2020 Koreana Autumn(English)

AUTUMN 2020

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS

SPECIAL FEATURE

Delivery Service

An Inside Look at a Booming Industry Between Practicality and Luxury; Once Upon a Day – A Novelist Recalls; Delivery Economy, Past and Present; Comics Capture the World of Package Unloaders; The Delivery Industry: Its Light and Shadows

Delivery Service

VOL. 34 NO. 3

ISSN 1016-0744

IMAGE OF KOREA

The Road to Buseok Temple

T

© Ahn Hong-beom

here is a very old Buddhist temple in Yeongju, my hometown.

Its name recalls a mysterious “floating stone,” or buseok, that is related to the temple’s foundation, laid in the seventh century.

My grandmother, though not quite a full-fledged believer, frequented Buseok Temple to pray for the happiness of her children and especially for me, her eldest grandson. On Buddha’s Birthday, in May, I would accompany her. That required walking 10 li (4 km) to the Buseok marketplace and another 10 li along a lonely valley road.

The hike became most demanding at the temple’s front gate, which had a single pillar. A signboard announcing “Buseok Temple, Mt. Taebaek” marked the edge of the secular world. From there, a long, uphill path lined with ginkgo trees and apple orchards awaited us. Next, we’d reach the Gate of the Heavenly Kings, then two bell pavilions slightly to the side and more stone stairs. Next to appear was the Paradise Hall.

The number of stairs up to this point was 108, the number of kleshas, or afflictions that plagued the mind. Passing under the pavilion and up more stairs, we would emerge in the yard immediately facing an ancient stone lantern. Behind it was the Hall of Infinite Life, a welcoming sight with the corner of its eaves looking poised for flight. As my grandmother’s faithful follower, I always entered through the side door and bowed three times before Amitabha Buddha.

Behind this hall to the left is the “floating rock.” Its legend, which concerns the love of a maiden, Seonmyo, is narrated in the 13th century history book “Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms” (Samguk yusa). But I prefer the story told by my grandmother: “When the king of Silla decided to build a temple here to protect the area with the Buddha’s power, National Preceptor Uisang roamed the mountain pass looking for a proper site. One day, he loosened a big rock with his forefinger and sent it flying into the sky. The rock became a black cloud and floated around for seven days, sending down heavy rain until it finally descended, blessing this spot. But it never actually touched the ground, and so even today, if you place a string under the rock and tug on it, the string will not break.”

I love the sight from the pagoda behind the shrine to the maiden; the raised eaves on the corners of the Hall of Infinite Life; the ridges of Mt. Sobaek seen beyond the Paradise Hall, rising, falling and fading like a fugue; and the breathtakingly lovely evening light that settles on those rolling ridges.

The path behind the pagoda leads to a quiet, modest building with a gabled roof: the Hall of the Patriarchs, where a portrait of Uisang is enshrined. I sit on the hall’s neat, unadorned base and, as I think about the giant rock which is said to float into the sky on quiet nights and look down smiling on the sleeping children, I long for my grandmother.

Kim Hwa-young Literary Critic; Member of the National Academy of Arts

Editor’s Letter

PUBLISHER

Lee Geun

Essential Service in a Critical Era

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

Kang Young-pil

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Lee Kyong-hee

EDITORIAL BOARD

Han Kyung-koo

Benjamin Joinau

Jung Duk-hyun

Kim Hwa-young

Kim Youngna

Koh Mi-seok

Charles La Shure

Song Hye-jin

Song Young-man

Nine months into the pandemic, the world is reeling from the raging coronavirus and its devastating impacts. South Korea, once praised for its relatively successful response, is struggling to cope with a second wave of infections.

Seoul is under a partial lockdown, as of this writing, with the majority of new cases having erupted in the capital area.

Amid the inevitable economic slowdown and deepening worries about a prolonged crisis, many things that used to be taken for granted have now become impossible. The present issue of Koreana looks into an aspect of our changing lifestyles with special coverage of delivery service, an essential factor of the pandemic consumer economy.

