Ancestral rites for Chu-seok, the Korean mid-autumn festival

It feels like it will take forever to prepare all the food for the cha-rae, the memorial ceremony. My grandmother, my mother and my aunt have been making food since the crack of dawn even though they were making food last night: frying fish fillets on skewers, boiling and spicing vegetables, peeling the tops off of apples the size of a small child's head. The house is filled with the smell of cooked meat and sesame oil. My cousins, my sisters and I are not allowed into the kitchen - we are too noisy, too messy and too curious for them to deal with while making ceremonial food.
"Out! Out! Go to the yard and play!" they shout at us. We grab a couple of small fried fish cheon and run out to play, my grandmother yelling angrily after us, "You're not meant to eat cha-rae food before your ancestors!"

We have to be careful not to annoy my grandfather, who is the head of the ceremony and who knows how to shut us up. My grandfather's cousins, my father's great-aunt, my aunts who live far away and whom I never usually see, are all gathered around solemnly assisting my grandfather to convert the living room into the ceremonial chamber. My grandfather twitches his eyebrows when he hears us running out of the kitchen with the cheon in our hands.
"You have to be quiet," he says loudly, and for a second we pause in our steps on our way out. In that second, my father grabs my hand.
"You're meant to be observing this," he says. I want to be out in the yard with my cousins and my sisters but I know I'm the eldest, and even if I am a daughter who will never be performing the ancestral rites myself, I have to know how to assist my father - who is the eldest son of my grandparents - later on. So I stay with the grown-ups and watch as they start filling up the big but short sang (a table that only reaches up to your mid-calf) with food. The sang is prepared as if it is a big feast for two people - there are two bowls each of rice and soup and heavy, thick silver cutlery laid out in front of one of the walls of the room. My grandfather, who is wearing a funny hat and gown made of rough white linen, asks my big uncle for a pen and he writes something in Chinese characters on a sheet of paper.
"What is that?" I ask. My grandfather snorts. My father presses my shoulder to tell me to keep quiet. My grandfather sticks the piece of paper on the wall, right above the sang.

My grandmother, aunt and my mother are standing by the door of the living room now - the room is too crowded for them to come in. My grandfather looks around the room in a disapproving manner.
"Women should be sitting on the west side," he says, and there is a sudden flurry of movement across the room as everyone tries to work out which direction faces west. There is a moment of silence, and I realise we are all waiting for my grandfather's signal - he kowtows, we kowtow after him, everyone shuffling backwards or sidewards to accommodate each other in the tight space as they kneel on the floor with their heads touching the ground. I can't remember which way my hands are supposed to cross - should my right hand be on top or my left? In the end I follow my father, crossing my left hand on top of my right as I bow. My grandfather does a lot of funny things, like pouring rice wine into the two rice bowls and lifting up rice on to the spoons as if to feed a child. The incense sticks are already burning.
"You shouldn't cross your hands behind your back," my grandfather reprimands my father. He immediately folds them across his thighs. I am twitching, bored with the silence. My grandfather kowtows again - and we follow him. This time I notice my aunt has her hands crossed the other way - her right hand over her left - so I copy her instead of my father. The ceremony is over. My grandmother, aunt and my mother have already disappeared into the kitchen to bring trays for taking away the food, which will be divided into smaller plates for lunch. My grandfather asks my uncle for a match. He burns the piece of paper he had stuck onto the wall. I am watching him intently - it is the first time I have seen a grown up burn something on purpose. My uncles and my father seem relieved the cha-rae is over. They help pull away the big sang and sit down to talk with my grandfather's cousin.

I remember my cousins and my sisters, and turn to go out to the yard. But my grandfather's cousin has already spotted me.
"J-A, come over here, sit down," he pats on the sitting cushion next to him. I have no choice but to sit and talk with the grown ups until the lunch sang arrives, carried into the room by my youngest uncle. I know the menfolk have a separate sang to themselves, so I stand up to leave them to their meal, but then I see my grandmother has already set the table to include me. My grandfather's cousin is delighted.
"Isn't it splendid to be able to eat with J-A, whom we never get to see," he grins. I smile back, but I can hear my sisters chasing my cousins in the yard. My uncles take turns to pour my grandfather and my grandfather's cousin some dong-dong ju, white rice wine. I have been sitting on my knees all this time, and my legs are starting to feel numb. My grandfather notices me shifting on my legs and says, "You can sit comfortably." I immediately sit cross legged, like my uncles, grateful for the reprieve. My uncle keeps passing fish, which I don't like, to my rice bowl but I have to eat it. I think of my cousins and sisters sitting in the kitchen, eating with my grandmother, my aunts and my mother and wish I could join them there.