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A daughter’s love and sacrifice for her blind father is magnificently rewarded in one of the best-known Korean traditional folk tales.
Come here, my little stars. Yes, both of you. Scoot close, pull the blanket over your toes, and let Mama tell you an old Korean story — a story about a girl with a heart so bright that even the sea could not keep it hidden.
Long ago, in a quiet village near the hills, there lived a blind man named Sim Hak-gyu. Everyone called him Sim Bongsa, which means Blind Man Sim. He was poor, and he could not see the blue sky, or the green rice fields, or the white clouds floating like rice cakes above the mountains.
But he had something more precious than gold.
He had a baby daughter named Sim Cheong.
Ah, my loves, she was such a tiny thing when she first came into the world. Her fingers were no bigger than little bean sprouts, and her cry was like a kitten asking politely for milk.
Sadly, her mother went to heaven when Sim Cheong was still very small. So her father held the baby close and whispered, “My little Cheong, I cannot see your face, but I know you are beautiful because my heart can see you.”
Now, Blind Man Sim was clumsy with babies. Of course he was. Babies are slippery little dumplings, aren’t they? They wiggle, they dribble, they kick off their socks and then look surprised when their feet are cold.
But he loved her. Oh, how he loved her.
He fed her soft rice. He sang to her in a cracked old voice. He tied her tiny jacket crooked sometimes, but he always tied it with love. And as Sim Cheong grew, she became her father’s eyes.
“Father,” she would say, holding his hand, “the morning sky is pink today, like a peach.”
Or, “The barley is waving in the field.”
Or, “There’s a puppy chasing its own tail. Oh! Now it has fallen over. Father, even puppies are silly.”
And her father would laugh and say, “Then tell me everything, my Cheong. Your words paint pictures brighter than sight.”
They were poor, very poor. Some days their rice jar was nearly empty, and the wind came through the cracks in their little house as if it had forgotten its manners. But Sim Cheong never complained.
When she was old enough, she washed clothes for neighbors. She carried water. She gathered firewood. She mended torn sleeves. And when she came home tired, she still smiled and said, “Father, sit down. I’ll make supper.”
Now, don’t think her father did nothing. No, no. He tried his best. He wove straw sandals and recited prayers, and sometimes kind villagers gave him a bowl of rice. But still he worried.
“My daughter works too hard,” he would say. “A child should have time to play.”
Sim Cheong would pat his hand. “I do play, Father. I play with the laundry bubbles. I race the water buckets. And sometimes, when the rice is cooking, I have a staring contest with the steam.”
“A staring contest?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “The steam always wins because it disappears.”
One day, Blind Man Sim was walking near a stream when he stumbled and fell into the water.
“Oh! Help!” he cried.
A Buddhist monk passing by heard him and pulled him safely to shore.
“You are fortunate,” said the monk. “The heavens protected you today.”
Blind Man Sim, shaking and soaked, bowed again and again. “Thank you, thank you. How can I repay such kindness?”
The monk looked at him gently. “Pray with a sincere heart. Offer rice to the temple, and perhaps the Buddha will bless you.”
“Will my eyes open?” asked Blind Man Sim.
The monk did not promise, but he said, “A great offering may bring great mercy.”
Now, children, sometimes grown-ups hear what they most long to hear. Blind Man Sim longed so much to see his daughter’s face that his heart leaped ahead of his wisdom.
“How much rice?” he asked.
“Three hundred sacks,” said the monk.
Three hundred sacks! Ai-goo! That was more rice than Blind Man Sim could gather in ten lifetimes. He went home heavy with worry.
Sim Cheong noticed at once.
“Father, your shoulders are drooping like wet laundry. What happened?”
At first he would not tell her. But she coaxed him gently, and at last he told her about the monk and the offering.
“My eyes might open,” he said, then sighed. “But three hundred sacks of rice might as well be three hundred clouds. I cannot give either one.”
That night, Sim Cheong lay awake. She looked at her father sleeping on the floor beside her. His face was tired. His hands were worn. He had given her all the love he had in the world.
And she thought, “If only Father could see the sunrise once. If only he could see flowers. If only he could see me.”
The next day, merchants came through the village. They were sailors preparing for a dangerous voyage across a stormy sea. In those old days, people believed the sea needed a pure-hearted offering to calm the waves. It was a hard, sad belief from a hard, sad time.
When Sim Cheong heard that the sailors would give three hundred sacks of rice to the family of one brave girl who would go with them as an offering to the sea, her heart became very still.
Now listen carefully, my little ones. This is the part of the old story that can make the heart ache. But remember, this is a folktale. In folktales, people walk through sorrow so the story can show us where love and truth live.