Long before the outbreak, fast and precise home delivery – whether of food or other products – had been an outstanding feature of Korean consumer behavior. Earlier this year when the pandemic began, Korean consumers attracted attention as they restrained from panic buying and hoarding of daily necessities. Efficient delivery service was spotlighted as a major contributor.

Special Feature stories in this issue shed light on different faces of the delivery industry. The convenience enjoyed by consumers comes at a price.

While the stalled economy around the world is inadvertently reducing air pollution, brisk delivery services cause other environmental problems. The working conditions of delivery drivers and monopolistic competition of delivery companies have also surfaced as prominent issues.

“Is a thriving delivery industry associated with a higher quality of life? Is it okay to disregard the environment for the sake of convenience?” asks one of our writers. Readers are invited to take a glimpse into this booming industry, its light and dark sides together. Convenience foods, also enjoying popularity in the current non-contact mode of life, are discussed in LIFESTYLE (page 86).

Lee Kyong-hee Editor-in-Chief

Kim Eun-gi

COPY EDITOR

Jamie Lypka

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Ji Geun-hwa

ASSISTANT EDITORS

Cho Yoon-jung

Ted Chan

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Kim Shin

EDITOR

Ham So-yeon

ART DIRECTOR

Kim Ji-yeon

DESIGNERS

Jang Ga-eun, Yeob Lan-kyeong

LAYOUT & DESIGN

Kim’s Communication Associates

240-21, Munbal-ro, Paju-si,

Gyeonggi-do 10881, Korea

www.gegd.co.kr

Tel: 82-31-955-7413

Fax: 82-31-955-7415

TRANSLATORS

Chung Myung-je

Hwang Sun-ae

Maya West

Min Eun-young

Park Hyun-ah

Suh Jung-ah

SUBSCRIPTION/CIRCULATION Price per issue in Korea 6,000 won Elsewhere US$9 Please refer to page 104 of Koreana for specific subscription rates.

PRINTED IN AUTUMN 2020

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS Autumn 2020

Samsung Moonwha Printing Co. 10 Achasan-ro 11-gil, Seongdong-gu, Seoul 04796, Korea Tel: 82-2-468-0361/5

© The Korea Foundation 2020 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be Published quarterly by THE KOREA FOUNDATION 55 Sinjung-ro, Seogwipo-si, Jeju-do 63565, Korea https://www.koreana.or.kr

reproduced in any form without the prior permission of the Korea Foundation.

The opinions expressed by the authors do not necessarily represent those of the editors of Koreana or the Korea Foundation.

“Bike on the Wind” Ryu Seung-ok 2018. Acrylic on canvas.

162 × 130 cm.

Koreana , registered as a quarterly magazine with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (Registration No. Ba-1033, August 8, 1987), is also published in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish.

Delivery Service

An Inside Look at a Booming Industry

04

SPECIAL FEATURE 1

Between Practicality and Luxury Lee Myoung-lang

08

SPECIAL FEATURE 4

Comics Capture the World of Package Unloaders Lee Jong-chul

SPECIAL FEATURE 2

Once Upon a Day – A Novelist Recalls Park Sang

14

22 26

SPECIAL FEATURE 5

The Delivery Industry: Its Light and Shadows SPECIAL FEATURE 3

Um Ji-yong

Delivery Economy, Past and Present Joo Young-ha

© Yonhap News Agency

32

FOCUS

58

IN LOVE WITH KOREA

78 ENTERTAINMENT

Wartime Defenders of Cultural Treasures

Illuminating Korean Cinema

Unmasking Personas

Kim Youngna

Cho Yoon-jung

Jung Duk-hyun

38

62

82

ART REVIEW

ON THE ROAD

Music for Global Outreach

Beginning and Ending in Haenam

Kim Shin-ah

Lee Chang-guy

ESSENTIAL INGREDIENTS

Shrimp: A Tasty Gift from the Autumn Sea Jeong Jae-hoon

44

INTERVIEW

72

AN ORDINARY DAY

Creating New Value from Discards

Honest Days, Shared With Neighbors

Park Eun-young

Hwang Kyung-shin

50

76

GUARDIANS OF HERITAGE

BOOKS & MORE

A Martial Art for Mutual Goodwill

‘Almond’

