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Q&A
[Delve: Answers to Readers’ Queries]
Copyright ⓒ BY.NONAME DELVE to examine in detail In this section, members of our editorial board answer questions about Korean literature culled from an open survey from our readers. Touching upon recent trends, historical antecedents, and literary devices, we hope you enjoy examining some deeper aspects of thoughts readers have had about Korean literature.—Ed. [Delve] How do Korean authors come up with character names? http://www.kln.or.kr/strings/columnsView.do?bbsIdx=719&searchCategory=QA [Delve] Why does Korean lit have a serious and heavy image? http://www.kln.or.kr/strings/columnsView.do?bbsIdx=723&searchCategory=QA [Delve] How do you interpret the growing demand for genre literature? http://www.kln.or.kr/strings/columnsView.do?bbsIdx=724&searchCategory=QA [Delve] Is the “villain” of classical literature really evil? http://www.kln.or.kr/strings/columnsView.do?bbsIdx=725&searchCategory=QA
by Kang Young-sook et al.
Q&A
[Delve] Is the “villain” of classical literature really evil?
In this section, members of our editorial board answer questions about Korean literature culled from an open survey from our readers. Touching upon recent trends, historical antecedents, and literary devices, we hope you enjoy examining some deeper aspects of thoughts readers have had about Korean literature.—Ed. Is the “villain” of classical literature really evil? The plots of the classic novels follow a narrative scheme very similar to that of fairy tales, where scholar Vladimir Propp showed the existence of a common structure to all the cultures of the world. According to this structure there is a “sender” and a “recipient,” a “subject” and an “object,” a “helper” and an “enemy.” This also applies to political and religious ideologies: in Christianity the sender is God and the recipient is humankind. The subject is Jesus Christ and the object is Heaven. The helper is the Church and the enemy is the devil. In Marxism, the sender is History, the receiver is humankind. The subject is the working class, the object is a classless society. The helper is the working class itself; the enemy is the bourgeoisie. A “bad character” (real or imaginary), therefore, is necessary (despite the true nature of the character himself) in order to have a complete plot. In this way, we could say that, in the Tale of Chunhyang (õðúÅîî), the sender is the King, the receiver is Korean society. The subject is Chunhyang, the object is the fulfillment of her love and a free marriage. The helper is Mongryong (Ù”×£) and the enemy is the evil Governor Byeon Hakto (ܦùÊ‘³). Whether Byeon Hakto (if he really existed) was actually evil or not does not matter. The evil character is necessary in order to better bring out the virtues of the protagonist. To give a sensational example, in some versions of the novel Hong Gildong-jeon (ûóÑΑÛîî), where the protagonist even challenges the very state (and therefore the King), the quoted King (i.e., Hong Gildong’s opponent) is Sejong (á¦ðó), even if history evaluates Sejong to be an excellent king. Maurizio Riotto Philologist, KLN Editorial Board Member
by Maurizio Riotto
Q&A
[Delve] How to interpret the growing demand for genre literature?
In this section, members of our editorial board answer questions about Korean literature culled from an open survey from our readers. Touching upon recent trends, historical antecedents, and literary devices, we hope you enjoy examining some deeper aspects of thoughts readers have had about Korean literature.—Ed. How do you interpret the recent trend where demand for genre literature such as mystery, thrillers, fantasy, SF, and so forth, has been growing significantly? Has the character of the readership changed from the generation before? Has their palette of interests changed? There is certainly growing interest in so-called “genre literature” like mystery, thrillers, and fantasy, and is especially noticeable in SF. This “genre reboot,” if you will, of SF is different because while interest is expanding in writers who employ SF and fantasy-based imagination in their writing, such as Kim Junghyuk, Yun I-hyeong, Gu Byeong-mo, and Chung Serang, it is also shifting to SF-exclusive writers like Kim Choyeop and Kim Bo-young. In light of this phenomenon, one could speak of innovation taking shape in the field of Korean literature, where the hierarchy between “literary fiction” and “genre literature” has been so rigid. But to take this trend of SF becoming more popular as an unprecedented emergence is a groundless claim coming from the prejudice that SF has held little to no territory before. “Genre literature” steadily expanded both its creative and commercial territory throughout the ’90s when cyberspace became popularized and creative licenses became democratized. Instead of saying that “genre literature” had no territory, it would be more accurate to analyze that the boundaries between literary territories used to be much more defined, and more importantly, that there was an intentional critical indifference toward ¡°genre literature¡± for a long time. Interest in genre literature is not new, nor is it uncommon to find imaginative elements of SF in Korean literature. The notion that genre literature is foreign comes from the distorted bias that literature needs only one definition, a way of being that is exclusive and singular. Literature has evolved to democratize reading and writing. It has adapted its ways of manifestation to changes of the time. As it moved on from the era of poetry to the era of novel, literature has clearly made itself more democratic, divorcing itself from elitism. We have yet to see what kind of literature will emerge post-novel, as it answers to further literary democratization. The rising popularity of genre literature is often discussed along with writers who represent the genre, but the debuts of hot writers cannot be the only explanation for the phenomenon. Rather, changes in literary trends reflect fundamental changes in the interest of readers. Surveying the history of literature reveals that there has been a shift from author-focused literature to reader-focused literature. The reader, formerly overlooked, emerges in a privileged position. To narrow the focus even more, since the reboot of feminism and the renewed literary interest in gender issues, the female reader springs to the foreground ever more clearly. This too would be better understood as a more specified outfitting of the already existing readership, rather than an emergence of a completely new one. In this context, popularity for SF as well as popularity for fantasy and thrillers that rippled from it, begs not the question of “Why SF, fantasy, and thrillers,” but the question of “Why SF, fantasy, and thrillers here and now.” This is the only way we can draw accurate connection between the growing demand for SF, the kind of storytelling that predicts and anticipates the future, and the urgency for imaginative narratives that go beyond classist, sexist, racist discrimination and hatred that pervade the here and now. Korean literature now, through genre literatures cross-stitched with concern for feminist issues, suggests new ways of interpreting reality and dreams of possible changes in the present. Translated by Dasom Yang So Young-hyun Literary Critic, KLN Editorial Board Member
by So Young-Hyun
Q&A
[Delve] Why does Korean lit have a serious and heavy image?
In this section, members of our editorial board answer questions about Korean literature culled from an open survey from our readers. Touching upon recent trends, historical antecedents, and literary devices, we hope you enjoy examining some deeper aspects of thoughts readers have had about Korean literature.—Ed. The Korean literature I have come in contact with shows a wide thematic spectrum, but I am curious why it has such a serious and heavy image? Saito Mariko, the Japanese translator of the bestselling Korean novel Kim Ji-young, Born 1982, said that Korean literature once had the image of a “politically correct literature.” Korean literature’s “serious” and “heavy” image is probably related to this “politically correct” image. Obviously, literature is always closely related to the culture and history of its region and linguistic sphere and thus, Korean literature’s image is also inextricably linked to the history and culture of Korea. Any discussion of modern Korea up to the 1980s would be unthinkable without mention of its colonial history, the Korean War, or the fight for democracy. And throughout the course of these histories, Korean literature played a key role in guiding Korean society and its people. Even during times of great suppression of the media and freedom of speech, literature did its best to speak about society through various artistic devices. Of course, the Korean literature of today is incomparably more diverse in its themes and subject matter; it fuses different genres, attempts new experiments, and abounds in an imagination that stretches far beyond reality. But the image and role that has come to be expected of Korean literature cannot be wiped away so easily. Indeed, even now, Korean literature is especially insightful and detailed in its commentary on structural irrationalities and absurdities. The translated works of Korean literature that have found success beyond Korea’s borders also appear to belong to this tradition. On the other hand, the modern people of today are always connected to one another through “new media,” able to engage in light and fast communication. However, overwhelmed by the speed of daily life, people are increasingly fatigued and often do not have the time to reflect. Perhaps what we need then in this modern age is the time to think about serious and heavy things. In this world, we are swept along by a whirlwind of speed and superficiality. But there are still many problems in this world that require us to stop and think seriously. In this way, being serious and heavy might actually be an important virtue in this day and age. Translated by Sean Lin Halbert Kim Mi-jung Literary Critic, KLN Editorial Board Member
by Kim Mi-jung
Q&A
[Delve] How do Korean authors come up with character names?
