Ode to strong Korean mothers

This photo taken in 1988 by Jung Young-shin shows a woman walks down an unpaved road all the way to open-air market in Gure, South Jeolla Province, held every five days to buy daily necessities or to sell her agricultural products to earn a meager living. Courtesy of Noonbit Publishing

Jung Young-shin pays tribute to female farmers in her latest photo book, 'Homeland Mothers,' calling the publication long overdue

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Photographer Jung Young-shin / Courtesy of Jung Young-shin

Jung Young-shin's latest photo book, "Homeland Mothers," takes readers back to rural and underdeveloped scenes of Korea in the late 1980s.

Elderly female farmers with tanned faces living rustic, seemingly primitive lives are captured in the poetic black and white photographs taken mostly in 1987 and 1988.

Although they were taken only some three decades ago when parts of Korea were developed enough to host the 1988 Summer Olympics, farmers in rural areas still lived lives that seemed to be far from civilization.

Using cows, they plowed their paddies before planting rice. Oil-based machines had yet to be fully utilized in rice production. In one photo, an elderly farmer tries to straighten her back, taking a break while planting rice seedlings in her paddy. Another photo shows a female farmer strolling in a field that seems to be in the middle of nowhere as a dog trails behind her.

Other photos show farmers walking for long hours down windy, unpaved roads all the way to open-air markets held every five days to buy daily necessities or to sell their agricultural products to earn a meager living. The atmosphere of the market is resilient. In the heart-warming photos, an elderly women chat with each other, another haggling over the prices of vegetables, while some wait for buses.

Jung's 1988 photo taken in Damyang, South Jeolla Province / Courtesy of Noonbit Publishing

"This book is long overdue," Jung told The Korea Times. "I intended to publish it much earlier because I wanted to show it to the 'moms' who posed for my photographs, to recognize their hard work and sacrifices for their families. But I was unable to do so, due to various reasons."

Jung, 63, calls the elderly women in her photographs, "moms," partly because of the warmth they bestowed upon her during her photo projects and partly because they are her mother's age.

"I began to take photos of farmers and farmers' markets in the 1980s, and at that time, such markets were very common all across the country," she said. "Some of the moms grabbed me by my arms to take me to their homes and recommended trees and other scenery they felt were more suitable for photo projects, laughing at me for taking such boring pictures as mundane farmers' markets. They treated me with meals they prepared and we would chat for several hours."

The local farmers' hospitality became an unforgettable experience for her. The photographer said that she became emotional while sorting through the photos she took three decades ago for the book project.

"I'm a country girl and feel at home whenever I explore small rural towns and counties and meet the elderly farmers who work on their farms to support their families and children," she said, explaining how she became attached to farmers' markets and the people there.

Her photo book, "Homeland Mothers," is her tribute to the responsible, sacrificing Korean mothers who have lived selfless lives and had to overcome tremendous odds to feed their children and send them to school.

Farmers selling products in the open market in Geumsan, South Chungcheong Province. Courtesy of Noonbit Publishing

Jung's three decades of work in farmers' markets led her to make an interesting discovery among female farmers nowadays, compared to their counterparts in the 1980s: farmers today seem to care more about their fashion and hair styles than their counterparts did in the 1980s.

"In the 1980s, when I first visited farmers' markets for my photo project, the female farmers selling crops and vegetables they grew on their farmlands used to have almost the same hairstyle," she said. "They all had long hair that was tied up with a 'binyeo' (a traditional, long hair pin that Korean women have used since pre-modern days). But these days I meet many 'moms' who have their own hairstyles and colorful fashion. I think that this is from the impact of television on the way of life in rural areas, as moms there try to emulate the trendy fashion and hairstyles they see on TV."

The female farmers of the 1980s are in many ways icons of sacrifice and gender inequality.

Left unable to access much formal schooling in a patriarchal society where there was a preference for sons, they were taught to sacrifice themselves for their children and be obedient to their husbands. Such pervasive gender discrimination taught female farmers to be stoic. Some of them belatedly became aware of the importance of self-fulfillment, and regret their missed educational opportunities.

One farmer was quoted by Jung as saying that she could have earned a Ph.D. in her area of specialization if she had been able to invest the same amount of energy and time that she has put into her farm.

Divided into the three parts of mothers working on farms, doing household chores and going to farmers' markets, Jung's photography presents strong Korean women who survived harsh rural lives.

"Homeland Mothers" is Jung's ninth photo book since her debut as a photographer in 2002 with her photo book, "Tales of Rural Markets." She has captured on camera about 600 farmers' markets all across the country and held 10 exhibitions of her photographs so far.

Jung's 1988 photo taken in Gure, South Jeolla Province / Courtesy of Noonbit Publishing