Kim Dong-ok

Anything but Normal – But Universally Relatable

54

‘Efficacious Underworld: The Evolution of Ten Kings Paintings in Medieval China and Korea’

TALES OF TWO KOREAS

Testimonies on Divergences in Music Kim Hak-soon

A Careful Probe of East Asian Religious Paintings

‘Korea Tour Comics’

A Fun and Charming Site for Exploring Korea Charles La Shure

86 LIFESTYLE From Instant to Restaurant-Quality Foods Choi Ji-hye

90

JOURNEYS IN KOREAN LITERATURE

Ethics Shine Behind Wit and Humor Choi Jae-bong

What Happened to Choi Mi-jin?

Lee Ki-ho

SPECIAL FEATURE 1

Delivery Service: An Inside Look at a Booming Industry

Between Practicality and Luxury

N

o, not again! Instead of waking up to a clean kitchen, my morning started with a table strewn with leftover spicy chicken feet and seasoned rice balls. Furious, I checked the garbage bin. It was stuffed, as expected, with food delivery containers. The children had obviously ordered a latenight snack while I was asleep.

Complaints and Conflict

I had intended to catch up on some work, but I suddenly felt drained. Not wanting to waste the food, I reheated the leftovers in

4 KOREANA Autumn 2020

the microwave and took some kkakdugi (cubed radish kimchi) out of the refrigerator. The chicken feet tasted heavenly and the rice balls were much better than any I had ever made. I don’t know if it was the tasty food that did it, but the situation began to take on a different hue. Yes, the children had purposely left some of the food for me. If they were planning to go undetected, then surely they would have cleaned everything up.

Thanks to them, I didn’t have to worry about making breakfast.

In a world where everything from food to laundry is being brought to our doorsteps, it is hard to dismiss the convenience of delivery services. But there are differences in values between generations; older consumers tend to regard delivery services as a luxury, while younger ones accept them as part of a new lifestyle.

Lee Myoung-lang Novelist © gettyimages

First outraged and then placated by chicken feet, I tried to take out the food garbage but the front door was blocked. I pushed hard and saw a delivery box through the opening. What’s this? It contained raw salmon with sauce, steak and vegetables, and even saeujang, shrimp preserved in soy sauce. These were semi-cooked dishes – just open the container, pour the sauce over the food and heat it up in the microwave.

Those darned kids! Were they really ordering food that could be made at home?

A delivery rider races through a street in Seoul. For all riders, the daily wish is no traffic jams that can impede fast, safe drop-offs.

When I was in my twenties and thirties, ordering food was unthinkable, except for an occasional bowl of jjajangmyeon (noodles in black bean sauce) or box of fried chicken. Preparing meals was assumed to be a daily task. Neither the internet nor the delivery industry was well developed when my two children were small. Weekly trips to the supermarket were necessary and the family’s shopping cart overflowed.

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 5

When delivery of heavy items such as bottled water, rice or gochujang (red pepper paste) became easily available, women felt liberated from the burden of carrying bulky goods. For me, delivery has come to mean the convenience of buying things without putting in the legwork. But it’s different for my children. Using apps on their phones, they order not only daily necessities but cooked food as well. These days, it’s possible to get dishes delivered from famous restaurants where people line up to eat. Braised pig’s trotters and boiled seasoned pork (jokbal and bossam), beef intestines (gopchang), rice cakes in spicy sauce (tteokbokgi), and even pasta! My children are relishing the golden age of delivery – but I have misgivings.

