Background: The better, the better?

By Lim Yeong-ae

The grilled mackerel on our dinner table was not welcome. It sat untouched for the entire duration of dinner.

The next morning, I took out the nicest plate from my cupboard and decorated it with lettuce and cherry tomatoes. I placed the reheated fish on it and served it again. Nobody in my family seemed to notice that it was a leftover from the day before, seeing that they ate everything, including the decorative vegetables.

Owing to the tantalizing effect created by the red and green edible ornaments, the previously forlorn mackerel had its day in the sun.

The coral roses on the roadside were full of dust. They struggled to stand whenever a car passed by. They didn't seem to be on the right place. They would have looked gorgeous if they had bloomed at a remote garden. I pitied those roses. No matter how beautiful the flowers were, without a good background, they were completely eclipsed.

So, does this mean it is the better, the better when it comes to background?

Here's the story of a friend of mine:

She is an animal lover and she has been keeping a stray mongrel named "Gapsoon.” A couple of months ago the dog became seriously ill. My good- Samaritan friend paid for an operation that cost an arm and a leg.

While Gapsoon was in the hospital, her family members visited the poor dog's bed, in turn, everyday. Interestingly enough, all Gapsoon's roommates of much higher standing species, looked at her with envy. Her spirits were becoming higher day by day.

After being released from the animal hospital, for some reason, Gapsoon refused to enter her house in the yard. She was so stubborn that my friend eventually let her stay indoors eating and sleeping together just like her own daughter.

However, Gapsoon's luxury life didn't last long. She couldn't adapt her new ``upper-tier” environment and, as time went by, she was becoming a yahoo.

One day, she jumped onto the dining table during family dinner and knocked the kimchi plate onto the floor.

On that night, the dog was evicted to her own house in the yard.

I felt sorry for her dreaming of an upwardly mobile lifestyle without knowing what background was actually most suitable for her.

Come to think of it, a good background is not always good. However great one's background may be, without maintaining enough dignity to suit it, any shortage is transformed into a glaring indignity.

The other day, I saw an eye-sore in the middle of a beautiful light-green forest. It was a black vinyl trap covering a pile of tree branches which had been infected with late blight. To prevent the disease from spreading, they must have cut down the infected trees and covered them with unsightly vinyl. It may not have looked so ugly if it had been placed next to a trash heap around the corner, but against such a lovely background, it appeared just like a fly in ointment.

Recently, stories about a man with one of the best backgrounds in Korea were featured on media outlets for several days. The now-dismissed presidential spokesman molested a young woman hired as his secretary while accompanying the Korean president on her U.S visit.

His noble background was not only a dangerous folding screen which knocked him down, but a lethal weapon destroying the whole of his family.

I saw him being interviewed on TV. I wondered why images of poor Gapsoon in the dog house and the ugly black plastic trap flashed alternately overlapping his haggard face.

The writer is an essayist and professor of JEI University in Incheon. Her email address is annielim31@naver.com.