A Century of Queer Korean Fiction

A Century of Queer Korean Fiction

EDITED AND TRANSLATED BY

Samuel Perry

The Modern Language Association of America

New York 2023

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Note on Romanization

Introduction

Bibliography of Original Works

Further Reading in English

Note on the Translations

Sang Young Park, “Yundo Is Back”

Yi Seoyoung, “My Queer Year of Junior High”

Kim Bi, “Saltwater Baths”

O Chŏnghŭi, “Traditional Solo”

Yu Sŭngjin, “Struggling amid This Despair”

Ch’oe Chŏnghŭi, “Spring”

Yi Kiyŏng, Selections from Spring

Kim Sunyŏng, “Dear Sister, I’m Off to the Moon”

Yi Kwangsu, “Yun Kwangho”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have many people to thank for the suggestions, support, solidarity, and labor they have contributed since the conception of this project almost seven years ago. I want to begin by thanking all the fabulous Brown University undergraduates who have read Korean literature with me, but especially Young Jie Cho, Minae Choi, Chloe Chung, Kenneth Kang, Abby Kim, Christopher Kim, He Ri Kwon, Remi Lee, Paige Morris, Min Namgung, Issac Sŏ, and Tom Tomezsko, many of whom also served as student research assistants, and some of whom have become published translators themselves. I want to thank Mark Pendleton, Julie Christ, Janet Poole, Jin-kyung Lee, Eugene Park, Ko Youngran, and Cheon Jung-hwan for facilitating speaking engagements on various aspects of this collection and its translation; these chances to interact with faculty members and students around the world led to important discoveries and insights that helped shape the manuscript. Jeong-ah Jo provided expert assistance in helping me understand and translate the subtleties of O Chŏnghŭi’s work, especially. Sang Seok Yoon offered superb editorial help by reviewing several of my translations. In addition to the two anonymous readers who reviewed the entire manuscript for the Modern Language Association, Yoon Sun Yang and Todd Henry were also kind enough to share feedback with me on parts of the manuscript.

A special thanks goes out to Allan Simpson and Eugene Lee, who while at SOAS, University of London, spent time with me discussing Kim Bi’s work; to Yeong Ran Kim, who, as a graduate student at Brown University, pointed me in the direction of many texts on schoolgirl love; and to Lee Hye Ryoung at Sungkyunkwan University, who urged me to read Yi Kiyŏng’s novel Spring. I am also indebted to the pioneering work of numerous colleagues who have been working at the intersection of queer, transgender, and Korean studies. These include many of the people who participated in the Queer Korea at Brown Conference held in spring 2018. Curators and librarians at the National Library of Korea, the Korea Queer Archive in Seoul, and the Rainbowbookmark website (Rainbowbookmark.com), as well as Toshi Minami at Brown University, have also been of great help to me. I am in debt to all the writers included in this volume and to the heirs of those writers no longer with us, who have offered me permission to translate and publish their work. I am deeply grateful to everyone involved in the Modern Language Association’s Texts and Translations series whose many labors have helped get this project across the finish line.

Finally, Brown University has assisted this project by funding my travel to archives in Seoul and to many conferences and by helping with the costs of obtaining copyright permissions. I’m especially grateful to the Brown Arts Initiative, the Watson Institute for International Studies, the Cogut Institute for the Humanities, the Departments of East Asian Studies and Comparative Literature, and the Office of the Dean of the Faculty. During the time I worked on this manuscript the East Asian studies department managers Leah Lebel and Jessica Cho went beyond the call of duty in facilitating many of the professional relationships that this project depended on.

Closer to home, my dear friends Alexis Dudden, Hisae Kobayashi, and Amy Moses have helped keep me sane with daily texts, weekly hikes, and during the pandemic, many a Zoom happy hour. My mother, the former senator Rhoda Perry, long a champion of LGBTQ+ rights in the State of Rhode Island, has read every English word of this book, serving not only as an informal editor but also as coparent to Willa, our beloved pooch, who has been a constant source of joy and companionship for the duration of this project.

NOTE ON ROMANIZATION

This anthology generally follows a modified version of the McCune-Reischauer romanization system, which permits alterations and simplifications of commonly used words like hangul and place names such as Seoul and Pyongyang. The system also makes exceptions for the names of famous people, such as Park Chung Hee, when alternative spellings are already well known and for the names of Korean authors and scholars who have already established in print a preferred form of romanization for their names. Some loanwords of Japanese and English origin are also romanized to reflect those linguistic connections.

In Korean, the family name usually precedes the given name. This anthology adopts this practice for Korean writers except when their names have been otherwise published in English or are already well known with the given name first.

INTRODUCTION

In May 2020, as COVID-19 spread across the globe, a wave of infections appeared in South Korea, which had almost entirely contained the disease in the early months of the pandemic. This wave was soon traced to a group of nightclubs in Itaewon, one of the few queer-friendly neighborhoods in Seoul. As major media outlets began to scapegoat members of the queer community, public health experts quickly decried these blatant acts of prejudice—largely out of fear that they might exacerbate the spread of the virus (“Media Reports”). Rarely had Korean government officials ever acted so swiftly in responding to blatant acts of homophobia in the media. Weeks later “sixth-generation” infections stemming from the “Itaewon outbreak” would continue to be discovered and reported across the country (“S. Korea”).

Many different stories could be told about this particular incident, stories related to public health policy, to the violent distortions of the mass media, and to the lives of individual people affected by them.1 The pandemic has shined a spotlight on racial and socioeconomic inequalities across the globe—inequalities that have played out in Korea as well—but the Itaewon outbreak gave international visibility to a specific strain of homophobia in South Korea that was perhaps more virulent in the second decade of the twenty-first century than ever before (Strother). Colonialism, military dictatorship, and now a securitized, neoliberal state have all helped to produce their own versions of homophobia in the effort to regulate human gender and sexuality. But in a range of new publications—most recently Todd Henry’s Queer Korea and Pak Ch’a Minjŏng’s Queer Chosŏn (조선의 퀴어; Chosŏn ŭi k’wiŏ)— the history of compulsory heteronormativity in Korea and the stigmatization of queer people as an integral part of that history is finally being told.

The individual stories of queer Koreans, too, are increasingly being heard, often in the form of literature. South Korea may still be a place where it is difficult for members of the LGBTQ+ community to live and work openly, but after almost thirty years of activism there is now a significant legacy of queer struggle, which is richly recorded in archives and also embodied in nonprofit institutions that now advocate on behalf of sexual minorities. Globalization has for the past two decades also played a significant role in shaping new categories of desire, community, and communication in Korea. As a consequence of these structural changes and collective struggle, the twenty-first century has seen an efflorescence of queer film, literature, and Internet culture in South Korea, with hundreds of short stories, novels, and works of nonfiction appearing in print as well as online. A surprising profusion of queer people and practices have come to populate Korean literature, some of it written by authors whose names are now well known throughout the world—for example, Shin Kyung Sook, Kim Young-ha, and Han Kang.2 In recent years more works have appeared by authors who have publicly embraced identities as members of the queer and transgender communities.

One sign of queer literature’s recent rise can be found on the Korean website Rainbowbookmark (무지개책갈피; Mujigae ch’aekkalp’i; Rainbowbookmark.com). This site is a forum dedicated to compiling and reviewing literary works of interest to the queer community—both Korean and non-Korean. The site tags each work it catalogs with a wide range of terms related to queer life in Korea today, including coming out, homophobia, FTM, MTF, intersex, nonbinary, alternative families, sexual violence, military, sex work, disability, and pansexuality. Most of these terms would appear to be remarkably consistent with the concerns raised by queer-identified people across the globe. As both ordinary people and professional writers have negotiated these concerns within their own local contexts, these issues have helped to shape the literary work of a new generation of queer authors, too, who are featured regularly in South Korean literary journals, such as The Quarterly Changbi (창작과비평; Ch’angjak kwa pip’yŏng) and Munhak tongne (문학동네), as well as in venues with international audiences, such as Words without Borders and Korean Literature Now, a magazine published by the government-funded Literature Translation Institute of Korea. Queer Korean literature is now an indelible part of contemporary South Korean culture and is helping to change the way Korea sees itself and is seen by the world.

This collection begins with several works published in the twenty-first century, closely connected to this more contemporary queer cultural movement. But the collection quickly leads the reader—in reverse chronological order—much deeper into the history of modern Korea, back to discrete moments in the past when an interest in sex and gender variance also brought writers to produce a rich body of work, under forms of colonial governance and postcolonial dictatorship. With the overarching goals of making visible diverse expressions of gender and sexuality in Korea, and shedding light on the relation of that history to Korean modern literature, this anthology brings together a constellation of works selected from almost each decade of the past century. I draw on the metaphor of a constellation here in part to steer readers away from any impression that literature helps us chart the development of an authentically queer subject through time; there may be continuities between the works included in this volume, but so too are there breaks and disruptions, as gender and sexuality—and writing about them—took shape in a specific, and often rapidly transforming, history. The volume is not meant to be a comprehensive, or even exemplary, collection of queer writings, per se, but rather a short selection of works that highlight different representations of queerness across the modern period and that invite readers to reflect on the ways literature has performed important cultural work in the shaping of sex and gender. This introduction offers readers a way of understanding these literary works within a broader framework that emphasizes their cultural and historical contexts.

Before asking what might count as queer literature in Korea when it comes to texts produced before the advent of queer activism, readers might find it helpful first to ask what in fact counts as Korean literature. The answer is not so self-evident as it might seem. Each work included in this volume was published at a different moment in Korea’s tumultuous modern history, when there was never a single answer to the question of what Korean literature should look like—or even how it should relate to the modern Korean language, as in the case of the earliest work in this volume by Yi Kwangsu, one of the last works of Korean fiction to draw heavily on Chinese characters. The aesthetic ideal of creating a literature inherently linked to the notion of a Korean nation was a fundamentally new one in the early twentieth century, and the shape that this new formation of literature should take over the next century—in relation to matters of colonial struggle, national division, war, dictatorship, cultural tradition, and literary form—was a matter of significant contestation. Nor do Korean debates over these questions necessarily align with the kinds of conversations that played out in the anglophone world, which has placed an especially high premium on the virtues of creativity and imagination over a more direct engagement with politics in the twentieth century (Williams 149). This anthology does not necessarily adhere to narrow definitions of what constitutes good literature, but it is shaped by the contours of a highly fragmented archive and by other historical pressures that have limited scholars’ access to and ability to republish much material beyond the form of narrative fiction. As the archive becomes more visible, as more works fall out of copyright protection, and as the more recent backlash against queer culture subsides, more texts will likely become available for publication in a queer volume such as this one.

What may come as a surprise to readers, even those well versed in the history of Korean literature, is the extent to which Korean works with queer content have been sitting in plain sight. The stories selected for this anthology, for example, include pieces by some of Korea’s most canonical writers—men and women such as Yi Kwangsu, Yi Kiyŏng, Ch’oe Chŏnghŭi, and O Chŏnghŭi—who in their day published work in both prominent intellectual journals and widely circulating popular newspapers. A deeper dive into the world of popular culture, however, where literary works are not as meticulously anthologized and republished, has also led to the inclusion of the largely unknown writers Kim Sunyŏng and Yu Sŭngjin. Their short pieces open up important questions about the kinds of cultural work performed by popular literature in the construction of gender and sexuality, as well as an invitation to consider historical continuities with the experiences of more openly queer- and trans-identified writers now beginning to gain national, even international attention.

In terms of both literary style and human experience, the stories collected in this anthology speak to the diversity of modern Korean literature. The writers assembled here have been variously described, in conventional terms, as pro-Japanese (친일; ch’inil), proletarian, realist, and modernist. They have written in a wide array of literary forms, including historical fiction, popular fiction, and genre fiction. What is abundantly clear from this collection is that an interest in nonconforming genders and sexualities has crisscrossed an extremely broad spectrum of ideological perspectives and literary orientations over the course of modern Korean history. This diversity of styles and genres appears in works that capture a wide range of subject positions, falling within and often between the common dichotomies of men and women, rich and poor, old and young, rural and cosmopolitan, trans- and cisgender, and gay and lesbian. The anthology includes stories of people who are out and people who are still in the closet, as well as many more stories written well before the notion of coming out (커밍아웃; k’ŏmingaut) even existed in Korea. While the complex, intersectional ways in which young Koreans today self-identify exceed these dichotomies—as many of the stories in this volume make clear—expressions of gender and sex variance abound in modern Korean literature, and Korean writers have over the past century distributed interiority to a wide range of characters embodying nonnormative genders and sexualities. The arc of modern Korean literature can in fact be brought into focus by exploring works that feature the lives of queer people.

The term queer (퀴어; k’wiŏ) itself has only been used by the broader LGBTQ+ community in South Korea for the last decade or so as an umbrella term embracing a wide range of nonconforming genders and sexualities, as well as “willfully eccentric modes of being,” in ways that resonate with global forms of queer culture (Halberstam 1). While the ostensibly more neutral term sexual minority (성소수자; sŏngsosuja) is also an important word now used by the LGBTQ+ community, its allies, and the press—often to advocate for the human rights of queer people—early forms of Korean gay and lesbian activism go back to the mid-1990s, when the term iban (이반) was coined as a more inclusive, gender-neutral term for homosexual. Although embracing the term queer to refer to a set of desires, practices, and representations that span the past century in Korea may risk associating them with forms of global activism and identity that have their origins in the West, South Korean academics and members of the queer community now commonly use the term retrospectively to encapsulate a wide variation of genders and sexualities in the context of Korean history. For the purposes of this anthology, then, queer refers more generally to the experiences of people who, since the advent of modern science and statecraft, have been stigmatized as nonnormative but whose presence has always held the potential for destabilizing those binaries of sex and gender that have been enforced, at least in part, by forms of imperial and nationalist consciousness. Many of the editorial decisions made for this volume—which attempts to highlight diversity within the queer Korean experience, to situate texts about nonconforming gender and sexuality within their historical contexts, and to showcase works that participated in the construction of broader systems of identification and desire—may still mark the anthology as a product of the North American academy, but the volume has been assembled in allegiance, and conversation, with a broader body of queer studies scholarship and a broader community of queer people interested in decentering the experiences and epistemologies of anglophone queer culture.3

In part for these reasons, most of the works included in this volume are not exemplary in their politics but instead speak to the ways in which literary texts have been asked to perform cultural work that can, in retrospect, often be seen as highly problematic. Some stories in this volume, for example, feature expressions of same-sex love among privileged groups of people that might seem more redolent of elite bonding rituals than of progressive, never mind radical, politics. Others carve out important critical spaces when it comes to gender and sexuality while at the same time reproducing language that to many people today might seem offensive or distasteful. The more recent works in this volume show a greater mindfulness of the blind spots that can exist even within contemporary queer and trans communities, which continue to wrestle with global categories of identity at the local level and with the complexities of intersectionality. The literary works selected for this volume tend to embody a productive ambivalence—much more so than journalistic accounts—which makes them especially helpful in discussing questions of language, power, and representation as they relate to the lives of sexual minorities. The works assembled here also coalesce under the premise that queerness itself lies as much in the process of reading as in the content of each work. In this sense the anthology is predicated on a reader willing to open their mind to the different experiences of others, interested in dissecting troubling texts that have played a role in constructing desires, and committed to connecting the past to the ways in which people understand and live in the world today. The remainder of this introduction, which loosely connects the nine stories included in this volume, sets the stage for reading these compelling works within contexts specific to gender variance and nonnormative sexuality in Korea.

“Yun Kwangho” (“윤광호”), the earliest story in this collection, was published in the Korean-language journal Youth (청춘; Ch’ŏngch’un) in April 1918, some eight years after Japan’s formal annexation of Korea as a colony. While the Japanese military had been governing the Korean peninsula with an iron fist for almost a decade, thousands of Koreans had been studying Japanese, and traveling to Japan, to educate themselves, many with the goal of helping their country join the ranks of other modern nations. Yi Kwangsu, the early Korean novelist many consider to be the founder of modern Korean literature, was one of them. Written in Tokyo, where Yi lived as a student at the time, his work “Yun Kwangho” takes place mainly in the Japanese metropole as it weaves together the stories of several same-sex relationships involving both Koreans and Japanese. Published not long before Yi’s well-known novel The Heartless (무정; Mujŏng), “Yun Kwangho” is one of several early works by Yi in which the subject of same-sex love plays an important role—principle among them being the Japanese-language work “Maybe Love” (愛か; “Ai ka”), written in 1909 about a Korean student who longs after a Japanese classmate of the same sex.4 In “Maybe Love” the protagonist’s desire for his classmate resonates closely with the kind of intense homosocial bonding portrayed in other Japanese works published at the time, but that desire is complicated by its racialization, which invites readers to interpret the Korean protagonist’s “love” for the Japanese classmate as a desire to identify with the boy as much as a desire for him. The story may appear today to be primarily one of same-sex love, but when understood within the historical context of Japanese imperialism, it can also be read as a unique and powerful allegory of colonial subjectivity. Although “Yun Kwangho” delves more deeply than “Maybe Love” does into the interiority of its main character and shifts the racialized nature of desire, both stories are among the earliest instances of transcultural queer literature in modern East Asia.5

Colonial Korean writers like Yi Kwangsu, as well as a slowly emerging middle class, would for the next half century find their own cultural sensibilities informed by Japanese modes of perceiving and apprehending the world, which had a profound effect on the ways in which they wrote about gender and sexuality. Same-sex love was a popular subject in the Japanese media during Yi’s long stay in Tokyo—with sexologists, journalists, feminists, and artists engaging in heated conversations about it (see Pflugfelder, Cartographies and “ ‘S’ ”). Although Western sexology had already been studied for several decades in Japan, works such as Richard von Krafft-Ebing’s 1886 Psychopathia Sexualis (Sexual Psychopathy) became available in complete Japanese translation by 1913 (Hentai seiyoku), bringing particular attention to gender variance and nonnormative sexuality. Gabriel Sylvian argues that it was this new discourse on abnormal sexology that informed Yi’s effort to explore the world of same-sex emotions in “Yun Kwangho” and that set it apart from Yi’s earlier stories. At the time Yi was also preoccupied with the idea of strengthening the development of Korean literature by infusing vernacular-based modern writing with feelings (정; chŏng), which Yi argued had long been suppressed by neo-Confucian thought (Hwang 19).

While the intensity of emotions in “Yun Kwangho” may at first seem to offer an unflattering, even pathological portrait of same-sex desire, it is notable that no characters in Yi’s story employ anything resembling homophobic language, nor do they harbor negative judgments about same-sex desire in and of itself. However, several years later, by 1925, one of Korea’s prominent young intellectuals, Pak Yŏnghŭi, would write that while “Yun Kwangho” was one of the first modern stories he had ever read as a youth, he and his friends had chuckled at the surprise ending, which reveals the same-sex nature of the main character’s desire. According to Pak, his feelings as a reader were governed not by a sympathy for the lonely, depressed main character but by “좀 불쾌한 남색적 기분의 호기심이였다” (“a curiosity for the rather unpleasant sentiments of male love”; Pak 86; my trans.).6 Explaining how the relationship in “Yun Kwangho” had been modeled after a same-sex relationship between students whom the author knew in Japan—a relationship that was scandalously publicized in Japanese newspapers—one Korean journalist, writing in 1927 about the models writers had used for their characters, refers to the “외설” (“obscene”) nature of Yi’s 1918 story (Sim Saeng 75). By the mid-1920s—and in stark contrast to the earlier moment when Yi’s work was published—Korean literary critics were increasingly equipped with a new and vicious language with which to condemn male homosexuality as barbarian, in ways that resonated closely with journalistic accounts that often coded such practices as odiously foreign or criminal.7 While male gay practices continued well into the twentieth century in Korea, some elite colonized Korean men saw it as a mark of their own uniquely civilized nature to condemn such nonnormative practices at a time when same-sex love between men became increasingly associated with carnal desires instead of purer matters of the heart.8

When we consider the experience that Yi had with same-sex love in his youth, however, we are also asked to imagine a complex set of possibilities for queer Korean experience and representation in the colonial period. In “His Autobiography” (“그의 자서전”; “Kŭ ŭi chasŏjŏn”), first serialized in the Chosŏn ilbo (조선일보) in 1936–37, Yi writes of a handsome, well-mannered teenager named Sim T’aesŏp, who though poor and unmarried was “내 고적한 혼을 만져 주기 위하여 처음 나타난 사람” (“the first person to appear in order to touch my lonely soul”; Yi Kwangsu 257; 239–455). Describing a romantic scene of two boys hiking up Chasŏng Mountain on the Buddha’s birthday, Yi continues,

이 거룩한 성—산꼭대기 하늘 가까운 곳에 있는 성에서 나는 처음으로 애정의 경험을 한 것이다. 그것은 우리가 소나기를 만났을 때에 태섭은 바위 밑에서 나를 꼭 껴안아 주어서 젖지 않고 춥지 않게 해주고, 그리고 소나기가 그치고 볕이 나서 우리가 바위 밑에서 나올 때에 태섭은 내 목을 꼭 껴안고 입을 맞추어 주었던 것이다. 나는 그의 입의 향기를 지금도 기억하고 있다. 그것은 그의 마음의 향기였을는지도 모른다. (258; qtd. in Paek 112)

[A]t this divine fortress—this castle at the top of the mountain, almost touching the sky—I experienced love for the very first time. A sudden shower came upon us, and beneath a large boulder T’aesŏp embraced me tightly to protect me from both the wet and the cold. When the rain ended and the sunshine came out again, we had just emerged from beneath the boulder when T’aesŏp firmly grabbed my neck and put his lips against mine. I still remember to this very day the sweet scent of his mouth. It was perhaps also the sweet scent of his heart.

As a colonial intellectual notorious for collaborating with the Japanese authorities, Yi has often been accused of reinventing himself in self-serving ways. Yi’s nostalgic glance back at his youth, which, written in the mid-1930s, safely narrates his experience of same-sex love as something located firmly in his past, echoes literary accounts of dozens of other, later married, male writers also educated in Japan—from Mori Ōgai to Kawabata Yasunari. Yi’s affirmation of his own gay experiences also calls to mind the Chosŏn dynasty stories that affirm male-male intimacy in the romantic terms that the literary scholar Kang Munjong has also written about (34). Although journalistic discourse in the 1930s often deemed male gay practices odious and pathological, Yi’s autobiographical writings suggest that rich, powerful people who could easily identify with the experiences of imperial subjects in Japan were also able to confidently stand above such judgments—in ways that perhaps resonated with an older generation, whose lived experiences spoke to abiding continuities with a premodern experience.

Another way of looking at Yi’s autobiography is to say that it codes male same-sex love closely within contemporary conventions used for describing same-sex love among schoolgirls, the subject of several stories in this anthology. Yi wrote about same-sex intimacy among women in his novels Soil (흙; Hŭk) and The Equinox of Desire (애욕의 피안; Aeyok ŭi p’ian), to differing effects. Other leading colonial writers such as Yŏm Sangsŏp and Pak T’aewŏn, too, included scenes of same-sex love between schoolgirls—but not schoolboys—in works such as Yŏm’s Two Hearts (이심; Isim) and Pak’s “Portrait of a Beauty” (미녀도; “Minyŏdo”). The pleasures and perils of same-sex schoolgirl love had become an object of considerable interest to male journalists beginning in the mid-1920s, who produced work that tended on the one hand to mock or romanticize schoolgirl love as an intense form of emotional bonding, and on the other offered responsible parents and educators sobering analyses of what they described as a temporary but potentially dangerous phase of development that many girls experienced before properly maturing into heterosexuals.9 As more young women appeared in public spaces, and as their assertiveness and independence was perceived as a social threat, the male obsession with new women (신여성; sinyŏsŏng), modern girls (모던걸; modŏn’gŏl), and schoolgirls (여학생; yŏhaksaeng) was not only voyeuristic in its nature but even hysterical. Young elite women themselves had during the early colonial period also found enormous freedom in the ability to leave home and attend modern schools, where they forged new relationships and became a burgeoning audience of readers interested in consuming stories about themselves and their intimate relationships. The Korean word for same-sex love (동성연애; tongsŏng yŏnae) became largely synonymous in the 1930s with ardent emotional attachments between adolescent girls in ways that we might now say fell broadly across the homosocial spectrum. Same-sex love among elite schoolgirls was tolerated largely because it was seen as a temporary and innocent phenomenon rather than a matter of carnal desire, or a powerful challenge against the sex-gender system, and its representation fit snugly within masculinist modes of seeing women.

Few prominent women writers seem to have taken up the topic of same-sex love in their fiction during the colonial period. Other elite women, however, were not silent on the matter and occasionally opened up about their own schoolgirl experiences, which were a matter of both emotional and physical intimacy. Yi Kwangsu’s wife, Hŏ Yŏngsuk, for example, one of Korea’s first obstetricians, gleefully describes in a short piece in Pyŏlgŏn’gon (별건곤) all the same-sex partners she had in her youth—mainly other schoolgirls, but also young teachers. “동성연애를 … 별로 남에게 뒤지지 않게 많이 하였을 걸요!” (“Oh, I had many same-sex affairs, no fewer than anyone else”), declares Hŏ, detailing at length the extent of her partners and where they were in society at the time of her writing (“Yŏryu” 120). She describes how they would meet at church, where they would embrace each other and chat for hours, exchanging tokens of their love in the form of colorful hankies. As a fifteen-year-old, Hŏ had once tried unsuccessfully as a day student to get permission from her parents to move into the school dormitory to be with her beloved. She writes of the jealousy she felt upon learning that, because of this failure, the older girl’s affections had shifted to another. Other women featured in the same article describe same-sex love as a passionate experience, such as the journalist Hwang Sindŏk, who concludes her reflections with the line, “그 때적 같이 순전한 감정으로만 사랑해 본 적이 없습니다” (“I have never loved anyone so purely with all my heart as I did back then”; 120; qtd. in Y. R. Kim). Hŏ also recalls having to sleep with her hands outside the covers, so that her girlfriend at the time could make sure she was not touching anyone else. What is striking in all of these retrospective accounts is not only the intensity of emotional and physical bonding but also the degree to which these experiences are securely sequestered in the past and have decidedly not been carried into the adult lives of these women. Discourse of this sort helped to normalize female same-sex love during the colonial period as a part of ordinary adolescent experience.

This intense emotional and physical bonding comes to the fore in two related stories about schoolgirl love included in this volume. The first is a short, epistolary piece called “Dear Sister, I’m Off to the Moon” (“언니 저 달나라로”; “Ŏnni, chŏ tallara ro”), written in 1933 by Kim Sunyŏng. Published in the journal New Women (신여성; Sin yŏsŏng), the work was part of a collection of short essays about “처녀심경” (“the feelings of single women”; “Ch’ŏnyŏ” 54), including those of a twenty-something-year-old “old maid” (“노처녀”; 56) and a newly engaged young woman. Kim’s piece is a unique example of a work ostensibly written by a Korean woman about schoolgirl love in the colonial period. Its dreamy, sentimental style invites comparisons not only to some of Yi Kwangsu’s fiction but also to the girls’ fiction (少女小説; shōjo shōsetsu) of the Japanese lesbian writer Yoshiya Nobuko, who would be celebrated as one of the most popular writers among Seoul’s elite schoolgirls only a few years later (Yi Sŏ 146). Although narrated in part by the voice of a female adolescent pining after her older lover, “Dear Sister” is especially notable for the way it frames the girl’s thoughts, in effect trivializing the main character’s desires as the fleeting emotions of an innocent child. Several short works of fiction published in the early 1930s, such as the second episode of the serialized comic story “Life of a Woman” (“여자의 일생”; “Yŏja ŭi ilsaeng”), similarly dramatized ardent attachments between female students—and their young female teachers—often relying on the epistolary form to capture the authentic voices of queer young women. Such melodramatic stories featured the common tropes of jealous lovers, pledges of loyalty (sometimes written in blood), and fears of losing female friendships after forced marriages to men. In 1931, the Korean popular press also wrote extensively about the love suicide of two upper-class girls, Hong Ogim and Kim Yŏngju, who had rekindled their schoolgirl friendship after Kim had married unhappily. A matter of great interest in Japan as well—where it was reported to be the first same-sex suicide in Korea—the story of Misses Hong and Kim attracted sympathy all around, as well as warnings about same-sex affairs that carried on after adolescence (Kō 82). Although journalists noted that few family members or friends divulged details about the girls’ relationship, we still find in articles published at the time detailed dialogues such as this one, apparently reported by a housekeeper:

『정말 너하고 떨어져 사는 하루가 안타깝구나! 얘! 네가 이 집 첩으로 들어와서 같이 살자꾸나. 그러면 날마다 떨어지지 않고 서로 같이 지내지 않겠니.』

『어디 첩으로야 올 수 있니. 세상이 챙피해서 그 대신 내가 너의 집 부엌어멈으로 들어오면 날마다 한 집에서 지내고 그게 좋지 않으냐』

『첩이고 부엌어멈이고 당장 너 없이는 내가 살지를 못하겠다.』

(Pongmyŏnga 19)

“I feel so miserable whenever we’re apart! My darling! Couldn’t you possibly join the family as a concubine? We could be together every day and never have to leave each other’s side?”

“Come as a concubine? But how embarrassing! Wouldn’t it be better for me to instead come in as a cook so we could live forever under the same roof?”

“Concubine or cook, what difference does it make. The point is I cannot live without you.”

With reportage like this, what need indeed was there for fiction? Articles of this kind, which like “Dear Sister” blurred the lines between fact and fiction, would play an important role throughout Korea’s modern history in constructing public attitudes toward sexuality. This particular account in the literary journal Pyŏlgŏn’gon concludes with a quote from Shakespeare—“약한 자여 너의 이름은 여자니라” (“Frailty, thy name is woman”; 20; Shakespeare 1.2.150)—underscoring the grave perils of “애매한 타입을 가지고 엄벙하니 떠도는 여성” (“that ambiguous type of lost, wandering female”; Pongmyŏnga 20) who was in the process of transitioning from one stage of life to another.

A second story of mid-century schoolgirl love in this anthology, a story called “Spring” (봄; “Pom”), appears to be set at a girl’s school during the mid-colonial period—or rather, there are no outright indications that situate the story in 1950, when it was published, after Korea’s liberation from the Japanese Empire. Born in 1912 and having lived through the colonial period as a schoolgirl herself, the story’s author, Ch’oe Chŏnghŭi, was once considered one of Korea’s most celebrated and representative women’s style writers (여류작가; yŏryu chakka), though this category has now largely been discredited. One of only a few Korean women to join, if only briefly, the proletarian literary movement, shortly before her arrest by the colonial police, Ch’oe gained prominence in the early 1930s by writing about the lives of single mothers and independent-minded women in such stories as the 1937 “Haunted House” (“흉가”; “Hyungga”), the 1942 Japanese-language story “Wild Chrysanthemum” (“野菊抄”; “Nogikushō”), and the 1942 World War II story “Dawn” (“여명”; “Yŏmyŏng”). “Dawn” was among the first of Ch’oe’s works to take up the subject of same-sex love. As Ha Shin-ae has argued, “Dawn” draws on a nostalgia for same-sex love as a form of “근대적 여성의 기억/결속” (“modern female memory/solidarity”; 421) in a way that challenges the story’s dominant narrative of wartime ideology.

Written many years later, on the eve of the Korean War, Ch’oe’s story “Spring” joins a number of the writer’s postcolonial works, published after South Korea’s rebirth as an independent nation, that exhibit a strong sense of continuity with, even a deep nostalgia for, the earlier colonial period. Noting Ch’oe’s purported complicity with Japanese authorities during World War II, and accusations against both Ch’oe and her husband that they participated in antinational activities in the late 1940s, some scholars argue that Ch’oe’s early postcolonial work narrates happy, ahistorical memories of the colonial period that “행복하지 않은 현재와 대조되는” (“contrast it with the unpleasantness of the present”; Hŏ Yun 113). In its use of highly descriptive, even florid language to describe girls and their feelings, “Spring” certainly echoes the romantic discourse on schoolgirl love that we see in works like “Dear Sister,” published during the colonial period. But “Spring” also sets itself apart from this earlier work in two important ways. First, there is an emphasis on the sensate body in “Spring” that suggests sexual contact between women that would have been deemed unseemly and likely censored for obscenity had the story appeared fifteen years earlier. Second, there is a significant change in the libidinal desires of the main character, who by the end of “Spring” experiences a clear shift in her attraction from schoolgirls to schoolboys. The arc of the narrative, in other words, underscores how same-sex attraction was still seen in 1950 as a temporary phase that normal girls were to learn from, but eventually move beyond. Despite the chaotic state of affairs in Korea on the eve of the Korean War, “Spring” steers clear from any overt reference to politics in its nostalgic glance at daily life at a girls’ school, but Ch’oe’s depiction of female same-sex love in this story, as in Ch’oe’s broader 1953 novel, The Green Door (녹색의 문; Noksaek ŭi mun), into which the story seems to have developed, is indelibly intertwined with its postcolonial context (Kim Poksun).

Another mid-century piece in this anthology is composed of selections from a different work, also called Spring, a long novel written by colonial Korea’s, and subsequently North Korea’s, most celebrated proletarian writer, Yi Kiyŏng. Author of the canonical 1934 novel Hometown (고향; Kohyang), Yi began publishing Spring in 1940 as a serialized novel in the East Asia Daily (동아일보; Tonga ilbo) that drew heavily on his own experiences as a child. Within just a few weeks, however, the newspaper abruptly terminated its serialization, and it took several more years for the novel to be published in full, as Yi writes in the introduction to its first North Korean reprinting (Pom [Pyŏngyang] 3–7). Given the pressures of colonial censorship, and the inability of Korean writers to honestly depict the present day in late colonial Korea, many authors at the time had begun to write works of historical fiction set well before the full onslaught of Japanese colonialism. As a piece of historical fiction, Spring is notable for the way it portrays male same-sex love as a seemingly normal Korean custom (풍속; p’ungsok) at the dawn of the twentieth century. Paek Chongnyu points out that in this regard the novel stands in contrast to nineteenth-century stories (야담; yadam) and even to Yi Kwangsu’s first novel, The Heartless (무정; Mujŏng), where male-to-male sexuality usually involves an aggressor and a victim (119).10 Although same-sex love was in the late colonial period discussed increasingly as a kind of perversion rooted in a psychiatric illness (“Pyŏnjang”), the effort to detail such local customs in a novel is perhaps not surprising given how many intellectuals at the time feared that traditional Korean culture was in the process of disappearing under Japanese policies of coercive assimilation. The selections from Spring included in this anthology describe same-sex practices in a traditional schoolhouse (서당; sŏdang), a wife’s displeasure at her husband’s infatuation with a beautiful boy (미동; midong), several references to men pairing up (짝패; tchakp’ae), and a scene featuring troupes of male itinerant performers (남사당; namsadang) known for including dancing boys (무동; mudong), whose homoerotic energies were a major attraction.11 Although the novel is narrated from the perspective of someone many years after the narrative events play out, Yi’s seemingly nonjudgmental descriptions of these Korean customs in 1940 largely stand at odds with journalistic accounts that, as already noted, tended to stigmatize such male-male sexual practices, as well as with wartime authorities that deemed such practices antisocial (Yi Sŏ; see also Ha).12

For copyright reasons, the version of Spring translated here is the first North Korean version, published in 1957. But it also includes especially detailed footnotes, which restore for the reader all the places where revisions and deletions were made in the North Korean edition to tone down the homoerotics of Yi Kiyŏng’s novel. Using this version of Spring thus also provides us with a rare opportunity to reflect on the portrayal of same-sex love in the fledgling Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The excerpts included in this anthology are complete episodes, originally published in the Chosŏn ilbo, in which men of all classes exhibit same-sex desire early on in the novel, which is set at the turn of the twentieth century—before Japanese annexation, but after the introduction of foreign capital into the Korean Peninsula. Cho Ungch’ŏl, the North Korean scholar who introduces Spring in a 2006 reprint, reads the novel, in which gold is discovered in a village, as a commentary on the corruption inflicted on traditional village life as Korea transformed from a feudal nation into an emerging capitalist state (Yi Kiyŏng, Pom [Munhak Yesul Ch’ulp’ansa] 3; 2–6). Cho does not explicitly address the pervasiveness of same-sex love in Yi’s novel, but he does write critically of the “금점판이 들어앉으면서 급격히 늘어나는 술집과 노름판, 잡화상들과 외국 상품, 방탕한 생활 기풍과 도덕적 타락 등은” (“bars, gambling dens, general stores, Western commercial goods, dissolute lifestyle and moral depravity that increased precipitously with the appearance of a goldmine”; 6) in the village where the novel takes place. A similar assessment of the novel’s historical background is shared by some South Korean critics as well, such as Kim Kyŏngwŏn in the afterword to a 1995 reprint (Yi Kiyŏng, Pom [Tonga Ch’ulp’ansa] 651–65). In contrast to the South Korean versions of Spring, however, which are based on the 1942 book-length version of the novel, both extant North Korean versions, published in 1957 and 2006, omit or rewrite several of the passages in Yi’s work related to male-male sexual desire, even going so far as to insert phrasing within the narrating voice that introduces the term namsaek (남색), a traditional word for male same-sex desire, which the novel goes on to describe as a “부자연한 … 유행” (“unnatural … trend”), connected to “부패한 봉건 도덕” (“corrupt feudal morality”), and as a “조혼의 폐풍이었다” (“evil habit associated with the practice of early marriage”; Pom [Pyŏngyang] 161). The North Korean version of the novel also deletes an important line included in Yi’s original 1940 publication of Spring; the line appears in the 16 July issue of the East Asia Daily: “젊은 청년들은 거개 짝패를 짓고 놀았다” (“Almost all the young men enjoyed themselves pairing up with same-sex partners [짝패; tchakp’ae]”; Pom [Tonga ilbo] 7). An illustration published alongside the original episode, showing the mouths of two men engorged with large fish, portrays a speed-eating competition discussed in the work but also seems to resonate with Spring’s homoerotics; these original images are rarely reproduced in later book-length versions.

The sexual practices referred to in Yi Kiyŏng’s novel would seem to be corroborated by recent ethnographic research, which underscores the pervasiveness of male homosexuality—between consenting adult men as well as between men and youths—in the Korean countryside up until the 1940s (see Pak Kwansu).13 But the episodes from Spring included in this anthology should be understood as representations of life in a mining village well before the novel’s protagonist begins to institute a series of reforms that set a new culture of modernity in contrast to such provincial customs. Yi’s novel is structured in part around the experiences of Yu Ch’unhwa (Graduate Yu in the translation), a young man from a family of “개화양반” (“enlightenment aristocrats”; Cho 4) who has abandoned his formal education in Seoul after the death of his wife and returned to his natal village, where he helps to construct a modern school. Graduate Yu eventually gives up his interest in beautiful boys and proves his enlightenment credentials, in part, by marrying a local farming woman, in defiance of traditional taboos not only against marrying widows but also against marrying outside of one’s class. The protagonist’s shift away from same-sex love in the novel was perhaps meant to be seen as a healthy and progressive development. As we see in an episode from the novel included in this collection, the character Sŏngnim, apparently modeled after the author, indeed finds himself embarrassed by the same-sex love practiced by a young man of a similar class and age. As such, the temporality of same-sex love in Spring becomes figured in such a way as to acknowledge it as a historical practice but also to emphasize how some Koreans were putting it behind them—and were well on their way to creating a modern, civilized society before the Japanese colonization of their nation.