As my kids ordered food from famous restaurants, urging me to try one dish or another, my objections began to mount. Cooking food at home means we can save money. Why go to the trouble of getting it delivered and paying an expensive delivery fee?

Delivery, for me, is an option for efficiency; I can’t help but think my children indulge in luxury. From my point of view, home-delivered food is not entirely welcome. Sometimes, I feel like I stepped straight out of the olden days.

Breakfast in a Flash

As I examined the box of fresh food, various thoughts welling up in my mind, my daughter came out of her room.

“Wow! It came so quickly. Mom, I ordered those preserved shrimp that you like – to make breakfast for you.” She fussed about, washing the packaged vegetables and placing them on a wicker tray, putting the steak in the air fryer, and arranging the

shrimp on a plate.

“Mom! I can’t promise to do this often, but every now and then I’ll prepare breakfast for you like this.

I even set my alarm to do this. Don’t you think this website is fabulous? It’s a bit more expensive than other sites, but it’s famous for its really fresh food.

I ordered this stuff specially, even if it’s a bit more expensive, because you’re the one who’s going to eat it. So, what do you think? Your daughter’s a lot better than your son, right?”

My daughter was so pleased to think that she had prepared breakfast for me. Looking at her smiling face, I couldn’t bring myself to scold her by retorting, “What? Now you’re even getting breakfast delivered?”

Instead, I smoothed out my grimace, gave a forced smile and sat down at the table.

“Mom! These are no ordinary preserved shrimp.

There’s a really good Japanese restaurant in Gangnam and the shrimp are delivered straight from there.

They’re expensive. I know you’d never order them for yourself so I ordered them for you. Don’t ask how much everything cost. Don’t argue. Don’t even ask.

Please, just enjoy the food. Alright?”

My daughter, who knows me better than I do, was preempting any rebukes about wasting money. As she urged me to hurry up and taste the renowned shrimp, I gave in and popped one of them in my mouth. It had a pleasantly pungent taste, probably because of the gin-

1. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, delivery without human contact soared – and remained high – as shoppers ordered online and arranged for purchases to be left outside their door.

1

2. Young Koreans are increasingly seeing delivery of food for a family dinner or special meal for guests as a practical option to eliminate grocery shopping, preparation and cooking.

© gettyimages

6 KOREANA Autumn 2020

To be honest, I’m still not entirely happy with having meals delivered to the house. But for people who live alone or aren’t very good at cooking, the service may be a more logical choice. With the time that it takes to prepare, cook and clean, they can do something else.

2 © Shutterstock

ger, and was neither too rich nor fishy. And the flesh just melted in my mouth.

Okay, so she hadn’t wasted money on something useless. She had saved her pocket money to buy food to prepare breakfast for me. If I refused this, then I would be a really strange mother. In a case like this, the best thing to do would be to just enjoy the food. I was trying the various dishes that were laid out when my phone rang.

“Hey, Myoung-lang! Did you send me lettuce leaves for ssam [rice wrapped in leafy greens]? Why did you bother? Lettuce leaves are cheap these days. I can get them from the local supermarket, why did you go to the trouble of sending them?”

It was my eldest aunt, who lives in Incheon.

“I bought a box myself. They pack the leaves right after they receive the order, which is probably why they’re so fresh. And there are a lot of varieties that you can’t get in the supermarket. I knew you wouldn’t buy them for yourself so I bought them for you. Just enjoy them!”

At this my aunt replied, “You’re right. I’ve never seen some of these varieties before. And they’re so

fresh. It’s so nice to get them, but I don’t want you to use your money on us.” Saying she felt bad about the money, she thanked me again and again. And over and over I repeated that it was alright, that I was glad to do it. My daughter grinned at me.

“Wow, Mom! You know how to get food delivered, too.”

“What, you think I don’t know how to order stuff?”

I gave her a sideways look and laughed merrily.

