away and the family consensus on doing away with big charye gatherings quickly gained momentum. Kim’s father could not resist the changing tide. The father and the couple now eat out on Chuseok -- joined by no other elders or relatives than Kim’s brother.
그의 가족에게 추석 차례상은 작년에 김씨의 할머니가 돌아가시고 큰 차례상 모임을 없애자는 가족들의 공감대가 빠르게 형성되면서 중단되었다. 김씨의 아버지는 변화하는 흐름을 거부할 수 없었다. 아버지와 부부는 이제 김씨의 오빠 외에는 다른 노인이나 친척이 없는 추석에 외식을 하게 되었다.

Accelerating change
가속되는 변화

While perceptions of Chuseok traditions are shifting fast, the reality isn’t.
추석 전통에 대한 인식은 빠르게 변화하고 있지만 현실은 그렇지 않다.

Sociology professor Kwon Soo-hyun of the Jinju-based Gyeongsang National University in South Gyeongsang Province singled out teaching gender equality to children as young as elementary school students as a first step.
경남 진주 소재 경상대학교 권수현 사회학과 교수는 초등학생 이하 어린이에게 성 평등을 가르치는 것을 첫걸음으로 꼽았다.

A former president of Korea Women’s Political Solidarity, Kwon said what were once accepted as norms aren’t always right because they might not survive changing times. Education opens up people to that idea, a notion of going with change and not going against it, according to Kwon.
한국여성정치연대 회장 출신인 권 대표는 한때 규범으로 받아들여졌던 것이 변화하는 시대에서 살아남지 못할 수 있기 때문에 항상 옳은 것은 아니라고 말했다. 권 대표에 따르면 교육은 사람들에게 변화를 추구하고 반대하지 않는다는 개념인 그 생각을 열어준다.

Travelers at Seoul Station on Friday. (Yonhap) 금요일 서울역 여행객들 (연합)

“Narrowing the gap between what is and what should be requires work on multiple fronts,” said Shin Kyung-ah, a sociology professor at Hallym University in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province.
신경아 강원도 춘천 한림대학교 사회학과 교수는 "무엇이 무엇이고 무엇이 되어야 하는가의 간극을 좁히려면 여러 방면에서 노력해야 한다"고 말했다.

Shin pointed to fostering public discourse where both men and women of all age groups can freely weigh in on rendering Chuseok traditions less lopsided and more sustainable.
신 대표는 모든 연령대의 남성과 여성이 추석 전통을 덜 편향적이고 지속 가능하게 만드는 데 자유롭게 힘을 쏟을 수 있는 공개 담론을 육성할 것을 지적했다.

News outlets can facilitate such discourse, according to Shin.
신 대표에 따르면 뉴스 매체는 이러한 담론을 촉진할 수 있다고 한다. 
“Aren’t we all too tired of the same old Chuseok stories making headlines with saucy anecdotes that revisit gender discrimination? We need to move on to the solution part. Stories with insight would be a boost,” Shin said.
신 대표는 "성차별을 재조명하는 건방진 일화로 헤드라인을 장식하는 옛 추석 이야기가 너무 지겹지 않나? 솔루션 부분으로 넘어가야 한다. 통찰력 있는 이야기가 힘이 될 것,"이라고 말했다.

“Education is a good start. The key is to bring out the issue in the open and really talk about it,” she said.
"교육은 좋은 시작입니다. 핵심은 이 문제를 공개적으로 제기하고 실제로 이야기하는 것이다."라고 그녀는 말했다.

#Chuseok추석 #Ancestralrites제사 #Patriarchaltradition가부장적전통 #Genderequality성평등 #Millennials밀레니얼세대 #Charye차례 #Norms규범 #Familyelders가족어른들 #Publicdiscourse공개담론 #Sociologyprofessor사회학교수