If Spring clearly places queer practices in an ostensibly less civilized moment in Korea’s past, it is less clear why North Korean editors—or perhaps Yi Kiyŏng himself—would in 1957 erase many of the traces of same-sex practices in the novel and even go so far as to cast aspersions on these practices by inserting commentary on them within the novel. The illegality of gay practices in the Soviet Union in the 1950s might explain in part the North Korean editorial decisions. Accusations of queerness at this high point in the Cold War are also well documented around the world—a 1956 article in the South Korean East Asia Daily, for example, claims that before the Soviet revolution Joseph Stalin was “소련 제국 경찰의 간첩이었으며 또한 동성애의 변태자였다” (“both a Russian imperial spy and a homosexual pervert”; “ ‘Chejŏng’ ”). But material featuring expressions of nonnormative gender and sexuality in North Korea is few and far between, and these historical questions will likely have to wait for a more complete examination of the archive. Ever since the Korean War, however, North Korea has shared with South Korea an explicit celebration of heteronormative values, whereby gender and sex binaries and the importance of traditional family structures are linked to the strength of the nation, as well as to questions of national security, which have long been used throughout the world to justify the persecution of queer people. In more recent years, articles in the North Korean, and North Korean–affiliated, media have accused the United States and its “식민지한국” (“Korean colony”) of moral corruption by referring to instances of gay families and to unmarried adult children living with their parents (“Pup’ae”). In more extreme forms of condemnation, such press reports have suggested that “어린 남자아이들까지도 강간하도록 하고 있는 미국과 그 종놈들이야말로 성경 말씀처럼 돌로 쳐 죽여야 할 남색가들이요” (“[a]s places that goad their young boys to rape each other, America and its slaves are sodomites who, as the Bible says, should be stoned to death”; Yi Insuk). Echoing such sentiments, one short work of North Korean fiction called “Snowstorm in Pyŏngyang” (“평양의 눈보라”; “P’yŏngyang ŭi nunbora”), published in 2000 in the leading North Korean literary journal, Chosŏn Literature (조선문학; Chosŏn munhak), uses accusations of homosexuality as a means of demonizing US military personnel involved in the 1968 USS Pueblo incident, in which North Korean forces captured a US submarine on a spy mission and imprisoned its troops (Ch’ŏn). While little is known about the contours of queer life in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, in 2015 a North Korean refugee, Jang Young-jin, published an autobiographical novel based on his life there, narrated from the perspective of a man who comes to understand his life trajectory as that of a gay man only after fleeing to the South (Pulgŭn nekt’ai). Excerpts from Jang’s novel could not be included in this queer anthology, though the entire book is available now in English translation (Mark).

I bring up this anecdote to underscore how national division even today still exerts an extraordinary pressure on ordinary queer people in South Korea, where citizens are often shamed when they cannot live up to the norms of a society that closely connects national loyalty to the embrace of rigid binaries of gender and sexuality, effectively subordinating identities based on gender and sexuality to those of the nation-state. Despite there being no civil law that criminalizes same-sex love in South Korea, it was for some seventy years illegal for men in the Korean Army to engage in gay practices, whether or not they were on active duty—that is, until April 2022, when the Korean Supreme Court finally overturned this law (Choe). Within an institution where all Korean men are legally required to do military service and where there exists no exemption on the basis of sexual orientation, these laws were often cruelly enforced. The efforts of high-ranking military officers to covertly trap gay soldiers through dating apps, for example, were exposed in South Korea in 2017 (Park). Despite several legal appeals, many if not most transgender people are still not permitted to serve in the military. The traumatizing effects of toxic masculinity, connected to military service, have also led many Koreans to hide their sexual orientation. Questions around living openly in a country where the ideological and institutional forms of homophobia are so pervasive come to the fore in several recent queer stories. Sang Young Park’s “Yundo Is Back,” included in this anthology, features a gay man unwilling to come out to his Christian family, a man who after moving abroad still feels compelled to return to South Korea to complete his military service. The shaming of this man’s femininity by the narrator, however, also raises questions about the way people are judged even within the queer community when it comes to the messy intersections of patriotism, masculinity, class, and faith.

The stigmatization of male femininity as a sign and symptom of national failure has had a long but distinctly modern history in Korea. The feminization of Korean men was part of the Japanese colonial project for some thirty years, up until the 1940s, when government propaganda began encouraging Korean men to identify with Japanese forms of militarized masculinity.14 With the onset of the Korean War, and the Cold War in its wake, however, the fledgling nations of both South and North Korea came to celebrate forms of masculinity that were not only connected to these earlier forms of militarization but also evolved in a context that kept South Koreans bound to forms of US imperialism for decades (Moon). Prioritizing the goals of anticommunism and capitalist development, President Park Chung Hee’s national defense state eventually enlisted male and female bodies into different kinds of sexualized and gendered citizenship beginning in the 1960s. These strategies had consequences for the way South Korean popular culture, in particular, produced forms of queer representation in the postcolonial period, forms that played an important role in regulating gender-nonconforming people and practices.

Take, for example, the October 1965 issue of the journal Arirang (아리랑), named after Korea’s most famous folk ballad. This issue of the popular magazine carries a special section dedicated to same-sex love, including vignettes about “쉬맨 SHE-MAN, 히맨 HE-MAN” (“Ppaendae” 222), tales of clandestine gay people, an article called “A Hundred Different HOMOS: 100 Views of Homosexuality” (“HOMO 백경: 동성애100경”; “HOMO paekkyŏng: tongsŏngae 100-kyŏng”), and multiple cartoons about public places in Seoul such as Pagoda Park and the theaters popular among gay men, which ostensibly served clients mainly from the entertainment industries. This kind of tabloid journalism, on the one hand, lends credence to other historical evidence that suggests how an urbanizing Korean society was in fact producing a range of queer subjects and subcultures. On the other hand, as we have seen with journalistic accounts of the early 1930s, there is something quite desperate about the way these articles work so hard to stigmatize male femininity and same-sex desire, which suggests that burgeoning queer and trans subcultures were seen as a viable threat to the nation, a threat that had to be contained and controlled.15

Especially interesting about this issue of Arirang are two works of fiction. A short story called “He Prefers Men” (“남자가 더 좋아”; “Namja ka tŏ choa”), written by Chu Kyŏnghun, features a troupe of itinerant musicians, largely seen through the eyes of the troupe’s female lead, Ŭnkyŏng, who has heard rumors that the troupe’s male lead, a feminine-presenting man who graduated from a dance academy, has a “변태성” (“perverted nature”; 228) and is possibly the “남첩” (“male concubine”; 229) of the troupe director. The work ends when these suspicions are not only confirmed but magnified, as Ŭnkyŏng learns about their scandalous affair in a newspaper article relating how the older man was arrested for attempting to murder his lover, who forsook him. In effect, “He Prefers Men” features a residual representation of queerness—an updated colonial trope of the poor, unmarried itinerant performer—now coded pejoratively in the social scientific terms of sexual perversion and criminality, and through a work of popular fiction that finds pleasure in voyeurism and the stigmatization of otherness. Published alongside this work in Arirang, however, and also included in the present anthology, is a different, ostensibly autobiographical piece called “Struggling amid This Despair” (“이 절망 속에 부림치고 …”; “I chŏlmang sok e purimch’igo …”) a work narrated in the entirely new voice of a gay hairdresser. In this short piece, written by the obscure writer Yu Sŭngjin, a tension between homophobic stigma and the affirmation of queer desire is etched deeply into the mind of the troubled narrator. On the one hand, he talks passionately about his sexual escapades with other men, but on the other, he declares that these escapades are “인간으로 할 짓이 못 된다” (“not behavior fit for a human being”) and seems convinced that a good woman will eventually save him from sexual corruption.16

Although popular accounts like this could hardly be counted on to offer truthful, well-rounded, or even sympathetic depictions of queer lives at the time, many of the details of Yu’s confession suggest firsthand knowledge of an urban queer community and the struggles a person might face when caught between the pressures of social norms and individual desires. The story also ends not with a successful transformation of the protagonist into a heterosexual—as was the case in Yi Kiyŏng’s 1940 novel Spring and Ch’oe Chŏnghŭi’s later short story “Spring”—but instead with an assertion of the irresistible temptations of male-male sexual desire. South Korean popular culture was laden with such ambivalences, and even its problematic fascination with queer practices in the 1960s, which in Arirang works to taxonomize queer people and police sexual citizenship, may still have made information available to people who were curious about exploring a wider range of desires than was often affirmed in public. The reportage and fiction in Arirang and similar magazines may also have effectively opened up not only a new language to understand the complexity of human desires but also new outlets and new communities for celebrating and satisfying them.17 Members of Korean sexual subcultures in the 1960s did not engage in a political struggle for their rights as minorities and may not have felt the postindustrial imperative to identify themselves as either male or female, or as gay or straight, as part of a stable source of personal identity. But still they were visible enough, en masse, for popular culture, under military dictatorship, to feel the need to exploit their difference (Bong).

It was against this backdrop of popular representation, and a decade of rapid development under Park Chung Hee, that O Chŏnghŭi, today one of South Korea’s most well-respected writers, also made same-sex desire an important element in several of her first short stories, including “The Toy Shop Woman” (“완구점 여인”; “Wan’gujŏm yŏin”), for which O won the Central Daily (중앙일보; Chungang ilbo) literary prize in 1968. Part of the new hangul generation—a group of postcolonial writers educated exclusively in Korean instead of Japanese—O followed up this work with at least two stories about male same-sex love, “The Runner” (“주자”; “Chuja”) and “Traditional Solo” (“산조”; “Sanjo”). Focalized through the mind of a soldier seeking out information about a former male lover, “The Runner” shares with both stories published in Arirang the mediating role of a woman in the circuits of male-male desire.

O’s story “Traditional Solo,” however, published in 1970 and included in this volume, features an aging musician as its narrator, a marginal figure with no connection to the military, no place within the productive economy, and no interest in women—or position, for that matter, within the idealized form of patriarchal family. The man’s vocabulary would also suggest that he spent a good deal of time in the northern half of Korea. The story’s haunting evocation of queer difference stands at stark odds with contemporary South Korean norms of both militarized masculinity and developmentalist growth. “Sanjo,” the Korean title of this story, refers to an arrangement of music featuring three to six different string solos, often accompanied by the changgu, the hourglass drum that the narrator of O’s story plays throughout the work, which weaves into its rich, pastiche-like narrative a variety of traditional Korean sounds, voices, and images. For this experimental piece O also relies on a traditional form of drama—the Korean puppet play (꼭두각시; kkoktugaksi)—to lend structure to an otherwise plotless work, by quoting substantially from the traditional play, which normally begins with a tour of the Korean countryside and ends with the reconstruction of a Buddhist temple. The queerness of O’s story is closely bound to the nonlinear way O unfolds her narrative, which shifts in abrupt, often disorienting ways between the old script of the classical puppet play, descriptions of the performance in the narrative present, and a sequence of memories from the distant past that seem to assail the drummer-narrator during his performance.

Trauma is a common theme explored in O’s broader oeuvre, and in “Traditional Solo” the narrator’s past is revealed through a kind of narrative structure that critics have often read as “mimicking the traumatic effect” (Luckhurst 88). O’s narrator here looks back on the early death of his mother, his subsequent abandonment by his disabled sister, his migration to Manchuria in search of work, and the death of a boy lover whom he recalls caressing in a moonlit field. The eruption of these flashbacks and the unlocking of “닫힌 관능” (“closed-off cravings”) are set against feelings of intense alienation that the old drummer experiences in the narrative present, helping O create a queer poetics of temporal and spatial disorientation. The puppet play here is not performed in a village, but rather in a sterile, new indoor theater, and in front of an audience of Westerners, with whom the drummer-narrator fails miserably to connect. Failed timing is a leitmotif of the story more generally, as the time of the modern clock is juxtaposed repeatedly with the time of the moon. While the inability of the narrator to adapt to the times can perhaps be linked to his lived experience under colonialism, the rhythms of life as the itinerant performer experiences them are also clearly out of synch with the normalizing, productive time of the postcolonial state—its “chrononormativity,” in Elizabeth Freedman’s formulation (3)—which sought to regulate the time of laboring citizens, synchronizing Korean bodies in the interest of profit accumulation. At a moment when North Korea in fact offered its citizens a standard of living higher than that found in the South, Park Chung Hee’s dictatorship was intent on seeing South Korea make progress—by mobilizing millions of bodies into the military and into factories, brothels, and reproductive families in the early 1970s, all in strict time with the broader progressive ends of national development.

In formulating a work that resisted normative patterns of developmentalist dictatorship, O made an apt choice to turn to the kkoktugaksi. As we have already seen, there is a long-standing association of male same-sex love with traditional folk performance in Korea. In one version of kkoktugaksi, which draws on especially coarse puns, the profligate hero Pak Ch’ŏmji is entranced by handsome dancing boys on whom he lavishes money. His nephew Hong Tongji is almost always featured stark naked, painted bright red, and extremely well endowed; many versions of the classical play contain ribald jokes that also resonate with the sexualized lampooning of corrupt country gentlemen that is a common feature of Korean folk performances. Depending on the delivery, too, characters in the traditional puppet play can exhibit fluctuations of voice and movement that far exceed normative, binary distinctions of gender. In his comprehensive study of kkoktugaksi, published in 1961, the first year of Park Chung Hee’s dictatorship—and part of a broader postcolonial effort to reclaim and celebrate traditional Korean cultural forms—the folklore scholar Ch’oe Sangsu notes that a proper “distinction of the sexes in dialogue” must be made to ensure the survival of the puppet play in the modern era (57). There was a recognition at the time, in other words, that the queering energies of the kkoktugaksi had to be contained for them to be successfully incorporated into a modern national narrative. In 1964 the traditional puppet play was formally designated Korea’s third Important Intangible Cultural Asset, officially mobilizing it as a national form that might serve the developmentalist regime.18 O’s “Traditional Solo” seems exquisitely in tune with these broader developments.

Some traditional performers may have found solace in seeing an art practiced by the most marginalized of Koreans—unmarried men, associated with pederasty and prostitution and considered lowest in the neo-Confucian social hierarchy—suddenly become central to the aesthetic project of the nation, which desperately sought to profit from rigid norms of sex, gender, and family. But O’s story, which features an aging queer narrator who is interested more in connecting with his audience than in commodifying his art, can also be seen as a work powerfully at odds with the ideals of militarized masculinity, hourly labor, and genealogical time, all of which worked to tie Korean bodies to the progressive time of developmentalist dictatorship. Even as O’s story locates same-sex practices in the distant past, marginalizing queer desire into the space of memory, one might say that the queering energy of the kkoktugaksi, tugging the narrator back into the orbits of traumatic loss and forbidden desire, works to disrupt and denaturalize those normative processes of capitalist modernity seeking to profit from the experiences of society’s most vulnerable people.

There is a wide gap between O Chŏnghŭi’s 1970 story and the next story in this anthology, from 2006, by the transgender writer Kim Bi. My original intention was to bridge this divide by including a translation of an anonymous work of journalism called “The Naked Confessions of a Geiboi Performing the ‘Snake’ Dance” (“ ‘뱀’춤 추는 게이보이의 전라 고백”; “Paem’ ch’um ch’unŭn geiboi ŭi chŏlla kobaek”), published in 1988, shortly after a dark wave of homophobia swept over South Korea and just as the AIDS panic demonized queer people in unprecedented ways. Featuring an exotic dancer interviewed in Itaewon—an entertainment district located next to the massive US military base in central Seoul—and problematically narrated in her voice, the piece raises questions related to sex work that other stories chosen for this anthology do not and sheds light on queer and trans experiences in the late 1980s. This was a time when South Korea gained the world stage as host of the Olympics, embarked on significant democratic reforms, and was on the eve of a broader awakening of queer consciousness, which increasingly turned to international models of activism and identification. Published in the magazine Women’s Garden (여원; Yŏwŏn), the anonymous piece is also unique in having been quoted in full in the 1988 novel Know Nothing about It (그것은 아무도 모른다; Kŭgŏt ŭn amudo morŭnda), written by the controversial Chang Chŏngil, who made a name for himself by producing fiction that critics often called perverted and pornographic. Journalistic and fictional works in this period that are not overbearingly homophobic are hard to come by, but difficulties obtaining permission to translate and reproduce many queer texts from this period—including those by the beloved and bestselling poet Ki Hyŏngdo—have prevented their inclusion in this anthology.

Confessional pieces written in the first person by male prostitutes, gay university students, and other sexually marginalized subjects were not an uncommon feature of the popular press up through the late 1980s.19 “Naked Confessions” was originally included in a special selection of moving first-person accounts in Women’s Garden, accounts that also offered readers stories about grieving mothers and wives whose family members had suffered at the hands of corrupt police and government officials. Although the inclusion of such stories suggests that Women’s Garden was attuned to the sorts of progressive reforms taking place across the country on the eve of South Korea’s democratization, the ethnographic and transphobic editorial decisions evident in “Naked Confessions” still work to exoticize and stigmatize the story’s speaker, even as the piece offers copious details about, and ostensibly gives voice to, a transgender protagonist. This sort of textual ambivalence resonates with the kinds of gender trouble we see throughout this anthology. The piece as a whole also draws attention to several aspects of late-twentieth-century Korean queerness related to the medicalization of queer and trans bodies, which took a particularly heavy toll on workers in the sex and entertainment industries, and to the resurgence of a transnational adult entertainment industry with deep connections to Japan, where gay print media had already carefully mapped out Seoul, in particular, as a gay travel destination (see Suzuki). Geiboi, the term of self-identification used by the narrator of “Naked Confessions” and in the full title of the piece, had been used widely in Japan, where it became an extremely popular trope as early as the 1960s, when works of fiction and film, such as Matsumoto Toshio’s Funeral Parade of Roses (薔薇の葬列; Bara no sōretsu), famously featured geibois as protagonists. Published in a women’s magazine, only a few years before the appearance of queer-run journals in the 1990s—and the adoption of more anglophone modes of identification—“Naked Confessions” still seems to exist within an overarching framework that sets transgender embodiment squarely within the field of perverse sexuality, symbolized by the erotic and grotesque imagery of a suspiciously gendered woman dancing with a large snake.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, as intellectual discourse on the nascent LGBTQ+ community in South Korea was experiencing the “thawing forces of spring” (Seo 65), one openly gay Korean scholar, Seo Dong-jin, wrote of the difficulty he had even using the Korean word for homosexuality given that the term did not yet have a proper referent. “Unable to effectively describe any definitive object, it is as if I must bring to light some wispy phantom that I only know through its effects,” wrote Seo, who goes on to argue that homosexuality should be discussed openly in South Korea given how it had brought him and others who identified as gay an intense “experience of unhappiness” (66). In the twenty-five years since Seo’s article appeared, a profusion of queer people and practices have come to populate the Korean mediascape—and with it more ways of feeling queer openness and joy than Seo Dong-jin was able to witness or perhaps even imagine in the late 1990s. Numerous nonprofit organizations, such as the Korean Sexual-Minority Culture and Rights Center, the Korean Transgender Rights Organization Jogakbo, and Parents and Families of LGBTAIQ People in Korea, have since emerged to carry on the work that a pioneering group of activists began in the 1990s—forming supportive communities, archiving queer history and culture, lobbying government officials, and helping individuals struggling with discrimination and inadequate access to health care. Annual queer cultural festivals, too, have taken place throughout South Korea for over a decade, organized by activists who are exquisitely sensitive to the complexities of negotiating global categories of identity in the Korean context and to the risks of universalizing queer experience. Seo’s metaphor of a “wispy phantom” and emphasis on unhappiness may resonate with members of the Korean queer community today who still feel pressured to remain in the closet. But the twenty-first-century Korean queer movement has had a powerful impact on public perceptions and on the self-perceptions of queer Koreans.

The three most recent stories in this anthology, Kim Bi’s “Saltwater Baths” (“해수탕”; “Haesut’ang”), Yi Seoyoung’s “My Queer Year of Junior High” (“3학년 2반”; “Sam-hangnyŏn i-ban”), and Sang Young Park’s “Yundo Is Back” (“윤도가 돌아왔다”; “Yundo ga torawatta”), are all products of—and participants in—this fundamentally new context of queer culture and activism. Kim Bi belongs to a generation of queer and trans writers, including Chŏn Myŏngan and Han Chungnyŏl, who came of age in the 1990s and whose fiction was anthologized in some of the earliest collections of queer fiction published in the early 2000s under the banners of gay literature and gender literature: Heated Affairs among Men (남남상열지사; Namnam sangyŏl chisa) and Rainbow Eyes (레인보우아이즈; Reinbouaijŭ). These collections contain an extremely wide range of works featuring, for example, sexual exploitation in the military, the struggles of gay men negotiating heterosexual marriages, the lives of Korean students living abroad, and even fantastical work inspired by classical Korean literature. Before the Internet became the primary tool for networking and accessing information, the early queer magazine Buddy (버디; Bŏdi), which began publishing in 1998, played an important role for several years, critically negotiating new categories of identity, understanding queer history, and giving a platform to young queer and trans writers, including Kim Bi, whose first work, “Age 64” (“그의 나이 예순넷”; “Kŭ ŭi nai yaesun-net”), was serialized in the first three issues of the magazine.

Kim Bi gained especially wide recognition in 2001 when she was featured in a television show about sex reassignment surgery and then published a collection of autobiographical essays called Ugly Transgender: The Story of Kim Bi (못생긴 트 랜스젠더: 김비 이야기; Mossaenggin t’ŭraensŭjendŏ: Kim Bi iyagi). Having worked as an English teacher for many years to support her work as a writer, Kim is now one of Korea’s most prominent writers who identifies as trans. The winner of the 2012 Women’s Tonga Prize for her novel Plastic Woman (플라 스틱 여인; P’ŭllasŭt’ik yŏin), Kim has published at least nine volumes of essays and fiction to date, including the 2015 novel Red Light, Closed Door, No Exit (붉은 등, 닫힌 문, 출구 없음; Pulgŭn tŭng, tatchin mun, ch’ulgu ŏpsŭm). Her short story “Saltwater Baths” was published in the pioneering 2006 collection Me and You (나나누나나; Na na nuna na) alongside several other compelling stories about the lives of transgender Koreans.20

“Saltwater Baths” is set mainly on the island of Cheju, located south of the Korean Peninsula, an island with a distinct language and culture of its own; this sense of place complicates questions of difference and power in this important work about a transgender woman. Opening with a violent scene reminiscent of crime fiction, the story grows into a complex work about a woman and her evolving relationships with family members, including a young boy she tries to informally foster. The protagonist’s relationship to her new body, her struggle with motherhood, and the unequivocal love and support that her parents seem to offer her set Kim’s story apart from commercialized representations of transgender experience in contemporary South Korean media. Kim’s appearance on television and the publication of her first book of autobiographical essays in 2001 coincided with the meteoric rise of another transgender media star, the model known as Harisu, who was thrust into the public eye when she appeared in a commercial for Dodo Cosmetics and subsequently brought a new visibility to the transgender community with her stardom—and her activism, having in 2002 secured the legal right to be identified as female on her family register. Scholars have noted how Harisu’s celebrity coincided with the government’s embrace of neoliberal economic policies, whereby the beauty and mass media industries in South Korea were reconstituted as part of a new transnational marketplace. Rather than a sign of the widespread acceptance of nonconformity in gender and sexuality, Harisu’s celebrity as a transgender woman, suggests Patty Jeehyun Ahn, has become the embodiment of Korea’s new neoliberal economy—as “it is around her body in particular that many national and diasporic discourses about Korea’s purported sexual modernity have crystallized” (269). Kim Bi’s moving testimonial of a woman coming to terms with her own bodily transformation offers readers a personal take on the experience of, and possibilities for, transgender femininity and even motherhood. As Kim’s story normalizes the experience of its trans narrator in part by placing her within the context of family—still a central unit of Korean society—“Saltwater Baths” also calls attention to the way in which aspirational ideals of both femininity and motherhood are hardly natural or self-evident categories but continue to be culturally constructed in a media-saturated world.

In South Korea such gender ideals are institutionalized largely through the disciplinary apparatus of the school system, a theme explored in Yi Seoyoung’s short story “My Queer Year of Junior High.” A self-professed socialist, Yi has expressed a commitment to narrating the experiences of people on the margins of Korean society, an interest evident in her 2013 collection of stories called The Flavor of Crocodile (악어의 맛; Agŏ ŭi mat), which features pieces about nonregular workers and activists and brings together forms of genre fiction and the kind of social and political consciousness often associated with more literary work. More recently she has written several works of social science fiction and fantasy. According to a brief afterword in the anthology of stories Happy to Graduate (다행히 졸업; Tahaenghi chorŏp), in which “My Queer Year of Junior High” first appeared, Yi’s story describes the author’s own experience attending school in 2001 (Chang K. 410). Yi does not explicitly address the matter of same-sex love in the afterword, but she does write of her struggle to find friendship and community within the highly romanticized girls’ culture (소녀 세계; sonyŏ segye) of South Korea. Queerness among teenage girls, as Yi’s short story shows, had not only taken on the shape of a newly emerging youth culture at the dawn of the twenty-first century but had also become a matter of serious contestation, as teenagers drew on new modes of communication to create vibrant forms of queer lived experience and as many schools and parents responded by actively vilifying the practices of these nonconforming children, labeling their culture “음란 퇴폐” (“lewd and degenerate”), in the words of the story. The stage for these contestations was set in November 2001, when the Korean Ministry of Information and Communications began officially censoring gay and lesbian websites, working off of the 1997 Youth Protection Act, which had deemed homosexuality a “harmful influence” to children (Kwon Kim and Cho 216).

Many Korean schools in the early 2000s came to adopt strict rules about the appearance and behavior of schoolgirls in direct response to the new visibility of young lesbians, many of whom engaged in the performative practice of cosplay, dressing up as male singers and entertainers in playful ways. Queer traditions of female masculinity were hardly new in South Korea. According to the historian Pak Ch’a Min-jŏng, female masculinity had been a topic of sustained fascination in the Korean press as early as the 1920s. It was celebrated publicly on the stage in the all-female drama productions of women’s theater (여성국극; yŏsŏng kukkŭk) of the late 1940s and 1950s and also formed the basis of some queer communities, such as the Women Taxi Drivers’ Association in the 1960s and 1970s. In the late 1990s, however, the widespread use of the Internet, the globalization of popular fan culture, and the emerging voices of queer activists came together in ways that set the stage for the emergence of youthful same-sex communities that were increasingly visible and vocal. Novels from the period—such as the 1997 work The Woman Called Older Brother (형이라 불리는 여자; Hyŏng ira pullinŭn yŏja), by Yi Tongsuk, often cited as the first person in Korea to have female-to-male sex reassignment surgery—detail the lives of protagonists who reject femininity as teenagers and go on to live as men.

According to the anthropologist LaYoung Shin, kissing and hand-holding between girls came to be banned at many schools in the early 2000s in response to public expressions of female same-sex love; short haircuts, letter writing, and even visits to the bathroom with friends came to be looked at suspiciously (117). One of Shin’s informants notes how students at her school were asked to compile lists of classmates they suspected of being queer—a chilling reminder of Cold War practices meant to ferret out suspected communists in South Korea (118). Even still, some all-girls schools apparently became popular because of the sheer number of queer students enrolled at them and because of the presence of girls who had gained fame as moderators of online queer and cosplay communities. Despite the intensification of homophobic rules, many queer-identified girls were still able to find friends and supportive adults, while many others chose to conceal their queer identities with gender-normative behavior or to leave school entirely. Shin stresses that this formation of schoolgirl culture in the early 2000s was not uniformly oppressed but rather characterized by an active contestation by teenagers, parents, teachers, religious leaders, and politicians.

As a story about an emerging culture of same-sex love, “My Queer Year of Junior High” draws on several key terms specific to queer culture in the early 2000s. The Korean term iban was created by activists in the 1990s from the Chinese characters 異般 as a new Korean word that might correspond to the English word homosexual and that might be gender neutral. In everyday parlance the word also serves as a counter for classes, as in the phrase 2반 (i-ban; “class 2”), which gives the Korean title of Yi Seoyoung’s story (“Sam-hangnyŏn i-ban”) a double meaning—perhaps only for those in the know. The word 팸 (p’aem) also carries a double meaning in Yi’s story as both a transliteration of the English word femme and an abbreviation (fam) for an online chat community that valued relations of family. Describing an experience that dates back to the early days of Internet culture, shortly after Daum Café became a popular Internet site for chat rooms in 1999, Yi’s work is testament to the ways in which new technologies fundamentally transformed the possibilities for queer discourse, identity, culture, and companionship in South Korea.

If technology led to the participation of young people in new forms of language and community in the 2000s, more recent conversations precipitated largely by feminist scholars and activists have lent currency to a burgeoning queer formation that has helped embolden members of the LGBTQ+ community. The 2015 murder of a young woman at Seoul’s Gangnam Station, in particular, was followed by an explosion of interest in feminism and queer discourse in South Korea.21 While none of the works in this volume feature the experiences of characters directly involved in these public conversations, it seems unlikely that Yi Seoyoung’s and Sang Young Park’s stories would have seen the light of day so quickly without the foundational work of activists and scholars committed to achieving justice and egalitarianism when it comes to questions of gender and sexuality in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

It was in the aftermath of this so-called feminism reboot that queer Korean print culture made something of a comeback with the publication of a new boutique-style magazine called DUIRO, crowdfunded by the queer community and designed and published by Yi Tojin (“K’wiŏ”). Featuring fiction, creative writing, and dazzling artwork in full-color—and with thematic issues focusing on such issues as the military, marriage, and roommates—DUIRO was among a small handful of self-styled queer journals to appear after the magazine Bŏdi folded in 2003. Sang Young Park’s story “Yundo Is Back” was first published in the second issue of DUIRO. Park has since published a celebrated collection of short stories, has had work translated into English in the digital magazine Words without Borders, and has received several prestigious awards, including the 2019 Young Writers Award given by the literary journal Munhak tongne. His 2019 award-winning novel Love in the Big City (대도시의 사랑법; Taedosi ŭi sarangbŏp) has now been published in English translation. So too has a new story called “Love after a Fortnight” (보름 이후의 사랑; “Porŭm ihu ŭi sarang”), set during the COVID-19 pandemic and published in 2022 in a special issue of Azalea: The Journal of Korean Literature, which features several excellent translations of queer Korean fiction and criticism.

“Yundo Is Back” is the only story in this anthology written by an out gay man, who grew up in an era of queer activism. It sheds light on some of the structural and ideological constraints that have kept many South Koreans in the closet, even in the context of a seemingly vibrant queer cultural movement. Among those constraints is the ostensible role that fundamentalist Christianity has played in the oppression of sexual minorities.22 Park’s short work is not a deep dive into historical complexities, but it does suggest that fundamentalism has exacerbated anxieties over family acceptance, helped to propagate dangerous so-called treatments for homosexuality such as conversion therapy, and more generally worked to promote homophobic discourses and practices. Joseph Yi and colleagues have suggested that much of this fundamentalist homophobia emerged as a reaction not simply to events playing out in Korea but also to media reports coming out of the United States. (29). Others have been much bolder in their claims about Christian-linked homophobia—stating, for instance, that it is “the single greatest obstacle to the advancement of LGBT rights in South Korea” (Koo). South Korea is certainly not alone in having a media that has made a spectacle of the culture wars, showing members of the Christian antigay movement throwing themselves in front of queer parade floats and tossing feces at participants. Nor is the country alone in having conservative politicians and institutions that thwart antidiscrimination legislation largely in response to the protests of evangelicals, who in Korea have decried the queer movement as a threat to their religious liberties—and to the traditional family. Members of the ultraconservative Christian Liberal Party (now called the Liberty Unification Party), who have been hostile not only to sexual minorities but also to immigrant workers, have gone so far as to link queer activists to the work of Islamic terrorists (J. Han). While several recent works of queer Korean literature have explored the weaponization of Christianity against the queer community (e.g., Yun), scholars have also documented newly emerging narratives of Christian sympathy that hold the potential to eclipse the evangelical claims of victimhood that tend to capture the headlines (Yi et al.). Others note that fundamentalists are fighting a losing battle, given that Korean Protestants are becoming much more accepting, especially the younger generation (Yi Hŭiyŏng). Many South Koreans today believe antidiscrimination laws should be extended to sexual minorities. Antidiscrimination policies and ordinances in many local Korean municipalities already have been (Human Rights).

Also notable about Sang Young Park’s story is its narrator, who is especially sensitive to the way socioeconomic privilege differentiates the experiences of sexual minorities in South Korea, many of whom have yet to come out to family and friends or in the workplace. Class privilege may not correlate neatly with the ability or willingness to live openly queer lives in South Korea. But seen through the eyes of the narrator, the eponymous character Yundo does seem to embody the unfair, and undeserved, advantage that is often a product of wealth. Although Yundo’s liminal status as an emigrant also helps make him something of a caricature—and an easy target of criticism for his rusty Korean language skills and gaps of knowledge about contemporary politics—the troubled narrator himself is no model queer citizen, even when equipped with the sharp tools of class consciousness. On several occasions the narrator even veers into an unsavory discourse of body-shaming and femme shaming. Park’s bitter narrator indeed serves as a timely rejoinder that queer people are not immune to participating in exclusionary practices and mechanisms of oppression.

Problematic though he may be, the narrator possesses a political consciousness that still resonates powerfully with a more salubrious criticism of neoliberal sexual politics. Often referred to as homonormativity, a mode of individualistic queer practice rooted in assertions of privacy and the rejection of radical community, this new kind of politics, as Lisa Duggan writes, “does not contest dominant heteronormative assumptions and institutions, but upholds and sustains them, while promising the possibility of a demobilized gay constituency and a privatized, depoliticized gay culture anchored in domesticity and consumption” (50). The insufferably self-important Yundo in Park’s story does seem empowered to participate in and benefit from certain neoliberal institutions—such as transnational gay marriage, patriotic service, and the free market—in ways that are hardly helpful, and perhaps even antithetical, to the broader struggle for visibility and human rights for all queer people in Korea. Scholars have wisely cautioned against measuring non-Western modalities of queer existence in terms of progress toward the attainment of these specific political goals—and in line with the experience of queer politics in the West. Using a yardstick of this kind can often elide complex social determinants on the local level and narrow the scope within which acts of resistance and struggle can be understood. If Park’s savvy, seemingly liberal narrator has little sympathy for Yundo’s decidedly homonormative life choices, however, the story still manages to invite readers to see the complexity of intersecting social forces at work today—concerns about financial security, gender norms, national community, religious values, family dependence, and open borders—as they pertain to the generation of individual identity and political consciousness. Readers may still ask if Park’s narrator is unfair—even Westerncentric—in his caricature of Yundo as a middle-class man, who chooses personal comfort over what some would say is a more courageous path of honesty and openness, a caricature that arguably results in a narrow interpretation of what counts as authentically queer. The story is perhaps too short, and its focalization through a single narrator too limited, for it to more fully humanize the multiple contradictions that Yundo and the narrator are likely navigating. Inviting questions of this sort about the nature of queer identity, politics, and literature today, Park’s admirable effort to translate queer lives into literary form is closely tied to the contemporary, decidedly transnational, moment of queer political struggle. “Yundo Is Back” begins this anthology of queer Korean stories, each of which poses questions about the nature of sexual politics and the role that literature has played in both reproducing and challenging the distortions that history has constructed around queer lives.

Notes

1. See Sang Young Park, “Porŭm,” for a related work of short fiction.

2. See Kim Young-ha, Kŏmŭn kkot, and his story “Meditation on a Mirror” (“거울에 대한 명상”; “Kŏul e taehan myŏngsang”; Hoch’ul 251–75) and Han Kang’s stories “Europa” (“에우로파”; “Europ’a”; Norang munŭi yŏngwŏn 59–96) and “Love in Yŏsu” (“여수의 사랑”; “Yŏsu ŭi sarang”; Yŏsu 11–58).

3. For important essays that explore issues of intersectionality related to the study of queerness, see Halberstam et al.; Eng and Puar.

4. Paek calls this period in Korea “퀴어 서사 시대” (“the time of queer narration”; 52).

5. For early queer transnational writing in East Asia, including Yu Lin’s travels through Japan, see Sang.

6. Translations in the introduction are mine.

7. For stories about the rape or murder of boys and youths by men, see “Namsaek ŭl t’am hadaga”; “Ch’amduharyuk”; “Namsaek ‘Sŏnsaeng.’ ”

8. On this dichotomy between the carnal and the pure, see Chen. For a broader context, see Frederick.

9. For an early piece of sexology written by the owner of Seoul’s first beauty parlor, Hyŏn Nugyŏng, see Perry.

10. For ribald yadam, some with queer content, see Chŏng.

11. For an analysis of terminology regarding queer kin relationships within the traveling acting troops, see Chang Ch’ungdŏk.

12. For journalistic accounts, see “Namsaek ŭl t’am hadaga”; “Ch’amduharyuk”; “Namsaek ‘Sŏnsaeng.’ ”

13. The work of the British missionary Richard Rutt also offers, in English, anecdotes about same-sex love in the Korean countryside up through the 1960s (Korean Works; “Flower Boys”).

14. On the construction of gender in Korea during World War II, see Fujitani, especially chapter 8 (335–74).

15. For more on queer and trans culture in Seoul in the 1960s, see Ruin.

16. For a similar work, apparently serialized over the course of several months, see Yu Sŭng (likely the same person as Yu Sŭngjin).

17. For a discussion of a work of contemporaneous film that embodies a similar ambivalence, see Chung-kang Kim.

18. In 2009 kkoktugaksi was placed on UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (“Namsadang Nori”).

19. For two notable examples in the tabloid Sunday Seoul (선데이 서울; Sŏndei Sŏul), see “ ‘It’aewŏn k’asanoba’ ”; “Homo.” See also Chŏn.

20. For more translations of Kim’s works, see the section “Further Reading in English.”

21. For more on the feminism reboot, see Feminism Reboot; Seo and Choi.

22. For a collection of writings that respond to the role played by fundamentalist Christians, see Namip’u et al.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ORIGINAL WORKS

최정희崔貞熙 Ch’oe Chŏnghŭi. “봄” [“Pom”; “Spring”]. 문예文藝 [Munye; Literary Arts], Jan. 1950, pp. 106–21.

준원春園 Ch’unwŏn [이광수李光洙 Yi Kwangsu]. “윤광호尹光浩” [“Yun Kwangho”]. 청춘青年 [Ch’ŏngch’un; Youth], Apr. 1918, pp. 68–82.

김비 Kim Bi. “해수탕” [“Haesut’ang”; “Saltwater Baths”]. 나나누나나 [Na na nuna na; Me and You], Haeul, 2006, pp. 99–131.

김순영金順榮 Kim Sunyŏng. “언니 저 달나라로” [“Ŏnni chŏ tallara ro”; “Dear Sister, I’m Off to the Moon”]. 신여성新女性 [Sin yŏsŏng; New Women], June 1933, pp. 54–56.

오정희吳貞姬 O Chŏnghŭi. “산조散調” [“Sanjo”; “Traditional Solo”]. 월간중앙月刊中央 [Wŏlgan chungang; Monthly Central], June 1970, pp. 384–93.

박요한 Pak Yohan [박상영 Sang Young Park]. “윤도가 돌아왔다” [“Yundo ga torawatta”; “Yundo Is Back”]. DUIRO, vol. 2, 2017, pp. 121–29.

리기영 Yi Kiyŏng. 봄 [Pom; Spring]. Chosŏn Chakka Tongmaeng Ch’ulp’ansa, 1957. Revised edition of 이기영李箕永 Yi Kiyŏng, 봄 [Pom; Spring], 동아일보 [Tonga ilbo; East Asia Daily], 11 June–10 Aug. 1940.

이서영 Yi Seoyoung. “3학년 2반” [“Sam-hangnyŏn i-ban”; “My Queer Year of Junior High”]. 다행히 졸업: 소설가 9인의 학교 연대기 [Tahaenghi chorŏp: Sosŏlga 9-in ŭi hakkyo yŏndaegi; Happy to Graduate: The School Chronicles of Nine Novelists], Ch’angbi, 2016, pp. 177–208.

유승진柳昇進 Yu Sŭngjin. “이 절망絕望 속에 부림치고 …” [“I chŏlmang sok e purimch’igo …”; “Struggling amid This Despair”]. 아리랑 [Arirang], Oct. 1965, pp. 218–21.

FURTHER READING IN ENGLISH

Primary Sources

Chee, Alexander. “Korean Gay Sex Is Superior.” Korean Literature Now, vol. 42, winter, 13 Dec. 2018, www.kln.or.kr/lines/essaysView.do?bbsIdx=657.

Choi, Hyaeweol, editor. New Women in Colonial Korea: A Sourcebook. Routledge, 2012.

Han Junghyun. “The Sci-Fi Hero of Our Dreams.” Translated by Hoyoung Moon. Azalea, vol. 15, 2022, pp. 63–94.

Hwang Chŏng-Ŭn. “The Bone Thief.” Translated by Bruce Fulton and Ju-Chan Fulton. The Massachusetts Review, vol. 58, no. 3, fall 2017, pp. 541–54.

Hwang Jiun. “Goodbye, Peter.” Translated by Shanna Tan. Azalea, vol. 15, 2022, pp. 135–157.

Im Guk Yeong. “Across the Tooniverse.” Translated by Emily Bettercourt. Azalea, vol. 15, 2022, pp. 159–182.

Kim Bi. “Transgender Basketball Club.” Translated by Victoria Caudle. Nabillera, 30 May 2018, nabillerakorea.com/2018/05/30/transgender-basketball-club-kim-bi/.