Confession

To be honest, I’m still not entirely happy with having meals delivered to the house. But for people who live alone or aren’t very good at cooking, the service may be a more logical choice. With the time that it takes to prepare, cook and clean up, they can do something else. Also, if we consider that preparing meals tends to be a household chore unilaterally imposed on women, food delivery may be the catalyst that eases the load and democratizes the home. Men may not always have to rely on their wives’ hands to produce their meals.

Though different generations still have differing principles for using delivery services, this new “culture” which has naturally permeated our everyday lives will hopefully turn out to be a blessing for our times. With that thought, I put a piece of golden brown steak in my mouth.

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 7

SPECIAL FEATURE 2

Delivery Service: An Inside Look at a Booming Industry

Once Upon a Day – A Novelist Recalls A congested crossroads. As soon as the light turns green, dozens of motorcycles take off at breakneck speed before the other cars can rev up their engines. This is a common sight on the streets in Korea’s large cities. Hundreds of thousands of delivery workers brave risks every day to bring packages, be they food or other commodities, as quickly and safely as possible to customers.

Park Sang Novelist

8 KOREANA Autumn 2020

Delivery riders are often seen dashing through rush hour traffic. In order to make as many deliveries as possible in a limited time, they need to know the streets like the back of their hand and plan the most efficient route. Š NewsBank

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 9

B

efore I debuted as a novelist, I delivered Korean food in an office district in Seoul. I’ve also delivered for a Chinese restaurant in an entertainment district and a pizzeria in a residential area. Even during my short stay in London, I did a brief stint as a delivery boy for a Japanese restaurant. So I guess that makes me “a deliveryman with international experience.” But that turned out to be utterly useless when I came back to Korea, the emerging powerhouse of delivery service. In Britain, delivery is considered a proper job, whereas in Korea, it’s often just a temporary gig.

Dilemma

“The long-haired guy next door has been hospitalized. Did you know?”

I was preparing for the day’s work when my boss, looking sad, told me the unfortunate news. The long-haired guy was a highly proficient “master.” Whenever I came across him on the streets, I would be amazed at his skill. He looked like a pro racer. I had gotten wind that he was heartbroken from a relationship recently gone awry. And now, this… Just goes to show that a delivery man needs to stay alert and focused at all times, like a surgeon, analyst or pilot. Take your eyes off the road for a split second and you could find yourself sprawled on the ground.

During my delivery rounds, there were times when I felt a chill run down my spine even in the scorching heat of summer. I’d catch sight of a motorcycle placed carelessly on the side of the road – one that had obviously not been parked there. Looking closer, the spoke wheel would be bent or the side horribly scraped. The bike would have been moved to the side to clear the road after the rider was taken away in an ambulance. Delivery accidents happen too often. If a person I usually ran into every day was nowhere to be seen, it meant he was either injured or dead.

“You should be more careful about speeding.

Stop racing round like a madman, okay?”

My boss was worried about my riding style.

“I’m fine. I’ve got nothing to lose anyway.”

“Cut the nonsense. I can’t lose you. So make sure you ride safely.”

It was heartwarming, but also a very realistic piece of advice.

Anyone can work as a motorcycle courier, as long as you have a license and no fear. Depending on the number of runs a day, you can earn quite a

A deliveryman for Ddingdong, which services the Gangnam district in Seoul, loads an order from a snack food restaurant on his scooter. Small restaurants that can’t afford their own delivery workers use delivery platforms.

© NewsBank

10 KOREANA Autumn 2020

handsome income. Additionally, you don’t have to deal with the stress of a rigid office culture or stuffy boss. Nonetheless, motorcycle couriers are in short supply. The biggest drawback is that it is a perilous job. There are too many idiots on the road, and, in Korea, where it’s much too easy to get a driver’s license, delivery workers constantly face the danger of being hit by a beginner.

Riders risk their lives driving full throttle for faster delivery and better pay. Motorcycle accidents happen in the same way that road kills do.