n this section, members of our editorial board answer questions about Korean literature culled from an open survey from our readers. Touching upon recent trends, historical antecedents, and literary devices, we hope you enjoy examining some deeper aspects of thoughts readers have had about Korean literature.—Ed. How do Korean authors come up with character names? Do they consider the meaning when naming the characters? Naming is a very significant factor in character creation. It is the most direct way to provide concreteness and vitality to a character. But creating character names is always a contemplative and hesitant process. In a story, the name of a character is never objective. No matter how common the name may be, there’s always a meaning behind it. And once it’s decided, the name becomes inseparable from the character and works subconsciously in the reader’s mind. Moreover, the name of a character can serve as a significant factor that reflects the time period of that particular work. For instance, in Kim Yujung’s “Wanderer” (“Sangol nageune”) from the 1930s, the female protagonist is referred to as nageune, “the wanderer.” This wanderer shows up at a village one day, and not much is told about the character. But unlike the common modern-day usage, nageune in this short story refers to a woman. In themid-1990s, the pronouns “geu” (he) and “geunyeo” (she) were frequently used in place of character names. The first person pronoun “uri” (we or us) was often used as well. As Korea became a highly industrialized society, the character names in works of fiction became more and more anonymous until only the last names—Kim, Lee, Park—were used. Recently, regular Korean names such as Park Jungchul, Kim Minji, and Lee Bokyung are being used as character names. The expansion of democracy and the development of civil society are reflected in character naming, providing greater significance to each individual, each character. One crucial thing to consider when naming a character is the rhythm. That lingering feeling after the name is called out—this must be taken into consideration. And more than anything else, the author must like it. It must sound friendly, too, and since it plays the role of notifying the reader that something important has happened, it must sound trustworthy. But oftentimes, in recent works, names are replaced by initials and written merely as P or A. The purpose of this is to eliminate any meaning or prejudice the name might hold. Similarly, there has been a tendency to not clarify where the story is taking place, deliberately avoiding any country or place names. In such cases, there must be an internal inevitability as to establishing the characters as “one-letter beings,” and the author must consider if such an attempt works well with the overall meaning of the story and effectively brings aesthetic changes. In the process of building a linguistic structure called fiction, naming a character is therefore a challenging but important task. Translated by Susan K Kang Young-sook Writer, KLN Editorial Board Member
by Kang Young-sook
The Place
Gwangjang Market: Where History Breathes
There are three famous gwangjang (squares) in South Korea: Choi In-hoon’s monumental novel, The Square; the Seoul Gwangjang in front of City Hall, the place of candlelight protests; and the Gwangjang traditional market that boasts a hundred year history. Originally, Gwangjang Market was a name exclusive to a 3,000 pyeong shopping establishment that was privately owned by the Gwangjang Corporation, and located in the center of the market. It now refers to some 60 commercial buildings that are clustered around the Gwangjang Shopping Center. The market has a 300-year history if one looks at it from a historical perspective, and at least a 108-year history if one considers its establishment from 1905 when the Gwangjang Corporation was founded. In the latter part of the Joseon era, there were three large open markets in Seoul: The I-hyeon Market, open from early dawn to morning located near Dongdaemun; the Chil-pae Market, around what is now Namdaemun; and the Jongno Market, which opened in the evening. Among the three, I-hyeon Market was more renowned for its morning Baeogae Market. Baeogae was a hill that connected the areas of Jongmyo, Dongdaemun, and Cheonggyecheon. There are many stories regarding the genealogy of its name: that there were many pear trees (bae means pear); that it was the last point where a large boat crossing the Han River could reach through to Cheonggye Stream (bae also means boat); and that because of the frequent appearance of tigers, a hundred people had to gather together in order to go up the hill. Baeogae was a morning market that developed around this region. In 1910, the Joseon empire was annexed by Japan. But even before that, Korea had been hopelessly subject to all kinds of invasions by Japan. The circumstances of the markets were also bleak. The merchants, who had a strong sense of nationalism, united and established the Gwangjang Corporation on July 5, 1905. Despite much interference, Dongdaemun Market, Korea’s first privately owned market, came about at last. Before the annexation, the Japanese merchants who had developed the Jingogae (Myeongdong) area into a busy commercial center, opened five department stores after 1920. The Hwashin Department Store was built in Jongno. A very small number of people were able to go to Japan and engage in a luxurious shopping spree or shop at the Hwashin Department Store in Jongno. The market for the majority of the people during the Joseon era was Dongdaemun Market. Just as life would have been impossible for most Joseon people if the five-day market had not been maintained, everyday living would not have been possible had there not been a traditional market such as Dongdaemun during the Japanese colonial period. That is the reason why Dongdaemun Market could neither be expanded nor demolished. Dongdaemun Market was like a fortress. When the sun rose, the four gates on the east, west, south, and north opened and all kinds of items from the entire country started to pour in. Dried fish from the East Coast, coal from mines throughout the peninsula, as well as an assortment of paraphernalia from Japan and the West arrived. But it was agricultural products that were sold in the largest quantity. Fresh vegetables, seasonal fruit, and five grains were transported by horses and cows. Dongdaemun Market was known to have the largest number of agro-fishery products in all of Korea. The shops were categorized into three tiers. Tier one shops were located in tile roof houses and were wealthy enough to be able to place advertisements in newspapers. Tier two shops were all under tin roofs, and offered mostly agro-fishery products. The tier three shops were vendors who sold things on a mat under a somewhat shabby plank roof; they sold mostly miscellaneous household objects. Around 200 merchants owned the tier one and two shops, and the tier three sellers changed constantly. On average, around 2,000 customers visited daily. Dongdaemun Market was completely destroyed during the Korean War. Only the site of the building remained, but after the war the market became more vibrant. Survivors had to continue to live and the market was a necessity in order for people to go on living. The people who arrived in Seoul in great numbers from all parts of the country settled in the Cheonggyecheon area and as a result, the market region became completely packed with people. After the recovery of Seoul, there was a presidential order from Rhee Syngman to reconstruct Dongdaemun Market. President Rhee ordered three international-sized markets to be built in Seoul. The construction of the Gwangjang Shopping Center took place swiftly. From 1957 to 1959 a massive construction project commenced and finally in 1959, it was completed as the building it is today. In other words, the three-story concrete Gwangjang Shopping Center was newly constructed and maintained for 50 years until now in its present form. At that time, most of the buildings around the Cheonggyecheon area were traditional Korean style houses and as these buildings were mostly destroyed during the Korean War, the newly built Gwangjang Shopping Center was the most modern structure between Jongno and Dongdaemun. The Gwangjang Shopping Center was the tallest building around at the time, and the watchtower mounted on the roof must have made people feel as if they were looking down from a mountaintop. Seoul was the most popular overnight school trip destination for students from the provinces. Gwangjang Market was always included on the itinerary. Students climbed to the top of the watchtower of the Gwangjang Shopping Center building and looked out at the Dongdaemun area. They took pride in the fact that there was such a big market in Korea, and bought gifts to bring back for their parents from the Gwangjang Shopping Center. In January 2011 the novelist Park Wansuh passed away. She was an integral part of the history of Gwangjang Market. Her novel His House, published in 2004, records in detail the sights of the Gwangjang Market during the 1950s. It delineates the period from after the Korean War when there were hardly any buildings intact up to the post-War construction of the department store era.One cannot find a more detailed depiction of Dongdaemun Market than in His House. Park’s novel provides a very thorough description of the market as it was then, and