________. “Tree of Kisses.” Translated by Sora Kim-Russell and Eunjung Kwon-Lee. Words without Borders, 1 June 2012, www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/tree-of-lips.

Kim Bong-gon. “College Folk.” Translated by Kyoung-lee Park. Words without Borders, 3 June 2012, www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/june-2019-queer-college-folk-kim-bong-gon-park-kyoung-lee.

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________. “Plastic Sex Part 4.” Translated by Gabriel Sylvian. The Three Wise Monkeys, 9 Jan. 2012, thethreewisemonkeys.com/2012/01/09/plastic-sex-part-4-the-final-installment/.

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Hwang, Merose. “Ritual Specialists in Colonial Drag: Shamanic Interventions in 1920s Korea.” Henry, Queer Korea, pp. 55–89.

Kwon, Insook. “Masculinity and Male-on-Male Sexual Violence in the Military.” Translated by Daisy Y. Kim. Militarized Currents: Toward a Decolonized Future in Asia and the Pacific, edited by Setsu Shigematsu et al., U of Minnesota P, 2012, pp. 223–49.

Kim Chung-kang. “Nation, Subculture, and Queer Representation: The Film “Male Kisaeng” and the Politics of Gender and Sexuality in 1960s South Korea.” Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 24, no. 3, 2015, pp. 455–77.

Kim Keonhyung. “2018 K’wiŏ Chŏnsa—Chŏnsa (前史) Chŏnsa (戰史)•Chŏnsa (戰士).” Azalea, vol. 15, 2022, pp. 247–70.

Kim Pil Ho and C. Colin Singer. “Three Periods of Korean Queer Cinema: Invisible, Camouflage, and Blockbuster.” Acta Koreana, vol. 14, no. 1, 2011, pp. 117–136.

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McLelland, Mark. Queer Japan from the Pacific War to the Internet Age. Rowman and Littlefield, 2005.

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Pettid, Michael. “Cyberspace and a Place for Gays in South Korea.” Sitings: Critical Approaches to Korean Geography, edited by Sallie Yea and Timothy R. Tangherlini, U of Hawaiʻi P, 2008, pp. 173–82.

Ruin. “Mobile Numbers and Gender Transitions: The Resident Registration System, the Nation-State, and Trans/gender Identities.” Translated by Max Balhorn. Henry, Queer Korea, pp. 357–75.

Shin, Jeeyoung. “Male Homosexuality in The King and the Clown: Hybrid Construction and Contested Meanings.” Journal of Korean Studies, vol. 18, no. 1, 2013, pp. 89–114.

Shin, LaYoung. “Avoiding T’ibu (Obvious Butchness): Invisibility as a Survival Strategy among Young Queer Women in South Korea.” Henry, Queer Korea, pp. 295–322.

Suh, Stephen Cho. “Negotiating Masculinity across Borders: A Transnational Examination of Korean American Masculinities.” Men and Masculinities, vol. 20, no. 3, 2017, pp. 317–44.

Sylvian, Gabriel. “From Woman’s Duty to Women’s Play: Lesbian Explorations in ‘Plastic Sex.’ ” Three Wise Monkeys, 7 Nov. 2011, thethreewisemonkeys.com/2011/11/07/from-“woman’s-duty”-to-women’s-play-lesbian-explorations-in-yi-nam-hui’s-plastic-sex/.

Textor, Cindi. “Queer(ing) Language in Yi Kwangsu’s Mujŏng: Sexuality, Nation, and Colonial Modernity.” Journal of Korean Studies, vol. 23, no. 1, 2018, pp. 65–94.

Thomsen, Patrick S., “Transnational Interest Convergence and Global Korea at the Edge of Race and Queer Experiences: A Talanoa with Gay Men in Seoul.” Du Bois Review, vol. 17, no. 2, 2020, pp. 411–28.

Treat, John Whittier. “Telling Queer Time in a Straight Empire: Yi Sang’s ‘Wings’ (1936).” Henry, Queer Korea, pp. 90–116.

Yi, Horim, et al. “Transgender People’s Access to Health Care in Korea.” Health and Social Welfare Review, vol. 35, no. 4, 2015, pp. 64–94.

Yoon, Heo. “The Contact Zone of Queer Field and Legal Regulation in 1950’s South Korea.” Korean Journal of Law and Society, no. 51, 2016, pp. 229–50.

NOTE ON THE TRANSLATIONS

Among the peculiarities of modern Korean literature is the extraordinary range of linguistic styles employed by writers over the past century, a legacy of the rapid development of Korea under the conditions of colonial, postcolonial, and neoliberal modernity. Korea’s literary tradition, which had long been rooted in the classical Chinese language, only began to invent a modern form of Korean writing at the end of the nineteenth century. Taking inspiration from their modernizing neighbors in Meiji Japan and from Western missionaries on the Korean Peninsula, Korean language reformers set out to standardize and modernize their written language primarily by turning to the Korean indigenous alphabet called hangul, invented in 1446, which had traditionally been granted a secondary linguistic status and had been deemed appropriate only for uneducated commoners and women. As the linguist Ross King notes, Korean written language at the end of the nineteenth century was characterized by digraphia, the use of both classical Chinese (한문; hanmun) and Korean hangul, the latter of which was referred to as national script (국문; kungmun) or vulgar script (언문; ŏnmun) and used to represent the “series of related unstandardized dialects” that constituted vernacular Korean (36). A variety of different orthographic styles emerged out of these early experiments before and after Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910. Journalists began drawing heavily on a new lexicon of modern terms derived largely from the newly modernized Japanese language and on fresh verbal and grammatical inflections that served in part to erase the position of the speaker in relation to those being depicted, in effect creating a narrative position of relative objectivity. By the early 1920s, as the author Kim Tongin explained in 1934, many young creative writers were doing everything they could to replace Chinese characters with native Korean words despite the lamentations of many others who claimed it was “조선말로는 미문을 쓸 수가 없다” (“impossible to write elegant sentences in Korean”).

Only a decade or two later, in a newly liberated postcolonial nation, some South Korean writers would complain that their Japanese-language educations had left them incapable of writing as eloquently in Korean as they could in Japanese. Today, Chinese characters have almost entirely disappeared from daily life in Korea, while the language young people speak in the streets of Seoul has perhaps more loanwords from vernacular English than from Japanese and Chinese combined. Questions of bilingualism and diglossia aside, the colloquialism and informality of some of the more recent stories in this collection would be positively shocking to earlier generations of Korean writers. Indeed, what constitutes an “elegant sentence,” and our expectations for the specialized kind of writing we tend to elevate as literary, has transformed over the past century along with the very fabric of Korean fiction—its style, tone, texture, and diction. The Korean-language works gathered in the companion to this volume, under the umbrella of modern Korean literature, reflect this linguistic and stylistic diversity, which has weighed heavily on my own efforts as translator to render these very different works into English.

Yi Kwangsu’s 1918 short story “Yun Kwangho,” in its now antiquated use of Chinese-Korean mixed script (국한문혼용; kukhanmun honyong), is almost unintelligible in its original form to most young educated Koreans today. Replace or supplement the hancha with hangul, however, and few would find it difficult to decipher. The heavy use of Chinese-derived words, the employment of verbal inflections no longer in contemporary use, and its formal, repetitive style, however, still mark Yi’s story as a dated one. Is it the translator’s responsibility to reproduce the philological differences a young Korean might experience in encountering Yi’s original today? Or is the task of Yi’s translator to make the work sing in contemporary English, replacing those features that made it innovative and literary in 1918 with those that might make it equally innovative today? What if Yi’s original work does not readily conform with twenty-first-century standards of what constitutes an excellent work of literature?

These quandaries are not unrelated to long-standing debates in the field of translation studies about translating word for word or sense for sense, about translating with an interest in fidelity to a purported original, and about retaining more accommodations for creative freedom on the part of the translator. It is fortunate that literary translators today are normally given license to embrace multiple strategies for rendering literary works from one language to another, depending on their goals and intended audiences. My own strategy as translator of this collection is informed by current works of translation studies, but guided more by the particular demands of each text. I do not embrace any particular theory of translation, per se, but do hold fast to a theory of language that deeply informs my practice. I would call this practice that of a historicist, someone who does not see the word as the basic unit of translation but instead the utterance, which is to say the word in its full context—as expressed at a particular time and in a particular place.

My thinking here is indebted to the Russian linguist V. S. Vološinov, who in 1929 argued that the meaning of any given word is but “the lower limit of linguistic significance” (101). Essentially a meaningless abstraction when divorced from the concrete circumstances of its utterance, the dictionary translation of a word, too, is but a technical apparatus used for expressing what Vološinov calls theme (99–100). The context, orientation, and evaluative intonation of any particular word are just as meaningful as the word’s putative referent in the real world. Translating for theme, rather than for meaning, thus helps us consider the workings of language more holistically—in three dimensions instead of two. Before translating from a source language to a target language, the translator must be mindful of how the meaning of any given word belongs “to its position between speakers” of the source language who inhabit a specific history, with shared values and ways of understanding the world that help give signification to the words they use (102). It is at this point of triangulation that the translator can begin factoring in how to bring these meanings to life for readers who inhabit a different time and place in history.

What consequences, or particular applications, does this philosophy of language have for the literary translator? I’d like to push the answer to this question in two different directions. First, since this volume includes discrete works of fiction, the translator should be attentive to the multiple layers of theme to which each element of a given story is ostensibly contributing. In the simplest sense, if a particular word appears at one place in a text, the next time it appears the translator needs to be mindful of its earlier presence and usually make some sort of accommodation for any significant pattern emerging that serves to enrich the overall effect being developed by the original writer. Second, there is the matter of voice and the way fiction is particularly well suited for encompassing many different voices simultaneously. The literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin is especially helpful here, as he extended Vološinov’s philosophy of language into a full theory of the novel, which mulls over these questions of voice. For Bakhtin the fundamental characteristic of the novel is heteroglossia—the presence of multiple voices. Bakhtin’s point is not simply that the various characters in a work of fiction speak in different ways, and thus contribute different vocal textures in the dialogue. As Rachel May clarifies in her book The Translator in the Text, his insights shed light on how the voice of a narrator frequently embodies multiple perspectives—in some cases a seemingly objective one that can at times inhabit the voices of different characters, even that of the author. Using third-person pronouns while at the same time drawing on the colloquial diction and cadences belonging to a particular character is in fact one of the technical apparatuses of the modern novel through which interiority and character are characteristically shaped. One of the challenges of translating “Yun Kwangho,” therefore, lies in striking the right balance in bringing together competing perspectives in Yi’s narrative. Finding that balance also means reconciling a traditional Chinese-based lexicon with the more modern, scientific language that appears alongside it—and bringing classical, writerly rhythms and repetitions that seem almost redundant today into harmony with modern expectations for colloquially driven narrative voices.

Sometimes this balance involves domesticating individual words and styles to better conform to a contemporary ear, and sometimes it involves resorting to uneasy formulations in the interest of pointing to something of cultural or historical importance. In the case of Yu Sŭngjin’s “Struggling amid This Despair,” for example, it seems hard to account for the gap between the openly acknowledged promiscuity of the narrator and the rather staid descriptions of male bodies and sexual practices. The rather formal nature of the diction in this piece, which draws on metaphorical language in relation to sex—“불덩어리가 되어” (“became a ball of fire” or “were inflamed”), “젊음을 만끽했다” (“savored [our] youth”), and “열풍을 겪는” (“feeling a hot breeze” or “feeling the winds of passion”)—almost suggests a paucity of more precise, playful, or even racy words with which to talk publicly about sex. Is this the result of self-censorship on the part of the author or publisher, or just a general reflection of language use at the time? I have even been asked by a fellow academic if the author of these confessions was in fact an impostor who had no firsthand gay experience. I myself read the piece somewhat differently. A more aggressive translator might have significantly domesticated the language in “Struggling” with a more entertaining, even campy, tone given the license we have today in contemporary English to talk openly about sex. But such an approach might have given the narrator much more agency than he seems to have in the original, and attenuated much of the original’s ambivalence between homophobic stigma and queer glee. If someday we learn more about the clandestine culture of gay men in 1960s Seoul, and can confirm the frequent use of irony in their speech patterns, then it might be possible for a translator to lend more exuberance to the narrator’s voice in English, though now it seems unjustifiable to do so.

The translation of more contemporary works in this collection poses different challenges, as well as opportunities. Consider, for example, a line from one of the online chats that Yi Seoyoung characteristically incorporates into her story “My Queer Year of Junior High”: “Alright, all you fucking gorgeous fams. I’m gonna have to gather you all up into my harem. Pf!” While it is not especially difficult to find ways of reproducing in English the story’s teenage vulgarity and playful colloquialisms, the loanword fam (팸; p’aem) poses a bedeviling problem for the translator since it carries two meanings in Korean that normally require two different words to convey in English. The abbreviated term fam is, in one usage, derived from the English word family and refers to a chat room–based community whose use of kinship terms, as LaYoung Shin writes, serves as a means of “intensifying relationships” (127). But fam is also used within queer circles as a loanword meaning femme, as in a feminine-identified lesbian. The fact that the narrative addresses the double meaning of the term makes it easier for a translator to retain the slang word in the English translation as a means of simulating the foreignness—as well as the multiplicities—of its original usage. Some of the challenges of translating more recent work in this collection lie in the need to integrate unfamiliar diction with youthful syntax in a convincing manner and to render it into the voice of a credible narrator. Often this involves juggling the competing demands of precision and fluency. Reconstructing style in many of the works in this collection comes down to a related matter of reconciling form and content, word and theme.

Translators will often speak of the need to find an intimacy with the source text. As a gay man, I read the literature included in this collection in solidarity with the queer community, and with the sort of political commitment that I believe is important for pushing far into the historical recesses, and potential multiplicities, of each story’s meanings. And yet, translating with political commitment is different from saying that all the stories in this collection bring me joy as a reader, or as a translator. Many of them do not. Some of the stories included in this collection might even appear homophobic to our twenty-first-century eyes—certainly in comparison with the more contemporary works that have emerged in the wake of Korean queer activism. Translating potentially disturbing works means acknowledging, however, that people from earlier generations who identified as different, or practiced sex differently, from the purported norms of heterosexuality may well have been just as angered by these works as they were solaced by them—as they sought to make sense of their own bodies and desires, which a broader society was not always prepared to understand or accept. Considering the large gaps in our current understanding of modern queer history and literature in Korea, it is the wager of this volume that there is value in bringing a set of older works, which help make visible those structures of language that have helped oppress queer people, into conversation with more recent works that perhaps more actively, and powerfully, engage with the struggles of ordinary queer people today.

Works Cited

Kim Tongin. “Mundan sibonyŏn imyŏnsa 4” [“Fifteen Years in the Literary World: An Insider’s Account 4”]. Chosŏn ilbo, 4 Apr. 1934, p. 4.

King, Ross. “Nationalism and Language Reform in Korea.” Nationalism and the Construction of Korean Identity, edited by Hyung Il Pai and Timothy R. Tangherlini, U of California, Institute of East Asian Studies, 1998, pp. 33–72.

May, Rachel. The Translator in the Text: On Reading Russian Literature in English. Northwestern UP, 1994.

Shin, LaYoung. Teenage Female Iban in South Korea: Gender and Sexual Identity Formed by Performance of Fan-Costume-Play. 2009. Binghamton U, State U of New York, MA thesis.

Volosinov, V. N. Marxism and the Philosophy of Language. Translated by Ladislav Matejka and I. R. Titunik, Harvard UP, 1986.

A Century of Queer Korean Fiction

YUNDO IS BACK

Sang Young Park

First published in 2017 in the queer magazine DUIRO under the pen name Pak Yohan.

1

Yundo was coming back to Korea. Three years had passed since we’d last met. And this time he was apparently returning for good.

The idea of Yundo headed to boot camp at the ripe old age of thirty-two—it would have been tragic if it didn’t also make me grin.

“He only wants a place to crash for the night. You’re OK with that, aren’t you?”

When I didn’t give K a direct answer, he pressed on, trying to offer something of an explanation. You see, Yundo was about to start his military service, and he wanted to take one last trip to Europe beforehand to decompress. His plane was leaving early the next morning so all he needed was a place in Seoul to crash. I said okay and hung up the phone. Right away I felt a pang of regret.

I looked around my room. In terms of furniture there was just an old bed and a tiny desk, resting there on the faded yellow linoleum. There were take-out containers scattered across the floor. The trash can was overflowing. Me and Yundo? Could both of us stay here? It just seemed wrong. That said, Yundo had been a schoolmate of mine, and he was about to enter the army at the age of thirty-two. I couldn’t quite refuse him a roof over his head. It’ll be fine, I kept telling myself, when suddenly Yundo sent me a text.

Hey, how’ve you been? Thanks for letting me crash.

Sure. No problem.

I’ve got something to tell you when we meet.

2

Yundo and I had known each other since the first grade. We’d grown up in the same apartment complex and attended the same primary and junior high schools. We spent almost every day together as boys and often argued over the most trivial things. Sometimes we refused to talk for days on end, only to start hanging out again as though nothing had ever happened.

Over summer break, following our first year of high school, Yundo suddenly flew off to the Philippines to enroll in an international boarding school. It wasn’t long before I fell out of touch with him. Yundo wasn’t, in fact, the only one I lost touch with. After leaving my hometown and moving to university in Seoul, I lost contact with almost everyone I knew as a teenager. Perhaps I was making a clean break from my past. But as things stood now, K was my only friend from high school who still kept up with me. I’d first introduced K to Yundo ages ago, but now it was K who’d become close to him. If it hadn’t been for K’s request, I don’t think I’d ever have met Yundo again.

3

It was three years ago when K called me, inviting me to join them in a Starbucks near my office. I wasn’t especially keen on meeting Yundo, but I couldn’t refuse K’s earnest request and assumed there’d be no harm in swinging by after work to kill some time.

When Yundo came up to me, he was the spitting image of his former self. He wore the same pair of brown, horn-rimmed glasses, perched on his narrow face, all framed by curly hair. He wore a T-shirt with a cartoon character printed on the front, and a hoodie one size too big for him, with extra-long sleeves. Even his thick lips, dry and horribly chapped, looked just the same. The instant I set my eyes on him I was transported back to my teenage years. With a hot Americano clutched in my hands, I made my way to the seat just in front of him. As he leaned in to stand up from his chair, I noticed the crown of his head. During junior high we’d always stood at eye level with each other, but Yundo hadn’t grown at all since then. Looking at his cowlick got me thinking. Something about him was rubbing me the wrong way.

K was the first to speak, saying that I looked tired. I turned to K and then to Yundo and replied, “I guess I’ve aged a bit?” Instead of answering, Yundo just smiled. The sight of him sitting there, pigeon-toed, still using the sleeve of his hoodie to cover up his lips, was so familiar to me, it felt unreal. “It’s been a while,” Yundo finally said by way of a greeting, his pronunciation strangely off. Yundo had lived half his life abroad, so perhaps this was only to be expected. Without anything in particular to say to him, I looked down at my coffee cup and asked, “Well, how’ve you been?” It wasn’t Yundo but K who proceeded to fill me in. K explained that after graduating from college in Manila, Yundo had continued on to medical school there as well.

Did he say medical school? Was this the same Yundo who had never once in Korean schools excelled at anything? Who could barely tell time in the third grade? Who was still struggling with the Latin alphabet while I took advanced English conversation classes at the International Institute? That same Yundo … was studying to be a doctor?

With a Filipino-inflected English accent, Yundo then proceeded to explain how medical school worked and what courses he was taking. Needless to say, the name of the school was new to me. But if med school in the Philippines wasn’t all that different from in Korea, why was he going into so much detail? Already, he was trying too hard.

“So, when you graduate, can you practice here in Korea?”

“No … I can’t.”

“Do you want to work as a doctor in the Philippines?”

“Well, I can’t become a doctor there unless I’m a citizen. So, I’ll have to go to the States or Europe and pass a special test there.”

“Oh, so still a ways off before you’re a doctor then? Life as a student isn’t too rough. The nine-to-five thing is kind of brutal. I’m jealous.”

Truth is, I wasn’t at all jealous, even if I did end on that point. And yet, Yundo nodded his head as though he understood why I might be. ‘So basically what you’re saying is that all you’ve gotten out of life is a diploma worth shit here in Korea and in the Philippines. Your Korean is no longer fluent. And your admission to medical school may or may not prepare you for some sort of test you have to take?’ All of this I wanted to say out loud, but of course I didn’t. Instead, I softened my tone and changed the subject.

“So, what were you just talking about—before I showed up?”

Both K and Yundo blurted out the name of the newly elected female president. “Oh, politics? How boring.” Yundo then said he actually enjoyed talking about politics. I replied that young people in Korea nowadays were a bit fed up with it. I needn’t have read deeply into the lines on his face to see that he didn’t catch on.

“Koreans complain way too much these days, if you ask me,” he said.

“No one who knows Korea would ever say anything like that,” I retorted.

Yundo stared right back at me and held his ground. “I don’t think it matters where you live in the world. Humans are humans, all the same.” He went on to say that life is tough no matter who you are, but what’s important is to have a positive attitude and to make the most out of the life you’ve been given. The word “positive” came out a bit weird in Korean, and he had to repeat it.

“Did you hear that from your preacher?” I replied with a smile.

I wasn’t sure if Yundo picked up on my sarcasm, but he nodded in response. Then he began elaborating on his religious and political views. This was something no normal Korean in his twenties would ever do. He explained how he attended services every day at dawn and how he hosted Bible study groups in both English and Korean.

“Wow, that’s impressive.”

And for the time being, Yundo continued, he was veering conservative, just like the others at church. But for someone with such prim and proper posture to announce that he was “veering conservative” “for the time being,” for someone to speak so cavalierly about sensitive issues he knew nothing about—this, I found offensive. Add to that the self-important look on his face of someone convinced he was taking part in a very serious discussion, and I could no longer hold back.

“What exactly do you mean by conservative?”

Looking a bit flustered, Yundo explained that he didn’t really know much about Korean politics. But he did understand one thing: “Conservatives, progressives—everyone in politics is corrupt.”

I burst out laughing. K gave me a look. An odd expression appeared on Yundo’s face. At first, it seemed as though his feelings had been hurt, then, as though he was just momentarily out of sorts; finally, he looked as though there was nothing wrong at all. I straightened my shoulders and placed my coffee cup on the table before speaking.

Politics is the process that distributes the wealth societies produce, I began. Of course, it’s a breeding ground for all sorts of conflicts, even corruption. And any educated young person in Korea today would know that politics is about choosing the lesser of two evils. While you’ve been out of the country, Koreans have experienced a range of different elections and elected governments. And what we’ve all learned is this: No matter who holds the reins of power, nothing much changes—in fact the harder we try, sometimes the worse it seems to become. So for young people in Korea today, politics is like a bad case of constipation with no cure in sight. It’s certainly not a pleasant topic of casual conversation, I continued. Which is why, when someone like you, without a care in the world, announces that you’ve veered this way or that “for the time being,” I have to say it comes off not only as naive but as positively offensive.

“Well, there’s not much I can do about that.”

Yundo fell silent at long last. His face went pale. To appease me, K started talking about how hard it was for young people to make a living in Korea now, how tough it was to find a job, and how no one was able to come home in time for dinner anymore. He mentioned class conflict and the housing crisis. And Yundo listened, bobbing his head up and down all the while. Yundo seemed a bit surprised to hear that almost no working professionals based in Korea ever managed to leave the office on time. I felt almost envious of Yundo, this guy who could explain in such a bright and cheerful way that he was veering conservative for the time being and yet could still be surprised by this new information. I was so envious, in fact, I was on the point of saying, “You’re better off the way you are—totally oblivious.” Besides, anyone who could claim to be a devout Christian and at the same time a gay man, without picking up on the contradiction, might very well be the sort of person who would veer toward conservative politics—precisely because he didn’t think much about it. But once my train of thought had brought me this far, I’d lost all interest in arguing.

4

On the night before his departure for Europe, Yundo showed up with a large suitcase, looking the same as ever.

He still sat pigeon-toed and spoke in a whiny voice. He was still short, unattractive, and not particularly tactful. I didn’t need to ask him how he was doing for him to start smacking those thick lips of his and to take it upon himself to update me, in rusty Korean, on all the details of his journey through life so far. He’d finished graduate school now, his parents were both doing well, and his sister had been a nursery school teacher but just got married to someone with a government job. After completing his mandatory military service, Yundo explained, he had plans to take the medical examination in Germany.

“Why Germany?”

It was apparently a long story, and he’d eventually get there. But beating around the bush is a pastime for some people, usually for those convinced of their own importance, though I don’t remember meeting anyone like this who had anything really important to say.

I did recall, however, what Yundo once told me before escaping to the Philippines for his education. As if he were making some sort of grand declaration, he basically came out to me.

“Well, you see, the truth of the matter is that … I actually like men.”

Of course, anyone who knew Yundo might have guessed as much. For my part, I just nodded my head. But Yundo continued to stare at me as though he’d been hoping for a much better response. I didn’t comply.

“… and I know that you do too,” he added.

“So what …?”

My answer came out unintentionally blunt. I’m sure he’d hoped I’d say something like, “Oh, me too. We’re like two gay peas in a pod,” sharing with him some silly expression of our newfound connection. But at the time I wasn’t interested in sharing my private life with Yundo. A heavy silence hung between the two of us.

This was the last conversation Yundo and I had as teenagers.

5

By the time I finished my shower and stepped out of the bathroom, Yundo had already spread out his futon and was lying on top of it. Since he was tapping away on his cell phone, I let him be and lay down on my bed. Propping my laptop on my stomach, I began to order something online when Yundo asked, “You have any water?”

“Yeah, in the refrigerator.”

Yundo opened the refrigerator door and sighed. He untwisted the cap from a bottle of spring water and poured himself a glass to drink. Instead of lying back down on his blankets he sat facing me and said, “I’ve been struggling whether or not to tell you this, but …”

Oh no, please no. None of this should-I-or-shouldn’t-I crap.

“Factory food isn’t very good for you,” he said, using an English term.

“Um, do you mean ‘processed food’? Yeah, I’m well aware …”

“Why not do a bit of exercise? In my experience, once you start working out, your appetite basically manages itself. There’s this kid from Malaysia at our church, and well, he gained a lot of weight, just like you did, and …”

“I’d actually like to hear more about your trip to Europe. And what’s all this about Germany? I mean, you better get cracking with that military service, you know.”

This finally shut Yundo up. He looked embarrassed. And noticing this also softened my own discomfort. Breathing somewhat easier now, Yundo began speaking normally again, slowly and somewhat clumsily, as ever.

“So, I have a friend over there, that’s all. Someone I’m close to.”

“Close to? Well, who is it?”

“To what extent are you open-minded?”

His reply was a bit random. It didn’t amount to translationese, per se, but still it was a strange thing to say. What did my being open-minded have to do with his going to Germany? Still, I softened my voice when I replied.

“Much more open-minded than you might think.”

I was certainly more open-minded than a Christian who referred to himself as a conservative. Of this, I was confident. Yundo’s voice then started to shake, as though he were up on a stage delivering an acceptance speech.

“Well, actually … I’m going to Germany to get married.”

“Married to whom?”

“The person I’ve been dating. He’s German.”

“But you’re about to join the army. How can you get married?”

“Well, for a couple reasons I feel it’d be better. I guess I’d feel more stable, if I got married before I join up.”

“Oh, I see.”

“You’re not shocked?”

“Should I be?”

“Well, to be honest, my BF is twelve years older than me.”

At this point I found it hard not to smile. Had Yundo just used the word “BF”? Maybe he was just joking. I mean, he wasn’t exactly a thirteen-year-old girl. Wasn’t it something of a stretch for a thirty-two-year-old to call his same-sex partner a “BF”? But of course Yundo went on to explain.

“K’s against the match because he’s a full cycle ahead of me in the Chinese Zodiac.”

Seriously? Dating a foreigner, in his forties, with the same Zodiac sign. I mean, who cares. Sure enough, Yundo was again displaying his superior talent for making grand declarations on topics that were totally mundane. Though I’d hardly asked for it, he then proceeded to offer me a full confession, or rather a history, of his love life.

Yundo’s BF had been a German teacher at his college in the Philippines, and after meeting in a general education class as student and teacher, the two had ended up growing close. After a relationship of some two years, the BF had returned to Germany. At this point in his story Yundo flipped through his cell phone and handed it over to me. It was a photograph from his Instagram account of a burly, middle-aged man—a white guy with the face of a water buffalo. “My BF,” he added.

“Enough already with the ‘BF,’ ” I wanted to scream—though I could hardly bring myself to do it. I did feign enough interest, however, to scroll through the man’s account. He was German and looked like the kind of forty-something-year-old gay white man who might prefer Asians. As I scrolled indifferently through the photographs, I came upon an image that took me by surprise. It was a photograph taken of the man with Yundo’s family. Even more surprising was that the guy had an arm wrapped around Yundo’s father. Were these the same ardent Christians I knew them to be? Surprised, I asked Yundo.

“What’s this? Do your parents know about your relationship?”

“No, they don’t.”

“OK …”

“I just told them he’s a professor I got to know after taking his class. So they think he’s a friend of mine.”

“And they believe you?”

“Yeah. In fact, he was just here for a visit and even stayed at our house.”

“Even your sister can’t tell? I mean, it’s so obvious.”

“Of course she doesn’t know.”

“Christ. Well, surely they’ve read the comic series Countries Near and Far. They’ve been around the world and back after all. How could they not figure it out?”

“Who knows. But they don’t have a clue. And we’re not that obvious.”

Anyone could tell—from a hundred meters away—that their relationship was anything but ordinary, though I kept myself from correcting him. Yundo looked perfectly calm and composed as he began recounting the last time he took a trip on the subway with his sister.

He explained to me that his sister had married a government employee last year and was now in the final trimester of her pregnancy. They had boarded the subway together on route to an appointment with her obstetrician and miraculously managed to find seats together. Directly in front of them sat a thin young man, not more than twenty years old. The young man, with bleach-blond hair, had pulled out a compact from his bag and started to dab his face with it. As his pale face turned even paler, Yundo’s sister covered her mouth as though she were about to hurl. He put his hand on his sister’s back and rubbed it softly. Then his sister whispered something to him softly enough so that no one else could hear.

“It makes me sick to think my baby has to grow up in a world with things like that.”

But when it came to her own brother being one of those “things,” she was totally in the dark, it seemed. Why on earth were this woman’s eyes and ears failing her? Was it a case of “the closer you get, the harder it is to see”? Yundo said that he understood his family’s feelings. He said it was better for everyone if they just didn’t know much about one another’s lives. He went on to explain that they were all ardent believers, simply guided by faith, and that they hadn’t sinned, only he had. He had once attended a church group that practiced conversion therapy, and he had several times tried to give up same-sex love. He had gone so far as to inflict harm on himself each time he thought of a man. But in the end, he just couldn’t give it up. Now that he was in a relationship with another man, he said, he suffered terribly from the guilt. At this point in our conversation it was me, not Yundo’s sister, who was ready to hurl.

“We’ve both had sex with men for several years now. Wouldn’t you say we’ve passed the age where we really need to feel any guilt?”

Yundo nodded his head and said he’d accepted the fact that he was gay. For the first time I pitied him. He let out a sigh and continued.

He’d been incredibly happy to meet a man who could understand someone like him. The two of them were actually quite similar. It had taken them both a good deal of time to understand who they really were inside. The man had a wife and kids back in Germany. And it wasn’t until he’d met Yundo that he finally discovered his true self. And, well … that’s where they both were now. Yundo spoke as though he had fully grasped the essence of this German man and himself better than anyone else possibly could.

“You know, I actually tried to push him away on several occasions. I still had my military service to complete, you see. And I’m not exactly stable when it comes to my career. I used to tell him, all the time, that we should just break up. But the more I tried to push him away, the more he trusted me. And all he ever said back was, ‘I’ll wait for you.’ We even started going to church together. So, basically, this is where we’ve ended up.”

There he goes again, I said to myself. Fate had brought them both together! If nothing else, Yundo had a talent for not being likable for even a short period of time. And so he carried on, explaining how he planned to live in his BF’s house when he visited Germany this time, how they planned to return to Korea together and make a grand tour of the country. The way he described their itinerary, you’d think they were pop stars planning a world tour.

“The BF …” he began again, launching into another epic tale. I soon felt myself losing focus. But since I didn’t respond with a look of annoyance, Yundo actually did me the kindness of asking a question. “So, are you seeing anyone now?” I wasn’t sure how I should I answer the question but eventually picked up my phone and showed him a picture of the hottest guy I’d hooked up with recently.

“Handsome.”

And with that single word, Yundo put down my phone. I can assure you I wanted nothing more than to brag and to go on endlessly about what a great life I had—just as Yundo had done to me. But I abandoned that idea, knowing it would be pointless. At the same time, I felt pressed to seize control of the conversation before he started grating on my nerves once again.

“Well, when you come back to Seoul with your hubby, I’ll have to take you guys someplace nice.”

I regretted the words even as I said them. Heaven only knew where I might take them.

“Oh, really, where? We’ve been to Seoul a ton of times already, and I don’t think there’s any place we haven’t been yet.”

“Hmm … I wonder where’d be best. Have you taken him to a gay bar or club?”

“I wouldn’t say either of us is that sort of person …” He smiled awkwardly.

“And by ‘that sort of person’ you mean …”

“Oh, don’t get the wrong idea. I totally respect you. It’s just that I’m not really into that kind of thing. It seems all so pointless to me—doing it with anybody and everybody.”

“Hold on, I was only suggesting that we have a fun night out on the town, not that we head off to some orgy.”

“Well, we don’t like crowded spaces anyway.”

“Churches are crowded spaces, aren’t they? I think you’d actually have fun if you came along. You might even find a few good friends you can open up to.”

“I’ve already got plenty of friends.”

“Oh, you mean church friends? The ones running conversion therapy classes?”

Yundo pressed together his chapped lips and explained once again that he was not a “fighter,” stressing that all he wanted to do was to just get along with everyone out there. He had repeated this line so many times, I felt as though I, too, were now arguing with everyone out there. He picked up his phone and started texting, until he finally made a call to his BF. The two blabbered away in German for a while. Who knows what they were saying. Cussing me out perhaps? I opened up my own phone and pretended to text somebody as well, but I didn’t really have anyone to contact, so I just did a search for “German men.” The first result that popped up was an article called “Germany: Land of the World’s Longest Penis.” I read the article while trying to eavesdrop on Yundo’s conversation, in what didn’t seem like very fluent German. The length and width of German cocks exceeds twice that of Korean men. Seems God has given Yundo quite a blessing, I mused, as Yundo hung up the phone.

“You sleepy? Should I turn off the lights?”

“No, I’m still OK. Hey, do you remember me saying last time we met that I had something to tell you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, actually I wanted to apologize. I’ve always wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

Yundo hesitated. Oh, no, what now? I thought. Then, for the first time, Yundo began enunciating his words clearly.

“To tell you the truth … back in high school … I made a point of avoiding you. I was afraid that if we spent time together, people might start treating me the way they always treated you. So I just want to apologize for that.”

“What are you talking about? How did people ‘treat’ me?”

“They just … I mean, kids would, like, joke around and call you a homo and stuff. Mostly behind your back. Which really scared me.”

At this, I burst out laughing. What, pray tell, had Yundo come here to tell me? If anyone, it was I who had avoided Yundo in high school. He was just always trying so hard. He had stood for election as class representative and used lunchtime to practice soccer. With all his girlish prancing around the sports field, he had stood out like a sore thumb from the vantage point of our third-floor classroom. Yundo stood out no matter what he did, or where he went, and yet he was still too clueless to understand this. He wanted everyone to think he was a good person but ended up giving people the impression that he was trying too hard. I think he truly believed he was a good person because of this approach to life.

Given all of this, why would Yundo be asking me for forgiveness? This was the same kid, after all, who couldn’t read the hands of a clock in the third grade. Who after failing the Korean entrance exams three times in a row entered a second-rate college in the Philippines—and only by the skin of his teeth. And who now had met a German man with a wife and kids. This guy, who claimed to be putting the love of Jesus Christ our Savior into practice, was saying he had avoided me in school because he feared being treated just like me? If anything, shouldn’t I feel grateful that he’d stayed away?

“Well, thank you. After fifteen years I’ve finally learned something about my teenage years. And to think, I was an outcast the whole time.”

Yundo couldn’t bring himself to say anything more. A silence hung in the air between us. Yundo popped in his earbuds, while I switched off the light. We said nothing more to each other as we each lay down, staring at our cell phones, waiting to fall asleep.

6

When I woke up the next morning, Yundo had already gone. The blankets he’d been sleeping on had been neatly folded.

7

After Yundo left the country, I made a point of looking up his Instagram account. From time to time he posted intimate pictures of him and his BF traipsing across Europe. But my eyes were always drawn to the comments his parents added to each post. “The scenery is so beautiful there, my son.” “You look so healthy, my son.” “Don’t forget to go to church on Sunday, my son.” “My son …” “My son …” After reading more than thirty comments using the same exact words, I stopped reading. I left Yundo’s Instagram account and entered his BF’s, where I found a close-up photograph of two hands clasped together, each wearing a matching platinum ring.

Sometime later I found a photograph posted on Instagram of Yundo graduating from basic training. His head was shaved, and he looked uglier than ever. I didn’t have it in me to follow his account any longer.

MY QUEER YEAR OF JUNIOR HIGH

Yi Seoyoung

First published in 2016, in a collection of writings about the experience of graduation, Happy to Graduate (다행히 졸업; Tahaenghi chorŏp). The story is set in the early 2000s.

Thinking back, I blame it all on a single kiss.

It was a summer night, during my last year of junior high, and Yŏngin had managed to get drunk.

Slouched on the park bench, Yŏngin wasn’t about to get up and go anywhere. I reached into my pocket, and flipped open my phone. It was already 8:35 p.m. At this point, even if I headed straight home, I still wouldn’t be back until after my 9:30 curfew. Yŏngin grabbed my hand and pulled me toward her. Having had more than a swig or two myself, all I could do was sit there beside her, trying to come up with a good excuse for my mom when I got home. Once 8:45 came around, I knew my options were limited. I turned my head to tell Yŏngin I had to leave.

Soft and warm … is how I remember it.

As Yŏngin drew her lips away from mine, I was left speechless and stared at her blankly. With dreamy eyes Yŏngin smiled back at me. On this warm summer night, Yŏngin’s entire body seemed bathed in a beautiful blue light.

As I stood up and turned around to look at her again—still reclined there on the bench with her short haircut—I felt a gust of wind. I lowered my head against it and made my way slowly toward the station.

In the subway car I avoided meeting eyes with everyone sitting across from me and instead fixed my line of vision on their knees. I drew in a faint breath and then gently exhaled. The pain in my heart was piercing. I clutched my chest with both hands—my lungs weak and breathless—and barely made it through all fifteen stops. At my transfer station, I was staring down at the ground while walking when I bumped headfirst into someone.

“Hey, kid, watch where you’re going!”

The middle-aged voice was a bit harsh, but I didn’t look up at the man or offer an apology. In fact, I don’t recall looking up from the ground until I’d made my way back home. No sooner had I managed to arrive home safely, however, and slipped off my shoes, did my ill-tempered mother, who’d been lurking just beside the entryway, begin to accost me.

“What excuse do you have this time, huh?”

I knew that she deserved an answer, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak. I gave her a sheepish smile and walked into my room. I removed my clothes very slowly and folded them carefully. After tucking them away at the back of my wardrobe, I turned off the light and slid into bed wearing panties instead of pajamas. Softly I closed my eyes. My heart still ached. I moistened my lips and chewed on them gently. Soon my face had become so unbearably hot I let out a long, deep breath.

The next day, when I saw Yŏngin at school, she said hi to me and smiled softly. We mentioned nothing about what had happened the night before. I beamed with delight as I took my seat. Out here in public—in year 3, class 2—we hardly spoke to each other. But in private we had a place all our own.

“I’ve gotta world all my own, where Peace B is my network ID. We’re different, you and me, there’s nowhere we can’t b—”

A pencil case suddenly flew at the speaker.

“Fuck, does BoA have family in the broadcasting club or something? Every morning it’s always the same freakin’ BoA song!”

I liked this song, though I kept this a secret. Not only because everyone else hated BoA, but also because the lyrics reminded me of Yŏngin whenever I heard them: “this wasn’t a place where we could meet.” Instead, we met online in front of a computer, in Sinch’ŏn Park, and at Café Santa Fe.

