By Jeongnam Kim
(Former Senior Presidential Secretary for Education·Culture·Society, World Korean News advisor)
Up until 1970s, we Koreans had to prepare wintering by stockpiling at home a few thousands of briquettes, a few tens of heads of Napa cabbage for Kimchi, and a few bags of rice. We could ease sign only after we have these supplies at home, making sure that we would pass the winter season without much hardship. Briquette was the most essential of all things.
Briquette has something to do with our old Ondol, or hot floor, culture. This Ondol culture is a long tradition handed down until now with the nation's history and origin. This culture is an epoch-making in the sense that we can meet the need of heating and cooking. When you cook, your floor is warming up and this finds a solution of your cooking and heating at the same time. This is quite economical.
"A full abs and warm back is a bliss par excellence." This is an expression originated from our Ondol culture. You have the means to make sure you enjoy a warm back in the winter, and cool in the summer. The fireplace is located in the kitchen outside, and that keeps the living room smokeless. Perhaps, I guess that this outdoor kitchen location made it possible for us to maintain our culture as a white-clad people. Anyway, this Ondol culture has a relationship with us that is long and deep inseparable with us.
It was in the 1950s when we started using the briquettes. Before that we had to rely on the fireplace with woods on fire in the kitchen for heating and cooking. The rooms of the house as well as the kitchen was full of smoke from the fireplace. The people could even tell the time of the day when the smoke billows over the roofs. The heat from the smoke even kept the persimmon trees from being frozen during the winter.
In 1885 the America mission attache Faulk wrote, "Seoul is not a heaven. The dark smoke from each of the houses cover the whole town, making it hard to breathe and see." For the fireplace needed woods, the mountains near the village became treeless.
With the introduction of the briquettes, we had hot water all day in the kitchen and we were able to use the fire whenever we need it. The briquette fireplace is now literally a bliss to the housewives. Our fields and mountains started to become green timed with the introduction of the briquettes. However, it also brought us quite a misfortune.
Quite a number of deaths was caused by the briquette gas. More than 700,000 people were poisoned by this gas and of them, about 3,000 people died of the poison annually in the 1960s. We didn't have any treatment for this poison except for the suggested drinking of Kimchi juice. There is a record that in 1974, approximately 190,000 people were poisoned by the briquette gas in Seoul along, some 850 people died of them.
The story of these tragic deaths began to disappear with the introduction of oil and the gas boilers since the mid-1080s. However, even these days, approximately 280,000 households rely on the briquettes and the accidents of poison number 2,000 a year. The briquettes reminds us of the memories of our hardship in the past, but it also make us feel sad because there are still people who are so poor that they have to rely on them even these days, A poem on the briquettes by Ahn Do-hyeon makes us think of many things.
One Piece of Briquette: "There are so many talks about it/ Life is a piece of briquette for not me, but willingly for another person..."
I Ask You: "Do not kick the briquette ash thoughtlessly/ You/ Were you a warm-hearted man even once to somebody else."