the commerce that revolved around it. What is astounding is that things remain pretty much the same to this day. “It was called a department store or a dry-goods store but in actuality, it was simply a long pathway like an alley; and on both sides the merchants were allotted a single pyeong where they put up a stall without a partition or divider. In the back they hung loose fabric and piled up folded or rolls of fabric by the pathway, and the owner did the business, standing on top of the stall. It looked like an enormous dry-goods store when one just walked into the department store but it was a fierce arena of competition for many one-pyeong business proprietors.” Of course, the present day Gwangjang Shopping Center is no longer a “fierce arena of competition.” The stores are at least four to five pyeong in size. There are some that are over 10 pyeong. But the absence of partitions or boundaries remains the same, and fabric still hangs loose on the rear wall with the rolled up fabric piled up in a display case by the pathway. On November 13, 1971 a 22-year-old young man by the name of Chun Tae-il set himself ablaze in the Peace Market across from the Gwangjang Market, shouting “Obey the Labor Law!” “Let my death not be in vain!” The Gwangjang Market has a deep relationship with Chun Tae-il. The prodigious personal records he left behind was compiled by Cho Young-rae, and published into a book, A Single Spark: The Biography of Chun Tae-il. The following is a passage from the book:“The young Tae-il, who had to take on the responsibility of taking care of his family of six, took his younger brother, Tae-sam to the Dongdaemun Market to sell kitchen objects. They got things like trivets, brushes, strainers, brooms, and grills from a consignment store, paid back the price of the items, and then kept the profit. The trivet was relatively easy to make and therefore the two brothers bought the material from Dongdaemun and made them themselves on the rice paddy of Yongdudong where they lived.” Tae-il was only 13-years old then. It wasn’t just Tae-il and his family who were destitute, because in those days there were many children who had to work to support their families.The Biography of Chun Tae-il is filled with heartrending stories of his youth and the young girl factory workers he met in the Peace Market. Chun Tae-il was born in 1948, the year the Republic of Korea was founded. Most of the people from that generation underwent as much hardship as Chun Tae-il. The older merchants of the Gwangjang Shopping Center experienced as difficult a childhood and youth as Chun. What they remember the most are those difficult years—horrific childhoods because of poverty and war, when they were inhumanely treated while working in factories and marketplaces. A Single Spark: The Biography of Chun Tae-il is not only a story of one person but about the entire generation that lived during a very difficult period. “Lament” is a short story by Choi Il-nam that was published in the monthly magazine, Hyundae Munhak, in 1976. The protagonists, a married couple who sell fish in the market, have a dream. “When the couple somehow managed to survive while running a small shop in a market that was on the outskirts of the city, the wife talked about moving to Dongdaemun Market after several years of hard work. The husband yelled at his wife for being a piker, instead of dreaming big and closing down their small store for a much bigger and more reputable business. Then his wife replied that it was her wish to make a fortune in the grandest market with the same business that they began.” Hence, the Dongdaemun Market before 1976 was grand enough to be the subject of one woman’s life’s dream. The elder merchants remember the 1970s as the heyday of Dongdaemun Market. “There were so many customers that we didn’t have enough time to count our money. In those days, we could provide for our children until after college from our one to two-pyeong store. There was such a stream of customers from dawn to late night that our doorsteps got worn out. We were so busy that we sometimes forgot to eat.” The comedian, Kang Ho-dong, came to Gwangjang Market only once, but it gained the place new renown. The Mayor of Seoul, National Assemblymen, Cabinet Ministers, and the presidents of banks and companies have all paid visits to Gwangjang Market as well. Yet even if the president came wearing a hanbok along with the first lady at the bequest of merchants on festive occasions, these visits didn’t have nearly the effect of Kang’s visit. When Kang Ho-dong carried out his assignment of “Eat 10 Different Kinds of Food and Show 10 Different Reactions” for a TV program, Gwangjang Market instantly became known as the mecca of food. The attitude of the media’s coverage of the Gwangjang Market has changed according to the times. During the Japanese colonial period, it was known as the “greatest agro-fishery market in Joseon.” From 1960 to 1980, it became the largest fabric market in Korea, and then during the 1990s, silk, satin, linen, and cotton were popular items. Since the Asian financial crisis in 1998 to the early 2000s, secondhand stores and custom-tailored clothes were common. Recently, it has become known as a place to stop off for inexpensive food after taking a walk around nearby Cheonggye Stream. The majority of the stores in the Gwangjang Market still do business in fabrics and dry goods. However, fabric sales have plummeted in the poor economy and the silk and satin stores that now specialize mostly in hanbok are not doing very well. Even though the hanbok shops are empty most of the time, the secondhand stores are always crowded. There have always been many stalls and eateries in the small alleys that surround the market, but after the restoration of Cheonggye Stream, the dining business in the surrounding area suddenly revived. This is a rather unwelcome phenomenon from the perspective of Gwangjang Market. In the first half of the 1960s when the construction of the Gwangjang Shopping Center was completed, it was the most modern market in Korea. But now, it has become the biggest and the most famous traditional market. Embracing the most energetic and passion-filled years of millions of humble people, the place has aged along with the people. While everyone is caught up in the most cutting-edge, massive-scale, and luxurious styles available, renovating their shops to make them bigger, trendier, and more distinctive, Gwangjang Market is a place that tries to change with the times even as it is known as an embodiment of the past. 1. His HousePark Wansuh, Segyesa Publishing Co., Ltd.2012, 308p, ISBN 9788933801956 2. A Single Spark: The Biography of Chun Tae-ilCho Young-rae, Chun Tae-il Memorial Foundation2009, 340p, ISBN 9788996187424
by Kim Chong-khwang
The Place
Forest of Wisdom
Just a few kilometers from the demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea, Paju is a somewhat surprising location for what has become the center of publishing and book culture in Korea. Paju Book City is a city dedicated to books—their printing, publication, and promotion. It aims to become the “book-hub of Asia.” In this book city nestled among publishing offices, online bookstore warehouses, and printing presses sits the “Forest of Wisdom,” a huge concrete building with three massive sections. Forest of Wisdom is currently home to over 200,000 books and before too long it will accommodate another 100,000. The books are mostly donations from publishing companies and some of them gave copies of every book they had ever published. Organizations and notable individuals have contributed as well. Traditionally, buildings that house such a large number of books have either been libraries or bookshops, but Forest of Wisdom is neither. The books there are not for sale, they cannot be loaned out, and they are not catalogued. Forest of Wisdom is something else entirely. In the last few years there has been a book café craze throughout Korea, where the walls of a coffee shop are filled with bookshelves laden with interesting books. Some book cafés are operated by well-known publishing companies like Munhakdongne or Changbi Publishers, Inc., who use them as a space to display and sell their books. Others are simply decorated with books that create an atmosphere where customers can sit with their coffee, relax, and spend some time with a book that catches their eye. With a coffee shop in its central hall, on first impression Forest of Wisdom seems like it must be the biggest book café in Korea, perhaps even the world—but in fact it is more akin to a vast interactive artwork. Explaining the rationale behind this forest of books, Kim Eounho, the chairman of Bookcity Culture Foundation, begins by talking about the beauty of books as artifacts, and how that beauty has a cumulative power, so that when books are displayed together they create the harmony of a choir, and an indescribable fragrance that transforms a space. Thus when lectures are held in these halls the content sounds more inspiring, and when musicians perform among the books the melodies are more beautiful. Over 100 events have already been held in Forest of Wisdom this year alone, including a performance by the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra as well as evening classes and programs as part of the Book City’s Open University. The Paju Book Sori Festival, a meeting point for publishers, editors, and authors from all over Asia, is also held