Persimmon Harmony: Our Story
My grandmother always used to ask me to read her letters, claiming her eyesight was failing. As a child, I sometimes found it a chore and would tell her to just get glasses. I only learned the truth after she passed away: the grandmother I respected most in the world was actually illiterate. Ashamed of it, she had used her failing vision as an excuse to hear her grandchild read to her.
Yet, my grandmother was a self-made force of nature. Starting from nothing as a rural market peddler, she built the town’s largest drapery business and later established the region's largest sweet persimmon orchard. Amazingly, she managed her entire business empire using a secret, self-made code to keep her ledgers.
Her lack of education wasn't by choice. Though her father was a rare, licensed architect in early 20th-century Korea, he refused to send her to school simply because she was a woman. To make matters worse, they were separated from him during the Korean War. Left behind in the countryside, my grandmother and her mother had to survive entirely on their own, leaving her to grow up practically as a war orphan.
Grieved by her own stolen childhood, she became deeply invested in the education of my sibling and me, wanting us to study to our hearts' content—the very thing she had yearned for most.
This is why I named this persimmon-based soap "Persimmon Harmony." "Harmony" sounds beautifully similar to Halmoni (the Korean word for grandmother), and it embodies her greatest lesson: to live life "roundly" and in harmony with others. This soap is a tribute to her. To honor her legacy, 1% of all proceeds will be donated to education.