Sadly, many riders believe that their motorcycles are faster than cars. Motorbikes may seem more agile because of their smaller size, but they are neither faster nor more powerful. However, playing it safe and slowing down means less money. The only way out of this precarious dilemma is hitting the jackpot. I can safely bet that almost every delivery rider has a lottery ticket in their pocket.

Know-How

It’s 11 a.m. The phone starts ringing off the hook.

During the two-hour window at lunchtime, every rider has to make around 30 delivery runs. Each delivery takes on average five minutes, which means 12 per hour and 24 in two hours. But there are many places that take more than five minutes, so we have to make multiple deliveries at once.

This is also why a good sense of space determines the competence of a delivery worker. We create an image in our mind of the shortest route connecting the delivery addresses. You have to use your head.

There is only so much you can load on a motorcycle and only so fast you can go. A true pro is someone who can picture a clear-cut, efficient route in their head.

Another requisite is a shrewd grasp of traffic conditions. You need to know when the traffic light at the intersection in front of the store changes, and quickly judge whether it will be faster to take the stairs or elevator before arriving at your destination. A skilled courier sharpens his sixth sense to predict what will shoot out from the next alley and whether the car coming from the other side is going to make a U-turn. A master feels a sense of fulfillment when successfully pulling off a task

where others fail.

I head out for my destination. I hope that the car in front of me doesn’t violate a traffic signal, that a bicycle doesn’t suddenly come out of nowhere like a deer, that I don’t hit someone, that my motorcycle doesn’t skid on a banana peel, that it doesn’t hit a pothole, throwing me into a somersault in the air. I pray again and again. Anyhow, I have to survive and continue to live. But once I get going, I have only one thought in my mind: don’t arrive late and get yelled at by the customer!

Indignity

My first delivery is to an office where the people are obnoxious.

They always talk down to me, and curse if I’m the slightest bit late. They seem to have a vulgar sense of superiority, thinking that people working in manual jobs, such as delivery, are of a lower social class and deserve to be treated crudely. I flip out whenever I go to collect the plates.

“I asked you not to put trash in the plates.”

No one even bothers to respond. They treat me as if I’m invisible. They don’t even pay me right away. Instead, they keep a monthly ledger of their orders. When I ask for their signature, they deliberately take their time, as if they were signing off on a major payment, and at times, order four portions, then sneakily write down three. When I go to collect at the month’s end, they have the nerve to yell at me.

“For Pete’s sake, we said we’d pay later. You think we would cheat you out of that petty sum? Huh?” One day, the people at that office fled without paying up.

Livid, my boss and I tried to hunt down those weasels, but to no avail. These days, prepayments are made online or through an app, preventing such mishaps. In that sense, technological advances are a godsend.

My next delivery is a factory. The place is filled with frenetic activity. I wonder if they even have time to eat. As I leave, I notice that the workers all have bloodshot eyes. My eyes are red too, from all the fumes and dust on the road. I don’t have time to waste comparing who is more pitiful, them or me. I rush to my next stop, a motel, when it starts to pour. I can practically hear the sound of the phone ringing like crazy back in our restaurant – orders spike in bad weather.

I take out my raincoat and put it on and even wrap a towel around my neck, but it’s not enough to keep the rain out. The rain stings, hitting my body as I speed along; it feels sad. Drenched and pitiful, I drag my heavy feet, soggy with water, and enter the motel. A man with only a towel wrapped around his naked body opens the door and takes the food. He must have ordered out

2 KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 11

You have to use your head. There is only so much you can load on a motorcycle and only so fast you can go. A true pro is someone who can picture a clear-cut, efficient route in their head.

because he couldn’t be bothered to get dressed. That’s the spirit. I wish him to rest more and love more instead of wasting time getting dressed. As I make my way back to the restaurant to load the next round of deliveries, I hope that his life will be less hectic, that his quality of life improves, and that my life could be like that, too.