among the books in the Forest of Wisdom, creating the perfect hub for learning and exchange. Kim Eounho says that rather than being a mere library, Forest of Wisdom is a book utopia, creating a new way of approaching and enjoying books. We go to libraries to track down specific books, looking them up in a database and hunting them down in the stacks, ignoring all the books around them. In Forest of Wisdom you cannot help but explore, browse the spines of books from shelf to shelf—reading titles, experiencing colors and textures, and taking out and opening up the ones that pull at your imagination. In this book utopia all books are equal before the reader, and on every shelf a myriad of worlds sit ready to inspire, just waiting to be opened. In all three halls books line the walls from floor to lofty ceiling. Even on a weekday there are plenty of people around, some browsing books, some studying or working at one of the many desks while others chat with friends over a cup of tea. On weekends the place is filled with families, as children and their parents line the stairs to the second floor, reading books and sharing new stories. The first hall is filled with books donated by different scholars. The idea is that visitors can find out more about these great minds by browsing through their book collections, thus they are kept together and each section is labeled with the name of the person who donated them along with their area of study. Looking through these personal collections, amassed over the course of the donor’s career, it is easy to see that successful scholars do not stick to just one kind of book. Among the volumes donated by a professor of English literature you can find books on philosophy, geography, music, and translation. As Kim Eounho says, children who read books are our hope for the future. This does not mean children who just “study hard” as the Korean saying goes, but for children who read widely and enthusiastically; because while school textbooks teach us that everything relating to a subject can be found in one place, the book collections of talented scholars demonstrate that those who have a wide understanding and interest in many fields are the ones who create new wisdom and advance the knowledge of humanity. Books, things themselves that have been created, are the start of other forms of creation. They are the greatest inheritance left to humankind. In Forest of Wisdom they have been brought together to be read, to be enjoyed, and to make their presence felt in a space which creates a new way of interacting with books and is sure to inspire generations of readers, writers, and thinkers. Kim Eounho: Kim founded Hangilsa Publishing in 1976 and Hangil Art Publishing in 1998. He is also head organizer of Paju Booksori, director of Hangil Book Museum, and chairman of Bookcity Culture Foundation.
by Kim Eounho
The Place
Jangheung - Where Writers Bloom
One of six designated “Slow Cities” in Korea, Jangheung rests near the southernmost part of the peninsula. Filled with more cows than people, this literary breeding ground is hometown to more than 70 contemporary writers. Jangheung’s Place in Your Heart Jangheung could be just another place among the southern provinces in Korea with blue seas, charming mountains, and warm breezes. In fact, describing Jeollanam-do’s (province) Jangheung county in such terms is not incorrect. If one has no special connection to Jangheung, it’s just another place in the south with plenty of sunlight—places like Gangjin’s White Lotus Temple (Baekryun-sa) with its narrow paths or Jangheung’s Hwaejin inlet. If you are somewhat more familiar with Jangheung, you might know that if an imaginary line was drawn straight down from Gwanghwamun in Seoul, it would bisect Korea into East and West, with its southernmost point passing through Jangheung. While Jangheung is symmetrically south of Seoul, it’s a poor geographical cousin to Gangneung, which is straight east of the capital. It’s not necessary to elevate Jangheung’s status just because of its linear symmetry with Gwanghwamun, however. Those who have traveled widely would probably refer first to the stirring sight of Eulalia grass fields on Mt. Cheon-gwan, while those of more refined tastes would point out that there are more cows than people in Jangheung county. Successively listing the features of this area brings more information to mind: razor clams, gaebul (edible marine spoon worms), and other marine products from Jangheung are considered to be the most delicious, and the Shiitake mushrooms grown in the region can only be purchased by paying a premium. But there’s more. Jangheung is one of only six “Cittaslow” (Slow Cities) in Korea. All the descriptions so far are points to keep in mind when planning a trip to this area, but they don’t do justice to Jangheung and cannot convey a full understanding of the region. When people dream of Jangheung, when the heart feels stifled and a sudden desire to run off to Jangheung moves us, we must instead turn to Korean literature to learn about this place. On a map draw a line between Gangjin and Boseong and then stretch this line wide—Jangheung county will be contained within the contours of this shape. But we shouldn’t stop here, because truly finding Jangheung requires us to draw out our emotions as if from a well. These emotions are normally buried under the busy schedules of our lives. Feelings of sadness, longing, and warmth are manifested here in Jangheung through the medium of literature. Have You Ever Heard of a Literary Tourism Zone? Jangheung can only be reached through literature. This statement is neither baseless propaganda nor an attempt to stir people up; it has a clear, legal basis. Although many people still don’t know this fact, Jangheung is Korea’s first Literary Tourism Zone. In 2008, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy designated three areas within Jangheung County as special zones, and nationwide, Jangheung is the only special tourism zone for literature. In effect, the Korean government has acknowledged that only Jangheung has the ability to draw tourists through literature alone. Jangheung has a long history as a literary center, with a startling 500-year literary tradition. The first example of gasa, an old form of Korean verse, was created in Jangheung by the poet “Gi-bong” Baek Gwang-hong (1522-1556), in his Gwanseo-Byul-gok (a book of gasa verse). Jangheung’s literary tradition continued to be passed down to subsequent generations even after Baek Gwang-hong was gone. He was followed by what came to be known as the “ Jangheung Troupe”: Wie Sae-jik, Roh Myeong-seon, Lee Sang-gye, Lee Joong-jeon, Wie Baek-gyu, and others who formed the base of Jeolla province’s literary tradition. Giyang-sa, built in honor of the poet Baek Gwang-hong still stands in Jangheung’s Anyang-myeon, Gisan-ri neighborhood. Part of Gisan-ri has also been designated as a special literary tourism zone. The soul of literary Jangheung county, however, is not to be found in long-lost ancient poetry. Jangheung’s literary magnificence stems from its stature as the blossom of contemporary Korean literature. According to data from the Jangheung County Office, more than 70 contemporary literati hail from this area. The novelists Song Kisook, Yi `Chong-Jun, Han Sung-won, and Lee Seung-U, the sijo (Korean verse) poets Kim Je-hyeon and Lee Han-seong, and the contemporary poets Wie Seon-hwan, Kim Young-nam, Moon Jeong-young, Lee Dae-heum, and others all hail from Jangheung. There are so many it’s difficult to list them all. Their literary achievements still resonate in Jangheung. Song Kisook’s The Mung Bean General, Yi Chong-Jun’s Snowy Road, Han Sung-won’s Port, Lee Seung-U’s “Saem Island” (Saemseom), and other famous works are so numerous that it is likewise hard to count them all. We could describe all of Jangheung as a living museum of Korean literature. In fact, even Jangheung County’s Chief, Lee Myeong-heum, is a poet who has published in various literary journals. Jangheung’s literary fiction heritage has been particularly dazzling, and there is ample reason why the region is called the home of Korean prose. Song Kisook’s (b. 1935) works are filled with historically-conscious narratives. Yi Chong-Jun (1939-2008) is a representative writer of the 4.19 generation (those that experienced the demonstrations in April 1960 that toppled the Syngman Rhee government) whose works are characterized by sentiments associated with the southern provinces. Han Sung-won’s (b. 1939) works are written from a uniquely religious worldview. In short, each of these major authors represents different genres of modern Korean literature. It is quite surprising that they were all born in the same region yet their works are all so different. If even one of these literary giants had been born in another village, that village would have constructed a literature center, established eponymous literature prizes, and effectively called attention to itself. By contrast, in Jangheung there are so many luminaries worthy of recognition that authorities have already given up on the task of selecting whom to honor. Instead, the entire county has been designated as a Special Tourism Zone for literature. This designation, however, creates another conundrum. Where should one go to experience literary Jangheung? First of all, Literature Park is located just below Mt. Cheon-gwan. Several hundred literary stone monuments dot the park. However, it can hardly be considered the only worthy pilgrimage site for Jangheung. Likewise, at the other Literary Tourism Zone in Gwansan-eup, Shindong-ri, there is little that has anything to do with Jangheung’s gems of Korean literature. It’s just another southern port village with fine views of the ocean. After much thought, I have therefore decided to introduce readers to several literary sites in Jangheung. One of these is still occupied by its owner, while the others are now empty, yet highly recommended. 