It was during winter break of my second year in junior high that I’d first come across a picture of Yŏngin. It was posted on a SayClub iban chat website.1 The soft focus of the camera lens had made Yŏngin’s pale complexion look even more beautiful. In Anyang, age 15, butch. Name: Kang Hanbin. You couldn’t really tell she was butch even with her short haircut. And if you ask me, her real name, Cho Yŏngin, was pretty just the way it was … That said, I had a doozy of a screen name myself: Ha Wŏrya. Since Yŏngin always wore color contact lenses, her eyes sparkled even more in the webcam photos she posted. Each photo had collected tons of comments … In any case, this is why I came to call her Hanbin.

The first time we met was at a regular meetup so I wasn’t able to sit very close to her. She had no idea who I was. There was another girl there who was at least twenty years old and who always made me feel a bit bashful. Once, she broke out in laughter and grabbed hold of my arm.

“Well, I knew you were a bit shy, Wŏrya, but you really are a femme through and through.”

Just then Yŏngin looked over at me, though I’m sure she didn’t recognize me from school. I knew who she was, but there was no reason for her to recognize me. In any case, all the others knew her as the kid who, at our last retreat, did a perfect rendition of a Chang Uhyŏk break-dance routine. She was popular with all the other girls at school, those older than her as well as younger; she had the kind of boyish good looks that really made all the girls blush.

The moment I got home I checked to see if Yŏngin had left any comments on the chat site.

Hey girls—. A huge thanks to everyone. Y’all left me feeling super groovy. A special shout out to Wŏrya, who lives down here near me. We hardly got a chance to talk. But let’s hang out soon~.

Yŏngin was saying she wanted to meet again, and yet she didn’t even know who I was: that is, up until that moment she found herself facing me in class 2, looking a bit flustered. I smiled at her softly and found a seat up front. As I listened to all the other kids sharing the news that Yŏngin had been assigned to our new class, my heart felt so full I thought it might burst open with the slightest touch.

Not long after classes began, we had another chance to meet up in Sinch’ŏn Park. Like all the other official couples from our iban meet-up, Rubi and Hwisŭng were twisted in each other’s arms, making out in clear sight of an old man who was passing by. Rubi and Hwisŭng were both high school students, though I later learned that Hwisŭng lived in Seoul, while Rubi lived in Suwŏn. For the most part, the group always met up in Sinch’ŏn. This was where all the girls sporting short haircuts with blade bangs and wearing hip-hop shorts came to feel each other up on the benches scattered through the park. Hwisŭng puffed on a cigarette like it was the most natural thing for her to do. Like most club members she smoked only Marlboro Reds. I didn’t dare speak to anyone, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of Yŏngin that night. That face I had always seen at school was now at long last right in front of me. Hanbin gave me the once-over, smiled, and then came over to me.

“Hey, I’m in the same class as Wŏrya?”

“Really?”

“No way!”

Other students circled us, asking us questions about life at school. We just smiled and explained we were simply in the same class together. Our meeting that night ended uneventfully.

On the subway ride back home Hanbin pulled out a CD player from inside her cross-body bag.

“Wanna listen together?”

Then the two of us then sat there, on a subway car in March, sharing a set of earbuds as we listened to Gil Ofarim’s “Round ‘n’ Round.” The car soon brightened, and through the newly transparent windows I could see the Han River outside. Through the earbuds I could hear Gil’s soft, slow voice singing, “forever … together … with you.” Hanbin started to nod off, however, her head dropping forward ever so slowly before she was startled back awake. As she spun her head to look around her, I noticed how the back of her neck was buzzed extra short. Wanting nothing more than to place my hand right there on her neck, I stared at her softly cut hair, completely mesmerized by it. I liked this girl—I knew that much.

Yŏngin and I managed to not bring up the topic of our kiss the night before. We didn’t text, or pass notes, or even look at each other before the day-end assembly. Our homeroom teacher, however, came into the classroom carrying an armful of family newsletters, printed on cheap paper. The newsletter was unusually dense with text.

1. What are iban? They reject heterosexual love. Under the influence of entertainers (like Hong Sŏkchŏng and Harisu), fan fiction (homosexual love stories where popular entertainers are the main characters), and Japanese manga featuring homosexual romance, iban enter into homosexual romances. They excite the psyches of young people who want to stand out and be the center of everyone’s attention.

2. How iban spreads: mainly through Internet-based social groups like SayClub.

I quickly stuffed the newsletter into my bag. But several kids started reading it out loud in hushed voices:

“A lewd and degenerate culture has developed among girls at junior and senior high schools recently, leading to a crackdown on this behavior. While we are certain that no students in our class partake in these degenerate acts, there is a particular place in Seoul near Sinch’ŏn … where groups of female students have been engaging in … this sort of cultural corruption … Everyone should be on high alert.”

Our homeroom teacher looked totally bored, even annoyed, as he gave directions for cleanup and dismissed the rest of the class. I was still lifting up chairs in my half of the room when Yŏngin came up to me, having already pushed back all the desks in her half. She quietly waited until I had lifted all the chairs off the floor. But as I began to push each desk to the back, she finally spoke.

“We’ll never finish if you do it like that.”

Yŏngin moved to the front of the classroom and pushed the entire row of desks back at the same time. I noticed the strength in her forearms. Standing side by side, we pushed back another row of desks. They slid much more easily and quickly to the back of the room this way. I wondered what had been on Yŏngin’s mind when she’d seen that family newsletter. I could still feel my lips tingling from our kiss. When I suddenly caught the scent of Yŏngin’s flesh, I dropped my head. As we pushed back another row of desks, I tried desperately to catch a glimpse of her. But aside from the fair skin on her cheeks, I could read nothing in the expression on her face.

By the time I got home, Hanbin had already written something in the fam chat room. She’d even posted a picture of the family newsletter.

It’s starting at our school too—lol.

In club meetings we’d already discussed iban censorship for some time now. But Yuki was first to comment on Hanbin’s posting. Normally whenever Hanbin entered the chat room, Yuki always gave her a shout out like, My homie, Hanbin. Luv you—♡, all typed out in bright pink, twenty-point font.

Oh, no, this is bad – _ ㅠ … Hanbin & Wŏrya, aren’t you both at the same school? I’m worried! … Will ya be OK?

Hanbin was the first to suggest we all sign up in the same chat room. “Hwisŭng has just set up a new fam,” she said, “so let’s all join up.” The fam was called the Blood Alliance Harem. Since fam was an abbreviation for family, but also a word meaning a ladylike iban (femme), at first it was super confusing. Rubi had once been a member of the fam, but later she broke up with Hwisŭng and started dating another member. Hwisŭng soon found another lover as well.

Alright, all you fucking gorgeous fams. I’m gonna have to gather you all up into my harem. Pf!

But Hwisŭng, I thought I was “the only one.” Why do you need anyone else? —,—

In their new fam chat room Hwisŭng and her new lover carried on with this catty back-and-forth all day long. After creating this new fam, they also started an official meetup as well. Hwisŭng’s new lover was a second-year junior high school student and a really tiny girl, at only 152 centimeters tall. Her name was Seha. I’d say Hanbin and Yuki stood out among everyone else in the group. Yuki came to Sinch’ŏn with her face caked in makeup, and dressed in a pair of jeans with so many holes she was hardly wearing anything at all. Her hair had been freshly bleached. And on her left arm she wore a checkerboard-pattern wrist guard. She might as well have jumped right out from the pages of a manga.

“You’re only seventeen. No one gives you trouble for that hair?

“Oh, I dropped out of school.”

Yuki then casually plucked the cigarette out of Hwisŭng’s fingers and took a drag on it for herself. It was the first time the two had ever met, said Hwisŭng, making Yuki’s bold act super sexy. Seha then tugged on Hwisŭng’s arm. Pushing back the bangs that hung in her way, Hwisŭng showered her lover with kisses. She even left a hickey on Seha’s neck. Each time Seha spoke after that, she proudly lifted her chin as if to show it off.

“Looks like Wŏrya’s never seen a hickey before.”

“Wŏrya, don’t tell me you’ve never kissed anyone?”

I wanted to correct her, but the words didn’t come out right. Yuki clung to Hanbin all day long, winking at her and grabbing at her hand. Then I saw Hanbin giving Yuki what looked like a hug from behind. It was that night, after everyone had gone their separate ways, that Hanbin, which is to say, Yŏngin, kissed me on the park bench.

Several days after our families were sent a copy of the school newsletter, the fam met in Sinch’ŏn. There was no urgent reason for us to meet, but for some reason we were all determined to get together. Sitting in Santa Fe, the lesbian café in Sinch’ŏn, Hanbin pulled out a copy of the newsletter.

3. Telltale signs: layered haircuts, long bangs, accessories, refusal to wear neckties, hip-hop style, men’s suits, hiking boots, color contact lenses, dyed hair, black nail polish, and knife wounds.

4. Gatherings: Called “meetups” (or regular meetings). Held in cafés or pavilions. Here they play unhealthy games, for instance, passing ice cubes from one person’s mouth to another, squeezing balloons until they pop, kissing ten times after applying fresh lipstick, leaving hickeys, and wearing a blindfold and searching for something hidden on someone’s body with their lips.

“Wow. This is total bullshit. And like … they actually think iban is just a way of rebelling against hetero love?”

“Well, straight kids can’t possibly imagine being gay, can they? They’re straight, after all.”

“ ‘They rent out cafés and pavilions for regular meetups?’ What the hell is a ‘pavilion’?”

“I dunno. One of those old buildings up in the mountains?”

We all sat for a while, sneering at the newsletter, until Yuki suddenly grabbed it and used her lighter to set it on fire. Everyone was shocked. The newsletter went up in flames. Just before the fire seared her fingers, Yuki let go of the last bit of paper not yet reduced to ash.

“Say goodbye to this crap.”

Hwisŭng of course praised Yuki, saying she was tough. After killing a bit more time at the café, we headed off for some karaoke as usual. When it came to singing, Hwisŭng and Hanbin always sang along to a dance song by H.O.T., while I mostly ended up singing ballads by Chŏng Kyŏnghwa or Eco. But Yuki, she was different. That girl was seriously out there, singing pieces by J-rock bands like L’arc-en-Ciel and Glay. I couldn’t understand a word she was singing. She loved improvising in a way I thought was kinda weird, but at the same time super sexy.

When my turn came around again, Jaurim’s “Deviation” started playing. This was a song that excited everyone no matter who was singing. What I liked most was the way the vocalist moved her long, slender legs as she sang. I turned my head for a moment while singing and happened to notice Hanbin and Yuki whispering to each other in the corner. Whatever Hanbin had said left Yuki bending over backward in laughter. But when our eyes met, Yuki flashed a smiled, came over toward me, and grabbed the microphone. She joined me for the chorus.

“If you’ve got a stack of work to do, you gotta go off on vacation / Bungee off a rooftop! / Do striptease at the station! Yai yai yai yai ya!”

Yuki had such a loud, resounding voice that I gave up singing along with her. She continued on to the second verse. Her voice was seductive, and in no time both Hwisŭng and Seha seemed captivated. Seha stood up and started clapping. Hanbin stared at Yuki as she continued to sing, while I stared at Hanbin staring at Yuki. I looked down into the songbook, searching for another track, but wasn’t sure what to pick. Nothing really stood out to me, and by the time Yuki’s song ended, I hadn’t added anything to the lineup.

For more than a week the only kind of music broadcast during lunchtime was classical music and dated pop songs. The school made sure you couldn’t dedicate songs to special friends. The only music it permitted now was “music you’d like to share with everyone at Ch’ŏnggŏn Girls Junior High.” Needless to say, there were no takers. There’d once been a time when, just as we started eating lunch and the room was almost silent, we’d hear the words, “This song goes out to Yŏngin Cho, junior high, year 3, class 2.” But with dedications now a thing of the past, I felt almost empty inside. At one point there’d been so many people sending songs, it was impossible to keep track of them all. But the last song dedicated to Yŏngin, I think, was “Fairy Tale in a Drawer,” by Fin.K.L. Despite having so many love songs dedicated to her in the past, Yŏngin still seemed perfectly content. In the same classroom where weird pop music now played, Yŏngin still had a good appetite, still napped well during class, and still ran at full speed during phys ed.

Summer vacation was almost here. Finals were over, and there was nothing new to learn in gym class. Still, we were forced to change clothes and assemble on the athletic grounds. After we ran around the field a couple times, a teacher would inevitably show up, but only to tell us to play dodgeball or something, before disappearing again.

I remember once when lines were drawn on the athletic grounds before one of these games began. I’d meant to stand just outside the line and stay on the offensive side, but somehow I wasn’t standing in the right place when the students split into two teams, and I ended up on defense. This meant that Yŏngin and I were on the same team. One of the girls next to me said under her breath, “Can’t you just tell them to switch you to offense?”

She had every right to say this. I was, after all, a slowpoke. This is why I wanted to be on offense in the first place … But before I could finish the thought, a ball came barreling toward us. Quick as lightning, Yŏngin threw up her hands and caught it. A cheer rang out from our team.

Yŏngin was quick to prepare her counterattack and aimed right back at the person who’d thrown the ball. The opposing team scrambled back in retreat. Yŏngin not only passed the ball quickly, she was also quick to assess the field of play. She could easily aim the ball at the attacking team but also pass it off with ease to her teammates. While I clumsily dodged the ball each time it crossed the line, and did what I could to escape to the other side of the court, Yŏngin was a true natural, flying back and forth as though she’d grown a pair of wings. The number of players on each team gradually dwindled, and soon there were only two or three players left on each team. Somehow, I’d managed to be among the last to survive. This almost never happened. As this thought raced through my mind, a ball came hurling toward me. In a frantic effort to escape to the opposite side I slipped and fell flat on my face. Yŏngin then tried to block the ball from hitting me as I lay sprawled on the ground. The ball bounced off her hand. Yŏngin had tried to catch a ball aimed right at me. A cry of resignation rose from our team.

“That was close …” Yŏngin said softly under her breath as she rubbed her hands off on her gym clothes and extended me her hand. I grabbed it firmly and lifted myself off the ground. “Well, you’re the last one standing.”

It was true. And within ten seconds the game had ended. Our team had lost.

“You should have just let Daye get hit!”

“Yeah, I should’ve been the one to go down.”

But Yŏngin replied with a smile, “How could I watch someone on the ground get hit by a ball?”

Summer vacation had officially begun, and at long last I was able to spend some quality time with the fam. With plenty of time on our hands we’d sometimes meet in the afternoon, waste some time in Sinch’ŏn Park, and then head out for barbeque or a night of karaoke. I even got away with ordering cocktails. Since they weren’t at all bitter and went down nice and sweet, my face turned red quickly. It felt great getting drunk, like my body was floating in midair. Before heading home I’d stop off at the convenience store and down a few cans of Let’s Be coffee.

We were about to head home one night when Hanbin suddenly grabbed on to all of us.

“Hey, Yuki’s dad is off on a business trip tonight.”

“Yeah, so what?”

“What it means is that Yuki’s house is empty.”

Hanbin made the call to my house and Hwisŭng called Seha’s. Seha’s real name, I learned, was Hyŏna. Yuki lived in a small house about thirty minutes away from Sinch’ŏn by bus. Yuki easily managed to buy beer, hard liquor, and fruit at the local supermarket. It was the first night the fam would spend together.

The house itself wasn’t clean. Pushing aside most of the odds and ends left in the entryway, Yuki invited us inside. It was the first time I’d visited a friend who lived in a stand-alone house, not an apartment. There were no family pictures hanging on the walls, but tossed here and there across the living room were clothes I assumed belonged to Yuki’s father. The place had a living area and two separate bedrooms. Yuki told us to go into hers. Besides a desk and a bookcase there was nothing in the room, except for a poster on the wall of a guitarist wearing lots of makeup—probably Japanese.

Yuki found some leftover rice and made us kimchi fried rice. Hanbin kept complimenting Yuki on what a good cook she was. After eating we popped in a few of Yuki’s CDs and began drinking. When we ran out of beer, we switched to hard liquor.

“Hey, let’s play truth or dare!”

Seha started to cheer.

We spun a bottle to decide who’d have to answer the first question. It went to Seha. Hanbin came up with the question.

“OK, got it. How far have you gone with Hwisŭng?”

Seha shrugged her shoulders, jumped up, and started singing.

“Head, shoulders, knees and toes … knees and toes … knees and toes …”

“Aw, that’s my babe!”

Hwisŭng pulled Seha into her lap and gave her a kiss.

The second question went to Hwisŭng. This one Seha took on.

“So … where’s the most sensitive spot on your body?”

Hwisŭng picked up the drink in front of her and downed it in a single gulp. Seha teased Hwisŭng, calling her a scaredy pants.

The third question went to me. Hwisŭng came up with it.

“Do you have a crush on any of us?”

I totally blanked. My body froze. I looked up at Hwisŭng before downing the shot of booze placed in front of me. The liquid left a bitterness in my throat as it went down and I regretted my decision the moment I put the glass down. I should have just skipped the drink and lied: No, I don’t. Or just said I did. What an idiot. Seha’s eyes sparkled as she smiled.

“Oh! Seems like maybe she does?”

“Hey, no more questions after someone drinks!”

Yuki then spun the bottle. It was Hanbin’s turn. Yuki had the question.

“So … are you officially dating Wŏrya?”

My heart sank as soon as I heard the question. But Hanbin didn’t hesitate in the least to wave her hand.

“No, we’re not dating. We’re just in the same class.”

“OK, I gotta follow up: have you told anyone at school that you’re in the same fam?”

“No. At school we totally pretend as though we don’t know each other.”

“Does it feel like you’re secret lovers or something?”

“No, I already told you we’re not.”

Hanbin repeatedly denied there was anything between us while I awkwardly smiled along. My head was spinning. I knew as well as Hanbin did that we were not dating. And yet, what about that night … when we did, after all, kiss?

When Yuki’s turn came up next, I hesitated to ask my question.

“Are you into … any of us?”

Yuki’s eyes narrowed in a sexy way. She picked up the glass, teasingly, and drank the alcohol.

“What’s going on here?” Seha cried out once again.

By around 11 p.m. we were all totally wasted. Seha was so drunk she kept pressing Hwisŭng to kiss her. Hwisŭng complied by inserting her hand beneath Seha’s clothes and fondling her breasts. I turned to Seha and Hwisŭng and screamed, “You crazy bitches, don’t do it in front us, go into the next room.” Hanbin, for her part, just kept laughing. Drunk as a skunk, Yuki suddenly stood up and started mumbling.

“It’s so hot, so hot. Gotta jump in the shower.”

Yuki barreled down the hallway, entered the bathroom, and turned on the water. She didn’t come out. In the meantime, I wanted an answer out of Hanbin. What did that kiss mean anyway? And why did she say nothing was going on between us? I didn’t say anything, and we just ended up staring at each other. It was then I noticed a black ring on Hanbin’s pinky. How come even her hands were so perfectly white? It was almost depressing. Any minute now, I felt, I might plunge into a well of despair.

“Oh, I’ve really gotta pee. Is Yuki still in the shower?”

Hanbin walked over to the bathroom and then shrieked.

“Yuki! Yuki!”

At the sound of Hanbin’s cry we all ran to the bathroom. Yuki had entered the shower with all her clothes on and was now passed out in the tub, cold water raining down on top of her. Hanbin turned off the water and slapped Yuki awake. Three sheets to the wind, Yuki mumbled something and grabbed on to the back of Hanbin’s neck, pulling her toward her. Hanbin moved in as though to give her a hug and managed to pull Yuki out of the tub.

“Alright, kiddo, if we put you to bed like this, you’re gonna catch a cold. We’ve gotta get you out of these clothes.”

In the meantime, Yuki had grabbed on to Hanbin’s neck and held her tightly. And it was perfectly clear now what she was again whispering into Hanbin’s ear.

“Don’t go. Don’t leave me here all alone.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere. Everything’s going to be just fine.”

Answering Yuki with these tender words, Hanbin began undoing the buttons on her shirt. Seha and Hwisŭng helped Hanbin take off her clothes. I didn’t know what I should or shouldn’t look at. By the time Yuki’s wet bra was exposed, I turned my head.

“Hey, Wŏrya, go look inside Yuki’s closet and see if you can find something for her to wear.”

I turned around and opened up Yuki’s built-in wardrobe. It was much tidier and cleaner than the rest of the house. Fashionable shirts and slacks, and super sexy skirts—everything was arranged according to its function. Then right in front of me I saw a gray T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. As soon as I pulled them out, Seha came running over and took them away. I looked over at the three girls, their backs all turned toward me as Seha quickly put Yuki into her clothes. Not knowing what to do, I began clearing off the plates we’d used for our kimchi fried rice and took them to the kitchen. It was hard for me to be in there with the others. I started washing the dishes, until Hanbin appeared at my side sometime later.

“Can I help?”

“That’s OK. I’ve got it.”

But then I stopped washing and called her over with an urgent wave of my hand. If I didn’t ask her now, I might never get the chance. I was so nervous that her other name popped out of my mouth.

“Yŏngin … I, um …”

But then I fell silent.

“Yeah?”

Is there really nothing between us? If not, why did you kiss me that day? What do you really think about me? Or us …?

“… No, just forget it.”

“Oh, what a bore.”

The fam didn’t get together again before the end of summer. We still kept in touch through the message board, as usual, but maybe because Hwisŭng was a high school student and had to take summer classes, we never again met in person. Whenever Seha said she wanted to hang out, we all replied that we did, too, but no one got around to setting up a time and place. I wanted to see Hanbin. But I never pressed her to meet.

The new semester began. The weather was still hot, but there was no mistaking that fall had arrived. Yŏngin came to school with the same blade haircut, the back of her upper neck cut extra short. After she’d placed her bag in a corner of the classroom, she caught my eye and smiled, as usual, nodding her head ever so slightly as a greeting. I did the same. She looked even more beautiful to me since I hadn’t seen her for a while. As I made my way over to the lockers, I noticed that beneath her blouse Yŏngin was wearing a thin necklace.

Shortly after the new semester had begun, the fam got together once again, basically because the whole club was also holding its regular meeting. An older girl from the Real Pervert Fam, who used the nickname Yuhyŏk, noticed me and pretended she knew us all.

“Hey, Harlem Blood Alliance! How’ve you all been?”

“Um, actually it’s Blood Alliance Harem!”

“Oh, sorry.”

Hanbin showed up with Yuki. Wearing loose, black hip-hop pants and a skintight top, Yuki had a new piercing in her ear, which I noticed as she smiled. The edge of her ear now looked like the binding of a spiral notebook. Hanbin wore a T-shirt with “MF!” on it.

“I just ran into Yuki downstairs,” she said.

Of course, Hanbin and I saw each other at school, but to me it felt like I was only really meeting her here. The girl I saw at school wasn’t the same Hanbin. Only when we were here in Sinch’ŏn could we be our real selves. When we walked over to the park, though, I noticed someone wearing our school uniform. I couldn’t tell exactly who it was, but I saw her tilt her head and then start coming toward us. It seemed clear that she’d recognized Hanbin. I was so startled that I quickly spun Hanbin around and pulled her off to a corner of the park.

“What are you doing?”

A confused Yuki followed after us.

“A girl from our school just saw us.”

I had spun Hanbin around so that no one could see her face and then stood in such a way that at least half of her was hidden from view. I tended to be on the quiet side at school so I was sure the other girl wouldn’t recognize me. After nosing her way around the park for some time, the kid then disappeared. The tension in my body was suddenly relieved, my legs trembling only slightly. Having not seen each other for some time now, Seha and Hwisŭng looked a bit uncomfortable together. Hwisŭng seemed to be avoiding Seha, and Seha looked around, kind of worried. I sat next to Seha once we finally made it to the Santa Fe, while Yuki and Hanbin sat together just across from us. Yuki and Hanbin both ordered beer and I ordered a cocktail. Yuki asked if I knew the girl I’d just seen in the park and then got a bit dramatic, saying she was worried the girl might rat us out. I told her that I didn’t know her and that it really wasn’t much of a big deal. Yuki kept going on and on about it, though, as she stuffed herself with french fries. She ended up smearing ketchup on her lips and Hanbin used her thumb to wipe it off.

“Minhŭi, be careful.”

“Well, I can count on you to wipe it off for me, can’t I?”

After hearing the name Minhŭi, Seha and I both raised our heads. Is that her name …? None of us ever called each other by our real names. To do that would be, well … Yuki noticed that I looked confused, and with her eyebrows rising, she started laughing.

“Looks like you and Yŏngin don’t really talk much at school, do you? We’ve decided to start dating.”

Just then I noticed Yuki’s bright red fingernails. They were perfectly manicured, each nail long and smooth. Just like Hanbin’s. Around Yuki’s neck was a necklace similar to the one Hanbin also wore. But in place of a pendant there was a black ring dangling from it—the same ring that Hanbin used to wear. Suddenly I found it difficult to breathe. A bomb had burst in my head. I looked at Hanbin’s face. She smiled awkwardly, as though embarrassed. There was no time to process anything at all.

I picked up the glass in front of me and smashed it over Hanbin’s head.

As the glass shattered, the cocktail spilled over Hanbin’s right shoulder. I could see bright red drops of blood dripping slowly from her ear. The sound of Yuki and Seha shrieking seemed to echo far and wide. Somehow, I mustered all the strength inside me to stand up, grab my bag, and leave the Santa Fe. I stumbled once, going down the stairs into Sinch’ŏn Station, but I was lucky enough not to fall down. The trip home was cold. Winter’s on its way, I said to myself, and the temperature was fluctuating from hot to cold each day. Slowly, very slowly, I put one step in front of the other. All I needed was one misstep, I thought, and I’d likely topple right over.

The next day I went to school a bit early. Just to make sure I didn’t run into Yŏngin. As soon as I arrived, I placed my bag down and collapsed over my desk. I was hoping to rest for a bit before homeroom period. But I didn’t get a wink of sleep. A little piece of my heart broke each time I heard someone pull out her chair near where Yŏngin normally sat.

Upon entering the classroom, our homeroom teacher slapped the attendance book down and said, “Cho Yŏngin … Chu Daye … come up here.”

Standing at the teacher’s desk, I did everything I could not to look at Yŏngin.

“Cho Yŏngin, what happened to your head?”

Yŏngin said nothing in reply. Instead of turning to her, I looked straight at the homeroom teacher.

“I’ve heard that you two are mixed up with delinquents and have been doing iban. Is that true?”

It wasn’t until then that I finally turned to read the expression on Yŏngin’s face. There was a bandage on her head now, going from her temple to her ear. Her smooth, white complexion was as beautiful as ever, but there was nothing for me to read in her expression. Yŏngin’s scarlet lips were pressed firmly together. That was the moment I burst into tears.

“It wasn’t me, teacher … It wasn’t me. I’m telling the truth … Yŏngin invited me to go with her to Sinch’ŏn, and I went along … But then she kissed me against my will … totally against my will … And that cut on her head there, that’s what I … that’s what happened when I pushed her away to escape. I’m totally innocent, teacher, totally innocent.”

I could hear the class stirring. After collapsing into tears over the teacher’s desk, I looked over at Yŏngin again. Her eyes had flashed open now, her brown irises clearly visible. Today she wasn’t wearing color lenses.

Both our mothers were called to the school. I didn’t look up at Yŏngin’s mother. I repeated the same story to the guidance counselor. I even broke down a few times. With tears streaming down my face, I told the head teacher of the third-year students, “It was my very first kiss.”

The head of the class also rose from her chair and put her arm around my shoulders.

“Don’t worry, Daye. Everything will be just fine.”

The teachers took all the precautions necessary to ensure that Yŏngin and I wouldn’t have to see each other again. After the investigation concluded, and we’d both been sent home early, the head teacher called my home that night, saying Yŏngin had not disputed my version of the facts.

“I always suspected something was going on with that kid. The way she does up her hair, in that ponytail and all … You just had a bit of bad luck. Don’t worry about it any longer.”

The next day during homeroom the head teacher patted me lightly on the head. Yŏngin didn’t show. There were two different rumors circulating: one, that Yŏngin had been expelled, and two, that she’d been forced to transfer. I didn’t bother to confirm them.

Having suddenly lost their idol, the other kids in the class were all kind to me. They availed every chance they could to come up and say there was something strange about “that kid.” “The way she always tried to look so cool, and the way she went around thinking she was all that, it never crossed my mind that she’d done such horrible things.” “Are you really OK, Daye? How could she ever do such a thing to you? I mean, who would force anyone to do something like that?” “Well, it’s a good thing that you didn’t get trapped and that you managed to escape. Poor Daye!”

Some girls wanted to hear all the details, but I just told them I didn’t feel like talking, and tried to look sad. Others also told them to leave me alone.

I decided not to buy my graduation yearbook. All the other students seemed to understand why.

I didn’t sign on to SayClub all winter long. Instead, I started going to church each week with my mom. The head of the junior high youth group at the church said he went to a boy’s school next to mine. Those pimple-faced boys had gawked and grimaced at us girls every day. I wasn’t an active participant in group activities, but I did enjoy the worship service, where we got to clap our hands and sing.

One day on my way home from services, a tall, skinny boy in glasses handed me a note. After passing it to me, he returned to his group of friends, who seemed to cheer him on with a boisterous chorus of praise. His handwriting was totally crooked, but the note explained he’d been watching me for a while now, and he wanted to invite me into his group of friends. I quickly stuffed it into my pocket.

It wasn’t until the boy’s friends were supposed to meet that I decided not to join them. Instead, I turned on my computer and logged on to SayClub. I made my way into the fam called Blood Alliance Harem. Only a single message had been posted in the chat room since that day at school, a post by Seha. The subject heading said, “No way! – ㅠ … What the heck happened?” I didn’t click on it. But just then the name Super Butch Hanbin popped up in the chat group. I was breathless. Fumbling, I finally managed to move the mouse. But before I could act, a light appeared in the messenger window. It was a message for me, from Hanbin.

Daye.

My hand trembled violently. Calm down, just calm down, I said to myself. Slowly I navigated back to my home page and then clicked the button “Delete Account.” Even after canceling my SayClub membership, however, I still couldn’t control my trembling hand. I closed the door and pulled out a utility knife from my desk drawer. I could still see that trickle of blood flowing slowly from Yŏngin’s ear. I slid the utility knife lightly across my wrist. A few drops of blood slowly rose to the surface of my skin. It was only then that I started breathing easily again and returned to my senses. Grabbing on to my bloody wrist, I took in several deep breaths.

At the time it never crossed my mind that cutting might develop into a lifelong addiction, something I would continue to do until I was thirty years old. But now, I still blame it on that single kiss.

1 See the introduction for a discussion of iban.

SALTWATER BATHS

Kim Bi

Originally published in Kim’s 2006 collection of stories, Me and You (나나누나나; Na na nuna na). The story was edited by the author in 2017 in preparation for its translation into English for this anthology.

Who … who’s th—!

Before the words can escape my mouth, a foot flies into me, the thick sole of a sneaker crushing my face, blood spraying everywhere. I cup my hand to my face then fall back onto the bedding. I try to scream, but a dark figure has now grabbed my hair and slammed his foot into the back of my neck. A fistful of tangled hair is torn from my scalp, leaving it in tatters. Scream, I say to myself, just scream.

But before my lips can open, something sharp and cold has pierced my shoulder. I feel a sharp pain shooting through me, and my whole body seizes with fear. I can’t breathe. The knife slips out of my shoulder and digs into my side—as my slumbering mind begins to squirm into semiconsciousness. Buckled over in pain, I can see the blood gushing out of me, coating my whole body. And I see him, too, hovering over me like a rapist. The terror sinks deeper into my bones.

With a violent swipe of his hand, he tears off the thin nightshirt covering my body. He then pulls the knife out of my side only to slice through one of my silicone breasts. Like a water balloon, half inflated, the left implant drops to the ground with a splat. Reaching down helplessly to fetch it, I catch a glimpse of my long-lost male nipple amid the bloody mess oozing through my hand.

It’s not my … It’s not my fault.

Blood trickles into my mouth now, filling it up. Only muddled words manage to escape my lips. But the dark figure hovering above me is deaf to my words, and he instantly draws his knife into the air once again, stabbing it into my neck, then my breast, then my stomach—over and over again—as if slicing through a sack of rice. Soon my neck will snap, my ribs will crack, all my guts will spill out on the floor—these images flash through my mind as my body writhes in unbearable pain. Out of each open wound gushes a stream of blood, like water from a broken fountain.

Don’t … please don’t kill me. It was you who … who abandoned me. I did nothing wrong.

His knife is again raised up in the air. The blood has begun to clot on my trembling cheeks, where the knife strikes next. It slices off my lip, which now dangles from my face, quivering like a piece of trimmed fat. My whole body is drenched now, as if caught in a shower of blood. Like a living creature dripping with life, the long blade then digs between my thighs. The thick stitches of my sutured crotch rip open. He thrusts his hand deep inside me, tearing out folds of skin from my buried penis, which now hangs down outside my body once again. I open up my eyes and stare at the flesh dangling in the darkness. I look up at the dark figure. He searches through his pockets and sticks a cigarette in his mouth. When he flicks on his lighter, half of his face appears in the orange light of the flame. He is grinning.

“Please … please don’t kill me!”

Adjusting his grip on the knife, he raises it up into the air once again, ready to plunge it down through my trembling forehead.

“Aa-aah!” Myŏng cried out, still unable to sit up in bed. She could feel the knife wounds stinging across her body. As she looked up over the comforter, once again she shuddered. Lying darkly on the bedding, like pieces of dangling flesh, were the orange peels she’d left on the bedside the night before.

Myŏng reached with a trembling hand to touch her face, beginning with her lips. The knife had pierced her face here. And again over here, slicing off a piece of her cheek. Her silicone breast had fallen out over here. And the knife had continued to carve into her flesh here, and here, and here. With these thoughts racing through her mind, Myŏng groped at her body in the darkness, her fingers confirming, however, that her body was still intact.

I’m alive. Still alive.

Convinced she was no longer on the verge of death, Myŏng recalled the face of the dark figure whom she’d seen holding the knife. A flood of tears suddenly poured from her eyes. Sadness of this sort is always a step behind the instinct to survive.

Myŏng now held her face in her hands. The tears fell like rain. Her cold, dreary locks brushed softly against her cheeks. Still alive. Yes, you’re still alive.

Good grief, why does she make soup with this stuff? It’s like chewing on mud … Myŏng pushed aside the soft, squishy lumps floating in her bowl and took a few sips of the broth. Suddenly she felt a sharp pain at the top of her skull—as if that steel blade had actually impaled her. She quickly pressed her fingers to the spot, afraid blood might start dripping into her bowl.

“The locals here in Cheju end up throwing lots of this away. But on the mainland, it’s a rare delicacy, you know, nearly impossible to find …”

Myŏng’s mother savored the lumps of taro in her bowl quite sparingly, dividing each one in half before lifting them on her spoon. Her lips deftly consumed each white morsel.

“Folks down here,” added her father, “they don’t know how to cook. Go to a party at someone’s house, and you won’t find a thing worth eating. Women are out making money all day—on the water or in the fields—and the men, they just sit at home all day, watching over the house. So when it comes to cooking or cleaning, I’ll tell ya, nothing ever gets done right. In fact, you know what they do when they’ve got something to celebrate? They chop up a few uncooked clown fish and dump them into a cold miso broth. They call it mulhoe, or something. But that’s all they have. There’s really nothing else to eat. Nothing.”

Myŏng’s father slurped from his own bowl of taro soup as he recalled the scene he’d once witnessed at a party. Each time Myŏng came to visit, he made a point of complaining about the same things: how the people in Cheju were fierce, how their food was inedible, and how even the local birds were mean-spirited—all the while still insisting, “Your mother and I will live here until the day we die.”

“Oh, no—that mulhoe stuff is the worst … I have no idea how these people can stomach it …”

It was now her mother’s face that twisted, at the thought of that mushy, metallic fish chopped up, descaled, and tossed carelessly, bones and all, into a bowl. Had she been a local, born and bred on Cheju, she might well have considered mulhoe the most delicious food on the planet. But each nook and cranny of this small land had its own culinary traditions, and it was nothing new to have people from out of town find such traditions strange or peculiar. It was no less usual for Myŏng to be sitting here at the table, across from her mother and father, having a simple chat over breakfast. After scraping out the remaining broth in her bowl, Myŏng placed her spoon back on the table.

“Wait, you haven’t eaten any of the taro. Not a single piece of it.”

Her mother looked at the taro left in Myŏng’s bowl and proceeded to shovel it into her own, glancing at her daughter disapprovingly.

“It tastes weird,” said Myŏng, referring to the soft but sandy texture of the taro, to which she still was not accustomed. Her mother stressed that it was a proper health food, but Myŏng’s instinct was to turn away from it. Myŏng couldn’t help but think that it simply looked gross.

“Oh, what’s so weird about it? You know how good this is for your body?”

“Just put it down. Why force her to eat something she doesn’t like?”

Her father managed to block his wife from pushing the taro on Myŏng. The small, circular morsel of taro wobbled on her mother’s spoon

“What do you have planned for the day?”

What, indeed, had Myŏng planned? Why had she even come to the island, for that matter, fleeing the city and leaving all her work behind? She recalled her boss’s perplexed tone of voice when she’d called from the airport and repeated the words, “I’m sorry,” “I’m so sorry,” bowing over the phone. She had nothing to say for herself, no acceptable excuses anyone might understand. All she could do was repeat the words, “I’m sorry.”

“How about going with me to the saltwater baths?”

“Saltwater baths? Are you kidding?”

Myŏng froze, as though she’d stepped into a pool of icy water. Shaking her head unconsciously in objection, she found herself embarrassed, as well, to have spoken in a voice so shrill.

“Well, what’s wrong with that? It’ll do you good to sit back in a hot saltwater bath and relax for a while.”

Her mother picked up her bowl and slurped up more of the taro. It wasn’t the case that Myŏng disliked the baths. Truth be told, her body was stiff as a board, and she would have enjoyed doing exactly what her mother suggested—soak in a tub of seawater—to relieve the tension in her neck.

But after the operation, Myŏng had avoided all public baths. Of course, she now had the body of a woman, and in theory there should be no problem for her to walk into the women’s bath. It was just that no one had yet invited her to go. And it would have been difficult, in any case, for her to consent. She knew perfectly well that most women would object to removing their clothes in front of someone like her, who had once lived in the body of a man.

“Come on, don’t pressure her. Myŏng, you don’t have to go anywhere, if you don’t want to. Why don’t you head to the beach for a while?”

Her father slurped up the last of his scorched-rice tea before glaring up at her mother. Her mother, too, perhaps having realized that Myŏng now felt uncomfortable, stopped pressing her daughter, and quietly emptied the bowl of taro soup she held in her hand. She picked up the tray and headed out of the room.

“Don’t forget my medicine,” said her father.

“I know, I know,” replied her mother.

Myŏng didn’t have it in her to say anything else. She just hung her head and stared at the floor.

Like I said before, you’ll just have to manage on your own from now on!

The color of the ocean was impossibly blue …

How many times do I have to tell you? You had a choice to make: either me or your friends, one or the other, remember?

It’s heavenly here, thought Myŏng. The ocean always seemed like a piece of paradise whenever she visited. Well, assuming there was, in fact, an ocean in paradise.

I’ve already given you ‘one last chance’!

It’s not the kind of place where humans overcome nature, but where nature’s bounty seeps into all human impurities and easily washes them away.

No, I’m not giving up on you. It’s you who has abandoned me! Why not find that teacher of yours, or go to the police station and tell the police to find you a new group home. Maybe that way you can live the life you want to live!

For Myŏng, it was something akin to reverence, a feeling of gratitude that lasted all day long. She had never been much of a religious person, but this place seemed so spiritual to her, so pristine, she felt grateful for just being alive here, eternally grateful.

Fine then, ’cause I’m sick of you. I never want to see you again. Never!

When else would she ever share such a wonderous moment as this one? when else? where else?

Do whatever you want. Do you really think it matters to me? You can go to hell for all I care!

Myŏng pawed at the phone in her pocket. Only now did it come to her—that she’d never actually hung up on him before. All she could think about now was calling him back to apologize. And yet, this was surely the best way for the boy to move on. Before learning how to thank people for what they had done for him, he’d developed the ability to take advantage of people and then quickly make an escape. But this sort of cleverness had its limits, and the boy needed to experience for himself more of the real world. He needed to learn with his own flesh what a scary place the world could be, how full it was with cruel people.