Balance

Back at the restaurant, the dishes waiting to be delivered are growing cold. I quickly load the food and hit the road again. People don’t order out for food because it tastes good. You can hardly expect food in a plastic bowl covered with plastic wrap that gets all bumped around in a delivery box to taste better than a warm dish prepared by a chef at a nice restaurant, beautifully plated and served by a friendly waiter. Nonetheless, people get food delivered because it’s more convenient than going to a restaurant or waiting in line. Of course, some people don’t have a sensitive palate and aren’t particular about taste.

However, food deliveries have led to a huge increase in the use of disposable packaging, a major source of microplastics pollution. One question after another pops up in my mind.

Is a culture where anything can be delivered anywhere, anytime something to be proud of? Is a thriving delivery industry associated with a higher quality of life? Is there an upside to Korea’s advanced home delivery culture other than the relief of knowing that, at the very least, you won’t starve to death even if you can’t go outside because of the coronavirus pandemic? I mean, there’s a high chance that your food will be brought by someone who is irritable because he is always pressed for time, and sick and tired of being put down. Does the sole benefit of having food delivered to wherever you are eclipse all the other numerous drawbacks?

More than anything, is it okay to disregard the environment for the sake of convenience?

Delivery motorcycles wind their way through narrow alleyways to avoid traffic jams. With no designated parking areas, these bikes can be parked pretty much anywhere in Korea, even

12 KOREANA Autumn 2020

on sidewalks and crosswalks. Riders have no qualms about committing traffic violations, often ignoring traffic signs and even driving against traffic. Because motorcycles are not easily visible in the side mirrors of cars, riders announce their presence with thunderous exhaust sounds and startle other motorists by riding erratically. It’s virtually impossible to make a food delivery on time while observing all traffic rules.

But delivery riders don’t have the luxury to even think about such matters. We instinctively sense that someone is eagerly waiting for us with a growling stomach. So we focus – and ride at full speed. My last delivery for the day is to a company having an office party. It’s a large order and my motorcycle wobbles when I load all the food. When I get there, a cheerful bunch of people greet me enthusiastically. They are leisurely toasting each other under a congratulatory placard. They all look happy, as if they have accomplished something together. Making deliveries to a place like this makes the job a tad rewarding. As I leave, someone comes up to me and hands me a tip, politely saying, “It was a big order, wasn’t it?

It must have been heavy. Thank you for delivering it in the rain.” The tip and kind words relieve the day’s fatigue.

The day is finally over. It was a long one. My neck and shoulders are stiff and worn like beef jerky from wearing the heavy helmet and riding all day, my hands are wrinkly from being soaked in the rain, and my arms and legs are limp from rushing up and down the stairs countless times. I need to make one last delivery: taking my tired body home and laying it down on my cozy bed. I whistle a tune as I start my motorcycle.

Š Shutterstock; Photo by Kelli Hayden

A chicken franchise deliveryman passes through a restaurant alley in the Konkuk University area, eastern Seoul, late at night.

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 13

SPECIAL FEATURE 3

Delivery Service: An Inside Look at a Booming Industry

Delivery Economy, Past and Present From couriers to mobile apps – Korea’s delivery industry has achieved incredible advances over the past century. Progress didn’t come out of the blue, however.

Let us take a brief look at how the delivery economy has evolved since the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910).

Joo Young-ha Professor, Graduate School, Academy of Korean Studies

14 KOREANA Autumn 2020

T

he first Westerner to serve as an advisor to the government of Joseon, Paul Georg von Möllendorff arrived in Hanyang (today’s Seoul) in 1882, leaving his previous position as German vice-consul in Tianjin of Qing China. There were few Westerners in Korea at the time, so one of his concerns was how he would have his meals. He needn’t have worried. In the evening, a Korean official visited his temporary residence with a few servants carrying a wooden litter for cargo. Beneath the cloth cover was a variety of dishes he had never seen before. Having had a similar experience in China, Möllendorff moved the dishes to his table and had his dinner.