1. Magnolia ParkLee Seung-U, Munidang1998, 326p, ISBN 89745608872. PortHan Sung-wonMunhakdongne Publishing Group1997, 344p, ISBN 97889828109163. This Paradise of YoursYi Chong-JunMoonji Publishing Co., Ltd.2003, 460p, ISBN 9788932008424 4. Snowy RoadYi Chong-JunMoonji Publishing Co., Ltd.1997, 244p, ISBN 97889320092785. The Mung Bean General, Vols. 1-12Song Kisook, Window of Times2008, 395p, ISBN 97889594011236. SopyonjeYi Chong-JunYolimwon Publishing Group1998, 224p, ISBN 8970631607 Han Sung-won’s Ocean & Mountain Den Han Sung-won’s house is located on the far western edge of Jangheung. At one end of Anyang-myeon, Yulsan Village overlooking Deukryang Bay, warm breezes blow throughout the four seasons accompanied by gentle rays of sunlight. It is here that Han Sung-won built his house, which he named Ocean & Mountain Den (Haesan-togul). Actually, however, this place isn’t Han’s original neighborhood. His original neighborhood was Hwaejin-myeon, just like that of author Yi Chong-Jun. After living far away from home, Han Sung-won came back to his hometown of Jangheung and settled here. Several years ago I visited the author at Ocean & Mountain Den and drank a cup of tea made from leaves which he had roasted himself. When I asked him why he didn’t return to the neighborhood of his birth, he replied, “For all intents and purposes, my current neighborhood is my birthplace.” He then chuckled. Ocean & Mountain Den could actually be described as being shabby. Although there is a pond in the yard, a bamboo forest planted out back, and a roof with red tiles, the grounds do not appear to be neatly maintained. The yard is thick with weeds and the pond water is muddy. But for some reason, this is much more charming—it is a completely natural scene, without any artifice or decoration. The deep blue of Deukryang Bay below Han Sung-won’s house is still fresh in my mind even today. As Han and I exited his house and walked along the coast lined with poetry steles inscribed with his work, I asked him what the source of Jangheung’s literary abundance was. His answer was as follows: “Among the mountains in Jangheung, there is one called Hundred Million Buddhas Mountain. (Ukbulsan) The Chinese character ‘Uk’ means ‘hundred million’ or ‘the people.’ You can find this in any Chinese dictionary. Therefore Ukbulsan is the people’s Buddha Mountain, or Maitreya (the future Buddha) mountain. In fact, halfway up Mt. Ukbul, there is a boulder called Daughter-in-law Rock which is said to bear the likeness of the Maitreya. Who is the Maitreya? Maitreya is a Buddha dedicated to enlightening mankind and leading them to enlightenment. In the present day, conveying the principles of life is the duty of literature.” 1. Birthplace of Yi Chong-Jun 2. Bolim Temple 3. Yi Chong-Jun Literature Memorial Yi Chong-Jun and Jangheung Despite what anyone might say, Jangheung is author Yi Chong-Jun’s home. Although Jangheung is also home to countless literary giants, no other author has incorporated it as extensively into their works as Yi. Wherever one travels in Jangheung, traces of Yi Chong-Jun remain. The Daeduk-eup bus stop was where he caught the bus to Gwangju to attend Seo Middle School. One hour away from Jinmok village, where he grew up, is Bolim Temple, where he used to enjoy drinking “Grain Tea” (a Buddhist euphemism for alcohol) with the abbot there. Bolim Temple appeared in Yi’s novel, White Clothes. Two of his novels, The Lost Temple and An Account of Humanist Mu Sojak’s Life, describe Mt. Cheon-gwan, which is famous for its fields of Eulalia grass (pampas grass) in the autumn. The set for the movie “Festival” was located at the easternmost edge of Jangheung, at the Nampo-ri village chief’s house. According to the records left by Yi more than 30 of his works have been derived from places and events in Jangheung. The movie set for “Beyond The Years” was located near Yi’s childhood home. The set is just 10 minutes away by car from the house in Jinmok village where Yi was born. Behind the movie set overlooking Deukryang Bay is a long mountain range beyond which Jinmok village is located. The highest peak among them, Avalokitesvara (Buddhist Goddess of Mercy) peak, was described by Yi as “closely resembling a seated Buddhist monk wearing robes.” Today the fields below Avalokitesvara peak have been drained for land reclamation, so rice paddies can no longer be found there. When Yi was a child, however, seawater sometimes flooded the fields. In those days, Avalokitesvara peak cast a shadow like a lone crane flying over the rice fields soiled by seawater. That image became indelibly imprinted in Yi’s mind, and he added it to his book Stranger of Sunhak-dong. The image of a crane’s shadow cast on the ground below was also featured in director Im Kwon-taek’s 100th feature film, “Beyond The Years.” Author Yi Chong-Jun’s birthplace was Jinmok village in Hwaejin-myeon, Jangheung County. He passed away on July 31, 2008, and was buried three days later on August 2, 2008 in his native village. In 2010, a stone monument called the Yi Chong-Jun Literature Memorial was erected near his grave. A foundation stone seven by seven meters forms the foundation upon which a large flat stone was erected. Author Yi Chong-Jun wasn’t tall, and he always shied away from attention, which is the reason his monument stone was intentionally kept diminutive. Yi Chong-Jun's Snowy Road Jinmok village, Yi Chong-Jun’s birthplace, is located on a hilltop where about 40 low-roofed houses faced the sea. In his novel Snowy Road, the narrator describes a “five-room house surrounded front and back with fields.” This was the very house in which he was born. Today, every room in the house contains Yi’s personal effects arranged together with his books, while his photographs hang on the walls. If you sit on the wooden floor there you’ll notice a clear view of the ocean. If you look out over the sea to the left, you can almost make out Sorok Island in the distance, which appeared in Yi’s bestseller, This Paradise of Yours. If you look to your right and follow the shipping lanes, you will see Cheongsan Island where Director Im Kwon-taek shot his famous Jindo Arirang sequence for the movie adaptation of Yi’s Sopyonje. When Yi Chong-Jun entered middle school, he left home for Gwangju to study. Around that time, family fortunes took a turn for the worse, obliging Yi’s mother to sell their house. One day Yi’s mother received word that her son would suddenly be stopping by. She implored the new owner of their house to allow him to sleep there for just one night. She was able to borrow the house for a day to see her son to bed. The next morning, Yi's mother left the house together with her son early in the morning. Mother and son made the uphill trek of about four to five kilometers through thickly-accumulated snow to get to the intercity bus terminal in Daeduk-eup. There Yi caught the bus going up to Gwangju, while his mother went back the way she came. The snow had piled up high that early morning. As she returns to Jinmok village, she tries to step in her son’s footprints dotted here and there in the snow. “My son, my son, please be healthy and happy.” While walking back home on that snowy road, mother is crying so much that she can hardly see. In the epilogue to his novel, Snowy Road, Yi made the following comment: “The narrative in Snowy Road contains many factual elements in the interaction between a student and his old mother. In fact, the scene in which they walk together in the early morning darkness to the bus stop is taken from my very own life. When I got on the bus to Gwangju, leaving my mother behind, I always wondered how she walked back home on that cold, snowy road. I did not dare ask her for fear of the pain her answer might cause me.” Since that day, author Yi Chong-Jun never again set foot of his own accord in his childhood home. Even when he led his fans on literary tours to his hometown, he only came to the edge of his old neighborhood before turning back. It was only in 2005, when the County Government bought and restored his childhood home, that Yi entered the house where he had been born. That snowy, inclined road still exists above the hill upon which Jinmok village is located. Now that a new highway hugging the coast to Jinmok has been built, the previous path, which used to be the village’s only link to the outside world, is long forgotten. The brush has now grown higher than one’s head, but we have to walk on that road. We need to walk on the thickly accumulated snow covering the road, stepping in the footprints dotted here and there just as Yi Chong-Jun’s mother did.
by Lee Seung-U
Overseas Angle
How I Discovered Korea