Myŏng still held on to her phone, unable to slip it easily back into her pocket. The boy had just entered high school, and Myŏng knew he would call her again in a few days’ time. She also knew she’d end up going through the same motions, even repeating the same words.

Where he was living, how was he getting by, and whether he was going to school as he had promised, none of this she knew for sure. She kept telling herself that for the boy’s sake, for the sake of his future, she had to stay firm.

Myŏng had left her parents’ house on her father’s suggestion that she head to the sea. Hoping to follow the coastal road from Sehwa to Sŏngsan, she had hopped off her bicycle to walk for a bit when her cell phone rang. It was the boy. She had just been staring at the empty marketplace, with all its bare cement columns, and thinking of how lonely it all looked, when those eleven digits appeared with no caller ID on her phone. Normally this was either a deliveryman calling or the boy. And since she hadn’t ordered anything, she knew it had to be him. It was the boy’s voice alright, beginning to change, but also hoarse from smoking. That same boy to whom she would say again what she had always said, and from whom she would hear again what she had always heard. Like a good supporting actress, Myŏng had spat out a few choice lines before abruptly hanging up the phone.

Today she had faithfully read off her script of motherhood without making any slips. But in hanging up on him for the first time today, she’d also pulled off something of an improvised performance, emotionally speaking. Afterward, she stood still for a while, as though waiting for her imaginary production staff to start clapping. To hold back any feelings that might strip away the melodramatic expression from her face, she gripped her phone tightly. Once the imaginary director had given everyone the A-OK and made himself scarce, the staff members would then begin packing their equipment into the tour bus. Only then would Myŏng feel a flood of tears press down on her, as though she were finally prepared to deliver the performance of a lifetime. It might be off script alright, but it came too late to matter.

Myŏng looked out at the ocean. The sky had clouded over. That jade-colored sea, which only moments ago had made her think heaven was looking down on her, had suddenly turned ashen and still. She didn’t know when or where the next scene would happen, but in it she’d have to be unshakable and offer a performance even more intense. Dabbing away at the corners of her tearless eyes, Myŏng envisioned a new movie in which she would be the one and only star.

The boy was to be her future—her Mirae. Or at least, he had been a clear and beautiful sign of the ideal future she held in her mind. The very first day she saw the boy, she had stared at his delicate features, his eyes and nose and mouth, which all seemed to glisten amid the filth around him, and she had carefully constructed a notion of fate, which would bind her and the boy forever.

She wanted a son just like that, a son she could teach to read and speak, who would grow into a pillar of support for her as well. After she’d had her operation and become a woman, she yearned especially for such a son, a handsome and reliable son who would protect her. She continued chasing after this idea, which would drift into her mind like a big, fluffy cloud in an early summer sky. She had always dreamed of this future moment, when a child would suddenly appear close enough for her to touch. She was so convinced that she’d become a mother, she thought she could lure the boy toward her with a lollipop or a few hundred-won coins. Now a cloud of her own was floating into her arms. Her future—her Mirae—was now running toward her.

How could they find a way of growing old together as mother and son? She saw a picture of herself sitting beside him—she a beautifully aged older woman holding the hand of a dashing young man. This was the picture of her ideal future, a future she desired so earnestly it was impossible for her to see it slip away. She hastened her step as she chased after the boy, offering him more and more hundred-won coins for him to clutch in his hand. Myŏng believed all she needed to do was to embrace the future approaching her, that perfect future she would never let slip away.

“Mirae, Mirae!”

Still sitting on the beach, Myŏng now lifted her head from between her knees. She saw a woman holding on to a lovely straw hat, tied with a long ribbon fluttering in the wind. She was standing at the water’s edge, looking this way and that, calling out “Mirae.” Myŏng caught her eye, but the distressed woman didn’t approach her. “You haven’t by any chance seen my Mirae, have you?” she might have asked Myŏng. But the woman’s eyes spoke only of despair as she made her way down the shore into the distance. As she continued calling out for Mirae, the woman’s voice gradually grew fainter. She left behind only a trail of faint footprints in front of Myŏng.

Should I follow her in search of my own future? Myŏng wondered. Should I raise my own eyes desperately into the air and find my own Mirae? Myŏng buried her chin between her knees once again. In the narrow space between her two feet, she drew the letters M, R, I, A, and E here and there, randomly, in the sand.

“Did you see my mom come this way?”

The childish voice came out of thin air, shocking Myŏng like a squirt of water in the ear. She quickly raised her head. A little girl wearing a pink swimsuit a bit too early for the season was hiding behind Myŏng. She was peeking mischievously over Myŏng’s shoulder toward the woman in the distance.

“Wait … are you … Mirae too?”

Myŏng’s voice trembled slightly. She felt caught by a magical spell, the kind one finds in fairy tales. Here was another child named after the future, who had appeared out of nowhere. A doll-like child with big, black round eyes. Myŏng took in a deep breath and gulped down her surprise.

“Hey … how d’you know my name? Did my mom ask you about me?”

The child squatted into a ball next to Myŏng. She pressed up against her as if to hide even her shadow. Myŏng felt a chill coming off the child’s wet skin, which was soon replaced by warmth.

“No. But your mom … she was just calling for you.”

Myŏng’s mouth had filled with saliva, as though she were sick to her stomach, and she had barely managed a reply.

“Hee hee. This is fun.”

The little girl, Mirae, twisted up her face mischievously.

“You know … I’ve been looking for you too.”

Gazing down at the child’s soft white neck, covered in sand, and marveling at her pearly-white skin, Myŏng muttered these words to the little girl.

“Really?”

The child’s black eyes flashed up at her.

“No, no … I’m just kidding.”

Myŏng looked out toward the horizon. The darkened sky was turning blue again. The ashen sea that lay before her began giving way, almost mythically, to a brilliantly blue path down its center.

“Miss, where do you live?”

“In a village way over there called P’yŏngdae.”

“Right here on Cheju? Wow, that’s nice.”

As Mirae said the word “Wow,” her lips grew into a large circle. Myŏng could see a blue ocean inside the circle of her lips. Was it a piece of candy that had filled her mouth with a blue world?

“You just had a piece of candy, didn’t you?”

“How’d you guess?”

“Well, the inside of your mouth is all blue.”

Myŏng watched Mirae’s lips as the girl continued to talk while sucking on the candy, something which reminded Myŏng of a puppet performance. As she watched the girl, a smile suddenly rose into the corners of Myŏng’s eyes.

“I hope my mom doesn’t find out.”

Nmm, nmm. Mirae smacked her lips. She then brushed some of the sand off her swimsuit and stuck her finger in her mouth, pretending to brush her teeth.

“Yuck. It’s salty.”

Mirae’s small face contorted at the taste of the sea that had rubbed onto her hand.

“Mirae … do you like it here?”

Knowing the question might seem unexpected, Myŏng looked straight at Mirae as she phrased it.

“Me? Of course I do. I’m gonna live in Cheju, too, you know. I’m gonna tell Mom that we should move here.”

The expression on the girl’s face suggested that Mirae too was already building a beautiful house somewhere on the island to move into.

“Mirae, I want you to stay happy forever. Got it? Just like this. Everyone … everyone should be happy just like you.”

The corners of Myŏng’s eyes felt warm, though she tried to put the feeling out of her mind.

“I want you to be happy too!”

Mirae smiled with her big round eyes and then let out a giggle. Ready to burst into tears, Myŏng suddenly grabbed the child and hugged her tightly. Unaware of Myŏng’s motives, the girl flashed her eyes open with surprise, while submitting her tiny body to Myŏng’s embrace. Far off in the distance Myŏng could now hear the child’s mother calling out “Mirae” as she made her way back in this direction. Mirae pulled herself away from Myŏng and, after waving goodbye with her tiny hand, hid herself behind a rock. Saddened by the loss of the child in their embrace, Myŏng’s arms stretched out after the disappearing girl. But Mirae had by now vanished. Myŏng rose to her feet with only one thing on her mind. Just like the woman calling out for Mirae, she needed to find a future of her own. She didn’t care how. She just knew she wanted to find her own Mirae.

The boy wasn’t looking at Myŏng. He had turned away from her stubbornly, but she could still see stains on his cheeks, signs of him eating carelessly and hardly ever washing up. Myŏng could read on the boy’s stubborn face his utter unwillingness to listen to her.

“Come on now … Please listen to me … Will you never actually hear me out?”

The boy was at an age by now where it was impossible for Myŏng to scold him or to force him, for that matter, to doing anything. Sitting cross-legged in front of her, the boy showed no interest whatsoever in listening to Myŏng’s pleas. He just sat there in front of her, as she knelt before him in tears.

“If you keep this up … if you keep this up, your life will be over. You know that, right?”

Having fled the orphanage, the boy had come to stay with Myŏng, but not with any promise, or ambition, to make a fresh start in life. For him it was simply a means of escape. Uninterested in school, the boy would simply lie in bed and sleep until the sun was high in the sky, making do with a simple breakfast before disappearing for the day. Sometimes he’d be gone for days on end only to reappear in his bed at the crack of dawn, and then wake up midday and disappear once again. After being told that he needed to at least call, so that Myŏng wouldn’t worry if he didn’t return at night, the boy had followed through only once or twice. Who were the kids he hung out with, and what were they all up to? With her imagination driven to the edge of a cliff, Myŏng sometimes lost her temper.

But the boy was no longer the same child who had been happy with a hundred-won coin in his hand. It had hardly grown much in size since, but that hand of his now stunk of cigarettes, and Myŏng could make out the giggling voices of girls on his cell phone, voices that seemed to be mocking her. When Myŏng tried to open up to him, she was left in tatters by all his lies. She’d shouted at him, even threatened him, but the boy remained unmoved whenever she lost her composure.

“You don’t care at all about my feelings?”

Feeling exasperated and worn down, Myŏng’s haggard face finally melted into tears right in front of him. If she could no longer hold on to him by sheer force, or by raising her voice, all she could do was plead with him. Tossing her dignity into the wind, Myŏng even fell to her knees.

“I’m telling you not to go … If you disappear one more time, it’s over between us. Got it? I don’t ever want to see you again!”

She raised her face, stained wretchedly with tears. She looked cheap and pathetic, but why should she care. If only she could get the boy to change his mind, if only she could get him to understand her, it wouldn’t matter if she came off as a total wreck of a human being. Having swallowed her pride, she bowed onto the floor before him. Then she took the boy’s hand. This was her last hope.

“Please don’t go … I’m begging you.”

Myŏng’s voice crumbled, as though her throat were being crushed. The boy was still sitting cross-legged, but he made a gesture to rise. Myŏng wanted more than anything for him to wipe off the tears streaming down her face, for him to put his two arms around her in a gesture of gratitude and remorse, just like in the movies. But all he did was stand up and turn toward the door, which he then proceeded to open. The expression on his face told her he was determined to leave. The darkness eagerly awaiting him outside suddenly came flooding in.

“No! Don’t go!”

Myŏng tried to jump up and grab the boy by the seat of his pants. But her folded knees gave out on her, and she missed him.

“No! No!”

The healthy, growing boy quickly made his way down the dark alleyway.

“Don’t go. I said, don’t go!”

Myŏng’s pathetic cries faded all too quickly into the darkness of the alley. She chased after him for only two or three steps.

“Come back. Come back!” she cried with all her might.

But the boy didn’t even bother to turn around. The uniform tapping of his feet against the pavement never for a second slowed down. Like a wounded soldier dripping with blood, Myŏng staggered forward after the boy’s shadow. Turning the corner, he easily slipped into the darkness. With a cry on her lips and her arm raised up toward him she, too, was enveloped by the night.

Myŏng’s birth father had died. But whenever her mother spoke of her stepfather as her own “father,” Myŏng always thought of the man who had passed away. He might very well have been happier dead than alive.

“Ouch, that hurts! Be gentle, be gentle!”

“Don’t be such a crybaby … And who told you to take down that stone wall anyway, when it was in perfectly good shape? You can’t sit still for a minute, can you? I mean, you could just sit down and watch TV once in a while. But oh no, there’s always something to do, always something.” As Myŏng’s mother applied the medication, her hand gradually lost its delicate touch.

“I said that hurts, damn it! You can’t treat an injured man like this!” His pain perhaps too much to bear, Myŏng’s father sharpened the tone of his voice.

“Well, I need to get this medicine on somehow, don’t I?” Paying no heed to him whatsoever, she kept dabbing the cotton ball onto the bleeding cut between his toes. “The problem is your father doesn’t know when to stop. He just doesn’t. You know as well as I do that he’s not in the best of shape. But instead of taking a break now and then, he just marches around the house all day long and gets into everything. I’m at my wit’s end!”

“I’m doing all of this for our second-born child, you know. Not for you or for me—when we’re both about ready to croak. Who do you think is going to take care of all of these chores when I die? When this roof flies off in the next windstorm on Cheju, who’s going to climb up there and fix it? And when that wall comes tumbling down, who’s going to sort through the pile of stones to rebuild it?” As her father grabbed on to his wounded toe, his face went white with anger.

“Second child”—that’s me, thought Myŏng. The second-born who couldn’t fix a broken roof, who couldn’t rebuild a stone wall. She felt sad to hear him say she couldn’t do anything, but still she understood. This was not the same man who had passed away, but she still felt grateful to her core that he was doing this for her sake alone, despite his failing health. And she was grateful to have a father who was still alive.

“Don’t worry about me, Dad. I can always ask the neighbors to help out if necessary. And if that doesn’t work out, I can always hire someone.”

“Who’s got that kind of extra cash lying about? If you can get something done yourself while you’re still able to move about, why in the blazes would you waste your money paying someone else?” Her father now seemed ready to jump onto the roof again and start banging away with his tools as early as tomorrow.

“OK, and what about all the money we’ll have to spend on medicine the next time you crush your toe?” Her mother chimed right in, standing her ground.

“Good grief … For someone who’s dabbing a bit of balm on my toe, you’ve got an awful lot to say. If you don’t want to help, then just leave me be! I’ll put it on myself.”

This father was still very much alive as he brushed her mother off and took the medicine box away from her.

“Let me do it.” Myŏng extended her hand toward her father, who obediently lifted the box and passed it over. It wasn’t something he could manage, in any case, to do all by himself.

“Good heavens … What a foul mood you’re in today. Will you have to lose a few toes before you finally settle down quietly inside? Good grief!” Her mother sat back down again, somewhat dejected.

“Get on with your shaman magic then, damn it.”

Perhaps because Myŏng’s touch was softer than her mother’s, her father bit down on his lip and seemed more willing to endure the pain.

“No, you have to dab it harder. Harder! It won’t heal like that. Just go dab, dab, dab.”

“Oh, mind your own business.”

Having lost his patience, her father proceeded to drive her mother away. She turned her back to him, sticking out her tongue, but only in such a way that he couldn’t actually see. This father of hers was indeed alive. And he was sitting right here, happily beside her. Myŏng lowered her head further to examine the wound. Off her father’s foot came the scent of fresh soil.

She had turned out the lights but not yet fallen asleep when she heard the sound of whispering. Was it coming from her suitcase and other bags, which she had tossed into the corner? They seemed to have gathered around, sitting in a circle … But then a door suddenly opened with a clatter, followed by the sound of her father’s footsteps and squeaky floorboards. Was he headed to the bathroom? Another door clattered opened, followed by the sound of him shuffling around.

From behind two sets of doors now Myŏng again made out the sound of more whispering, followed by the sound of another door, and more floorboards squeaking. This time the footsteps were softer, but swift. Was her mother maybe fetching water? thought Myŏng, who could now make out the sound of slippers clapping over the kitchen’s cement floor. The refrigerator opened and cups were placed onto a tray. Then a door clattered open once again before the footsteps disappeared into the bedroom.

The squeak of footsteps continued throughout the night as Myŏng’s parents circled through the darkness. Was it her mother’s hand, or perhaps her father’s, that had finally tugged at the cord to turn off the hallway light, the cord that she saw swinging from the ceiling?

Myŏng peered up at the ceiling. A faint glow now remained against the black of night in the shape of a slender, florescent tube. Was there another cord out there to pull, which might make the room darker?

It’s still way too bright, thought Myŏng, raising a folded arm toward her face to shield her eyes. She may have blamed it on the lights, but her eyes were still moist beneath her lids.

It was a freezing cold night well into winter. She had closed the door.

“Go on then. You’re not coming inside! Just go!”

Myŏng gripped the squeaky door handle once again, this time firmly.

“I said I’m sorry, didn’t I? I’m sorry. Just give me a break, OK? Aw, hyŏng,1 come on!”

Nope. She was not going to give him a break. It was time for that rascal to learn a thing or two about how cruel the world could be. Time for him to feel in his bones the importance of keeping a promise. He would finally learn that she was done chasing him around, done cleaning up after him as if she were caring for a baby in diapers.

As the boy’s earnest cries continued, Myŏng gave a firm tug to the bolt just below the door handle. At the sound of the lock, the boy’s cries became desperate.

“Hyŏng, hyŏng, come on. I’m sorry! I’m really sorry!”

The boy knelt down outside the door. A cold smile floated over her face. This would teach him a lesson, alright, teach him not to treat me like some nobody.

“Go away! Just go! It was your choice, wasn’t it? Just get out of here, and don’t come back!”

The tone of Myŏng’s voice glowed with the arrogance of victory.

“Oh, come on, hyŏng. I promise I’ll be different this time. I promise.”

Extremely cold weather had been expected that night, and the boy’s voice now seemed to tremble in the icy wind.

“Hyŏng!”

The tears on the boy’s cheeks were now frozen and seemed likely to tear off his skin. Still, Myŏng didn’t respond. She’d not only bolted the iron gate outside but also silently locked the living room door as well.

“Come on, hyŏng. I really want to live with you again. I’ve a got plan to take tae kwon do classes and to work as a bodyguard … Hyŏng, I just want to live here with you!”

The boy’s tearful voice sounded all the more earnest as it echoed in the howling wind. His talk of plans for the future briefly caught Myŏng’s ear, but she did her best to ignore him, grabbing the remote to turn on the TV. The same actors as always were on the screen, now collapsing into the freshly fallen snow and rolling about, all smiles. A silence filled the large picture window over the veranda, where Myŏng noticed someone else also watching the TV. The boy’s tear-stricken face was pressed up against the frozen glass—a surefire way of ripping off his skin. And yet, Myŏng stood her ground and turned back to the TV. Picking up the remote control again, she raised the volume.

“Hyŏng, hyŏng! Do you want me to freeze to death out here on the street?”

The boy’s frostbitten lips spat out these cruel words. But Myŏng didn’t answer.

“Do you want me to get arrested for stealing and sent to some reform school?”

With this the boy had attempted to deliver a fatal blow. And yet, Myŏng still failed to turn around. Instead, she stood up, walked over to his old room, and locked that door as well.

“Hyŏng, just let me in!”

It was a bitterly cold December night.

Myŏng believed she was doing it for the boy’s sake. Clearly, she was doing it for the boy. If she couldn’t manage to change him all by herself, she had no choice but to pass him off into the world, the school of hard knocks. He might well be crushed at the end of it all, but the more blood he shed, the more he’d learn, she figured. He’d of course forget, as always, everything she’d ever told him, and he’d suffer from the terrors of the real world. But the more pain he felt, the more blood he shed, the more likely that perhaps something finally would sink into the boy’s thick head.

Myŏng stood there at the bus stop, leaning against a rusty timetable that hung over the desolate road. Not having slept well, her head felt heavy and she wasn’t up to spending all day by herself. Then she heard what almost sounded like a siren roaring up ahead. When she looked up, a car sped by her so quickly, she could barely make out its shape as it wove its way around some other cars and disappeared into the distance.

“Wh … what the blazes are they’re doing? These kids are risking others’ lives pulling off stunts like this. Racing by at all hours of the day—it’s madness. I’ll tell you, it’s because of kids like them that folks keep dying on Cheju.”

Myŏng’s mother clucked her tongue as she stared back at the car, which was now but a red dot receding into the distance. Just behind her mother, who continued to hurl her curses, Myŏng noticed a minibus turn the corner and enter the sideroad. Her mother searched her pockets and counted out a few bills.

“I’ll pay for this.”

“No, I’ve got it.” Her mother pulled out the crumpled bills to show her. In the past her mother might have jumped on the back of her father’s motorbike to go to Hamdŏk, but given his injured foot she couldn’t exactly have her father drive. Since he had pushed her out of the house, telling her to take the bus, it was likely that her father still felt a little pain.

In the end, Myŏng had little choice but to follow her mother, though she had no interest going to the public bath. She’d agreed to accompany her mother on the one condition that they go to the sauna, which was attached to the baths, instead of to the baths themselves. If she was, in part, accommodating her mother’s wish for some company, she was also going because she had slept poorly for several nights in a row, which had given her a stiff neck. It might do her some good, she hoped, to submit her body to the sweltering heat.

“Headin’ somewhere?”

An older woman walked toward them, wiping the dirt off her hands, as she addressed Myŏng’s mother in what almost seemed like a foreign tongue. Each time Myŏng came to Cheju, she always struggled to comprehend this language, which invariably kept her guessing. She had deciphered only a handful of words, but her mother could reply quite readily now, as though she too were a Cheju native.

“Yes, we’re off to Hamdŏk. You’re already at work, I see.”

Fortunately, her mother wasn’t yet a fluent speaker of the Cheju language. Myŏng had once learned that you need to hear something a hundred times before you’re able to say it even once. She was all ears now as her mother replied in her Seoul dialect of Korean.

Having removed her gardening gloves, the other woman then pointed at Myŏng, who bowed slightly toward her in reply.

“Yer daughter?”

“Yes, my second-born.”

“Second-born? Wasn’t he a son?”

Not the type to sweat details, the woman cast an uncommonly pensive glance into the distance.

“Yes … my second-born, and first daughter.”

Her mother enunciated the word “daughter” very clearly. She seemed remarkably unperturbed. It was Myŏng who felt her heart skip a beat.

“My word, she’s a tall one.”

The woman’s darkened glance seemed to grope its way over Myŏng’s entire body. Feeling exposed to this woman she did not know, Myŏng hid herself behind her mother.

Whatever her suspicions, the woman carried on, sharing more small talk, though Myŏng failed, as ever, to follow the conversation. As though she were half Cheju native and half mainlander, her mother, on the other hand, understood the woman’s language quite masterfully and carried out all the motions of a friendly conversation.

When the bus arrived and its doors opened, the bus driver—perhaps another acquaintance—greeted her mother. Whatever he said, again, was incomprehensible to Myŏng. Her mother replied with a smile, as she’d expected, before finding a seat in the back of the bus.

From her seat just behind her mother, Myŏng stared at her mother’s ears. Were they somehow shaped in a way that her own were not, which gave her this ability to understand the locals? Once the bus took off, Myŏng was assailed again by waves of words she found incomprehensible. She mopped her spotless forehead nervously. She covered her useless ears with her hands. She had already convinced herself that she was acting in the boy’s best interests but still remained unaware of the more sordid motives flowing, undetected, through her veins.

The attendant placed a folded sauna outfit on the counter without looking up at Myŏng. It was a pink set of matching pants and shirt, made of lightweight fabric. How did she know to hand me the pink ones? Myŏng wondered. What was it she noticed about me?

“Oh, is that the sauna over there? Looks like we have to change here in the public bath first.”

Without a moment’s hesitation her mother marched straight into the women’s bath. Myŏng followed, but only up to the doorway, where she then held back. The hinged door had swung open, drawing her gaze to several women changing. A terrifying feeling seized her. She may well have been somewhat nervous about seeing other women take off their clothes for the first time, but her fear came from somewhere else. What if the women in the changing room could tell that her body had once been that of a man? What if they were to suddenly scream and point at her body—fleeing from the changing room, leaving her shaken and all alone?

Myŏng remained huddled behind her mother’s tiny frame. As tall as she was, she’d have to completely double over to truly hide herself, but still she kept her head lowered and crept closely behind her mother as though she were in grade school. The door swung open once again as they entered. A fear set in that no one else but Myŏng could know.

There was a faint smile in the corners of the boy’s lips. Myŏng was so absorbed in that strangely familiar grin that she failed to turn the steering wheel and almost crossed the median. Determined to get a better glimpse of him, she slowly turned the car around, parking in a place hidden from view, but still close enough for her to make out the boy’s features.

Between the child’s small fingers hung a cigarette, glowing bright red. People walking by the school-age child would, at most, smile bitterly when their eyes caught sight of the boy’s face and then the cigarette in his hand. But the boy paid them no heed. He just stood there chatting away with a similar child standing in front of him as they passed the cigarette between them. The boy’s smile was so relaxed, so carefree, Myŏng felt a prickle of goose bumps run up her back as she hid there staring at him.

As Myŏng considered storming out of her car and slapping the boy across the face, her grip on the steering wheel tightened. Even if she were to jump out of the car, she’d never actually raise her hand to mete out such a punishment.

The boy was now learning the facts of life. She had thrown him out of the house hoping that he would do just that. She hadn’t wanted him to pick up such a stupid habit as smoking, but there were bound to be side effects. For Myŏng, it was akin to picking through a festering wound in an effort to heal it—and in the meantime she’d simply have to endure the pain. Myŏng bit down on her lip so hard she could almost feel puss oozing out of it. She stuck the key in the ignition and started the car up.

But before she took off, she noticed a different group of kids stealthily approaching the two boys who were still smoking cheerfully. These kids looked armed with tough-boy smirks on their faces. Who are they? Myŏng wondered, before witnessing the tallest one land his fist in the boy’s face. The child standing beside him didn’t have the time to budge before the other kids aimed a few kicks into his side. The two boys quickly fell to the ground, blood dripping from their faces. Before they could pull themselves up again, the same kids pounced on them. It felt to Myŏng as if she could hear the boy’s desperate cries as he rolled in the dust, as if she could hear the sound of his frail bones breaking.

When the gang stepped back and stopped kicking the boys, Myŏng imagined it might all be over. Then they pulled out clubs from beneath their shirts and proceeded to pummel the two boys, who were already covered in blood. They looked smaller now as they rolled across the ground, but even this brutal beating was deemed insufficient when they emerged from it all still squirming. Once the kid keeping watch had managed to block the view of any passersby, the kids with the clubs dragged the boys deeper into the alleyway by the scruff of their necks. Like a trail of broken shadows, drops of blood blackened with grime dotted the ground behind them. The small cigarette, which had glowed brightly in the boy’s hand only moments ago, now lay squashed darkly into the ground.

The figures of two badly beaten boys eventually rose up from somewhere out of her sight. Myŏng felt as though she could hear their desperate cries as they coughed up blood. Still, she didn’t budge. Nor did she drive toward the boys or start the engine to chase after the kids with the clubs.

The boy was learning the facts of life, she said to herself. This was a difficult, brutal process, and there were bound to be harmful side effects along the way. Myŏng turned the car around and headed back to the main road. She clenched the steering wheel as if it were a club of her own.

“Come on in.”

She couldn’t tell if it was sweat or tears drenching her face when she woke. Her body entombed in stifling heat, the first thought that came to mind was, Am I in hell? It was after all a weekday, but why else was the place so empty? And why else would her body feel like it was actually on fire?

She fled the steam room in search of her mother, making her way into the women’s bathing area. Her mother was sitting next to several other women inside a tub enshrouded in a cloud of steam. She held out her hand to welcome Myŏng inside. The women had towels bound tightly around their heads and their long, drooping breasts glanced up with indifference at Myŏng’s unusually tall frame, her perfectly shaped breasts, and her hairless pubes. Still, instead of joining her mother in the tub she hurried into a corner where she could hide her body. Against the wall there was a line of shower heads, and she stood beneath the very last of them, washing herself beneath a stream of warm water. Having been scorched by the unbearable heat, she now felt her face cooling.

“Come have a seat over here. I’ll help you exfoliate.”

Her mother had suddenly appeared next to her, motioning to a small, round plastic stool she’d placed at her side. Catching sight of her mother’s breasts and her dark hair, Myŏng squatted down onto the stool. That’s where I came from, she said to herself. She brought me into the world from right there. Her mother’s wrinkly private parts suddenly popped into view, like a soft, puffy cloud. The exfoliating sponge in her mother’s tiny hand moved up and down Myŏng’s back and broad shoulders. Everything that had clung to Myŏng, and refused to let go, was now being washed away with the spirited strokes of her mother’s arm.

“You’ll be just fine. You’ve made it this far, haven’t you? Now you can go into a bathhouse without worrying, even a steam room, too, no? I’ll bet you’ve been staying away from these places, haven’t you? Well, you’ve made it this far, my dear. And from now on you can just march right inside.”

Beneath the warm shower her mother softly whispered these words into her ear, stroking her daughter’s lean neck and back. Suddenly Myŏng felt tears flowing out of her, like menstrual blood.

“You might stand out a bit because you’re so tall, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all, you hear me …? Come now. You’ve gone through a lot, my dear, haven’t you …?”

Her mother gently patted her on the back as though to gently scold her and sympathize with her at the same time.

Unable to bear it any longer, Myŏng began to sob, her face melting into tears. Why hadn’t her mother disowned her, disowned this child who was born a son and later announced he would live as a woman? Why hadn’t her mother felt embarrassed and disgraced enough to throw her out of the house, enough to let her roll into the gutter and be beaten to a pulp, to teach her a cruel lesson about life?

“Did you ever want to get rid of me, Mama, or feel like it didn’t matter if I was dead or alive? When I chose to live my life like this, why didn’t you pretend you didn’t know me, and get on with your own life?”

Myŏng’s voice was still drenched in hot tears.

“Oh, my child, why would I ever disown you? How could anyone disown her own child? I want you to be happy, to live a healthy life and feel comfortable in your own skin. Isn’t that the most important thing?”

With a crooked hand, her mother struck her on the back. Then she started scrubbing again, this time with more force.

“Oh, why are you crying? How about you do something more useful? Now you rinse off and give me a good back scrub too. I come here every day, but I usually have to pay to get scrubbed. Thanks to you, I’ll save a bit of money today. Hee-hee.”

Handing Myŏng an exfoliating cloth, her mother sat down with her back facing her. Myŏng took the small red cloth and scrubbed it up and down her mother’s curved back. So that her mother wouldn’t hear her, she tried her best to hold back her tears, scrubbing extra hard. But her hand kept slipping.

“Nothing much to scrub off your mom’s back, is there? I’ve been soaking in the tub all day long so how could there be? Alright, then, let me rinse me off and get soaped up.”

Her mother turned around and walked over to a showerhead. Myŏng stood up too. But the wave of tears wouldn’t easily subside. She stood there with her head turned so that her mother wouldn’t see her crying. The warm water from the showerhead pelted her face like an angry voice shouting at her. She dropped down into a ball, like the victim of a beating, and squatted there beneath the falling water. Then she collapsed on the floor as though swept away by a current at sea. In her heart of hearts, she was menstruating, her body covered by wave after wave of transparent blood.

She had told her father not to come outside, and yet there he was hobbling out the main gate, with his bandaged foot inserted into in a slipper. Refusing to turn back and face him, her mother had already given up on the man who was so stubbornly following them outside

“Go back inside, Dad. You’ll hurt your leg. Go on now.”

Myŏng tried to shoo her father away with a flick of her wrist to keep him from coming any farther.

“Oh, let him be. You think that old fart listens to what anyone says? All I can do is pray he doesn’t break a leg and end up moaning and groaning in front of me all day long.”

Had they argued in bed again last night? Her pants weren’t dusty, but her mother kept brushing them off out of habit.

“Oh just … just look at her. I mean, what do you expect when she mumbles over those damn beads every day, praying for me to drop dead. I was bound to hurt myself! You might not catch her boiling up a pig’s head, but she sits there all day long, alright, going about her magic like some shaman.” Myŏng’s father seemed ready to leap up and smack her mother across the head as though she were some little brat.

“Good grief. Enough of your complaining! Heavenly Buddha, have mercy on me, have mercy on me.”

Looking up to the sky, Myŏng’s mother closed her eyes softly, a perfect picture of someone chanting Buddhist prayers. Myŏng found it so funny that she had to turn her head to hide her smile.

“Alright, you two, enough arguing. Now, go back inside. I’ll be back over summer break.”

“Yes, you better get going. You’ve got your plane ticket, haven’t you?”

Her father took another step, with difficulty, in Myŏng’s direction.

“Yes, I do.”

Myŏng came up to her father so he wouldn’t walk any more, and gently squeezed his hand.

“Now, make sure you eat well, dear. You can only count on yourself to keep healthy.”

Her mother looked ready to start chanting more prayers again. Myŏng smiled back at her as happily as possible so that she needn’t worry. She taught me a lesson about shame, thought Myŏng, but can she read all the meaning in my smile? All night Myŏng had tossed and turned over the shame she felt still burning in her heart, but would her mother ever understand what it all meant?

“OK, Mom. You eat well, too, and enjoy yourself down here. I’ll be back come summer.”

“Off with you, now. Get going.”

Whenever Mom sends me off, she thought, her eyes are always so misty. For no reason in particular Myŏng felt this might be their last goodbye, and she found it difficult to start walking away. They’d be seeing each other in just a few months, and yet she now felt guilty seeing her mother’s eyes glistening, making her goodbye hurt all the more.

Those shameful feelings had been ingrained deeply inside her, and yet coming to terms with them made it possible now for her to make a fresh start. Despite whatever was still pulling her down, Myŏng now squared her shoulders and stood tall. Bye-bye. See you soon. Looking back at her mother and father, she waved goodbye to them both and then waved once again. She felt as though she was putting all her shame behind her as well.

Myŏng dug into her pocket and pulled out her phone. The boy would likely call again today, and again they’d exchange their lines according to a fixed script.

But her battery was dead, and the flip phone’s screen had gone all black, as if preparing for a funeral. It’ll be OK. As long as we hold on to the cord that connects us, we can always reach out to each other whenever we want. I may be far away, but I’m not letting go. Now I understand how deep a parent’s feelings can be for a child.

Myŏng took one step into the crosswalk of the wide boulevard. With its white, uniform stripes painted across the black asphalt, the four-cornered crosswalk seemed almost too bright. From here on in she’d have to take things just like this, one step at a time, for the sake of the boy’s future, as well as her own. The road ahead was a bright one. It was glimmering right before her, like wet sand on a beach, reflecting the sunshine.

Somewhere off in the distance she could hear the sound of a military march. Myŏng felt a spring in her step as she strode through the crosswalk. She looked up and stretched out her neck, as though to breathe in the crystal-clear blue sky. The sound of the military band, slowly intensifying, seemed to gently push her even further upward.

1 형 (hyŏng) is a traditional word expressing kinship, used by younger Korean men to address an older male relative, such as a brother, or an older male friend or acquaintance.

TRADITIONAL SOLO

O Chŏnghŭi

First published in the journal Monthly Central (월간중앙; Wŏlgan chungang) in June 1970.

As the high-pitched harmony of gongs and flutes builds into a tingling crescendo, the moon emerges from behind the black curtain set up by the traveling performers.

A moon rising in the daylit sky is always round. From crescent to quarter and again to full, the moon waxes and wanes but never loses its crimson edge.

The flag leading the procession stops near the mountain peak blooming with milky-white windflowers. The troupe’s lively routine has clearly stirred up a crowd, now gathered around, tightening their laces. It’s in full swing now, the Tano festival.1 Men swirling streamer hats with twelve-yard tails rise up into twelve moons encircling a sun. As the swirling tails gather speed, the twelve moons become a twelve-yard sky, entangled with crude colors filling heaven and earth with yellow-red light and little else but the sound of the wind.2

Preparations were now complete. The audience was to arrive by 6:40, and the show would begin at seven o’clock sharp. Have we missed anything …? Hearing the director’s concerns, I looked up around the theater once again. A black curtain cut across the round stage, and at the front of the stage lay a decorative straw mat. The audience seats were set too close to the stage, but given the care spent reproducing the original atmosphere, nothing seemed out of place when compared to previous performances. The stage and seating areas were empty now. Since this was to be a special show for foreigners living in Korea, there were strict instructions not to let just anyone inside. I pulled up my sleeve and glanced at my watch. It said just past five. I then looked up at a clock on the wall, which said 6:30. Exactly half an hour to spare. I took my time resetting the hour and minute hands on my watch. There was no sign of early arrivals. The audience seats had been carefully arranged in rows, behind which extra folding chairs had been neatly stacked. I pulled up a chair and sank into it. I was beat. The minute hand on the round electric clock seemed fixed in place, leaving a semicircle on the right completely white. Desperate for a smoke, I stuck my hands into my waistcoat pockets and tilted my head back. A light hung above me, senselessly. What a useless thing. All I wanted was to kick back and enjoy a simple smoke. But even the metal chair pressing frigidly against my butt and lower back seemed stubbornly defiant. I closed my eyes and leaned back into my seat more comfortably, but I could still hear a defiant buzzing in my ears. It stuck to the walls of the cramped theater, to the dim ceiling lights, to the space around each seat, where it flickered like a phosphorescent corpse. I opened my eyes. It was 6:40. I pulled myself out of the chair and returned backstage. A chilling gust of wind swept by. Backstage was itself a makeshift theater of sorts. Random props tossed aside after each performance now cluttered the space—a snow-covered thatched roof, a leafy sycamore, gold and silver paper, even a curtain adorned with a gold moon and stars, and a worn-out sofa with broken springs collecting junk. And amid all this were the silhouettes of men milling about, sucking on cigarettes and casting ghostly shadows about. Plumes of smoke rose ceaselessly into thick clouds above, while puppets—mouths agape—poked their necks out of neglected trunks.

Not much longer, is it? The gong player Kim Hallyang savored a final draw on his cigarette before tossing it aside and proceeding to dig through a trunk. Oh, we’re getting started? Pak Tonggŭn put his arm halfway into the Governor of Pyongyang, rolling up the rest of his sleeve. Guess I’m not the only one getting on. Im Kyŏngsul stuck his own arm into Old Pak,3 who then shrugged his shoulders as though to respond, Can’t stop from getting old. His rabbit-hair sideburns today seemed especially white. Everyone ready? The head monk’s voice was hoarse. Hey, Chindong! Chindong! Old Pak’s shout came like a clap. After a quick look around, it was clear that Kim Ponghan, who handled Hong Tongji,4 hadn’t yet shown up. Well, where’d he go? Oh, I’m just taking a dump. The answer came from somewhere far out back. The head monk snorted. You gonna shit all day long? Nah, just had a bit to eat. Eat? What the hell you eating for? Go carry a coffin for some extra cash. Well, how much d’you think I’d make? Hong Tongji remained hidden from view, but the banter continued quite naturally. I reckon fifteen bucks. The director then bounded in. You two really gonna do this here?5 Hurry up and get ready. But there wasn’t anything, per se, to get ready. The performers began fastening their pant straps and securing puppets over their arms. But compared to the breathlessness of the director, they all moved at a snail’s pace. OK, let’s go. While the puppeteers hid themselves behind the curtain, the gong and flute players approached front stage with faltering steps. You’re up next with the response, old man, said the director, pushing me from the back. Wrapping my arms around an hourglass drum, I began beating out a shaman’s dance. I’m not sure where the thing comes from, but the sound it makes is a wreck.

Pick up your bamboo stick, slip on your straw-woven shoes

The eight provinces await us with their mountain and river views

Pak Ch’ŏmji picks up the tune cheerfully and tosses it along. Flash, flash, flash—pop the cameras. The situation leaves Pak Ch’ŏmji ill at ease. The brass flute player, too, seems put off. His tune is flat, and the tendons in his neck bulge with each camera’s flash. Sitting atop the curtain, Pak Ch’ŏmji weaves together the story all by himself. From time to time, he just roars with laughter and lets his shoulders dance.

Hero hero ttŭyŏri

Ei he-he ei tŭiyo!6

The floor bounces up and down to the sound of his voice and the ba-dum-ba-dum-dum of the beating drum.

Having toured Korea’s eight scenic provinces, Pak Ch’ŏmji now turns to the seated audience before shooting off his mouth: So, there I am, my pockets heavy with coins worth seven p’un, and I pour them out onto the shaman’s square. And before I know it, there’s a group of boys bouncing back and forth before my eyes, with their bright blue belts tied up in military style. Oh, the body may be old, my friends, but the heart stays forever young! Have I got it wrong? I give ten thousand yang to the young lad playing the hourglass drum. I give twenty thousand to the one who knows how to toot his brass-tipped flute. The two-stringed fiddler is a good musician, so I shut my eyes tight and toss him five grand. Woohoo! Oh, yes! I spend cash like clay and pour out coins like water. I meet my friends, I buy them drinks, and when I go out for a whiz, what do I see? My pockets are still heavy. Oh, what magic can this be? Pak Ch’ŏmji feigns his surprise. If I started off with seven p’un, and three times seven is twenty-one, hey, that makes 21,000 yang. Oh, my word, that’s quite a run!