Sim Cheong went to the sailors and said, “I will go.”
The sailors stared at her. “You are young.”
“I am old enough to love my father,” she said.
When Blind Man Sim learned what she had done, he cried out, “No! No, my daughter! I would rather stay blind forever than lose you.”
But Sim Cheong held his hands and pressed them to her face.
“Father,” she whispered, “please remember me not with sorrow, but with love. You gave me everything when I was small. Let me give you this hope.”
He wept until his voice broke. She wept too. But her decision had been made.
The rice was sent to the temple. The prayers were offered. And Sim Cheong walked to the ship.
The sea was wide and dark. The waves rose like mountains. The sailors trembled. Sim Cheong stood at the edge of the ship and looked back toward the land where her father waited.
“Please, heavens,” she prayed, “protect my father.”
Then she stepped into the sea.
But the sea did not swallow her the way people feared.
No, my little stars. The sea opened like a blue silk curtain.
Down, down, down Sim Cheong floated, as gently as a petal falling through the air. Fish with silver scales swam around her. Turtles bowed their old turtle heads. Lantern-like jellyfish glowed in the deep.
At the bottom of the sea stood a palace made of pearl and coral.
The Dragon King himself welcomed her.
“Brave child,” he said, “your love has reached even the deepest waters. You shall not be harmed.”
Sim Cheong was given warm food, dry clothes and a soft bed. Sea maidens brushed her hair. Little fish peeked through the windows and whispered, “Is that the girl with the shining heart?”
After some time, the Dragon King said, “Your place is not here forever. The world above still needs you.”
So he placed Sim Cheong inside a giant lotus blossom — a flower as pink as dawn and as fragrant as spring.
The lotus floated up, up, up through the sea until it reached the surface. Fishermen found it and gasped.
“A lotus big enough to hold the moon!” one cried.
They brought it to the king’s palace. When the petals opened, there sat Sim Cheong, alive and radiant.
The king was amazed. “Who are you?”
Sim Cheong bowed. “I am only a daughter who loves her father.”
The king listened to her story and was deeply moved. In time, he married her, and Sim Cheong became queen. But even in a palace of silk robes, golden screens and bowls filled with sweet fruit, she missed her father every day.
At night, she looked out at the moon and whispered, “Father, are you eating well? Is someone guiding you safely? Do you know I am alive?”
So Queen Sim Cheong made a plan.
She held a great feast for all the blind people in the land. Servants carried invitations over mountains and across rivers. “Come to the palace,” they called. “The queen welcomes you!”
Blind men and women came from every village. Some came with sons. Some came with daughters. Some came with neighbors. They ate warm rice and soup. They laughed. They rested their tired feet.
Each day, Queen Sim Cheong watched the guests, searching for one familiar voice.
Then, at last, an old blind man entered the palace courtyard.
His clothes were worn. His back was bent. His voice trembled as he said, “I am Sim Hak-gyu. I came because they said all blind people were welcome.”
Queen Sim Cheong’s heart nearly flew out of her chest.
She ran to him and knelt at his feet.
“Father,” she said.
Blind Man Sim froze.
No one had said that word to him in that voice since the day his heart broke.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
She took his hands and placed them on her face.
“It’s me. Your Cheong.”
He shook his head. “No. My Cheong went into the sea.”
“And the sea carried me back,” she said, crying and laughing at once. “Father, I am here.”
Blind Man Sim cried out, “My daughter! My daughter!”
And in that moment, as tears washed down his face, his eyes opened.
The first thing he saw in all the world was Sim Cheong’s face.
Not the palace. Not the golden walls. Not the silk banners or the jeweled lamps.
His daughter.
“My Cheong,” he whispered. “Now my heart and my eyes can see you together.”
Everyone in the palace wept. The king wiped his eyes with his sleeve and pretended there was dust in the room, though really, kings cry too. They just try to do it in a royal way.
From then on, Sim Cheong and her father lived in peace. She cared for him with joy, and he spent his days looking at everything he had only imagined before — the sky, the flowers, the moon, and most of all, the daughter whose love had lit his life.
So what does this old story tell us, my little ones?
It tells us that love can be stronger than fear.
It tells us that a good heart may sink into sorrow for a while, but it will rise again like a lotus from deep water.
And it tells us that when you love someone, you become a little lamp in their darkness.
Now close your eyes. The sea is calm. The lotus is floating under the moon. Sim Cheong is safe. Her father is smiling.
And you, my darlings, are safe right here, where Mama can see your faces without any magic at all.
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