Even as a small child I was attracted by the history and culture of far-off, unknown countries, and it cannot have been a coincidence that at university I studied history as well as Hungarian literature and language. Combined with general curiosity, a personal experience played a role in forming my interest: My father was a surgeon, and in 1950 as a member of the first group of doctors sent to Korea he spent a whole year on the front, dropped right in the middle of the Korean War. A hospital train took the group of about 30 doctors and other health workers through Moscow and Beijing to Korea, where a hospital train equipped by the Hungarian state was waiting for them. They did not know in advance where they would be working, or in what circumstances. The train set off, joined by Korean health workers, then travelled from one unknown place to another, stopping now and again to receive the wounded, moving steadily closer to the front line. After a few months the train suffered a direct hit (fortunately they were not on board), and they were left in the middle of the front with practically no equipment, background knowledge, or contact with others. They performed operations by the light of a pocket torch; they had no food or anywhere to wash, and they tried to withdraw from the front to a calmer place. These experiences, just a few years after the end of the Second World War, were draining for all of them. And as well as the daily threat to their lives, the sight of the infinite poverty of Korean villages, the lack of development, and the starving, ragged inhabitants, took its toll on them. All this, naturally, I learned only later, when after my father’s fortunate return home we looked at some of the surviving photographs in which they smiled into the lens, arms around the shoulders of their Korean colleagues, as if everything were all right. Although it was a very long time before I understood the reason for the war and its history, the suffering and poverty that I had learnt of first-hand made an extremely deep impression on me. As did the fact that for years after my father’s return home, he received letters and photographs from the friends he had made there. I preserve these documents to this day: postcards, LP records, and small souvenirs. So when a Korean translator living in Hungary, citing an acquaintance we had in common, suggested that we publish a book based on Lee Hochul’s personal experiences about the events of the Korean War, I was pleased to accept. Reading the manuscript, I finally understood the extremely complex human, social and political situation, and the Korean people’s suffering of the immeasurable trials that were unleashed on them. The book was translated very quickly, and launched in April 2011 at one of the highest-ranking book events in Europe, the 18th Budapest International Book Festival, in the presence of the author. The audience listened most attentively to the writer's account of his experiences and of the many meetings in which he participated in countries all over the world, for Hungarian was the 10th language in which the book had appeared. After this success, naturally we will be happy to undertake publishing other Korean-themed books, particularly ones that match the publisher’s basic profile. Déliek, északiakLee Ho-cheol, Balassi Publishing House, 2011 * Andrea Soóky is a director of the Balassi Publishing House. She majored in Hungarian and History at Eötvös Loránd University. Twenty years ago with others she founded Balassi Publishing House, which was one of the first private publishing houses in Hungary. She edits books about history art, music, and theatre.
by Andrea Soóky
Overseas Angle
Creating a Library of Korean Literature
It is a fact known to most in the literary world that very few literary works from non-English speaking countries are being translated into English, either in the United States or the United Kingdom. This situation began to develop as long ago as the early 1980s and has now reached a critical stage. The diminishment in books not only reflects a scarcity of contemporary world literature reaching English readers, but because English is now the bridge language to other countries, it also creates severe problems in having texts available that can be read throughout the world by both readers and other publishers for consideration of editions in their languages. In late summer of 2011, I contacted LTI Korea Director Kim Seong-Kon, who was then teaching at Harvard University. I suggested to him my interest in starting a Korean series of books that would ensure a number of Korean literary works would come into English each year. Dalkey Archive has a number of these series with other countries now, usually allowing for two to four books to be published each year. The archive supports these books with exceptional marketing initiatives that are not normally possible because of budget constraints. Without such marketing initiatives, books are left to chance, and yet in the current climates of both the United States and England, there is little chance for a work of literature to gain very much attention. One should keep in mind—whenever talking about translations—that what is seen as a crisis of translation, especially in the U.S., is in fact a crisis in the literary culture at large. Media outlets for book reviewing have become nearly non-existent, and those that remain cater to what they perceive Americans are most interested in. The result is that few literary works are reviewed, and the higher the quality, the less likely that they will be reviewed. Bookstores are therefore cautious about buying these books, and the public has little means of hearing about them. This situation is what any American publisher faces in publishing literature, and this situation becomes more difficult when the literature is in translation. Those publishers, usually small and underfunded, go on publishing literature against all odds. They do not have titles on their list that will become bestsellers and therefore offset the losses of their literary books, nor do they want such books on their lists. And yet these are the very publishers most in need of financial support. Unlike in other countries, the government in the U.S. provides very little support for the arts. The largest grants given to literary organizations ranges from 40 to 60 thousand dollars per year, and this is with a population of over 300 million people. Private foundations, with very few exceptions, do not fund literature at all, nor do individuals. Most small presses survive by virtue of overworked and underpaid staff that almost always consists of a very small number of people. In such an environment, literary presses see low sales, oftentimes in the range of 700 to 1,200 copies. And on some days these numbers even look encouraging. Anyone can analyze such numbers to see how economically unfeasible publishing such books is. And yet small presses continue doing it. But what if a large press such as Random House were to publish them? The results are nearly identical, which is precisely why Random House does not do such books. Most funding agencies in other countries fund the partial costs of a translation, and that is all. They mistakenly believe that this modest help should be enough for American and British publishers to do a translation. But this is far from enough. The average cost of publishing a translation is from $35,000 to $45,000. If a funding agency provides half of the cost of translation (let’s assume that this amounts to $3,000), the publisher is still looking at approximately $40,000 in costs. Even if a book sells 2,000 copies (a good number for a translation), the publisher is still facing costs (and a loss) of about $24,000. Funding agencies in non-English speaking countries have, for some reason, a difficulty in understanding these raw facts. The Library of Korean Literature is, however, a bold experiment that will address these problems. Its overall goal, as far as I am concerned, is not to increase sales in some dramatic way; the goal is to introduce these books to the reading public in the most effective ways so that they will find an audience that is interested in them but otherwise would not know about them. Dalkey Archive is making a long-term commitment to these books and to reach the audience for them. These efforts will go on for a long time after the first 25 are published in 2013 and 2014. LTI Korea is making a major investment in this project, but one that is equaled by Dalkey Archive itself. The entire project will cost approximately $750,000, and expenses are being shared by both parties, as is the planning and implementation. Without the innovative, forward-thinking of LTI Korea, this project would not have been possible. In the fall of 2013, the first 13 books in the Library of America will be published, and 12 will be published the following year. These books will all be published on the same day in the U.S., the U.K., and Ireland, and will thereby become a media event because of the large number of books being published and the simultaneous publication. We intend at Dalkey Archive Press to make these publications just the beginning of our commitment to Korean literature and culture. In addition to the publication of these titles, we will also be creating a body of critical works that will be available to English-speaking readers in order to help them approach Korean literature. Marketing initiatives have already begun for these books and will continue over the next three years and beyond. Our expectation is that this dramatic approach will begin to solve many of the problems with publishing literature in the English-speaking world today. * John O’Brien is the founder and publisher of Dalkey Archive Press.
