Lessons from Great Halmoni

from a conversation with my umma [week 21 of publishing every friday in 2026]

While I’m in the US visiting my parents, I gave myself a project, to write about my ancestors. Over gim-bap (김밥), my mom told me about her “chin-Halmoni (친할머니) ,” her dad’s mom, my Great Halmoni.

Great Halmoni was born in Pyongyang, which is now in North Korea. My mom was born in Seoul. I knew that my mom immigrated to the US when she was 8, but I didn’t realise Great Halmoni moved a couple years before her. “She beat us there!” My mom said. She clarified that while many families immigrated for business opportunities, they immigrated for education. I thought about my family leaving Korea because of the DMZ conflict, the country split in two in 1945 by the Soviet Union and the United States. But at the time, they chose a more empowered narrative: not leaving a war-ridden country, but seeking something better elsewhere.

My mom says Great Halmoni was “the coolest lady.” She admired her cooking and wanted to learn from her. But Great Halmoni was dismissive of her own cooking. She said, “if you can read you can cook. If you can read you can do anything.”

I did not know how much my Great Halmoni valued reading but it does validate what I have always known about myself: that I am a reader. This must be her influence. Perhaps because of her, my mom read to me every day when I was little. I always considered myself lucky to immigrate by choice, because of books. Now I understand that my Great Halmoni believed herself to have that same privilege. Much of what I know about my Korean ancestry comes from reading books. That can feel impersonal, unless I think of it as following Great Halmoni’s advice to read.

Great Halmoni was not only wise, but deeply practical. She survived the wars. She lost her husband earlier in life, and raised nine children by herself. Two of her children did not live very long. She knew that education mattered, for navigating the world they were in.

My Halmoni - my mom’s mom, or “umma” (엄마) - has a way with words. She can talk her way out of anything, even at age 89, including any kind of diagnosis that could help with her fading memory. “I wish she would just say ‘I don’t know’ instead of making something up,” my mom said, “That’s what chin-Halmoni would do.”

Later in life, Great Halmoni moved to Oregon to live with my mom’s Aunt Mary, and would pick roots by the mountains. Great Halmoni would spend hours peeling acorns. She would do certain things at certain phases of the moon.

These are the two lessons I take from Great Halmoni:

1. “If you can read you can do anything.” Read, educate yourself, and always seek to learn more.

2. “I don’t know.” Know when you don’t know, and own this with humility and grace. Grant yourself the relief of not needing to know.

Thank you to my mom, 성림(Sunglim), for sharing these stories and allowing me to publish them for you.

❤️ Xandra
the witch 🪄

my current offerings for you:

• It’s the Sagittarius Full Moon this weekend. Here is a fun workbook for you to time travel with the explorer energy:

• My moon planner, Lunar Logbook is available on Etsy. Making this planner is how I started to learn about Great Halmoni, who lived by the moon. Right now it’s free shipping in the US & UK.

• The Art Life podcast is back with monthly episodes! Subscribe to The Art Life on Substack, or listen wherever you find podcasts. Here is the latest episode:

  Survivor