Pak’s voice is hardly pleasing with phlegm caught in his throat. His unscripted coughs, too, frequently spoil the fun. But even after Pak manages to catch his breath, it’s the dogged silence of the audience that proves even more deafening. A chill runs down my spine. Pak Ch’ŏmji’s voice bounces off the unfeeling crowd and fades out in the distance. His awkward jokes have fallen flat in the cavernous space between the audience and this semicircular stage, expanding beyond control. I keep responding to his lines, but my head itches as if crawling with lice, and my hands fail to grip my drumsticks. The character for double happiness, woven into the decorative straw mat at the front of the stage, is surrounded by crossed legs, stretching out so long they almost slip into my eyes. And that’s it! I now see, finally, why I have the chills. It’s that icy draft—sweeping up my spine—the audience’s disapproval. Out in the crowd all I can see are blank faces—unreadable, meaningless; like masks hanging on the wall, they are merely ornaments. But then an Oriental clown with brilliant retinas for eyes slips off the gray-haired gourd mask he’s wearing, just as a young redhead does what she can to suppress her yawn. The unbridgeable gap between these different worlds sends more goose bumps across my skin. The silence of the crowd sweeps closer to us, overtaking the stage. The reckless force shoves aside all our passion, all the madness of our final act, and cruelly deepens our self-consciousness. My fingertips turn stone cold as though touching something alien. I clench them into fists. I know the cold will in due course seize my body, every inch of it. And sure enough, the icy chill makes yet another attack. I try to stop my shoulders from shivering, but they don’t belong to me any longer.

Pak Ch’ŏmji, for his part, couldn’t care less. He’s just been introduced to his pale, pockmarked wife for the first time, and all he can do now is moan and groan with regret.

Ari-ari-rang, suri-suri-rang

Arari ga natnae

Ari-rang kogae ro nŏmŏkanda7

Chindong, Chindong! Hong Tongji makes his way ungraciously on stage, his eyes darting in all directions. His figure in the spotlight, Hong Tongji shakes his naked limbs for everyone to see. His body is brilliant red, as though his skin is oozing blood. My drumsticks pick up a tune and carry it on for a while, before the gongs clamor their way into the song, speeding it up into something much more brisk. Catching the wind, my drumsticks move to a place my hands can hardly reach. The sound of my music gradually rings clear. Man-made moon, I say to the light hanging high above center stage, please come crashing down and shatter into a thousand pieces of glass. I beat and beat my drum so that this moon might fall, so that each fragment rises up again into a thousand moons, so that each beat coming off my arm rises into the sky as ten thousand moons. Hong Tongji’s wooden phallus now is shaking wildly to the beat of the drum, while the laughing women surrounding him try to contain their glee. Their passions spreading silently like wildfire, the red heat burning in their eyes sets the marketplace aflame at closing time.

Moons rise. Long-forgotten feelings, too, slowly ascend from the morass of memory. Closed-off cravings reopen, cravings rising into moons of their own. The conscious world is as bright as day now, but a brass-tipped flute whistles dizzyingly by, and these moons unravel elaborate knots of memory. Shouts from old masks in the audience push me on, as I sink into the deepest crevices of my mind, where at long last I begin to slowly rot and am pressed into a place of steamy, suffocating heat. The sweet air carries a sickening scent of something decaying just out of sight.

I have no sense of the boy’s weight against me. He leans against me embraced in my arms like a scarlet flower—as I tremble now and again at the scent of his skin. Darkness has spread in all directions, but the cornfield just beyond stands out like a forest, only one shade darker. It appears like a shadow cast by a mountain on a moonlit night just like tonight. Effortlessly I lift up the boy and walk with him in my arms. The tough cornstalks crunch and crumple beneath my feet. The furrows between cornrows seem especially deep, but gradually the boy in my arms grows light as a feather. Cornstalks overshadowing me collapse to the ground as I trample them. Dust flying into the air sharply stings my nose. Choosing an extra-deep furrow, I lay the boy to the ground and look down at him for a while. As I bring my face down to his, almost touching it, he grimaces and turns his head away. I remember stroking his face with the palm of my hand. It feels rough. The boy closes his eyes. Look at me, I say. But he doesn’t budge. Amao, I say his name softly. Still, the boy keeps his eyes tightly shut. My chest filling with hot air, my breath growing heavy.

I can now see the boy’s rough cheeks, his eyelids awash with blue light. The moon hangs directly over the corn. Opening his eyes, the boy seems blinded but smiles faintly. Is that really a smile, or have I misread the shadow of a cornstalk in the moonlight? It’s hard to tell. I know the moon is big and bright. I lean into his ear, whispering the word: moon. My hot breath no longer seems to bother him. I lift up my hand and point at the moon. He turns to face me. Yue? he asks, in Chinese. No. Say moon. Mo-on, the boy replies awkwardly. I pull him close to my chest. The moon shines directly above us. The boy’s indigo eyelids narrow softly in its light, which casts yet another shadow over the corner of his brow. The boy is as soft as water. The moonlight licks his chapped hands, licks his feet. Each time he shifts to make himself more comfortable, there’s a sound of crushing corn ears carried in the wind. I suddenly feel something round and heavy, like a hump, bulging from the center of my back. Mama! I shout before I know what I’m saying. I try catching my breath. But the boy has disappeared, and a darkness slips into the space where he once lay—like a spec of dirt caught in the eye.

Cry, birds, cry! Birds above, birds below!

Stay out, stay out of the mung bean fields.

If the plants shed flowers, the bean jelly peddlers, too, will shed tears.

Flash! Suddenly a camera goes off nearby. I’m on the point of turning around but instead readjust my grip on the drumsticks. I feel as if I’ve been stripped naked. I’m already so utterly ashamed that it’s hard to bear yet more humiliation. Oh, excellent! So well done! I shout out these words to drum up excitement, but my own feelings haven’t changed. My face still burns with shame. This always happens when something gets the better of me—it’s nothing new. From the moment a show begins until the moment it’s over, the awkwardness and anxiety I feel about my performance are never-ending. They often persist for hours. Whenever a special request comes in to perform at a folk arts festival or for the Folk Research Association, I feel embarrassed and fatigued for days on end. When I perform a work, I’m always conscious of something living and breathing inside of me, something significant about my life, long cast away from the world I now inhabit, something lurking voicelessly in the memories I have of performing that work. This weighs me down and utterly drains me. Besides this aversion to performing is the simple fact that I’ve lost the excitement for appearing on stage. Today I sensed something wrong from the minute the curtain rose, something that prevented those on stage and those in the audience from connecting—as though the actors and the audience were two different species, living and breathing in two different worlds. The world of the stage and that of the audience are always at odds with each other. All that has ever existed in the borderland between the two is but a shared sympathy for that which is vanishing, and a powerful impulse to reduce it to caricature. I’ve always seen performing as an act of disrobing. Just as you peel off your clothes, beginning with your outermost jacket, performing for me is about removing the detritus of time, layer by layer, about shedding all the dirt until you’ve arrived at those memories buried deep inside, memories you must extract and infuse again with life. Sometimes I’ll be standing there awkwardly on the stage, feeling completely exposed, my arms hanging loosely by my side, when I suddenly come across the boy I lost so many years ago. Caught up in the moment, I’ll call out his name, Amao, and only after stepping out toward him will I realize that what I’ve seen is just an illusion—call it the wind or the rain—but it makes me stop in my tracks and begin reflecting. And once this fire is kindled in the corner of my heart, what sweeps inside me is a vision of this boy and a cloud of dust filling the plains of Manchuria. The chaotic sound of gongs and brass-tipped flutes once again rises like a wave and then falls softly into the shape of this boy whom I can still feel with all my flesh. Whenever I close my eyes, I run into him, everywhere. He appears out of the blue in alleyways I’ve never visited and on the main streets of cities so far away they may as well be part of the sweet hereafter. I reach out to touch the boy, Amao, but I sense only an old hand stroking parched flesh. He was the kind of boy likely to have been born in a red-light district. Even with his narrow forehead and high cheekbones, you could still tell with a single glance he was of mixed-race origins—a boy born to a Russian prostitute and a Manchurian. It takes me time to recognize as a beard what at first I think is dirt covering his chin and upper lip. There is an oozing scab on the back of his head—a sign of syphilis. Amao! I cry, my voice choking with feeling, my arms reaching out to him tenderly. But all he ever does is dig his toes into the frozen ground. Standing there only steps away from me, he does little more than stare indifferently back. I give up enticing him toward me. And only now do I understand why. I suddenly feel a sharp pain coming from beneath the surface of my skin, like the pricking of a needle. Bounding across the decades, struggling to emerge out of a deep sleep amid a dust storm in Manchuria, this is the shape of my life at present, a symptom of the withdrawal I suffer from so acutely.

Hong Tongji now sits atop the stage curtain, wagging his finger. The white rims of his eyes make him look ever so crafty. The water is too deep, whatever should I do? Oh, quit complaining and cross the river, damn it! The master of ceremonies announces a five-minute break.

The monk strikes his wooden gong, calling out her spirit. It’s my mother’s forty-ninth-day memorial.8 The incense hangs thick in the spacious hall. My eyes burn. I rub them with the back of my hand.

Several eyelashes fall out. I stare at them, unmoved. The scent of the incense slowly intensifies. I begin to choke. My older sister gropes for my hand. There is a sharp scent coming from her hand too. As we leave the hall, she grabs my hand once again. Behind the temple grounds is a forest filled with chestnut trees. I wanna go home now. You can’t go home. My sister’s voice is gentle. Please don’t cry. But I sob even more. Why are you crying? I don’t myself really know. My eyes began to water when irritated by the incense, but as my sister tries to comfort me now, I start to sob for real, out of feelings in my heart I do not understand. I told you not to cry. A sudden outburst of irritation. Pick me some chestnuts? How are we supposed to find chestnuts now? The dark forest grows low and thick beside the path where we stand. It’s now that I begin to kick and scream. Pick me some chestnuts! Pick me some chestnuts! But the chestnut trees are only just blooming, and the pungent smell of their flowers drifting in the air makes the forest seem soiled—their gray blossoms also stain the deep, dark forest, which is otherwise ink black. Suddenly my sister drops my hand and calls out to me. Unbong, look! The contours of the tree line shine brightly. Her fingers point up at the moon, which has risen in the sky. Beneath her white jacket a round hump is visible on her upper back. Mommy’s looking down at us now. She whispers. I hold back my tears and stare at the moon. It’s so big.

Whether she’s content to have me stop crying, or she truly believes what she’s said, she keeps pointing up at the moon and repeating the same words. Look up there. Mommy’s turned into the moon so you won’t cry any more, Unbong. I open my eyes wide. I can hear the sound of Buddhist cymbals coming intermittently from the temple. The moon grows larger, and larger still. It fills the forest, flows into the path between the trees, and soaks us in its light as it swells implausibly in size—just like the round hump on my sister’s back.

Over in the temple the clanging of symbols continues throughout the night.

Hold on, folks, next to appear is Pyo Saengwŏn, who lives in Kwanmori down in Haenam. You hear the name Pyo Saengwŏn and you think: he’s got the looks, he can dance, and he can sing well, too, right? Maybe this time he’ll drum up a shaman’s tune and dance for a bit. Three-thousand-year-old Tongbangsak9 hides behind the curtain, but when Pak Ch’ŏmji presses him for an answer, he again grabs ahold of his drum. Yo-ho-ho, yo-ho-ho! Pyo Saengwŏn starts to sing. But then he throws up his arms into the air and waves them around, perhaps a sign that something’s amiss. Alright, folks, I’ve got nothing against a slow shaman’s song, but how about we skip this sleepy song and move right on to the mask dance?

The street singers normally raked in cash during the Tano festival—a time when my sister had a hard time sleeping. She usually slept on her stomach, but her eyes grew swollen and bloodshot at this time of year. Whenever the songs died down at dusk, taking with them their unfinished fun, she always grew restless. The plaintive sounds of the troupe’s high-pitched tunes drifted in from beyond the village wall. And when the rhythm developed into a Chindo-style “Arirang,” my sister’s face would go white with worry. Unbong, oh, Unbong. All the lamp oil would burn up, and even the wick would turn to smoke, and yet still she wouldn’t fall asleep. It was hard to catch the piercing tune, but there was a flute out there somewhere, swallowing its trail as the sound roamed about. The neighbors had long since locked their doors, claiming the song was meant to lure out the village girls. And sure enough, as darkness fell and the song struck a more plaintive chord, my sister stepped out onto the thick, warm ground—and ran off. Throughout the night I heard the sound of murmuring water just beyond the alleyway through which she’d fled. Later on, she made her way back home, her arms swinging left and right, her jacket bulging more than normal, stained green with grass in that one spot. I could sense on my sister the fishy scent of evening dew and the song of a heavy heart. This happened each night of the festival just as day settled into dusk. Ari-rang ari-rang arariyo, Ari-rang kogae ro nŏmŏganda. She always looked pale with worry. Unbong, oh, Unbong, whatever should I do?

When the wandering singers finally departed, leaving the whole village upturned, their music still swirled secretly around the village gates and in the deep furrows of the thick barley fields. This time my sister disappeared for good. The villagers whispered rumors for some time afterward about her—the girl with a humped back … seduced by a traveling clown. And who’s to say she’s not still out there someplace—a white-haired woman in a windswept marketplace, bouncing up and down to the tune of the hunchback’s dance.

But now the tune has turned to a chinyang. And after a moment of breathlessness, I manage to steal a break. The gong player pauses for a moment and lights up a cigarette. He passes it over to me, and with the first puff my head swims like never before. I exhale with satisfaction, a pale-violet curtain quivering in front of me, mirrorlike. I feel dizzy. The stage begins to spin, faster and faster, and the old masks standing there rumble toward me like an ocean wave. My vertigo extends outward, spins me around dizzyingly, one turn after another. On the cloudy face of the mirror the puppets prance. The beat of the drum breaks through the mirror’s surface, making the pattern of rippling water. I seep into its darkness, tear at the monk’s green robes, penetrate the rough bark of a pine. My friend, we’ll have to go another round. The feng shui is good, they say, and they want to have a temple built here. What kind of temple? The kind that brings sons to sonless yangban and daughters to daughterless yangban, and long lives of honor and wealth to all who donate! The monks emerge and bow to the ground. Build the temple here, Head Monk! Yes, oh, yes. Build the temple here, Your Holiness. Build the temple, build the temple—make an offering to the temple, and you shall bear a son, bear a daughter, live with honor and wealth. The mirrors surrounding me start to quiver. The old masks caught inside quiver in turn, laughing without a sound. No, that’s not laughter. Their faces are blank. Soon enough I’m confused enough to read contempt in these masks I do not understand. I beat my drum. I beat my drum as though I’m shouting to break the surface of the mirror, which has locked me inside like a second layer of skin. I beat my drum to disperse the old masks scattered here and there through it. The mirror’s surface is cloudy, but not broken. The fog covering its surface slowly thickens. I cannot find even the smallest crack in its surface from which I might make my escape. I step forward, groping through the air with my hands. There is nothing to grab on to. Only when I give up my escape do I hear the slow melody of a chinyang. The moon then grabs the end of a strand and floats up into the sky. Little by little things are visible again. I swim through the clouds surrounding me and rush straight into the street. It’s all so familiar. I stride through the red-light district unfazed, my gaze fixed on the distance. There’ll be a man on a street corner up ahead, whom I’m supposed to meet. For some reason I know this. The main street of the district is lined with tall buildings, and stretching out over an attic balcony is a Russian prostitute, or perhaps a young Manchurian girl, attracting my attention. The sallow face of a sleepless john also flickers into my line of vision. At a bend in the road the man finally appears. He’s clinging to a storefront window and peering inside. I come up from behind, observing his movements. The storefront of a Chinese merchant has captured the man’s gaze. The display contains Buddhist paintings and ritual instruments. It’s dark on the inside but bright out here; the brightness obscures most of what’s on display. The man presses his forehead against the window, staying absolutely still, all the strength in his body converging into that one point on his forehead, making it likely he’ll collapse to the ground if he moves his head. Judging from the face reflected in the glass, he looks no older than thirty; but there’s something prematurely old about him, something in the haggard curve of his back, which tells a vivid tale of weariness and hunger. I easily conclude he’s not a local. One might come across such a man anywhere. But it’s not hunger alone that makes such strangers drifting into town waste away. The unexpected clouds of heavy dust coming in from the Manchurian plains slowly eat away at their flesh, their white bones weather away in the strong winds, and they die at long last of dehydration.

Hello there, my friend. I reach over to pat the man on his shoulder with deep empathy. Then I stop myself, my hand still extended. It’s resting against a cold pane of glass. The man in the window, too, has his hand raised toward me in a friendly gesture. I’m staring straight at him. Who is this man? I don’t know. He looks like a beggar you might find on any street corner, a homeless man whose true identity you’ll never know. Wrapped in an old blanket in place of a proper coat, the haggard man gazes back at me like he’s a stranger. Just like him, I have my forehead pressed against the cold glass now. Tears are falling down his cheeks. Inside the window is a bottomless abyss, dark as night. The ritual bowls, the blooming mounds of paper flowers, the ornate Buddhist paintings that depict lotus blossom pedestals fill the dark space, the dead time. The tears running down the clear glass are all that live among the dead, the unreal. My fingers feel their way across the glass. With a hand most tender I caress the man. Why did you feel the need to stay behind? His prickly cheeks and the festering sore on his head nick the palm of my hand that is stroking them. Would you tell me why …? I ask yet again. But the man does not reply. What I realize then concerns my own life, or rather all that has fallen out of me after losing Amao, all that I have carelessly thrown aside. In that instant, I see my own life, or more to the point I see how much of myself has fallen away from me—all that, after losing Amao, I foolishly cast aside.

Thinking back, I admit it was wrong to have gone to Manchuria carrying only the Korean flag, to a place with unique sensibilities all its own. Our troupe eventually cut short our tour because it made no money and in the end met with disaster. One night a fire broke out during a fight between Koreans and some local Manchurians. All the props and puppets used in the show were reduced to ash, robbing us of our living. I’ll make it Chosŏn soil, or die trying! some declared out of desperation. They formed a new troupe with a skeleton crew in the hope of recrossing the Amnok River. But I stayed behind. To leave was unthinkable. Amao had died along with our puppets in the fire, and all I could think of was the boy’s festering head, which I’d held in my arms that night. After I lost him, the winds blew for days on end, bringing with them unending clouds of dust. Even the moon hid its light behind those red clouds. But still, every night I went out, swimming through the blinding dust in search of a hidden moon. Little by little, night by night, my senses grew dull, just as the dead skin over the moon thickened.

Now, when I try to grab on to the boy and hold him against my flat, sunken chest, all I hear is the moon’s dead skin rattling inside of me. Only on the rare occasion, when lost in a murky dream, have I seen that moon. It has no crisp outline, but its pale light is still smothering as it wells up inside my whole being. When I rub a certain spot, a feeling opens up brightly like a newly lit flame—Oh, Amao. And as the boy’s tender limbs coil around me, the round hump projecting from my back suddenly rises. The dizzying sound of gongs and flutes rings ceaselessly in my ears, a twelve-yard ribbon hat spins round and round, and a large round moon at long last floats up into the air.

I remember reaching for the man standing in the window and pulling him toward me with all my might. Crack, shatter! The sound of glass breaking. Crashing through the damp, dark space, I pull out the man caught in the darkness, and we cross the Amnok River together.

Oh yes! Bless all who donate with sons and daughters, with wealth and honor! The head monk tears down the temple. He tears down the temple. The monks quickly tear it to the ground.

Hush now all. But do pass along this message. The show has now ended, so this old man must now take his leave. And thank heavens since my back is now out of whack. Pak Ch’ŏmji makes his way offstage, while the puppets form a circle and begin their final song.

There’s something chaotic about the closing of a show, something brought on by the same sense of loss you feel in an open market at closing time—a feeling that takes less out of the body than out of the soul, which is left stumbling onward. Wages are handed out to each performer, and the busywork of packing up the props carries on. Hey, let’s grab a bite to eat, says the director. I can’t forget the puppets, though. One by one I lay them down to sleep inside the trunk and cover them with the folded curtain. Please come with us to the Dong Chun Lou! someone says to me once again, but to these persistent invitations I offer a simple reply—I’ll see you there—and head out to take one final look around the theater: not a soul left in sight.

But still, I sense old masks moving in and out of the audience seats. My eyes wide-open, I take another look around. All that remains is a faint odor that the spectators have left behind. I’ve always thought it strange how I tend to see things—especially audience members—as old masks. Only when the proper conditions are met—when the masks are actually put to use—do they come alive. Alone, they carry no meaning whatsoever. They’re little more than lumps of clay, or dried gourds, painted with simple patterns. Only when covering the face of an actor, only when showered with lively music filling the air, can a mask extract its raw power from out of the grave and release all the madness that lies inside.

An audience can see the truth only from within this madness, something that spreads pleasantly into the crowd like a buzz from good wine, giving all who’ve gathered around masks of their own to wear. But left unused—hanging on walls, stored in trunks—those masks are dead, having lost even the slightest gift for empathy. Perhaps those dead masks I see out there are my own reflections, caught in the eyes of the audience. Perhaps that’s why I feel such resistance toward them—such deep hatred, even revulsion. Could it be that I, too, am little more than an old mask now? The voice of the master of ceremonies rings out repeatedly through the empty theater with mechanical precision: pup-pets, pup-pets. I make my way to the office to leave my trunk for safekeeping. I hear a passionate voice emerging from inside.

Do you think we could pull off an original performance? We can double the price so long as the performance still falls under the “protection of cultural artifacts.”

Well, if we stray too far from the original meaning, that might pose a problem. What we really need, you see, is museum status. This second voice is youthful, but strained. When a show closes, there’s always a bit of quibbling over whether the program was a success. I turn around. The clock tells me it’s well past nine. The posters and flower wreaths hanging at the entrance to the empty theater flutter like funeral banners. The cold air outside makes the ground feel fresh beneath my feet. The moon hides its outline behind an overcast sky.

I haven’t called for the taxi that then pulls up in front of me. Recklessly I get inside. Where can I take you? The driver addresses me, but only once he has made a loop around the theater, and he is already on the way downtown. Take me to Fengtian,10 will you? You mean, Fengtian Street, sir? No, I mean across the Amnok River, to Fengtian. That’s a good one, sir. The driver laughs, without looking back. I find myself chuckling too. OK, just take me to a place where the moon is shining bright. I’m tired. Did you once live in Manchuria, sir? Indeed, I did. Well, there’s nothing too spooky in that trunk of yours, is there? Nope, just one of my grandkids. The chatty cab driver finally buttons his lips. I lean back into the seat cushion. Outside the window the city lights race by. As I inch my own face closer to the window, a tired old face draws near. I turn my head away. But the blank face of an old man still hangs there stubbornly in the glass. I roll down the window to shake it off. Even then, the face refuses to disappear.

Suddenly I sense my forehead pressed up against cold glass. I sense an unknown man locked inside a dark Chinese shop, trapped in a dead moment of time. A blank face, deeply creased, still hangs in the window, staring back at me like a mask.

1 A major Korean holiday held on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, often featuring mask dances and other performances, originally held to celebrate the end of the planting season.

2 This opening passage describes a traditional performance of folk music (풍물; p’ungmul) in what appears to be the countryside, in stark contrast to the scene that follows.

3 Pak Ch’ŏmji, the most important stock character in traditional Korean puppet plays, is usually extremely tall and has a white face with pink highlights, as well as bushy white hair on his head and brows. A fallen country aristocrat, he appears throughout this play, from the beginning scene, where he offers a tour of the Korean Peninsula, to the final act, which normally features the construction of a temple by unscrupulous monks.

4 Hong Tongji, another central character in the traditional puppet play, normally appears naked and often has a particularly large penis dangling between his legs, which in some plays is used to carry a funeral bier. His language is often vulgar.

5 The director here is referring to the way both men are playfully invoking lines from the original puppet play, as Hong Tongji is often on the toilet at moments of crisis.

6 These are lively sounds meant to cheer up the crowd.

7 This excerpt from Korea’s famous folk song “Arirang” defies translation, but the final line here means “Crossing the Arirang mountain pass.”

8 In the Buddhist tradition, mourning lasts for forty-nine days after someone’s death, by which time the deceased is thought to have been reincarnated.

9 A figure dating back to Han dynasty China, but also incorporated into many Korean legends, the witty and gregarious Tongbangsak is said to have used his talents to live for three thousand years.

10 An old name for the Chinese city of Shenyang during the Japanese control of Manchukuo. In Korean, the characters for Fengtian (奉天) are pronounced “Pongch’ŏn,” which is also the name of a neighborhood in the southern part of Seoul.

STRUGGLING AMID THIS DESPAIR

Yu Sŭngjin

First published in the popular journal Arirang (아리랑) in October 1965 under the heading, “Confessions of a Homosexual” (“어느 동성애욕자의 고백”; “Ŏnŭ tongsŏngaeyokcha ŭi kobaek”).

1

After my work for the day was done, I went for a walk through the streets of Myŏngdong and popped into the Celadon Tea House. I wanted to kick back for a while with a cup of coffee, as I often did.

“Hey, look. That guy over there is a male beautician.” With our coffee cups between us, I was chatting with Miss Ch’oe, one of my colleagues at the beauty parlor, when the man sitting next to us practically spat out these words at us.

“Idiot looks normal enough. But he’s got nothing better to do than to fiddle with women’s hair?” No sooner had the first man pointed me out than this second one chimed in with a snicker.

But I was accustomed to this sort of commentary and felt no need to respond. I shared a knowing smile with Miss Ch’oe, lit up a cigarette, and let out a long drag of smoke.

Only then did I notice the two foreigners sitting across from us. They were both staring at me with a strange gleam in their eyes.

The tall and slender one reminded me of Louis Jourdan, while the shorter one, I remember, had a fair complexion with almost rabbitlike eyes.

We exchanged some rather awkward glances for a while. Soon after, the short man approached me.

“I’d like to talk to you for a moment,” he said, in clumsy Korean, with something almost pleading in his eyes.

By this point everyone in the tea house was staring at me. Sitting across from me, even Miss Ch’oe blushed and began to fidget in her chair.

At the invitation of this short foreigner, I moved over to where the two men were seated.

“My name is Pierre,” the short man said, introducing himself as soon as he’d sat back down again. He then pointed to his tall companion.

“This is Carl. He’s got a place in New York, back in the States.”

I listened to them introduce themselves.

“My name is Yu Sŭng,” I replied, finally mustering up the courage to speak.

I took a few puffs from my cigarette, waiting to see what they had to say.

But then they both stood up, one of them saying, “Let’s head out of here.”

I, too, stood up, as if I were being pulled up out of my seat by a magnet. I followed their lead and joined them for a beer.

Later we headed to Pierre’s place on the seventh floor of a fancy building, where our passions were inflamed and we savored our youth. Perhaps it was just their technique, but the conditions of the flesh there brought me to experience ecstasy for the very first time.

2

It had already been quite some time since I’d begun practicing homosexual love.

After graduating, I still hadn’t found a position, and while taking a bit of time off to enjoy life, I’d had a chance encounter in a tea house with a middle-aged man. The man was a proper gentleman, however, who seemed to have a good position in society.

“Student, I work at this company. Can I see you tomorrow? I’ve got something to discuss with you …”

There I was, sitting in a tea shop with a friend, when this man I’d never set eyes on before actually handed me his business card just like that.

On the card were written the words, “Office Manager Pak, Chungsŏk Company.”

The next day, feeling bored, I decided to give him a call. It took him no more than five minutes to come running to meet me, as though he’d been waiting by the phone for me to call.

After asking me detailed questions about my family situation, he invited me to a Chinese restaurant, where he proceeded to ignore me over the course of our meal.

Having learned that my circumstances were far from fortunate, he promised to help me out as best he could. He suggested it might be good for me to go into business and offered to help me open a stationery store.

The actual business at hand started shortly thereafter. Having consumed several drinks with his meal, Manager Pak then lured me to an inn. Saying he was overheated, he stripped off his clothes, entered the bath, and then doused himself with water. It was then that he started to caress my naked body.

Like a sparrow bathing in the rain, my body trembled as he poured kisses over me, gradually working down to my lower parts.

Having never even slept with a woman before, I felt a pleasure difficult to describe each time his lips nibbled my skin or his tongue licked me.

He pushed me down on my stomach and started doing something strange, after which he put my face between his legs and asked me to do the same to him. The truth is, even though something about it sickened me, I had never in my life experienced such bliss.

My nineteen-year-old self was learning about sex from a forty-year-old man.

3

But, you see, a forty-year-old body very much resembles a balloon that has partially deflated. It has no more elasticity. So when Manager Pak held me in his arms, I couldn’t help but feel a bit sickened, as if he felt like a giant snake.

That being said, I did spend several months sharing a bed with Manager Pak. It was somewhat unavoidable.

There was a thrill to feeling the winds of passion all night long—even though I gradually came to tire of Manager Park, and I longed for a body that was younger and firmer than that of a flabby forty-year-old.

Bored with Manager Pak, I began to keep my distance and even enrolled in an acting school. After signing up for dance classes, too, I became a regular customer at a certain music hall.

4

Male bodies and female bodies are different. This is why men tend to long after female bodies and women tend to long after male ones.

Nevertheless, and for reasons I can’t quite explain, whenever I found myself looking at Miss Kim’s face, I saw something masculine in it, rather than something feminine. This is not to say that I was unable to derive any pleasure from members of the opposite sex, such as Miss Kim. It’s just that whenever I imagined Miss Kim’s body, I would superimpose a sort of masculine form on top of it.

It was sheer coincidence that I came to spend so much time with Miss Kim, but once we began a physical relationship, it was only natural that we became closer. We met at an inn almost every day, where we set our youth aflame.

During this time several men also happened to cross my path: Pierre, and Carl, and Rogers, too.

I made love to all three foreigners, even though these affairs turned out to be short-lived.

After seeing Pierre walking with an American navy recruit, I became green with envy and stayed away from him. But later on, when I was in the midst of an affair with Rogers, he was called back to his home country, and I was left quite heartbroken.

5

In the wake of such a climax of life’s joys and pleasures, sadness and isolation are perhaps certain to follow.

I, too, was overcome by feelings of emptiness. I was convinced that unruly pleasures were as fleeting as bubbles floating on water.

It was then that I made a new resolution. In a way, it’s hard to see homosexual love as anything but abnormal. I wanted to give it up and instead find true love with a member of the opposite sex.

This resolution is what led me to find a place for Nanhŭi and me to live together in Itaewon. It gave me a new sense of determination …

But human beings are fickle animals, with boundless desires. Having committed myself to a life with Nanhŭi, I soon found myself in a shameless relationship with the Yankee princess1 named Hyegyŏng who lived next door.

Hyegyŏng’s refined techniques were mind-blowing, and after criticizing me for my immorality, Nanhŭi moved far away.

Abandoned by Nanhŭi, I was shaken with despair now that the castle I had taken such care to construct suddenly came crumbling down around me.

My despair drew me again into a life of dissipation. Nanhŭi’s friend from the beer hall, Miss Han, was one of my conquests. I made out with her in front of my friend Uk, I coerced the two of them into sleeping with each other, and I was brought into a state of mindless bliss watching them go at it. All of this happened after Nanhŭi left me.

Around that same time, I left Beauty Shop Y to work at Beauty Shop B and then came back to Beauty Shop Y. During this time more and more people swept into my life, with whom I was able to share physical pleasures.

I made sweet love to the dancers J and K, who were old friends of mine, and with someone named M, to whom C introduced me.

Later on, there was also R, the teenage star, and X, a senior at Seoul National University, as well as the pot-bellied company president Mr. Z, an officer from France, and several US soldiers—at least so far as I can remember …

But all of this, I’ve come to think, is not behavior fit for a human being.

Which is why I have tried to free myself from this temptation by having sex with so many women.

My partner in pillow talk now is a beautiful girl named Miss Ch’oe. She’s a warm and caring type of person, who will look after me come what may.

In Miss Ch’oe I have encountered such peerless beauty that she far exceeds even my fantasies of Nanhŭi.

I’ve made up my mind to make a fresh start.

And yet, who am I to say that the intense stimulation that only a man can offer won’t someday take hold of me again? Even as I remain determined to turn over a new leaf in life …

1 A common term at the time for Korean women who date American men.

SPRING

Ch’oe Chŏnghŭi

First published in the journal Literary Arts (문예; Munye) in January 1950.

There were two dormitories on campus. One was called New House, the other Old House. While New House was built in the Western style, Old House was an older building done in the Chosŏn style. Altogether nearly two hundred girls lived in the two dormitories.

Both dorms belonged to the same school, but for some reason the students who lived in the two buildings looked quite different. Perhaps because New House was constructed in the Western style, the students who lived there all seemed fresh and fashion-forward, while those in Old House looked lifeless in contrast, and disinclined toward physical exertion. There was something strangely melancholic, too, that lingered in the faces of many Old House residents. For this reason, students in Old House referred to each other using sobriquets, the likes of which didn’t exist in New House. Anyone with a grotesque nickname most likely lived in Old House, where students were called Dr. Jekyll, Barbarian, Cave Beauty, and even Ghost. Simmi, whose name meant deep beauty, also lived in Old House, as did Yun Tongsuk, who had acquired the nickname Dr. Jekyll. Yun Tongsuk was a fifth-year student, and Simmi a third-year. Five others shared a room with the two girls: another third-year like Simmi, two first-years, and two second-years, for a total of seven girls. Needless to say, it was the senior Yun Tongsuk who acted as though she owned the room—she was, after all, the head girl. Simmi, for her part, had only moved into the room two weeks earlier.

Simmi already loathed Yun Tongsuk. It hadn’t been so from the start, but these feelings had developed gradually. And soon enough, just catching sight of that big-footed girl with the humped back—even coming across a pair of her extra-large socks—was enough to make Simmi’s heart sink and her limbs tremble. What Simmi hated most were the sleeping arrangements. Come nighttime, Yun Tongsuk invariably made Simmi lie down beside her, and after turning off the lights as soon as the bedtime bell sounded, she would pull Simmi inside her own covers. For the first couple of nights, it was little more than a bit of cuddling, and Simmi thought herself fortunate to be the only one to receive the head girl’s affection. But on the fourth night this all changed. Not only did the weight of Yun Tongsuk’s body crush her, the older girl went so far as to kiss Simmi on the lips and to lap at her cheeks, tormenting Simmi in no ordinary way. Simmi didn’t just feel uncomfortable, she was really scared. To be able to fall sleep is all Simmi wanted to do at night, but that proved impossible. And when, on occasion, she did manage to drift off to sleep, Simmi’s mind was still beset by thoughts of escape from what might soon come. All she could do was wait, and wait, for the light of day to arrive.

During the day Yun Tongsuk often bought gifts for Simmi, keeping them secret from all the other girls. She bought her a beautiful nightgown, and even a fancy fitted dress to wear around the dorm, its cream-colored background embroidered with red and blue thread. Not to mention all the treats: taffy, peanuts, turtle crisps, pancakes, chocolates, sticky rice cakes, and granola-nut squares. But before Yun Tongsuk passed these treats on to Simmi, she would keep them stored inside her wicker trunk, where she also threw her dirty socks and leggings. For the most part Simmi just pretended to eat the snacks and later tossed them secretly down the toilet or into the stove. Everything she received from Yun Tongsuk in fact reeked of her clammy body odor, which Simmi detested. She left the nightgown and dress in her own wicker trunk, untouched.

Whenever Yun Tongsuk asked, “Why won’t you wear them?” Simmi always replied, “I’m saving them to wear for my parents next time I go home.”

Yun Tongsuk had already pressed Simmi several times to put them on. It seemed clear she wanted Simmi to wear the newly purchased clothes so that she might look even more beautiful.

It was perhaps a Sunday at the end of April, as falling petals drifted down from the trees like snowflakes, when Yun Tongsuk turned to Simmi and said, “Hey Simmi, let’s go out for a walk.”

Concealing her bodily reaction to these words as best as she could, all Simmi could manage to say was, “I’m not interested.”

“Well, how about a movie then?”

“Not interested in that either.”

“You mean, you’re not going out at all?”

“Nope.”

One might have wondered why, for someone in such a rush to go out, Yun Tongsuk then proceeded to lay out her bedding and collapse on top of it. Simmi had hoped to find some peace of mind upon Yun Tongsuk’s departure and to finally get some sleep herself, but these hopes were now dashed.

Simmi left the room. When she had gone to freshen up in the lavatory that morning, the mist had been so thick outside she could hardly make out the pickling jars in the courtyard, never mind any of the flowers and trees. But now that the fog had lifted with the rising sun, the sky was filled with petals fluttering through the air like snowflakes.

Wandering aimlessly, Simmi found herself standing before the flowerbed in front of the music room. There were many more flowers in bloom here than elsewhere, and many more kinds of flowers, all beautifully planted together. Simmi didn’t even know what some of the flowers were called. Among them was a plant with clusters of tiny little white florets, which soaked the still air with their pungent, white perfume.

Simmi broke off a stem and held it up to her nose. She wanted to inhale the strong scent deeply. Having picked the flowers to sample their perfume, however, she instead crumpled them in her hands and tossed them to the ground. The scent was far too intense for Simmi. Even the intimate touch of those tiny florets against her fingertips felt strange. They were damp and sticky just like the touch of Yun Tongsuk’s skin.

Simmi broke off some more flowers, this time using both hands to rip them off their stems. Then she squeezed them, crumpling them up in her hands. This, too, still left her feeling unsatisfied. The more flowers she squeezed, the harder she wished to press them between her fingers. For some reason, as she continued, her body grew languid and she began nodding off.

“Hey, Simmi!”

When she finally came to, at the sound of someone calling her name, she saw just above her hands, filled with crumpled flowers, a cloud of white petals falling like snowflakes from the sky. And in the midst of it all was Ch’asun, walking toward her in a uniform just as white as the petals. The sky and earth were enveloped in a milky white cloud of falling petals, against which the clear trail of Ch’asun’s skirt fluttered in the cool, lonesome breeze. With a face attractively tanned by the sun, Ch’asun’s prominent nose, well-defined brows, and deep, dark eyes stood out all the more radiantly amid the falling petals.

Simmi’s eyes flashed open. How did she ever get to be so pretty—this girl Ch’asun, who was now walking right up to her? Even the foul temper and languid feelings Simmi had experienced while crushing those flowers had all but vanished now, as though they had been completely washed away.

“What are you doing out here all alone?” asked Ch’asun, looking into her face as she approached.

“…”

Her face going bright red, Simmi was at a loss for anything to say, so Ch’asun took it upon herself to continue.

“So you’re not off campus today? How about playing some tennis together?” she asked, pulling at Simmi’s hand.

Just then Simmi felt something strange again. The same feeling she had just experienced crushing those flowers so cruelly between her palms she now felt again as Cha’sun took her hand. The flowers had felt nothing like the sweaty touch of Yun Tongsuk. To Simmi now—without the shadow of a doubt—they had felt just like Ch’asun.

Ch’asun was a fourth-year student, one year older than Simmi. She was well known among the athletic crowd for being a talented tennis player. To say nothing of the students at her own school, Ch’asun was truly adored by students from all over. The balls bouncing off her racket were fierce. She shot them over the net like bullets. Simmi even remembered how once, when she was feeling ill and had lain down in bed, she could feel in her chest the banging sound each time Ch’asun struck a ball with her racket. She had told herself even then that she wanted to meet Ch’asun at least once. But since Ch’asun was a year her senior, and lived in New House, it would have been difficult to do so under normal circumstances. If not for a get-together that had been arranged the previous Saturday night, which had brought together students from both the new and old dorms, Ch’asun likely wouldn’t have even recognized Simmi. At the gathering Simmi had sung a song called “Garden Balsam,” which she’d performed on more than one or two occasions, but the version she sang that night was, according to her classmates, by far her best performance. Even the strict dorm mistress of Old House, who was famous for never smiling, clapped her hands enthusiastically and shouted, “Oh, Simmi, that was splendid. Just splendid.”