by John O'Brien
The Place
The Secret of Suncheon Bay
It’s 5 a.m. in the morning. I pedal my bike hard. My hair is damp and my face is covered with drops of water although I’ve only been riding briefly. The fog shrouds all things from me, and thereby allows me to be completely alone; the fog turns all existing things into an island. Penetrating this fog, I am headed toward Suncheon Bay. The sound of the wind whizzing by my ears indicates the speed of my ride. I left the city behind me and it is quiet, still deep in slumber. The east stream, which runs through the heart of the city, merges from the darkness like a snake. Alongside the bike lane, there is a forest of reeds. It seems that the reeds have not awakened from their sleep either. They have not shaken off the darkness and remain damp in the fog. The reeds persevere in silence, one that was brought about by a tranquility that is not disturbed even by the breeze. When I reach Suncheon Bay after racing along the east stream, I shall be far away from this chaotic world. But I hope I can experience the freedom that isolation provides. What I like about the freedom I feel in the opaque fog is the absence of the smell of violence. I like this freedom that comes from profound solitude and tranquility. Instead of the ravishingly beautiful Suncheon Bay during the day, I prefer the mist-filled Suncheon Bay of the dawn without a soul around. Suncheon Bay is made up of a tidal flat that is surrounded by ria-(like) shoreline of about 39.8 kilometers. And on this tidal flat, one can find a 30,000 pyeong reed forest. The sea starts where the forest ends. But a vast tidal flat surfaces when it is low tide. On this tidal flat, there is a water pathway that remains hidden in seawater. That which is revealed by what was hiding is more astonishing than it is beautiful. Just like the river that harmonizes with the surrounding mountains as it curves, the pathway of the sea too runs naturally in accordance with the lows and highs of the tidal flat. The tidal flat is a moving river. It is the river beneath the sea. This water passage demonstrates the beauty of the invisible one who is devoted to its work. The life energy of the tidal flat lies in this water passage. Suaeda japonica Makino, a type of saltwater plant, blooms in the tidal flat of Suncheon Bay. Starting out as a young bud in the spring, then transforming itself into a red and burgundy hue when summer passes and autumn arrives, this plant changes its color a total of seven times. Forming a colony in the vast tidal flat, the Suaeda japonica offers a different palette of wardrobe for each season. And toward the sunset when the day comes to a close, it shines even more luminously in red with the color of dusk, thus amplifying the beauty of Suncheon Bay. The reed forest, which forms yet another colony on the tidal flat, looks like it is almost touching the horizon. Gazing at the vast forest of reeds, it appears as though the whole world has come together here. It looks like they are standing shoulder to shoulder, endlessly swaying in the wind, yet standing upright, communing with silence. The reeds blow where the wind blows, never defying anything, surrendering to providence; they become part of the oneness in order to give birth to a greater beauty, not once resisting anything in its humbleness—the subservience of the reed to the laws of nature is what makes the reed truly beautiful. No, to put it more precisely, it is not about beauty but adhering to the truth when one yields to the cosmic way. Only men refuse to follow the truth and instead, want to rule over nature. I think I now know a little about what the subservience of the reed signifies. That is why I am ashamed when I behold the reed. I am shameful of the time I spent in defiance of the love that was given to me, and having written poetry without years of surrender. At one time, I viewed surrendering as submission. I sang of how I wanted to die, imperiously, rather than live on my knees. However, I now believe that encountering death is not a shameful act, and surrender, too, must be a part of the truth somewhere in its depths. The name Suncheon means obeying the way of heaven. That is why the name of the city itself strongly signifies a place where people adhere to the order of nature. The beauty of surrender and humility, as they are manifested by the vast reed forest of Suncheon Bay, thus complete the meaning of its name. Like its name, Suncheon is a beautiful ecological city that has co-existed in harmony with nature, and Suncheon Bay clearly proves it. At last, I have arrived at the dock, the central part of Suncheon Bay. The fog is even thicker than usual. I park my bike and begin taking a stroll through the reed forest. It feels like the mist is permeating through the pores of my face and my body. It is refreshing. In the midst of layers of fog, all that is within 100 meters of my view belonged to me. Like a lost child, I walked along only on the path that was visible to me. This reality, which has severed everything from me, has become my world. I am content with this hour, with this reality of mine. Kim Seungok Museum As I walked through the fog, A Trip to Mujin, a novel by Kim Seungok, a writer from Suncheon, came to mind: “No human power could disperse it before the sun rose and the wind from the sea changed its direction. You could not grab it but it was clearly there. It engulfed you and separated you from all distant things. The fog, the Mujin fog, that its people meet every morning, that makes them ache for the sun and the wind.” Mujin, which means “fog dock,” is the setting of the novel A Trip to Mujin. The author seems to have transposed the very landscape of the Daedae Port in the reed forest of Suncheon Bay into his story. He seems to have wanted to state that in order to overcome one’s uncertain grasp of reality, as though one is trapped in the fog and the paradoxes of life, one can only thoroughly live out these uncertainties and contradictions. Going upstream toward the city, one will come across the Kim Seungok Museum and adjacent to it, shrouded in the mist, is the Jeong Chae-bong Museum, which is dedicated to the famous children’s writer. I crossed the Mujin Bridge that leads to the tidal flat. Underneath the bridge, the water divides the tidal flat and makes a path. It is the water from the east stream that passed through the heart of the city early in the morning. While going over the Mujin Bridge in the fog, I felt like I was leaving behind the mundane world. There, at the end of the reed forest, dense with fog, is the Yongsan Observatory. But because of the thick fog, I decided to imagine it instead of climbing to the top. One can enjoy a panoramic view of Suncheon Bay from the observatory. The reed forest in the distance is formed like a body of round islands. Like small floating islands against the wave, the reed forest sways to and fro. It is an indescribable kind of yearning that the fluid round shape of the reed forest elicits. It is derived from the softness in the curvature of the reed forest and the simplified, flattened landscape as seen from high up—sort of like your gentle and kind-hearted older sister who lives in the country. It is a yearning for all that is humble and sincere—a yearning for what we are being consistently deprived of because of the fast pace, competitiveness, and materialism brought about by capitalist urbanization. It is a fundamental yearning for humble things. Suncheon Bay itself is about this yearning. I paint a ship sailing away from Suncheon Bay as well as the birds that soar high above; I’m startled by the sound of this ship in my mind. It is quite enjoyable to use the inner screen of my imagination. To instantly visualize images, which are solely for myself to screen, is equal to the joy of writing. Drawing in my mind the scenes of Suncheon Bay that one might view from the observatory, I walked further along in the fog. Here and there in the forest I could hear the birds that had risen