Grandmother Shim Bok-sun
Shim Bok-sun, the owner of Hakhwa Walnut Cookie, opened the store in 1932, a year after she married her husband when she was nineteen. Grandmother Shim Bok-sun still remembers the opening day of the store, and speaks fondly of the moment when her husband named the store “Hakhwa,” wishing the store would radiate like the beautiful crane birds.
Cheonan was home to many Japanese people at the time.
Because the name of the store had the word for crane, a bird that the Japanese were fond of, the store enjoyed even more popularity. Mr. Jo and Grandmother Shim did not open the store just for the Japanese, nor was the recipe from Japan. Rather, Mr. Jo created something distinctly Korean using Japanese interpretation of Western baking techniques. Because the recipe for his walnut cake required devotion beyond imagination and could not be recreated anywhere else, many Japanese people who moved to Seoul or back to Japan sent people back to Cheonan to buy Hakhwa Walnut Cookies. To this day, customers walk into the store to pick up walnut cookies for their Japanese friends who miss the taste.
Despite her age, nonagenarian Grandmother Shim Bok-sun to this day dresses up and opens her store at seven in the morning, and sits at the counter until nine at night to greet her customers.
The Lord Will Promote Me If I Promote Him
In her eighty years of business making walnut cookies, Deaconess Shim Bok-sun always included evangelical pamphlets in her products. Despite the high cost of printing out the materials, Grandmother Shim did not grudge because she believed it was for the Lord. Many customers came back to her saying that they began attending church after reading her materials. Although the grandmother cannot engage in missionary work because of her busy schedule, she dedicated herself to the Lord’s cause by doing what she can at her workplace to please Him.