But all that really mattered now was that Simmi’s chance encounter with Ch’asun had brought about a remarkable transformation. From that night on, whenever Yun Tongsuk spread out her own bedding beside her, Simmi was able to pick it up and move it to the other side of the room, as far away from Yun Tongsuk as possible. She had on so many occasions decided to put her foot down, telling herself during daylight hours that tonight she would not sleep next to Yun Tongsuk. But when evening came around and it was time to spread out her bedding, her resolve usually faltered. If she’d been able to take out her own bedding, it might have been different, but as soon as the bedtime bell rang, it was Yun Tongsuk who always made a fuss about setting Simmi’s bedding out even before tending to her own. But now that Simmi had spoken with Ch’asun, had her hand held by Ch’asun, and had even played tennis with her, Simmi no longer felt afraid of Yun Tongsuk. She had found enough strength inside her to resist the girl if ever again she tried to pull her inside her covers.

Spring had gone, and the height of summer, too, was now over. Simmi had caught a cold, which then infected her tonsils, and after spending several days nursing the illness, the cold worsened, eventually becoming a full-blown case of bronchitis.

The school doctor instructed Simmi to spend several days recuperating in a place with good air circulation. Several times a day she was also to use the nebulizer.

If ever there was a place with good ventilation, it was a room in New House adjacent to the dorm mistress’s quarters.

Though the room had originally been used as a parlor, a lack of rooms in recent years had led the school to offer it to infirmary patients whose conditions were not particularly grave and who needed a bit of fresh air.

It was several days after moving into this room that Simmi had fallen seriously ill. As her legs trembled and her heart pounded, her spirits were still so high, however, that she hardly noticed her symptoms. It almost felt as if there was nothing wrong. After a fit of coughing, and despite being drenched with beads of sweat, her heart raced so fast she actually felt as though she were on the mend. She had likely found relief in keeping Yun Tongsuk at bay, but being close to Ch’asun now also filled her with joy.

The room itself was also quite pleasant. Only the wall adjacent to the dorm mistress’s quarters had no window, while the other three sides of the spacious room were all fitted with glass. She loved how the morning glories on the southern window’s balustrade had climbed up a trellis of twine and offered the window some shade. And when she leaned over the northern windowsill, she could even look out onto Mount Pugak and feel as though she might reach out and touch it, at times its silhouette melting into the sky like a vast ocean, and at others, under a clear blue sky, its dark green edge cutting a clear divide between heaven and earth.

There was a pleasing view out the eastern window, too, with a single poplar tree growing freely just outside it. A green cicada sat in the poplar, chirping constantly in the bright of day. And with each gust of wind the awkwardly shaped tree seemed to bend, shaking its branches in such a comical way that it was hard for Simmi not to smile.

Even better were the pigeons, which flew back and forth from the little house built for them under the eaves.

Finding herself in such pleasant surroundings, Simmi spent less time thinking about her illness than she did about Ch’asun, so while she sometimes felt bored, she also enjoyed her time there.

Yun Tongsuk visited each day. Sometimes she also visited at night. When she came at night and sat there for a long time with Simmi, it seemed like her clammy stench even crept into Simmi’s dreams. Perhaps because Simmi lay reclined whenever Yun Tongsuk looked over at her, the head girl’s sunken eyes seemed even more hollow. And those feet of hers, thrust over the threshold like that, were so massive and unseemly! The mere sight of her hefty frame turned Simmi’s stomach. Although it never happened during the daytime, whenever Yun Tongsuk came and went late at night, she always managed to startle the pigeons roosting under the eaves. Fluttering up into the air before settling down again, they always seemed genuinely shocked at the sight of her hulky, manlike shadow.

This was why, whenever the pigeons grew restless, Simmi always felt her heart sink, seized by the fear that Yun Tongsuk was on her way in again.

“Is the doctor gone?” asked Ch’asun, slipping into the room shortly after Yun Tongsuk had sat there with Simmi until late into the night. “Doctor” was short for Dr. Jekyll. “She’s gone,” Simmi replied, with a simple nod of her head.

“Why was she here so long?” Ch’asun continued. “And what on earth did she talk to you about for so long? She’s a walking question mark, that one.”

To this, Simmi offered no reply. Suffice it to say she couldn’t bear the thought of telling Ch’asun how Yun Tongsuk had stared at her stupidly with those sunken eyes, suddenly pulled Simmi into her arms, and smothered her cheeks and lips with kisses, as though she were possessed. Simmi had found herself pushing the bull-like Yun Tongsuk away from her, telling her off with the words, “Oh, you filthy thing!” Only then did the older girl’s powerful, imposing body finally recoil, collapsing back into the chair where she’d been seated, before suddenly dashing out of the room. It was all too mortifying to explain to Ch’asun.

“But she does seem to care about you, doesn’t she? I mean, for her to visit you so often …”

Ch’asun seemed particularly curious.

“…”

Even with no response from Simmi, Ch’asun pressed on, “Is she this nice to all the girls in your room?”

“I don’t know,” Simmi replied, thinking it wrong to stay silent.

“Does she ever smile when she’s talking to you?”

“Yeah.”

“Whenever she walks by, there’s always a strange smell in the air. Haven’t you ever noticed, being so close to her?”

“I guess so.”

“You know, I heard how she got the nickname Dr. Jekyll. Apparently, she’s like a totally different person during the day and at night …”

“Oh, come on. How am I supposed to know …?”

Simmi then closed her eyes tightly and covered her face with her arms. Her legs started to tremble. Ch’asun needn’t have said anything for the mere memory of Yun Tongsuk’s disgusting, clammy body to come back to her. Having just experienced such unpleasantness once again, she couldn’t bring herself to answer Ch’asun’s questions.

“Oh, Simmi. What’s the matter?”

Taken aback by this sudden change of demeanor, Ch’asun tried pulling Simmi’s arms away from her face.

Simmi felt as though Ch’asun wasn’t just pulling her arms, but exerting a strong pressure against them, so that her own body and Simmi’s might rub up against each other. Suddenly gone were those unpleasant feelings brought on by Yun Tongsuk—replaced in their stead by a swelling desire for Ch’asun to draw her face even closer, so that it might touch her own. She wanted to feel Ch’asun’s two arms wrapped around her in a tight embrace. Without making a sound, she hoped to remain perfectly still so that Ch’asun could do whatever she wished.

That night Simmi slept together with Ch’asun. When the bedtime bell rang, Ch’asun still hadn’t returned to her own room, and whatever calculations the dorm mistress was making, she gave Ch’asun permission to keep Simmi company. Out of concern for Simmi feeling lonesome, the dorm mistress had been leaving the door separating her room from Simmi’s open, and perhaps she had become tired of this arrangement. Simmi, for her own part, felt her heart racing at the idea of sleeping with Ch’asun. She was not unaware of the passions stirring inside her.

When the final bedtime bell rang, the lights went out. Ch’asun lay down in bed with her and managed to say a few things before drifting off to sleep: a crowded bed must be unpleasant for someone who’s sick … snuggle up close so you don’t fall off the bed … it’s cooler up here and much nicer than downstairs. Simmi, however, failed to fall asleep. Witnessing Ch’asun fall asleep, Simmi thought it coldhearted of her to have drifted off so quickly.

At some point deep into night Simmi noticed a moonbeam, wrestling its way through the trails of morning glories on the southern window, that was now dancing on Ch’asun’s body and face, as though to illuminate the girl for Simmi’s sake. Ch’asun’s face, which was so dark in the light of day, was perfectly white now in the trembling light of the moon. As though afraid of the moonlight, Ch’asun shifted ever so slightly this way and that, until the collar of her blouse came undone, exposing her breasts. For a while Simmi stared at those breasts, which were whiter than Ch’asun’s complexion and swelled up voluptuously—until finally Simmi placed her hand on one of them. She had reached out without thinking, and her hand now would not stay still. It even touched the portion of Cha’sun’s breast that rose up into the air. Nor did her hand stop at simply touching, as the palm of her hand then began to massage the girl’s breast, even squeeze it. Still unsatisfied, Simmi sat up in bed and grabbed Cha’sun’s entire bosom between her two hands, going so far as to squeeze them more and more firmly. Just like last spring, when on one Sunday afternoon in the music room garden she had squeezed those white, nameless flowers, crumpling them to pieces, so too was Simmi now lost in the act of clutching on to Ch’asun’s breasts. Touching them gave her a very similar feeling. Ch’asun had perhaps found this difficult to endure, for she kept adopting the position of someone waking up. And each time she did so, Simmi’s hands froze, though only momentarily, before resuming once again their movements. However long Simmi kept this up, she eventually drifted off to sleep. Back when she was a little girl and had counted stars in the courtyard with her older brothers and sisters—“One star, two stars …”—she used to fall asleep in the same way, without knowing how quickly she had drifted off.

Hereafter, Simmi’s mind was always replete with thoughts of Ch’asun. Once Ch’asun left for school in the morning, how could she bear the wait for her to return when the sun had set? She was bored to tears with the poplar tree and the chirping cicadas, the morning glories and Mount Pugak. She hung her ears in one direction and one direction only—toward the schoolhouse where Ch’asun was presently in class.

It was yet another day just like any other. Not a soul was left in the dorm apart from Simmi, and outside it seemed so horribly hot even the shade cast by the morning glories stood motionless. But as the cicadas in the poplar tree continued chirping—as though to protest the unbearable heat—something flashed across the room. It wasn’t the shadow of a fleeing pigeon, but nor was it likely to be that of man.

“What was that?” wondered Simmi, as the flash came and went once again. For some time after this, all was quiet.

Simmi stood up to look around, but to no avail. Then she moved toward the windowsill where something like a rainbow had fleetingly appeared. She found nothing.

“That’s strange,” she thought, turning around to go back to her chair just as another flash of light appeared and flew behind her. Now it was no longer moving, but stationary, and fixed to a spot on her back. Simmi turned around toward the window. What she had thought was flash of light was now clearly fixed in place. And it had been fixed on her the whole time. When she spun around, the light shot into her face like an arrow. To shield her eyes from the glare Simmi lowered her head. Only then did she realize what the source of this light was. It was the same mirror trick that Simmi had herself often played with her older brother and sister when she was little. She knew now who was playing the trick on her and why.

Simmi peered down where she suspected the light was coming from. And sure enough she was right. It was a group of boys from E Middle School. One student was laughing, another called out to her, another waved a broomstick in the air, while another pounded on his tin dustpan. They all were facing Simmi as they made this racket. The boy using the mirror to reflect the light neither laughed nor made a noise and was entirely focused on aiming the beam. This particular schoolboy had broader shoulders and a more handsome forehead than the others. They seem to have initiated the prank after performing their duties tidying up after class.

“OK, enough already!”

Annoyed by the glare, Simmi closed her eyes and shut the glass doors with a clatter. Given the state of her nerves, these scruffy, sunburned students did little for Simmi but tire her out. Even after she had closed the doors, the intense beam of light coming off the mirror still infiltrated the room, but now with a long tail of sorts, as Simmi closed her eyes and tried to remain still.

The schoolboys didn’t stop their pranks the next day, or even the day after, so Simmi kept the doors on that side of the room firmly closed and had no interest in opening them up to play.

It was Saturday. Because of tennis practice, Ch’asun normally came back later than the other students, but today it was Ch’asun who was first to return, and as soon as she did so, she ran up to Simmi’s room. Thinking it far too early for Ch’asun to return, Simmi was delighted to see her. It felt like a dream.

“It’s so hot up here. Why are all the doors closed?”

As soon as Ch’asun entered the room, she opened up the glass doors. And as soon as she did so, the students from E Middle School across from them started hollering, banging on dustpans, and waving broomsticks in the air—almost as though they had been waiting for someone to open them up. At the very same time, there appeared an intense beam of sunlight with a long tail reflected into the room.

“Hey, what’s that?” asked Cha’sun, pointing at the glaring light.

“Why you do think I closed the doors!”

“But what is it? Are they playing with some sort of mirror?” said Cha’sun, dodging the ray of light herself. “Who on earth is doing it?”

“It’s coming from those boys over at E Middle School. I am sick and tired of them.”

“Really?”

Ch’asun moved directly into the line of fire as she walked toward the window. The schoolboys instantly began hollering and banging on their tin dustpans, while the mirror seemed to move back and forth and round and round in perfect unison with all the racket.

Even lying down on the bed, Simmi knew what was happening. She could hear the noise with her own ears, and see the beam of light with her own eyes.

“Just close the doors.”

It was unclear if Ch’asun heard what Simmi was saying, but she gave no reaction. When Simmi looked over, it seemed as though Ch’asun was looking right at the boys and making faces back at them. She could tell by looking at her from behind.

The intense ray of light kept flashing through the room.

“Hey, I said close the windows …”

“…”

“Did you hear me? Just close them.”

“Wait, what? Oh, OK.”

It took Ch’asun a while to reply, and although she answered Simmi, she continued standing there in place.

Simmi suddenly grew angry. Perhaps it was because she felt worn out by the intense beam of light, but she also hated seeing Ch’asun standing there facing the boys. Before she knew what she was doing, she had stood up, pulled Ch’asun out of the way, and shut the glass doors with a clatter. Ch’asun seemed puzzled. She had never seen Simmi get angry like this before, and it was so strange to see this pitiful girl, frail as a willow leaf, suddenly slam the doors shut with the force of a howling wind.

Once Ch’asun was seated in her chair, Simmi buried herself back in bed, pulling her quilt over her head as though she were dead. Ch’asun sat there for a while, but after glancing several times over at the schoolboys on the other side of the closed doors, she returned to her own room.

After Ch’asun left, Simmi remained under her quilt for some time but then uncovered her face. Sweat trickled down her brow, and steam rose moistly from her body. Next door they were still playing with the mirror …

From her place in bed Simmi squinted as her eyes chased the beam of light, and its long tail, across the room. She got up and threw open the glass doors again. Immediately, the schoolboys hollered with delight, “Yaw, yaw.” There were three of them. Last time there had been five or six boys, but after something of a scuffle three of them were left vying for control of the mirror. How was it that these scruffy, sunburned schoolboys now seemed to her so manly and attractive? And why was it that this boy with the wide forehead and broad shoulders looked so enthralling? Simmi opened her squinting eyes just enough to look out across the yard. Not only because of the blinding beam of light reflected in her direction. She stared out the window for quite some time, following the long trail of the reflected light, until she heard Ch’asun bounding up the staircase. Quickly Simmi shut the doors with a clatter and lay back down on her bed.

“What’s gotten into you, Simmi?” asked Ch’asun, as she strode casually into the room with a smile.

“I’ve just had a headache …”

This was the only answer Simmi could come up with.

“But you feel better now?”

“Yup.”

“Can I put a cold compress on your forehead?”

“No.”

“Can I help you with your nebulizer?”

“No.”

Simmi didn’t want help with anything. There was nothing better than having Ch’asun by her side, but she also hated losing her composure. And it would have been terribly embarrassing to use the nebulizer in front of Ch’asun, sticking her lips onto the steaming tube in front of her. In fact, Simmi had never once asked Ch’asun for help with it. But hadn’t she always enjoyed having Ch’asun give her a cold compress? Ch’asun’s hands not only touched her face when she helped her with a cold compress, the older girl’s entire body hovered over Simmi’s head, almost touching it, which had given Simmi no end of pleasure.

“Can I buy you some ch’apssal mochi?”1

“No.”

All Simmi wanted was for Ch’asun to leave—and to be quick about it. All she could think about was taking another look at the boy with the wide forehead and the broad shoulders once she was left alone.

Ch’asun hadn’t the slightest idea what was on Simmi’s mind. Unsure as to what she should say or do, she wanted only to stay by Simmi’s side a bit longer. That way she, too, would be able to look out at the boys playing with the mirror next door for as long as she wished.

For a while neither of them said anything. The boys next door had likely gone home, and the morning glories shading the southern window only lengthened their shadows, as they undulated now and then in the breeze. Ch’asun sat amid the shadows cast by the flowers. But to Simmi, Ch’asun’s shade-spotted face was repulsive. This was no longer the Ch’asun she remembered from last spring—who had approached her in a white uniform fluttering in the wind, and surrounded by a white cloud of snowflake-like petals. Nor was this the same Ch’asun she’d thought so impossibly beautiful, glowing in the milky white light of the moon only a few nights ago. Her face was now dark and contorted. Whenever the morning glories undulated in the breeze, Ch’asun’s dark, contorted face seemed to her just like Yun Tongsuk’s.

That evening Simmi turned away all her visitors, and even wished that the dorm mistress would now close the three sliding doors she had left open between the two rooms in case Simmi were to get lonely at night. In her quiet, empty room all she wanted to do was to think of the schoolboy with the wide forehead and the broad shoulders.

The next day being Sunday, when the boarding students and even the dorm mistress were off campus, Simmi found herself all alone in the empty dormitory, except for the housekeeper. As she lay down quietly, all she could do was to think the same thoughts that had come to her the previous day. In contrast to the other laughing students, that one schoolboy with the wide forehead and the broad shoulders seemed to her serious and manly, and Simmi could barely contain herself, so strong was her desire to see him again. She left the glass doors open all day long and kept looking out at the spot next door where the boys had all pounced on each other. But on this tedious afternoon, when not a leaf seemed aquiver, all Simmi saw amid the dark trees shading E Middle School was its main lecture hall standing there tall and firm.

1 Now normally 찹살떡 (ch’apssal ttŏk), meaning glutinous rice cakes.

SELECTIONS FROM SPRING

Yi Kiyŏng

This selection includes six episodes from the 1957 North Korean version of Yi Kiyŏng’s novel, which correspond roughly to five daily episodes (nos. 18, 19, 21, 36, and 57) from the novel’s truncated serialization in the East Asia Daily (동아일보; Tonga ilbo) in 1940. As explained further in the introduction, significant deletions and revisions in the North Korean version—mostly related to same-sex love—are indicated here by footnotes, which readers are encouraged to consult for the original lines. Spring is a work of historical fiction set at the turn of the twentieth century.

The Schoolhouse 2

Among those studying at the schoolhouse were several good-looking boys.1 Yu Ch’unhwa, also known as Graduate Yu, had had a taste for beautiful boys for some time now. Once, while living in the village of Kak’oji, studying the classics at Major An’s home, he had apparently caused quite the incident.

Major An’s household had hired a private tutor for the major’s son but, thinking it might be lonely for him to study all alone, had also invited all the children in the extended family to study with him, as well as several other kids in the neighborhood. The household transformed almost overnight into a large schoolhouse. Since Graduate Yu’s sister had married into An’s family, Yu was able to watch over his sister’s son and at the same time read the classics with him.

Then one night there was an incident. It being summertime, Yu Ch’unhwa was lying down beside the beautiful boy whom he fancied. In Major An’s household the reception hall for male guests was an extra-long double room, where Scholar Hyŏn (known as “the professor”) slept on the warmest part of the floor, closest to the furnace. Sleeping next to him was Captain An, a relative from the village, as well as a man they called Uncle Pyŏngsan, who saw fit to impose on Major An’s home for meals. Both men visited the house at night to sleep. Next in position were the school-age kids, and then the married peasants, who came for evening lessons and often slept in the schoolhouse tightly packed together. Yu Ch’unhwa, for his part, had managed to secure a spot next to the elders, close enough to the furnace that it might normally have been reserved for a teacher. It just so happened, however, that Ch’ŏllam, the boy Yu Ch’unhwa fancied, had stealthily switched places in the middle of the night—perhaps finding it cumbersome to sleep next to Yu again—and was lying in the next room over. Unaware of the switch, and still half asleep, Yu Ch’unhwa proceeded to cuddle up to the person now sleeping beside him, thinking he was still the same boy.

All of a sudden Uncle Pyŏngsan—also known as Mister Chŏng—leapt to his feet, shocked out of his senses. He quickly pulled up his underpants. Like a man stung by a bee, he was completely thrown off-kilter. “Oh no … Oh no …” All he could do was repeat these words and click his tongue with abandon.

Mister Chŏng was an elderly man famous for the way he often snorted in disapproval. He’d developed the habit of barking scornfully whenever he was angry, and now, too, he let out a continuous series of snorts and sneers.

As Yu Ch’unhwa came to, and had a moment to reflect more clearly, he soon realized the gravity of his faux pas.

This was a serious breach of etiquette, and he was at a loss as to what he should do. At the same time, it was all just a silly mistake, he mused, and what was done was done after all … Pretending to mumble something in his sleep, Yu Ch’unhwa ground his teeth, stretched out his limbs, flipped onto his other side, and then quickly made the sounds of somebody who was snoring.2

Sitting upright for the remainder of the night, the elderly man, however, had naught but his innocent cigarettes onto which he might unleash his frustration: “Oh, no! Oh, no!” As he snorted with disdain, the men sleeping on either side of him gradually awoke, one or two at a time. Each one seemed to stare at Mister Chŏng with both concern and curiosity.

It was from this moment on that Yu Ch’unhwa refrained from getting too close to beautiful boys.

Even now, though, if one were to line up the schoolboys in a single row, there was one in particular who attracted more attention than the rest. The boy was named Wŏlsŏng. He was the son of a woman who sold wine.

With an oval face and slender build, he dressed with style—in a pink jacket and calico pants. Even the sheen on his faintly soiled clothes helped him cut a rather dashing figure. He also wore a long, thick braid of softly oiled hair hanging down his back. Perhaps it was the embroidered silk ribbon carefully knotted at the end of the braid, or just the way he wore his fitted socks—as slender as cucumber seeds, with the seams lined up just so—but it all made Wŏlsŏng exude the style of those beautiful boys who normally follow groups of traveling performers.

“You’re a handsome lad. What’s your name?” asked Graduate Yu.

“Wŏlsŏng,” the boy replied bashfully, a faint smile rising on his ink-stained lips. He too had come, it seemed, to learn his letters.

“And how old are you?”

“I’m fourteen.”

“Well, at fourteen you’re practically a grown-up.”

“He’s a good-looking one, isn’t he? But I tell you, I brought him into town a while back, and these looks of his caused us nothing but trouble. Everyone we met on the main street grabbed on to the boy and started harassing us.”3

Teacher Chŏn had taken it on himself to respond to Graduate Yu’s interest, as he smiled at Wŏlsŏng.

“Well, no wonder. The boy’s just too handsome. Haha!” cried Graduate Yu with a smile, as he looked at Teacher Chŏn sitting across from him. At this, Wŏlsŏng blushed an even deeper shade of red. But the boy felt quite proud inside, secretly pleased to hear the men express admiration for him.

The Schoolhouse 3

“Prepare a tray of wine, my dear.”

When Graduate Yu had first entered their home, Teacher Chŏn called out to his wife, who’d quickly fled into the kitchen, asking her to bring out some alcohol for his guest.

“Alright. The rest of you, you go outside and play! Mister Graduate, I can hardly hold down a cup myself, but I understand that you enjoy wine …?”

As a wave of children made their way outside the schoolhouse, the sound of bottles could be heard clanking in the kitchen. The hostess seemed ready to send out some wine.

Perched atop a persimmon tree within the household walls a group of magpies let out several piercing cries—Kaw! Kaw!

A moment or two later a tray of wine was carried in. Graduate Yu could have hardly expected Wŏlsŏng himself to carry the tray. Beyond surprised, he could barely restrain his pleasure. Teacher Chŏn, to be sure, had a perceptive wife, who knew exactly how to satisfy Graduate Yu’s appetite.

“Alright, now set it down right here. And serve us some.”

Teacher Chŏn smiled meaningfully at Wŏlsŏng as he spoke.4

Having grown up in a house that sold wine, Wŏlsŏng was clearly an expert in such situations. He had already knelt down onto the floor and politely picked up the kettle with his right hand. Using his left hand to help achieve proper form, he then filled the guest’s cup with a single stream of wine that was even pleasing to the ears.

After sending Wŏlsŏng inside with the tray, the teacher’s wife had remained quite curious. Peering through the crack in the door, she feared the boy might be clumsy with the kettle and thus stain her own good reputation. But as she watched Wŏlsŏng expertly pour out the wine—with all the grace and decorum of a woman—she found herself surprised, even dumbfounded. The boy had indeed learned from his mother how to pour a proper cup!

While Teacher Chŏn was a meticulous man, the good lady of the household was more reckless. She had the unfortunate habit of singing her own praises, while finding fault in others. But now her jaw had practically dropped to the floor, and she was desperate to shower Wŏlsŏng with compliments once he’d made his way back outside.

“Mister Graduate, do please drink up.”

“I will!”

Graduate Yu finished the cup of wine and placed it back on the tray.

“May I ask you, sir, about this splendid tray?” he ventured, examining the article closely. Slightly elongated, and with a beautiful sheen, the tray was, to be sure, not Naju lacquerware. But Graduate Yu had never seen anything like it before and couldn’t quite place its provenance.

“Yes, the odds are against coming across a tray like this in Seoul.”

Teacher Chŏn smiled with an air of self-satisfaction. He gulped down only slightly more than half his cup.

“Do please drink up, sir!”

“I couldn’t possibly, Mister Graduate! I will concede, however, that this tray is handmade.”

Skillfully shifting the conversation, Teacher Chŏn had the cup refilled for his guest. The side dishes served on the tray included dried pollack with chili paste, poached chicken eggs, and raw snail salad with wild lettuce root and chili paste. The dishes had been gifts to the teacher from his students.

“This tray was made here, in your own household? Well, by whom …?” asked Graduate Yu, staring wide-eyed at the serving tray.

“Well, actually, I made it myself. The whole piece is constructed out of rope,” he replied. He smiled broadly with an expression of self-satisfaction.

“Out of rope?” repeated Graduate Yu, with even greater surprise. He scrutinized the tray carefully to confirm this added detail. Sure enough, beneath the thin layer of color that gave the lacquer its sheen were the traces of a braided rope.

Graduate Yu found himself astounded by Teacher Chŏn’s ability.

“But this was many, many years ago—back when I was dispatched to work as a personal secretary for an official moving to a certain town in South Chŏlla Province. You see, I found myself so bored on the job that I made this simply to kill a bit of time. I created one of each actually, this liquor tray here as well as a matching dinner tray.”

Teacher Chŏn again smiled with pride as he offered his explanation. Never failing to mention his work as a secretary, he also bragged about this rope tray to anyone he met. He now turned to Wŏlsŏng, who was waiting to fill the next empty cup.

“Go and ask for the large tray, and bring it inside for me.”

Graduate Yu picked up the cup that had been offered to him, now overcome with admiration.

“You have a matching one, even larger than this? It must be quite the treasure.”

Wŏlsŏng left the room and came back with a similar dinner tray. The rectangular piece had a raised edge just like any other tray, but each of the legs emerged from the same midpoint, which made it unique. With an auspicious Buddhist wanja symbol on each leg, it was as handsome as any piece of Naju lacquerware.

“My heavens, sir, your talents are formidable. If you ever find the time, you simply must make another,” said Graduate Yu, offering his host more words of encouragement.

“Oh, my eyesight is so bad now I can hardly see anything these days. And my hands are far too weak.”

Rubbing his hands together, Teacher Chŏn let out a sigh of deep feeling.

The Schoolhouse 5

Several days later, on his way to his mother’s natal home, Yŏngjun, the young master of Major An’s household, dropped by the schoolhouse in the lower village for a bit of fun.

He was dressed from head to foot in silk, which was enough in itself to captivate the Pangkkaeul villagers. But Yŏngjun also brought with him a slingshot, giving the children—never mind the birds—quite a surprise.

After hunting for mountain birds with Ch’un’gwang, Yŏngjun had eaten lunch and then walked with Sŏngnim to the lower village. Too embarrassed to appear in front of Teacher Chŏn, Ch’un’gwang had made his excuses, declining the offer to enter the schoolhouse with the others.

Learning that Yŏngjun was the son of Major An, the schoolchildren stared at him with wonder. It just so happened that Teacher Chŏn had had an errand in town that day and wasn’t home when Yŏngjun dropped by. The children had been left to their own devices, playing games and horsing around as they pleased. And all was well so long as they curried favor with the teacher’s wife, who often asked them to perform household chores.

It goes without saying that an unexpected visit by Major An’s son roused the spirits of the schoolchildren. They decided to break up into teams to play koŭlmotum, a word game used to practice Chinese characters.

As soon as Yŏngjun, Major An’s son, set his eyes on Wŏlsŏng, however, he was determined to keep the boy company.5 He made a point of sitting beside the boy and began pestering him. Wŏlsŏng, however, had had plenty of experience with this sort of attention. He was unflinching.6 While a shy boy might have whimpered and tried to run away,7 Wŏlsŏng felt no embarrassment whatsoever and confidently held his own in conversation. He was all smiles with Yŏngjun8 and affectionately stayed in very close proximity to him.

Wŏlsŏng, after all, wanted to become close with Yŏngjun.9 Yŏngjun not only wore nice clothes, but as the son of Major An he was essentially a local celebrity. Quite the handsome young man, as well, Yŏngjun had a noble character that was apparent to anyone who met him.

Knowing that Yŏngjun did not have an eye for any of the other boys and that he alone was the object of Yŏngjun’s affections, Wŏlsŏng for his part was delighted. One might even say that Wŏlsŏng wanted the others to know how much he was worth.10

Witnessing this behavior for the first time, Sŏngnim was less entertained than he was embarrassed, though he kept these thoughts to himself.11 Stepping outside the schoolhouse, he found the children mocking the pair with hand-clapping games, but he pretended not to hear them and didn’t call them out. He was simply too embarrassed.12

Yŏngjun then made eyes at the kids to leave them alone. They were now marveling at the bird slingshot he’d left outside the front door, so he said, “Hey, kids. If you’re up for some shooting, just take the slingshot and go catch some birds.”

The boys all assembled around the slingshot with excitement. “Let’s go!” they shouted. One of the headstrong kids grabbed the weapon and started walking off with it, followed by the clamorous horde. Their leader was a boy named Such’ŏn, the oldest and boldest among them. He’d long resented how Wŏlsŏng refused to listen to him. “He’s in a pretty pickle now, isn’t he? Well, it serves him right!” he thought triumphantly. The last to step outside the schoolhouse, the boy smiled to himself as he closed the door tightly behind him.13

After some time, and with the doors swung wide-open again, Wŏlsŏng found himself smoking a Hero cigarette14 and staring into a small mirror with a decorative red cover that Yŏngjun had given him. The sight of them sitting there so civilly was almost as comical as it was unexpected—and in stark contrast to the pair’s earlier behavior. The other boys couldn’t help but snicker.

“Oh, Wŏlsŏng, what happened to your nose? It’s so shiny all of a sudden.”

“Yeah, I wonder why …?”

Wŏlsŏng remained seated while his classmates mocked him, even as the color rose to his cheeks. But when he stuck a cigarette in his mouth and headed outside, several of the boys ran up to him.

“Hey, just give me a puff. Just one puff.”

“Me too. Me too …”

They all surrounded Wŏlsŏng, trying to collect whatever fragments from his smoldering cigarette they could manage, and wrapping them up again in fresh paper. They also started up another round of hand clapping, causing quite the commotion.

Namsul’s Wife 6

Unaware of what his wife was up to, Namsul was with his friends over at the Nettle Tree Gazebo, near the upper village. Several men his age were joking around and showing off to each other.

Namsul tied an A-frame cord around his waist and with a powerful tug tore it into pieces. Beside him, Im Chŏmji was weaving a pair of straw sandals, while Pang Chŏmji was busy twisting together another cord of rope.

One autumn, after dividing up a batch of tofu and then pooling their money for a round of drinks, Kyŏngch’un and he had gone head-to-head in an eating contest. In the first round each man had to eat ten blocks of bean curd. But the two men proved to be such superior chowhounds that neither one of them could be outdone. Since Namsul and Kyŏngch’un were both undaunted by the task of devouring such quantities, the competition was deemed a tie when they ran out of tofu to eat.

But then they switched to dried pollack—with the caveats that neither one would be allowed to use his hands and that both would have to eat the fish head first.

What a sight it was to see these two men—like dogs gnawing bones—trying to bite off pieces of the pollack heads! Kyŏngch’un’s eyes flashed wide open as he tried to crush the pollack bones with his molars. Some wicked pranksters had selected the biggest fish they could find, which were also as tough as firewood. It was no easy feat to swallow the dried fish whole.

Gulping down bones near impossible to chew, Kyŏngch’un had closed his eyes and tried as best he could to swallow, burping all the while as the pollack bones pricked the inside of his cheeks.15 Unable to finish even half his fish, Kyŏngch’un was forced to concede.

Namsul, however, had a mouth as wide as a catfish, which allowed him to freely exercise his jaw on the huge heads of dried pollack once he managed to insert them into his mouth. Namsul was also a man of unparalleled strength when it came to his choppers. Like a mouse he had a full row of small, inturned teeth, which were strong enough to chomp through iron. Word had it, with such powerful incisors he could pick up a stone mortar and toss it over his head.

Perhaps it was simply his confidence that helped Namsul gobble down the dried pollack so quickly. He sucked the first fish into his mouth like a snake might snap a frog into its jaws—but with the added flourish of bones being crushed.

The spectators found it astounding that Namsul could pick up each dried pollack using his mouth—no hands being allowed—and yet still manage to do so little damage to his lips or tongue.

“Is this guy human, or a cow reincarnated?”

Namsul truly surprised his friends.

As darkness fell, the old people and little children went inside for the night, but the younger men lay down, here and there, on straw mats.

Ch’un’gwang also joined in on the fun. And Nam Sŏbang chose Sangnyong as a beautiful boy to lie down with for a while. There was no one in the village who didn’t know the two were fond of each other. Even Sangnyong’s family knew what was going on.

On holidays Nam Sŏbang would give Sangnyong a belt or a pouch to hang at his waist and would have him comb his own hair back quite handsomely. He bought Sangnyong delicious foods to eat and tended to him generously.

Nam Sŏbang’s wife found her husband’s behavior funny but also frustrating. If she had ever found him with a real mistress, feathers surely would have flown. But as the situation wasn’t quite the same, she kept her feelings bottled up and found herself upset largely because she was now forced to play second fiddle.

The fact that her husband was going crazy with namsaek16—rather than falling for a normal girl—did cause her a good deal of embarrassment.

Once, when she broached the subject with the other wives in the neighborhood, criticizing her husband’s behavior as perverse,17 as she was often inclined to do, one of the women offered the following reply. It was unclear if she was being sincere or making Nam Sŏbang’s wife the butt of a joke.

“Well, look honey, some folks prefer porridge even when rice is served at the table, ain’t that true? We’ve all got our favorites. Why get so worked up about it?”

The woman was famously all smiles, and she cackled with glee as she spoke.

“Well, she’s one to talk!” thought Nam Sŏbang’s wife, fuming that this woman had taken her husband’s side.

“Who would want to eat porridge when rice is already on the table?” she said, flying into a rage. “I’m stuck with this scoundrel forever!”18

Exhausted after all their playing, the men chatted for a while before lying down again. But under the bright light of the moon no one fell asleep straight away. Kyŏngch’un struck up a song:

“Look up at the rain cloud nearing Kalmi Peak. We’ll have to wear raincoats when we head out to weed. Hey—hey—.”

Once Kyŏngch’un had slapped his thigh and begun drawing out his voice, Namsul took over.19

The crystal clear words of Namsul’s tune echoed through the tranquil, moonlit night.

The Gold Mine 2

The unexpected discovery of gold in Pangkkaeul met with new times and favorable conditions for the circulation of money. There were merchants, of course, who had direct or indirect business with the gold mines, but the number of people with odd jobs that paid in cash also increased day by day.

There was also easy money to be made in the village where Sŏngnim lived, at least for those who could offer miners their services. Besides all the food vendors, who served the miners boarding locally, others also sold their labor by taking in laundry or doing needlework.

The tavern in the low-lying area of the village couldn’t possibly accommodate all the miners, so many had to stay in farmers’ homes throughout the village. Even in summer these workers could afford to eat white rice instead of barley, and the homeowners who offered them room and board still made a pretty penny preparing them such expensive rice.

The mining subcontractors spent a lot of money.

On market days during the high season the subcontractors used money instead of gold. Their first purchase would be a new set of clothes, but then they would pay visits to makeshift bars and gambling dens.

Kuksil’s family housed three miners. Nam Sŏbang and Ch’isŏn, too, lived together with other colleagues from the pit.

In addition to local laborers, the region had such an influx of miners that what once were simple mountain villages suddenly transformed, almost overnight, into very different environments.

As the gold pit gradually increased in size, the operations extended all the way to the old schoolhouse. Children who passed by the mine on their way to learn letters were constantly harassed by the miners, so they did what they could to stay away come nighttime. Wŏlsŏng had already decided to pair up with a worker who was boarding in his house, but even before this he’d had his fair share of luxuries and was accustomed to buying his own Hero cigarettes. As a matter of fact, the unnatural practice of namsaek was an evil custom related to the practice of early marriage. Along with the keeping of concubines, it reeked of the corrupt morality of a feudal system.20

Young women, too, began to fool around with these workers who’d become such spendthrifts. Some miners even went into neighboring villages and tied up widows, while others pretended to be drunk in order to enter the women’s quarters in houses nearby. Eventually they’d be driven out of the village after facing the families’ wrath.

Under these conditions, the taverns in the village became sites of riotous partying, serving alcohol day and night. Even the school-age children adopted the workers’ new habits.21 Even the way they talked now resembled the language of the miners. One night at the schoolhouse, as everyone was reading their letters, Such’ŏn started chanting, “The truth lies not in Mencius and Confucius but can be found in poker and dominoes!” When the teacher finally caught the boy, he paid the steep price of a sturdy stick to his shins.

Whenever gold emerged in good measure from a pit, parties were planned and workers treated to food, even outside regular mealtimes. The owners might slaughter a cow or a pig or even hold a friendly tournament. When they truly wanted to curry favor with their contacts, however, they’d call in “acrobats” and “entertainers,” play traditional music, and string up a tightrope.

That year the tavern became a place of raucous celebrations all summer.

Whenever a major wrestling match was held, the first-place winner would receive not only a medal but also a calf. The wrestling ring was set up in the courtyard in front of the forge, where metal poles were erected. The competition would begin with the kids’ matches, move on to the middle-weight category, and then finally progress to the first division. Whenever Namsul appeared in the ring, of course, he always came out on top. But mine workers also flocked to the ring. And at larger matches the crowds went wild. Whenever a winner was declared, they shouted with praise. When the crowds encroached on the wrestling ring, the head referee had to wave around a bug net to push the crowd back.

Both the village elders and mine subcontractors sat right around the ring’s edge in the seats of honor, reserved for judges.

Local musical troupes also joined in on the fun at such matches, adding a rhythmic beat to the excitement. Gong beaters would attach rotating streamers to their bamboo hats, singing their tunes as they twirled their spinning hats. Then the dancing boys would weave their way between the musicians, as they too began their spirited show.

The boys would mount each other’s shoulders, two, even three at a time. By the time four or five had climbed up onto each other’s shoulders, the audience members would again shout wildly.

“I have money for the temple!” came the shout from all directions.

Dressed in blue soldier uniforms and wearing long braids tied with silk ribbons, the dancing boys then pranced about, gravitating toward the shouting voices.

“Money for the temple!”

Each shouting worker held a coin between his lips. The dancing boys would run up to each worker and jump into his arms. Pressing their lips against those of the workers, the boys would thus collect their coins. After mirthfully removing each spittle-drenched coin from their mouths, they’d start dancing all over again, until they found another donor. They repeated this over and over.

Later in the evening the dancing boys were called on by every one of the mining subcontractors.

Purring and playing flirtatiously, just like female entertainers, they drew on every means at their disposal to get the job done. The boys made sure that each man they took away with them gave up every last coin in his pouches and pockets.22

1 The colonial version adds, “with the makings of a fine boy lover.”

2 The following lines are deleted in the North Korean version: “Meanwhile, the victim of this dreadful violation had no way of knowing Yu Ch’unhwa’s true intentions. It had been such a frightful shock to his constitution, Mr. Chŏng could hardly bring himself to verbalize what had only moments ago transpired. The exasperated man continued to let out a series of snorts and half-formed words …”

3 The following line is deleted in the North Korean version: “Hahaha … I can’t send him anywhere by himself, even in my own household.”

4 The following lines are deleted in the North Korean version: “Graduate Yu had hoped to ask Wŏlsŏng to pour him some wine before the boy tried to leave. But Teacher Chŏn had beat him to it, and was so thoughtful when it came to what might bring his guest pleasure that Graduate Yu was entirely caught up by his hospitality. Sure enough, the wine Wŏlsŏng poured tasted far sweeter than wine served by an ordinary girl.”