early; shaking off the dampness from their feathers, they are probably remembering their dreams from the night before. They are maybe thinking of another long journey that they have to take. Many birds from Suncheon Bay migrate to Siberia or Australia depending on the season. Suncheon Bay is a mid-point stopover for these migratory birds to rest their weary bodies. It is a resting place for them to replenish their bodies that have lost half of their weight from flying across the ocean. Suncheon Bay provides the best possible layover and food for these fatigued birds. With abundant prey that the enormous tidal flat proffers, and the comfortable sleep that they can get amongst dense reeds, Suncheon Bay has become a most luxurious hotel for the birds. In short, it is a veritable oasis for them. Approximately 160 different kinds of migratory birds are found in Suncheon Bay. Among them, there are 17 that are registered in the international treaty CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), including the Saunder’s gull, the stork, the blackfaced spoonbill, the Swinhoe’s egret, and the hooded crane; and also birds such as the Saunder’s gull, the tadorne, the gray-tailed tattler and 15 others, which are officially listed in the Ramsar Convention (the 1971 Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as a Waterfowl Habitat). The hooded cranes, of which there are only about 10,000 left in the world, also prepare for their winter in Suncheon Bay. There is plenty of prey to feed on in the low and high hills around the tidal flat and the quiet surrounding farming villages and agricultural lands. Moreover, the area remains uncontaminated thanks to the profuse inflow of seawater from the islands in the outer sea. Surely, Suncheon Bay is a paradise for the birds that migrate from Australia all the way to Siberia. For them it must be the best place in nature. Birds have to fly from when they are born until they die. Flying is what their life is about. They exist not for destinations like Australia or Siberia but because they must fly. That is because life is not about a purpose but the process. What could be the destiny of birds that must flutter their wings until the day they die? Do they know themselves? If it isn’t the purpose of people to get old and meet death, then what actions are we too destined for? Do we live our lives, aware of what that is? These are the questions I always ask myself when I see soaring birds at Suncheon Bay. But the answer I always get is one I do not understand. Chirp, chirp. What flies must fly. Chirp, chirp. That which walks is what walks. Chirp, chirp. I stop walking and look around to see that the fog has been somewhat lifted. Before long, the tidal flat will show itself and one will be able to see the Suaeda japonica on the surface, like a carpet of red. The flock of birds will ascend to the sky from the red rug along the water passage. And a blazing fire will gradually rise from the sea at the edge of the tidal flat. The reeds will brush against each other, and the sound of people will carry across the tidal flat, the reeds, and the flock of birds. The fog will disappear and another day at Suncheon Bay will begin. I push the pedals of my bike hard and ride toward the city, leaving Suncheon Bay behind me.
by Kim Seungok
Overseas Angle
My Favorite Korean Children’s Book
My interest in Korean children’s literature began in 2007, with the birth of my second child. I was struggling to come up with a topic for my doctoral dissertation. My older son was two and a half, and began to request that I read longer books to him at bedtime. Back then we were living in Canada, and the books I owned and borrowed from the library were the ones I had read as a child. At that time I had been reading Korean literature for almost 10 years, but I suddenly came up with a new question: What do Korean children read? My question surprised me because I had never asked it before. But thanks to my children’s growing interest in books, my curiosity about the Korean children’s book industry grew. Having been raised in a house full of books, I asked some of my Korean friends and peers what they had read as children. I was surprised when many could not remember a favorite book, or when they mentioned biographies of Western characters, or Aesop’s and Anderson’s tales. Where, I wondered, where are all the original Korean stories? It was this question that started me on a quest to discover the origins of Korean children’s literature. My research took me back to 1908 and the publication of Choi Namseon’s magazine Sonyeon, and drew me into an investigation of the children’s magazines published in the colonial period including Eorini, Byeollara, Sinsonyeon, Sonyeon, and Sonyeonsegye, and others. In all of these magazines I found fascinating essays, wonderful short stories, amusing illustrations and moving poems, and it is these that I used to teach my courses on Korean children’s literature at Keimyung University and now currently at Stanford. My focus of the last few years, then, has been primarily on the prewar period. Of all the works I have researched in the colonial period, no voice resonates in my mind as prominently as that of writer Hyeon Deok (1909-?). Hyeon Deok, who published short stories in the late colonial period, was very much forgotten until Won Jong-chan brought him back to light through his research, and through publications such as I’m Not Playing With You (1995). This book is a collection of roughly 40 vignettes and short stories published by the writer throughout the late colonial period. And it is one of the only children’s books that I have read so far that has moved me deeply. Hyeon was a great writer for several reasons. First, in his works he introduces delightful yet complex characters. They are not wholly good or wholly evil, as was typical of children’s literature since its inception at the turn of the 20th century. They are children, but they are also capable of a range of human emotions including anger, jealousy, pettiness, as well as love and hope. They are not caricatures, but rich individuals in which any reader can find a little bit of him or herself. Second, he does not teach; he shows. One of his deep concerns is with the social and economic inequality caused by the colonial capitalist system. But rather than use the children as mouthpieces, or deliver a didactic speech on the subject, Hyeon tells stories in which the wealthy child refuses to share his snacks; in which an impoverished boy wants a toy so badly that he sees the toy in every inanimate object around him; in which children mimic the market exchange by exchanging mounds of sand, a game that emphasizes the inherent paradoxes of capital exchange. Hyeon’s texts are not only emotionally rich but they are linguistically rewarding. His language is both lyrical and colloquial—the reader can hear the children’s voices, and laugh at the nuances of their speech—with repetitions and attention to details that reads poetically. My research has so far kept me reading works mostly from the pre-1950s period in Korea. At a time when book markets are concerned with new talent and publishing houses depend on sales, not many would look to Korea’s early publishing history for compelling literature. However, Hyeon Deok’s works promise great rewards to those who make time to read him. I would like to suggest the reading of Hyeon Deok’s 40 vignettes and their inclusion in the classroom syllabus (a sample of one of his stories, “The Sky,” can be found in Azalea 2012 along with the original illustrations by artist Jung Hyun-woong). His readers will not be disappointed. * Dafna Zur is an assistant professor at Stanford University, where she teaches courses on Korean literature, popular culture, visual culture, and Asian children’s literature. She is currently working on a manuscript which examines the imagined reader in colonial period children's magazines. Her translations of Korean fiction have appeared in wordswithoutborders.org.
by Dafna Zur