I recently made my mother a suggestion: Let’s read and discuss Heidegger’s Being and Time together. I have never read this book, and neither has she. I’d always wanted to read Being and Time but it wasn’t in my field and it was infamous for being a difficult text, so I’d been putting it off time after time. But this time, I was resolved. So why read it with my mother? Frankly, I wanted to do a sort of experiment with her.

My mother’s initial response to my suggestion was “What?” She asked, “Heide-who?” “Being what?” and seemed befuddled.

“You’ve almost exclusively read fiction so far. How about something different this time?” I tried to convince her. “Why shouldn’t you read a philosophy text? If you read and discuss the book with me, it’ll be easier to understand and fun. And you’re already familiar with Buddhist books. There are some overlaps between Buddhism and Heidegger. The translated terms and theoretical concepts might be a little confusing, but we should give it a go.”

“Okay, let’s give it a try,” my mother agreed reluctantly.

I am very much looking forward to this little “project” of mine. Of course, mother could throw her arms in the air midway crying, “Enough! This is no fun! It’s too hard!” but there is also the possibility that something very interesting might come of this. In Being and Time, there is a term called “Das Man,” which a friend of mine explained to me as the type of human being who lives as they are told. In other words, these are people who only think about the image of themselves as reflected in the eyes of others. This very concept is what I most look forward to discussing with my mother. I would like to see my mother discuss her existence through her own words, and not through how other people portray her. I will also be able to discuss my dilemmas about existence with her. We could even establish common grounds as two contemplative beings rather than as simply mother and son. Isn’t it enticing?

My mother is your typical Korean mother. I’ve recently learned from Kim Hang of the Yonsei University Institute for Korean Studies that in the past, there was an interesting culture of collecting dishware sets among most middle class Korean mothers. The mothers liked to buy expensive dishware and display it, but never use it, instead hoping to pass it down to their children as wedding gifts. It was conspicuous consumption meeting traditional gift-giving culture. After hearing this, I went home and asked my mother if she collected dishware. She produced some crystal from the cupboards. I asked her why she collected dishes she never used.

“Everyone collected dishware back in the day,” she said. “It was a popular hobby. Married women liked to show off their dishware, and they gave it to their children when they got married. I would have given it to you if you got married, but oh well,” she sighed. “I’ve no use for them now.” This was her thinly veiled exasperation over her unmarried children.

One could say that Mother’s dishware collection is the modern man’s pursuit of petit bonheur. According to Hannah Arendt in The Human Condition, the modern man’s obsession with “small things” signifies the collapse of the public realm:

"Since the decay of their once great and glorious public realm, the French have become masters in the art of being happy among 'small things,' within the space of their own four walls, between chest and bed, table and chair, dog and cat and flowerpot, extending to these things a care and tenderness… This enlargement of the private, the enchantment, as it were, of a whole people, does not make it public, does not constitute a public realm, but, on the contrary, means only that the public realm has almost completely receded, so that greatness has given way to a charm everywhere."

Collecting dishware is a sort of conspicuous consumption practiced by Korean mothers whose identities are confined to the private—more specifically domestic—sphere. But the dishware embodies something more than economic value. Because it is collected and given away as wedding gifts, the mothers’ dishware collection helps maintain and strengthen its place in the family. Korean mothers have reconconfirmed the value of their existence through dishware collections.

Then what about the present day when the figurative dishware collection—the indicator of one’s economic status and family relations—has disappeared? The collecting and bequeathing of dishware served to build family relationships and sense of belonging. In the past, mothers were curators who collected, maintained, and displayed the dishware sets. It wasn’t just dishes. Mothers were able to assert their leadership and authority in the house through household affairs and chores. But in the contemporary Korean family, such activities and intra-familial manifestations of power no longer exist. Everything exists outside the house now. Chores have been outsourced. Children are raised by after-school programs, volunteer activities, vacation camps, family restaurants, PC rooms, and smart phones. Mothers get to spend time with their children in the years before the children start school and in the early elementary school years, but as the children grow older, the mothers’ problems become irrelevant to the lives of their children because the children’s domains are gradually moving to places outside the home. A mother’s worries are practical— which neighborhood would most benefit my children? Which school? Mothers are no longer curators or counselors. They’ve become their children’s consultants.

But this does not mean that mothers today have it easier than mothers of the past. I once asked my mother, “Mom, have you ever been happy?”

“I’ve never thought about it,” she responded. “Think about it. You children and your father were all there was to my life. I didn’t have my own life.” The “small happiness” of activities such as collecting dishware did not afford my mother happiness. My mother, and the majority of mothers in Korea, have never had the luxury of their own, palpable, unique existence.

“What about now?” I asked.

“It’s too late now,” she said. “I’ve given up on things like happiness.”

“That’s not true,” I answered, somewhat taken aback. “That is entirely not true. What about your knitting?” I spotted the half-finished vest and yarn and needles sitting next to my mother and pointed at them as though I had found the Messiah.

“The instructor in my knitting group says I have a talent for it. She says other people take longer and need more guidance, but I get it on the first try. Even the more difficult techniques.”

Mother knits hats, sweaters, and bags and gives them away as gifts to her children and friends. Come to think of it, one of them was sent to my poet friend who lives in New York. Last winter, my friend sent me a hat she had knitted herself. In return, I sent her a hat that my mother knitted. As I asked my mother to knit this hat for me, I told her about my poet friend.

“She’s over 60, but she still writes poems, paints, and devotes her time to helping the poor."

Mother began to knit the hat as she listened. Through my mother’s knitting, the friendship between me and the poet was expanded to include my mother. In this case, is knitting just another “small happiness?” Or is it a stepping stone to a greater happiness that lies beyond the little pleasures?

I will read Being and Time with my mother. Mother and I will engage in a serious debate on what it means to live as a woman and a mother in Korea, and what it means to be a man and a firstborn son in Korea. I will find another side to my mother, and she will find another side to her son. We will become friends. Not just friends who are fond of each other, but friends who converse and challenge each other. I don’t care if this project fails, as long as I am given the opportunity to form a friendship with my mother.