5 The original ending of this line reads: “he fell for Wŏlsŏng the instant he set eyes on him.”

6 The original version reads: “He was as unflinching as his reputation for being a beautiful boy.”

7 The original phrase adds: “and tried to shake off his [pursuer’s] hand.”

8 The original line begins: “He wasn’t especially reserved with Yŏngjun and kept smiling at him.”

9 This line in the North Korean version replaces two lines from the original version: “As a consequence, Yŏngjun fell for the boy even harder. The likely reason Wŏlsŏng had initially resisted Yŏngjun was that he actually liked him.”

10 The following lines are deleted in the North Korean version: “After exchanging a few more words with him, Yŏngjun took Wŏlsŏng into his arms. The other boys all stared at them and started giggling. Boiling with curiosity now, they blushed deeply, smiling at each other with astonishment and shame.”

11 This line ends differently in the original version: “was embarrassed, unbearably so.” The following line is also deleted: “He considered Yŏngjun an older brother and couldn’t simply laugh this off as the private affair of some stranger.”

12 The following paragraph is deleted in the North Korean version: “Yŏngjun’s whole body was flushed now, and the young man importuned Wŏlsŏng in the strongest of terms. To persuade the boy, he removed from his vest pocket a number of small items: a jackknife, a mustache comb, a hand mirror, a zinc matchbox, even a set of silver tweezers—with ear swab and toothpick attached—and then, finally, a pack of cigarettes! Wŏlsŏng felt awkward just sitting there but finally reached inside Yŏngjun’s pocket for himself. He emptied it and looked through everything that was still inside.”

13 The following lines are deleted in the North Korean version: “The room suddenly grew dark. Since the doors dividing the two sides of the schoolroom were closed now, no one else was able to see inside. ‘Stop it!’ cried Wŏlsŏng. ‘It’s broad daylight outside.’ Now that Yŏngjun had climbed on top of him, such were the words with which Wŏlsŏng resisted Yŏngjun’s advances. In truth, however, Wŏlsŏng’s body hardly resisted at all.”

14 A Japanese brand.

15 The North Korean version deletes the clause, “[H]is mouth filled with blood, just like a cat with a mouse caught in its jaws.”

16 The original text uses the phrase “그 짓에” (“this act” or “this behavior”; Yi Kiyŏng, Pom, Tonga ilbo, 16 July 1940, 7), but here the North Korean version introduces the term “남색” (“namsaek”), a traditional word that was used throughout the Sinosphere to mean male sexual desire for men and that by the twentieth century had come to hold a pejorative connotation.

17 Perverse (변태; pyŏnt’ae) is a sexological term that entered Korean discourse in the early 1920s so was unlikely to have circulated in villages at the turn of the twentieth century, when this novel is set.

18 The following lines are deleted in the North Korean version: “The truth, however, was that Nam Sŏbang was hardly alone in his behavior. Most of the young men in the village ‘paired up’ with each other for fun.”

19 The following lines of Namsul’s reply are deleted in the North Korean version: “Hey—hey—. Look what that young man is doing. Meeting his lover, it seems. What’s going on over there? ‘Use your tongue,’ he says, tenderly pulling at his lover’s slender waist.”

20 The previous two lines were added in the North Korean version and replace a single line in the original version: “One villager had already fallen for Wŏlsŏng’s neat and clean appearance and managed to lure the boy away, leading to a nasty knifing incident.”

21 The following line is deleted in the North Korean version: “In the case of kids who paired up with workers, this goes without saying.” “Paired up” (“짝패”) implies a sexual relationship.

22 The North Korean version deletes the final clause, “as they practiced their trade all through the night.”

DEAR SISTER, I’M OFF TO THE MOON

Kim Sunyŏng

First published in the magazine New Women (신여성; Sin yŏsŏng) in June 1933, with the subtitle “The Mind of an Adolescent Girl.”

Dear Sister S!1

It’s evening now. The plaintive cry of birds going hoo-hoo is echoing through the misty, moonlit night. I lay myself down in bed hoping to fall asleep, but a peaceful rest eludes me.

Dear Sister S!

Dear Sister S, you once shared with me the tale of Romeo and Juliet, did you not? I still envy how the two loved each other, wandering through the hills hand in hand. It’s ever so poetic. Casting aside all their worldly worries and desires and singing, arm in arm, throughout the spring night! Oh, how I envy them. Will I ever experience such happiness?

Dear Sister S!

How can I begin to tell you how lonely I am and how much I miss you? How much I desire to embrace you tightly in my arms, my dear sister, and take your breath away with my kisses. How are you biding the time, dear sister? Surely you are not writing down the patterns of your heart, as I am writing down those of mine? But instead, perhaps you are reading an interesting novel? My sister, I can barely hold myself back from running off to see you right now.

Dear Sister S!

How much lonelier the world would be without your love. And yet, you think of me as but a child, do you not? rather than as your Juliet? Oh, how I wish I were your Juliet! Romeo and Juliet—I envy them so!

Dear Sister S!

If I had my way, I would fly away with you into that far, far-off sky, to the female world of fairies. Hand in hand with you alone, dear sister! But can you even understand these wretched feelings pulsing through my heart? Please read this letter and think of how lovable I am, how lonely my heart is just thinking about you.

Dear Sister S!

Please show me your affection. Please give me your love. It is so difficult to put these feelings into words. I have failed to sleep all night long and have only just set my mind to writing this letter.

Dear Sister S!

Oh, please embrace me tightly. Please take me with you wherever you go. I shall not go anywhere without you by my side: to the theater, the department store, the public park, or the homes of your friends. Oh, you must take me wherever you go, dear sister! Please, oh, please, allow me to go with you! Please permit it!

Some time ago you called me immature and reckless. It may well be that I am immature. But I have abandoned all shame, and forgotten what it means to feel disgraced. I am now utterly captivated by one thing and one thing alone, my dear sister: your beautiful face! You must take me wherever you go, just as an older sister ought to. You must not ignore me any longer.

Dear sister! Please call me your “little sister.” Please think of me as your little sibling so that you’ll love me even more.

I know I am still a child. And I imagine you must be annoyed listening to someone pester you like this. But if I had never met you, I’m not sure what ever would have become of me. Oh, dear sister, why will you never reply to my letters …

Such were the words that Yŏng penned in her ten-page epistle. Still unfinished, it lay on the floor beside her as she soundly slept.

The faint sound of her breath was more rhythmic than the ticking of the clock, her bosom undulating with each breath she took.

Was she not dreaming sweet dreams of S, her imaginary lover? Was she not strolling now with S through a garden filled with lilacs in full bloom? Is that not a smile drifting even now onto her sleepy lips?

An adolescent girl!

At that age of bashful feelings and confusing smiles. That age when yearnings seep into a girl’s glistening eyes, when feelings of love and adoration race through her heart.

Her lips unable to release those thoughts burning in her breast, she bashfully smiles without a word and then lowers her head.

The heartbroken cries of Yŏng’s youthful scribblings will most likely never reach the hands of her beloved S. Surely, they will vanish softly into a puff of smoke, as the flame of a flickering candle consumes them.

Sweet sixteen—oh, those teenage dreams. Yearnings and reveries etched with sentimental feelings and sprinkled, for the first time, into the hearts of sleeping girls.

1 The letter S was used by Japanese and Korean schoolgirls in the early twentieth century to refer to same-sex female intimacies and has been read as an abbreviation for the English words sister and sex. To this abbreviation, the female narrator in the original appends the suffix “언니,” meaning older sister or older female friend.

YUN KWANGHO

Yi Kwangsu

First published in the journal Youth (청춘; Ch’ŏngch’un) in April 1918.

Yun Kwangho was a sophomore in the Department of Economics at K University in Tokyo. When in September of this year he received a scholarship from the school, he all but danced up and down with joy. The newspapers printed his photograph and a brief history of all his accomplishments. The study-abroad community loved him as well and showered him with sincere praise for bringing such a great honor to its members. Back in his homeland his mother had little idea what the word scholarship even meant, but she was delighted to learn he had passed something that she assumed was akin to the civil service examination. Yun Kwangho was inspired to study even harder now, and determined to stay in Tokyo for several more years after graduating from college, to continue his research and become the first Korean with a PhD. Even over winter vacation Kwangho kept studying in the library without taking much of a break.

“You should really rest for a bit,” his friends kindly warned him. “If you study too hard, you might fall ill.” Sure enough, in recent weeks Kwangho’s appearance had become decidedly haggard. As winter approached, he himself could tell. Staring into the mirror at a gaunt face brought on by this passion for learning, Kwangho even felt proud of his appearance and smiled. With praise coming from all corners of the foreign student community, he couldn’t help but reflect on his past and on the events that had come to pass some thirteen or fourteen years earlier. After losing his father, his mother had remarried, leaving Kwangho all alone in the world and fending for himself, first as an errand boy for a Japanese family, then as a servant in a noodle shop. His fate was to be a wretched one—that of a low-class laborer, without a family, or anyone else, to turn to. If his circumstances had not changed, he would still—at the age of twenty-four—likely be stooped over in the kitchen of a noodle shop, dressed in a greasy, tattered smock, and left to ponder what would have likely been a bleak future. And yet today here he was, an undergraduate at a top-notch university in Tokyo. He had found himself a clean room in a boarding house with proper maids and manservants to attend him, and he was living a comfortable, high-minded life no different from that of any blue-blooded gentleman. His life was, moreover, one filled with boundless hope for the future that lay before him. Of all the foreign students living in Tokyo, he was among the very few who had progressed to the highest level. Within the course of but a few short years he might easily make his way into the highest ranks of Koreans. When Kwangho compared his present life with that of his childhood, he could of course hardly restrain himself from smiling with glee.

This smile, however, belied the fact that something was missing in the depths of Kwangho’s soul, something dark and cavernous that to Kwangho seemed impossible to fill. Each time he peered with his own eyes into the emptiness inside him, he felt a sorrow, a desolation, that was difficult to describe. He also knew how impossible it would be to remedy this hollowness on his own. In truth, only another human being could fill it, though it was still unclear to him who exactly that human being might be.

Whenever Kwangho found himself alone sitting at home or lying down in a cold room—or even during his twenty-minute walk to school—he seemed especially sensitive to this elusive loneliness and sorrow buried inside him. His mind would fix itself on thoughts of friends—or even strangers walking on the streets—and indeed whenever his eye caught sight of a schoolgirl sitting before him on the streetcar, decked out in a bright pink skirt, or whenever he found himself before a well-dressed teen with ruddy cheeks, the feeling that pulsed naturally through his heart proved intoxicating. Filled with a sense of utter delight, he would stare at their faces, their bodies, their clothes, almost mindlessly. At times he was so enraptured he would almost miss his stop—and suddenly have to jump up and dash out of the streetcar. Once he had entertained such lovely dreams, however, the emptiness in his soul seemed all the more vivid, bringing on once again feelings of loneliness and sorrow.

Sometimes Kwangho sat in his classroom staring down blankly at his desk, without the power to pay heed to the teacher’s lecture. Only when the school bell rang would he realize he’d been sitting in a classroom.

Within two or three months, living under these conditions, the joy that Kwangho once felt upon receiving his scholarship had all but ceased to exist; and the loneliness and sorrow in his heart deepened. He had always been an extremely cheerful, garrulous person, but in recent months he’d gradually become reticent, even gloomy—so much so that he now shunned all contact and conversation with other people. At night when he put himself to bed, it took him hours to fall asleep. He began to neglect his foreign language studies, as well, and often sat there mindlessly staring into space. His friends did not fail to notice Kwangho’s transformation; they worried about him and wondered what might have brought about these changes. Some believed that Kwangho had become haughty and aloof after being nominated as a scholarship student, while others who loved him feared Kwangho was suffering from a case of nervous exhaustion, having studied far too hard. At first several friends tried to offer him their counsel, but in recent weeks fewer people came by to visit him. Kwangho often found himself alone in his sunlit bedroom, restlessly standing up and sitting down again, often letting out a deep sigh.

There was only one person who understood Kwangho’s state of mind: an older classmate of his who had fallen back a few years, but with whom Kwangho still enjoyed something of an junior-elder relationship. This was the only person for whom Kwangho felt true affection as a close friend, a friend who loved Kwangho, too, as a true younger brother. The man’s name was Kim Chunwŏn; he was a graduate student, also at K University, where he was now specializing in biological research. Whenever Kwangho felt that his mind was plagued with anguish or unease, he never missed the chance to pay Chunwŏn a visit and bare his soul to Chunwŏn for hours on end. Chunwŏn truly sympathized with Kwangho and tried to encourage him in different ways. These conversations with Chunwŏn helped free Kwangho from his melancholic frustrations; Kwangho invariably returned to his lodging filled with a sort of happiness, even exhilaration. In truth, Kwangho had for the last six or seven years managed to survive only by the grace of Chunwŏn. Not only had Chunwŏn done everything he possibly could to support Kwangho materially, he had always offered him comfort and happiness, even hope for the future on a more spiritual level. It was precisely because Kwangho had Chunwŏn’s support that he felt confident enough to go out into the world. Chunwŏn also believed that Kwangho knew him better than anyone else did, and he loved Kwangho all the more, knowing that Kwangho, too, loved him more than any other did. Of late, however, Chunwŏn had begun to see a marked difference between Kwangho and himself in terms of mental fortitude, and Chunwŏn realized that he himself possessed something that Kwangho would likely never be able to comprehend. For this reason, Chunwŏn began to see Kwangho more like a junior colleague, though there was no real change in the love he held for his dear friend, the likes of whom were so rare.

As the nature of that emptiness growing in his heart grew more visible, however, and as his loneliness deepened day by day, Kwangho began to spit out words of the vilest sort to Chunwŏn, despite all the time they spent together. No matter how much he listened to Chunwŏn’s advice, it now served less to comfort Kwangho, as it had in the past, than it did to exacerbate his suffering. Kwangho finally came to realize that his conversations with Chunwŏn were no longer helpful and that the faith he’d held in his friend’s love and support was not unshakable. There had once been a time when everything Chunwŏn said to him seemed to penetrate his liver and lungs, as though Chunwŏn’s words aligned perfectly with his own innermost feelings. But now Chunwŏn made points that Kwangho couldn’t accept, and Chunwŏn’s efforts to comfort and encourage Kwangho came off as half-hearted. Nor was Chunwŏn unaware that Kwangho was unmoved by what he had to tell him. Judging from his own experience, Chunwŏn had a fair sense of what might be the cause of Kwangho’s transformation. Once, Kwangho went so far as to passionately express his objection to Chunwŏn’s advice. Since he had never witnessed Kwangho protest his counsel, Chunwŏn experienced Kwangho’s violent disapproval with astonishment, even displeasure. “Well, look at that,” he chuckled. “Even you, developing a ‘personality’ …” After this, Chunwŏn stopped speaking much to Kwangho, who didn’t fail to notice that Chunwŏn was giving him the cold shoulder. Kwangho, for his part, did feel somewhat remorseful that Chunwŏn had been angered by his own overreaction.

From that point onward Kwangho stopped visiting Chunwŏn so frequently, and Chunwŏn, too, was no longer especially interested in seeing Kwangho. For Chunwŏn it was as though he had lost a beloved sister or daughter to a new husband, to whom the core of her affections had now shifted. The emotions running through him were akin to the discord and distastefulness that would have arisen in watching such a young woman wield a spirit of independence and defiance upon freeing herself from him. Although Chunwŏn had occupied a special place in his heart until just the other day, Kwangho was now convinced that Chunwŏn had utterly betrayed him—as though he had run off into the embrace of another. Kwangho soon came to sense that his feelings of affection for Chunwŏn had weakened, and he found Chunwŏn’s indifference toward him distasteful. The distance between Kwangho and Chunwŏn thus grew gradually, leading Kwangho to become more and more lonesome.

The pleasure of stealing glances at all the beautiful boys and girls around Kwangho on the streetcar was his sole consolation, and he made a point of riding the streetcar during the busiest commuting hours in the morning and at night. It didn’t take long, however, for him to lose all satisfaction in simply looking at the faces, bodies, and clothes of these beautiful people. Only when someone actually sat down beside him on the streetcar, and he could feel the warmth of a body pass through to him, would he feel satisfied; only when, in an overcrowded car, his hand rubbed up against the warm, white hand of a girl, would it give him sufficient pleasure. For this reason, whenever the streetcar made a turn, he purposefully leaned his body into any girl standing beside him and moved his leg unnecessarily closer to her in an effort to savor her warm flesh.

Once, Kwangho was on a streetcar when all of a sudden it stopped and stood in place for a while with the main lights extinguished. All that remained on were tiny battery-operated bulbs. Eyeing the schoolgirl sitting next to him, Kwangho loathed those tiny lights. At times like these his heart trembled. All he could see—from morning to night, even in his dreams—were beautiful boys and girls. All he could see were beautiful boys and girls passing back and forth endlessly before him, whose faces he had never seen before, whose names he did not know. The illusion had him repeating the words “I love you” over and over, embracing each of them, and kissing them on the lips. Because of this, the life Kwangho lived now was little more than a dream, indeed little more than an illusion. He tried his best to study. He tried his best to retain his scholarship for the following year. But the words written in his books simply failed to reach his eyes—each letter on his desk transformed into a beautiful boy or girl, each with a hand held out to him and a lovely smile.

Notwithstanding his love for humanity, his love for his people, his love for his friends, Kwangho now found himself vaguely dissatisfied with his earlier craving for little else than honor and success. Now he only wanted to hold someone, and to be held. Lukewarm, abstract love—this would no longer suffice. What he needed now was a love that was physical and hot. Only a love of this sort could sufficiently fill the emptiness inside of him, could possibly console the loneliness and sorrow that were etched into his soul. Kwangho had attained this level of self-understanding only recently. Through the streets of Tokyo swarmed millions of human beings, and across the deep blue sky sparkled myriad stars at night. And yet, Kwangho hadn’t a single companion among them. It was as though a frigid wind swept toward Kwangho whenever he stepped into the streets, as though his bedding was ice-cold whenever he entered his room. For Kwangho, the world seemed as cold as death, as lonely as a wasteland. Even late into the night Kwangho failed to overcome his feelings, such that all he could do, even now, was to shed tears and more tears.

It was around this time that Kwangho met someone named P, into whose orbit Kwangho’s entire mind was unwittingly drawn. P’s face—those eyes, that nose, those brows!—P’s body, P’s voice, P’s manner of walking—there was nothing about P that did not add fire to the flames of Kwangho’s infatuation. To engineer ways of catching a glimpse of P, to find opportunities of speaking with P, Kwangho did everything in his power that he could.

P lived twenty to thirty minutes on foot from Kwangho’s boarding house. Hoping he might have the fortune of running into P on the way to school, Kwangho would leave his house before 6 a.m. each morning, instead of at his usual time of 7:30, and would walk circles around P’s house until he saw P emerge, backpack on shoulders, off to school. Propelled by necessity, Kwangho would walk swiftly toward P until they had just passed each other, at which point he would turn around to stare back at P, if only briefly, overcome with mixed feelings of shame and pleasure as he continued his commute. Because he did this every morning, P, too, would occasionally glance up at Kwangho and perhaps even smile. While in truth P was quite indifferent to Kwangho, Kwangho would spend the entire day trying to interpret the meaning of each glance and apparent smile. Invariably his interpretation favored his own interests, leading him to conclude with a pang of joy that “Oh, P must love me too …” At the same time, however, casting a shadow over this joy, there lingered a trenchant sense of doubt within him.

It was perhaps for this reason that Kwangho decided to buy a new overcoat, a new collar, and new goatskin shoes. He bought fashionable new book covers and fancy soaps, went for a new haircut, and applied scented oil to his hair. He also kept a few things wrapped in newspaper tucked inside his locked desk drawer. At night when no one else was around, he would pull out the package, stealthily looking around him before unfolding it. Then ever so swiftly, with bated breath, he would turn to the mirror and apply what he had wrapped in paper to his face—and elsewhere—all in the hope of looking more attractive. Only Kwangho, and Kwangho alone, knew what these items were: a bottle of facial tonic and Signature Club whitening powder.

The proverbs say, “Love squanders time,” and, “Love makes one shy.” And so, too, did Kwangho, once such a cheerful and outgoing person, change into an introspective, melancholic young man. Gradually he began missing more classes and lost the capacity to concentrate whenever he did in fact show up for school. No one’s company did he seek, nor did anyone seek his. In the end Kwangho became a lonely misanthrope. Each day he did little else but try to catch a glimpse of P’s face, his one and only source of comfort. If he failed to cross P’s path in the morning, he would whimper and whine until the day’s end, and even lose sleep over the matter come nighttime. If by chance he missed seeing P for two or three days in a row, he would practically fall ill, secluding himself in a place where he could pray and shed tears. His prayers were no doubt sincere ones, perhaps even the sincerest prayers he had ever uttered. He had recently begun to pray after hearing that his sick mother had taken a turn for the worse back in the homeland. But he had not shed tears then as he did now. He might be able to accept his own mother’s death, but he found it utterly impossible to imagine P’s. He would rather the earth collapse beneath his feet. He not only lived for P, he lived because of P. And if for some reason P were to perish that very instant, so, too, would the flame of his own existence flicker out. Without P, it was impossible for Kwangho to contemplate life on earth, impossible to contemplate the universe.

On several occasions Kwangho tried to say this to P. But whenever he found himself face to face with P, he lost all courage to speak. The following day, at the crack of dawn, just as soon as he opened his eyes in the morning, Kwangho would resolve himself to the task ten, no, twenty times over: today, no matter what, he would confess his feelings. This determination would indeed bring him to the corner of P’s house, where he stood in wait. But as soon as Kwangho caught a glimpse of P, his resolve withered away—just like a rainy season mushroom hit by a ray of the sun. For no less than ten days did this pattern of behavior continue, until finally Kwangho gambled his life away.

“Excuse me, P!”

P spun around and, looking back at Kwangho, asked, “Yes, what do you want?” Faced with P’s cold tone of voice and expression, Kwangho was crestfallen. But he marshaled all the courage he had to grab P’s hand and say, “Might I ask you a question?”

Pulling away, rather awkwardly, from Kwangho’s grip, P said, “Well, what do you want? Please be quick about it. I’m pressed to get to school on time.” Hearing P talk to him like this, Kwangho felt his hopes being crushed so mercilessly he almost wanted to die. How could he possibly have imagined that P would be so cold toward him, so indifferent? And yet, Kwangho was still inclined to believe that P harbored a hint of affection for him. P had occasionally turned back and smiled at Kwangho, which had led him to believe that P was well aware of his adoration, that P might even have sympathized with him. Even if after Kwangho had confessed his love, P did not reply likewise with, “I love you too,” Kwangho still expected P to reply with sympathy, perhaps even warmth. Facing this cold reception from P now, Kwangho wanted only to dig a hole in the earth and crawl inside.

Kwangho lowered his head for a moment and then said, “I love you.”

P stared blankly at Kwangho and smiled.

“Excuse me? What do you mean?”

Despite the cold weather, Kwangho began to sweat profusely. To marshal more courage was simply beyond his faculty. And so, with a polite, “Have a nice day,” he turned around and headed back home, quickly abandoning his plan to attend school that day. Disappointed and ashamed, he crept into his bedding, thinking he might have come down with a cold. Tormented all day long as he lay in bed, Kwangho then suddenly arose, grabbed his razor, and proceeded to cut the ring finger of his left hand. After collecting a shot glass of blood, he composed a letter to P. The words he spelled out with his own fresh blood were fearsome enough to make Kwangho shudder. The letter explained what he had earlier spoken: in both body and soul he was entirely devoted to P, and he hoped P would return his love. But after sending the letter, he was unable to fall asleep. It felt as though his life would depend on the answer to this letter. His love for P was all there was left to his life. He touched his lips to P’s photograph and held it close to his heart, day and night. From time to time, when his longing for P was simply unendurable, he pulled out the photograph and broke down into tears as he made even more appeals. The maid at his boarding house seemed to have surmised Kwangho’s suffering, even joking with him lightly, “It looks to me like you’re in love.”

The following day the reply to his letter arrived. The contents made it clear that P was exceedingly grateful for Kwangho’s love, and after saying many nice things about Kwangho, the letter ended with the following paragraph:

“Generally speaking, when one seeks the affections of another, there are three qualifications that must be satisfied. At the top of any list of suitors stands he who satisfies all three qualifications. Next comes he who satisfies two out of three. He who satisfies only one out of these three credentials, however, usually lacks qualifications sufficient for receiving those affections. Loath though I am to declare it, you belong regrettably to the last category.” Leaving one line blank, the letter continued:

“The three qualifications of which I speak are, namely, wealth, beauty, and erudition. Since you possess only the last of these, you have what it takes to fail in the struggle for survival. It is thus with sincere regret that I must beg to be excused from your affections.”

The reply was also written in blood.

“All of this is true,” Kwangho sobbed. “I have neither money nor a handsome face.” Tears streaming down his face, he threw open a suitcase, pulled out his scholarship award and his honor’s diploma, and proceeded to rip them into pieces.

“Erudition comes dead last. It is no qualification for finding love,” he proclaimed. Using his foot to grind the shreds of paper into the floor, he then gathered them up into a ball and lit them on fire.

Kwangho then ordered the maid to bring him two bottles of beer and some rice wine. Never once having seen him drink a drop of alcohol in all three years he had lived at this boarding house, the maid’s eyes widened. “What are you going to do with all that?” she asked, thinking he was joking.

“I’m going to drink it,” he replied angrily. “What else would I do with it? Now hurry up and fetch it.”

Two maids returned carrying the alcohol he’d ordered. Kwangho put the bottles to his lips and guzzled them down. He drank nearly half the beer and two-thirds of the Japanese sake. Having given up food or drink for several days on end, he grew so drunk now that the wine practically streamed from his eyes. He then pulled some books off his desk and ripped out all of the pages. He proceeded to tear up his bedding, still laid out on the floor, as well as the cushion he was sitting on. Like a madman he called out P’s name, and then, as though chanting a Buddhist prayer, he cried out, “You’re right. I have no wealth. I have no beauty.” Utterly taken by surprise, the old lady who owned the boarding house ran up to his room to investigate.

“What on earth is going on here?”

Kwangho let out a short chuckle and, with a smile suggesting he was utterly insane, said, “Your face is beautiful. But my face is ugly. And I have no money.” Then he picked up another book lying in front of him and ripped it to pieces.

“He must have a broken heart!” said the old woman, with pity in her breast. She hesitated for a moment, unsure if she should report him to the police, but instead dashed off a postcard to Chunwŏn, whom she knew well, asking him to come immediately.

“I have an urgent matter to discuss with you regarding Yun Kwangho,” said the woman’s note, which Chunwŏn read with alarm as he turned away from his books on animal embryology. It had been two or three weeks since Chunwŏn had last seen Kwangho, but even then it seemed clear that Kwangho was experiencing a major turmoil of the mind. All things considered, Chunwŏn surmised that an event out of the ordinary had most likely just transpired. He left his lodgings immediately and braced himself against the cold wind as he dashed off to the R Boarding House in Hongō. Before even completing her conventional greetings, the old woman running the boarding house quickly explained to Chunwŏn that Kwangho had been uncharacteristically despondent—how just the other day he had gone off to school and returned only an hour later, how yesterday he had lain in bed all day long, and how he had today received a letter in the mail, after which he began drinking alcohol and tearing up his books and bedding.

“Could it be that he has a broken heart?” she finally asked.

Chunwŏn nodded his head, as though to himself. “The thought has occurred to me,” he said, heading up to Kwangho’s room on the second floor. He found Kwangho staring up blankly, and dizzily, at him, slurring his words as he spoke.

“Hey. Your name is Kim Chunwŏn. Isn’t it? Welcome, welcome, come have a seat,” he said, picking up one of the bottles. “Here, please have a drink. Those of us without money, those without a handsome face, those of us who have failed in the struggle for survival must at least be able to share a drink!” With an unsteady hand he forced Chunwŏn to accept the alcohol. Instead of declining it, Chunwŏn took several sips. Without saying a word, he simply looked into Kwangho’s eyes. In them he saw a shimmer of suffering and a sparkle of despair—these were the eyes of someone ridiculed by the world. Kwangho for his part cackled loudly, as though he were insane.

“I’ve been reading Western philosophy, too, you know. Haha, reading indeed. According to this man named Thales, the whole universe is made out of water. Now tell me this, how could anyone be such a bloody idiot? If all the universe were made of water, I ask you, how in the world could anyone make fire? Haha! And they call this guy a philosopher … No, even worse, the father of all philosophers!

Kwangho took another swig of beer directly from the bottle, wiping his mouth with his hand.

“So, as I was saying … Wait, what was I saying?” he asked.

“You were criticizing Thales,” said Chunwŏn, with a smile.

“Oh, right, right. Thales, Thales. I mean, what an idiot!” he said, repeating more than once that fact that Thales thought the universe was made out of water, in which case he couldn’t possibly explain the origin of fire. After rebuking him, and repeating the words “What an idiot!” countless times, Kwangho’s voice grew louder, his shoulders shaking as he spoke.

“I … I, Yun Kwangho, … say that the universe is made out of money,” he shouted, grabbing yet again the bottle of beer. “As long as you have money, you can drink this delicious beer. As long as you have money, you can own whatever you want, you can do anything you want.” He shook his head and roared with laughter, as though he alone was above the fray.

“Surely you must agree?” he looked up at Chunwŏn, who remained sitting there in silence.

“Won’t you answer me?” Kwangho asked. “Am I not right? Do you not agree?” His whole body shook as he spoke. Seeing this sudden change in Kwangho’s behavior, Chunwŏn found himself of two minds: he felt sorry for Kwangho, on the one hand, but utterly fascinated by him, on the other.

“What on earth has happened to you? Why are you acting out like this?” he asked, in a voice that was almost trembling.

“Haha. Well, I’ve got no money. That’s right, I’ve got no money,” said Kwangho, making the shape of a zero with his thumb and forefinger and thrusting out the sign in front of Chunwŏn’s nose. “I’ve got nothing.”

“Plus,” he added, pointing his thumb now back at his own swarthy face. “I’ve got this ugly mug attached to my head. I mean, by the time God put me together, he must have been bored stiff, given how he threw my eyes and nose on my face willy-nilly, sticking them on out of whack. Look at this wreck of a face I’ve got!” With a glean in his eyes and a tone of voice that was positively indignant, Kwangho condemned the creator furiously. “How could he get away with making a person so ugly!” He clenched his fist, punched his own cheek, and then wept loudly, but only to break out into a smile again with a chuckle. “Why couldn’t he just scrub my skin to be smoother and bright?” he said, dropping his head once again. Chunwŏn looked at Kwangho’s dark complexion; his narrow, acne-ridden face; his large eyes; and his wide, flat nose. And as he listened to Kwangho attack the handiwork of creation, he finally burst into laughter, unable to restrain himself any longer. Kwangho chuckled, too, but then suddenly, pretending innocence, grabbed Chunwŏn’s arm and exclaimed,

“What are you laughing at? Huh? Tell, me, why are you laughing? You think my face is funny looking, don’t you? This funny-looking face the creator assembled willy-nilly when he was feeling bored.”

Suddenly Kwangho pounded the floor with his fist and changed the topic of the conversation.

“Well, what do you think? At least I’m smarter than Thales, no? I mean, how did that bozo ever …?” Kwangho’s eyes grew so large, it was as if Thales himself was seated right in front of him.

“The universe was made out of water, was it? Well, how exactly does he explain fire? Haha. The truth is the universe was made out of money!” Again, Kwangho made the symbol for money with his thumb and forefinger, thrusting his hand forward. “Look, you idiot,” he cackled. “This is what the universe is made of!”

By now Chunwŏn began to fear that Kwangho had indeed gone insane. That a person could transform so completely was nothing short of astonishing. It seemed to Chunwŏn that Kwangho might never again be a model human being.

It hardly escaped Chunwŏn that Kwangho’s bout of insanity (this was Chunwŏn’s term) had been caused when P broke Kwangho’s heart. Chunwŏn was reminded of what had happened to him some twelve or thirteen years earlier, a memory that now made his flesh crawl.

When Chunwŏn had first arrived in Tokyo, a young Japanese man had fallen in love with him. About twenty-three or twenty-four years old, the man had graduated from university with a degree in English literature. Already quite accomplished, with German, classical Chinese, and even the Korean language under his belt, this young man had a promising future before him. But circumstances led the young man to fall passionately in love with Chunwŏn, who at the time was no more than thirteen or fourteen years old. Chunwŏn had been considered such a beautiful boy that he was ridiculed as the “rosy-cheeked youth.”

The young man in question could barely go a single day without setting his eyes on Chunwŏn, holding his hand, embracing him tightly, and kissing him on the lips. Chunwŏn had at first been delighted with the young man’s kindnesses, but once things had reached this point, he was so disgusted that he wanted only to escape. He tried his best, therefore, to avoid all contact with the young man. Four or five times a day, however, the young man would send Chunwŏn deliveries of food and drink and postcards imploring Chunwŏn to visit. Later on, he would even send telegrams to Chunwŏn—four or five times each day. This, however, made Chunwŏn even more sickened by him, and he refused to visit. Finally, the young man reached a tipping point and came to Chunwŏn’s boarding house brandishing a razor. Thinking he might well be killed, Chunwŏn began to sob uncontrollably. The young man cried as well, saying, “It is not to kill you that I have brought this razor. It is to kill myself. Would that my own life be cut short to save you, my love, from a single scratch.”

With these words he entreated Chunwŏn to return his love. But Chunwŏn could not give him a definitive reply. The young man then struck himself in the chest dozens of times, leading him to cough up large amounts of blood and eventually to need five weeks of convalescence from what the doctors called hemoptysis. Chunwŏn felt sorry for the young man, and apologetic, during his hospital stay. A few times he even paid him a visit. Each time that the young man, lying in his hospital bed, caught sight of Chunwŏn, he broke out into a joyous smile.

After the man’s release from the hospital, however, Chunwŏn never visited him again. He also moved to a different boarding house, surreptitiously, without leaving a forwarding address. A year or so later Chunwŏn heard that the man had moved to the provinces to become a teacher at some junior high school and ended up a drunk, ostracized at school, and eventually labeled a home-wrecker by even his closest friends. After seven or eight years of hearing little about him, only two years ago Chunwŏn had by sheer chance run into the same young man in the city of Sinŭiju while on vacation. The man’s complexion was haggard, and his clothes were but rags. Although it was mid-summer, he wore a winter hat and seemed to be drunk; on his feet were a pair of worn-out clogs that didn’t match. The sight of him gave Chunwŏn goose bumps, and for a moment he was at a loss for words. When asked where he lived now, the man replied simply, “The earth and sky are my home.” Chunwŏn brought him into a restaurant and treated him to beer and Western-style food. Looking up happily at Chunwŏn, who now had a mustache on his upper lip, the young man politely drank all that Chunwŏn offered him, but they exchanged no words. When it came time for Chunwŏn to leave, and he was about to depart by car, the young man (by now well over thirty) grabbed Chunwŏn’s hand through the window.

“It is not your fault that I have taken this path in life. I have had no success; I have had no hope. Such has been my life. Dear Chunwŏn. My beloved Chunwŏn. I pray for your success and happiness from the very bottom of my heart.” He spoke with tears flowing from his eyes. As the car departed, Chunwŏn leaned out the window and turned toward the young man, standing there crestfallen, as he waved his hat goodbye. Tears flowed from Chunwŏn’s eyes, too, before he lost sight of the man altogether.

Connecting these events to Kwangho’s recent circumstances, Chunwŏn now realized that he himself had sealed the young man’s fate, and that Kwangho’s life, too, was gravitating into the same orbit of misery. Try though he might to suppress it, Chunwŏn shuddered at this thought. Again, he looked down at Kwangho’s face. From the corner of his smiling eyes tears were falling.

This set Chunwŏn thinking. In all the twenty-four years that Kwangho had been in this world, never once had he experienced true love from another. Neither his mother nor his sisters had really loved him. His entire life had been lived in a world of ice. How is human existence even possible without the love of others? If someone dearly loved were suddenly thrown into a world without affection, could he last even a single day before dying of the cold? And yet, the reason Kwangho had come so far in life was because he himself had not yet experienced love. Like an animal raised in the polar regions, he had existed in a state of perpetual snow. That is, until the warm currents flowing from the equator had enveloped him. Having experienced this warmth, it was no longer possible for Kwangho to return to the world of ice. He would now make it his mission to seek out warmth, and if he found it, he would manage to live. If not, he would die. A life force within him raced after P. But P never gave him a second glance.

Realizing this, Kwangho cried, “I choose death!”

It was like the sorrowful last song of a defeated general, on the point of slicing his own neck. Chunwŏn, for his part, felt sorry for Kwangho. If only there had been a woman in the picture, who might place her soft hand on Kwangho’s chest and relieve him of his despair and indignation, Kwangho might well have found the will to fully recover. Chunwŏn knew that he himself didn’t have the strength to comfort Kwangho in that way.

“There are lots of women out there in the world, you know, whose warm hands you can hold,” replied Chunwŏn, in tears. Chunwŏn not only felt sorry for Kwangho, he felt sorry for himself as well.

The following day P saw it in the newspaper.

“Yesterday afternoon at the R Boarding House, the K University student Yun Kwangho committed suicide with a dagger, apparently in a case of unrequited love, according to the firsthand account of his acquaintance Kim Chunwŏn.”

P read these words with no little shock to the system, though it never crossed P’s mind that “Kwangho died because of me.” Korean exchange students who read the newspaper ridiculed Kwangho, exclaiming, “Wasn’t he that scholarship student?” They criticized Kwangho for his weak will, his infirmity of purpose.

P had been seated, staring blankly into the air, when Chunwŏn made a hasty entry into the boarding house where P lived.

“P,” he cried, with tears in his eyes. “A friend of ours has just died!” Indeed, shocked by Kwangho’s death, P was still unconvinced it had anything to do with what had gone on between them. “Well, it can hardly be my fault that he died.”

“Oh, yes, he died because of you. With more life experience, I imagine you’ll figure out why.”

Calmly the two students reflected back on Kwangho’s life. His body by now had been examined by the coroner’s office and buried in a corner of Aoyama Cemetery. In the course of living in the world of ice, he had savored but a single happiness—being a scholarship student—that is, until the warm currents flowing from the equator finally reached him, currents into which he melted away. Although Kwangho had now earned the ridicule of millions, many others still appeared at his graveside, shedding hot tears. Chunwŏn, of course, was among them. With the winter sun setting slowly on the horizon, a bone-chilling wind carried dust from the Aoyama garrison and swept against the tall tombstone. Just then the mealtime bugle sounded in the Azabu barracks. Having known Kwangho for close to a decade, it was Chunwŏn who stepped up in front of the grave.

“Heavens, it’s cold,” he said, with a shiver.

Chunwŏn then made in his own hand the following inscription on Kwangho’s wooden grave marker: “This is the grave of Yun Kwangho, who was born into an icy world, who lived in an icy world, and then died in an icy world.”

To the side, he appended this single verse.

The snow blows.

The wind is frigid.

Naked, you seek an embrace

But have no one to hold,

As you enter an everlasting silence.

P, let it be said, was a man.

ABOUT THE EDITOR

Samuel Perry is associate professor of East Asian studies and comparative literature at Brown University. A specialist in Japanese and Korean literature and culture, he is the author of Recasting Red Culture in Proletarian Japan: Childhood, Korea, and the Historical Avant-Garde (2014) and the translator of Kang Kyŏng-ae’s novel From Wŏnso Pond (2009) as well as a collection of stories by Sata Ineko, Five Faces of Japanese Feminism: Crimson and Other Works (2016).

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Cover illustration: Grim Park, The Tiger of Perfect Wisdom (Interracial), 2022

Texts and Translations 42

ISSN 1079-2538

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Perry, Samuel, 1969- editor, translator.

Title: A century of queer Korean fiction / edited and translated by Samuel Perry.

Other titles: Han’guk ŭi k’wiŏ munhak. English

Description: New York : The Modern Language Association of America, 2023. | Series: Texts and translations, 1079-2538 ; 42 | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2023017413 (print) | LCCN 2023017414 (ebook) | ISBN 9781603296274 (paperback) | ISBN 9781603296281 (EPUB)

Subjects: LCSH: Short stories, Korean—Translations into English. | Korean fiction—21st century—Translations into English. | Sexual minorities—Korea (South)—Fiction. | BISAC: LITERARY COLLECTIONS / LGBTQ+ | LITERARY COLLECTIONS / General | LCGFT: Queer fiction. | Short stories.

Classification: LCC PL984.E8 H37 2023 (print) | LCC PL984.E8 (ebook) | DDC 895.73086/64—dc23/eng/20230725

LC record available at lccn.loc.gov/2023017413

LC ebook record available at lccn.loc.gov/2023017414