Tributes and Gifts

© National Museum of Korea

“On the Way to Market in Snow.” Presumably Yi Hyeong-rok (1808-?). 19th century. Ink and light color on paper. 38.8 x 28.2cm. National Museum of Korea.

This Joseon Dynasty painting depicts merchants heading for the market with their wares loaded on the backs of horses and oxen. It is part of an album allegedly painted by court artist Yi Hyeong-rok.

Cargo delivery was an important economic activity in Joseon, supporting state management. The royal court relied heavily on tax in kind collected from its subjects across the country. For instance, for the monthly memorial rites for past generations of kings and queens held at Jongmyo, the royal ancestral shrine, provincial administrators gathered and sent the necessary goods, including grains, fish, fruit and salt, as well as paper and cooking utensils. Officials in charge of shipment of these goods supervised servants loading and moving the cargo using handcarts and boats. It was an important duty that could affect their position in government.

Delivery of regional products was also considered important by the wealthy yangban (nobility) living in the provinces who would make gifts to powerful figures in the capital. Kim Su-jong (16711736), a rich man in Buan, Jeolla Province, would often present his friends and dignitaries in Hanyang with local specialties, including dried seafood such as sea cucumber, abalone, mussels and octopus, as well as dried pheasant meat, pork and persimmons. As the region was famed for paper and bamboo products, fine mulberry paper rolls, fans, hats and combs were also highly prized among noblemen in the capital. From Buan, ships carrying this cargo sailed along the west coast and then up the Han River before reaching port at Mapo.

There, the items were sorted and carried in handcarts or A-frame carriers to be delivered in person to each recipient. Kim’s servants did all of this work. In the process, Kim would make two copies of itemized lists of each delivery, one for himself and the other for the recipient.

Delivery by servants was also essential for yangban couples living apart. A historical record says that a woman of the Yi family in Andong, Gyeongsang Province, used to send to her husband, Kim Jin-hwa (1793-1850), who was serving in a public post away from home, foodstuffs such as octopus, yellowtail, flatfish, salt, red pepper paste (gochujang), soybean paste (doenjang) and other condiments. In return, Kim sent home mackerel, pollack, sweetfish, herring and beef.

The Neo-Confucian literati of Joseon looked down on mone-

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 15

tary dealings, instead regarding exchange of goods as the proper conduct for a man of virtue. Some scholars of economic history believe that this way of thinking was behind the development of the delivery economy in Joseon society.

Lingering Class Awareness

In the early half of the 20th century, Korean society gradually underwent modernization, though under Japanese occupation.

It was during this time that restaurants for the public started to appear in cities. Although the rigid social hierarchy of Joseon was apparently dissipating, age-old class distinctions still remained valid throughout society. Interestingly, it was this die-hard awareness of social class that gave rise to commercial food delivery. In the 1920s, seolleongtang (ox bone soup) was among the popular dishes served at restaurants in Seoul. The owners of these places were mostly butchers, considered the lowest class in pre-modern Korean society. Noblemen regarded it as unthinkable to eat among low-class customers in a restaurant run by a butcher, so they had the soup delivered to their home.

Back then, payments for home-delivered food were customarily made later, when the empty containers were picked up. This often resulted in disputes. There is a story about a seolleongtang restaurant in Jongno which had a customer who regularly ordered out but often avoided payment by being absent from home when the delivery man returned to collect the containers. Enraged after making several fruitless calls to the house, the delivery man went back with his friends and bullied a maid. He ended up being arrested by the police.

1

In addition to seolleongtang, the favorite dishes for delivery at that time were naengmyeon (cold buckwheat noodles) and tteokguk (rice cake soup), which were popular offerings at the restaurants that appeared in large numbers in Seoul and other cities. Orders were usually made via telephone, although telephone ownership still remained very low. After an order was received and the food was prepared, couriers delivered the food by bicycle, working the handlebars with the left hand and holding the food with the right. It was a feat as precarious as a circus stunt and quite a sight for onlookers.

Handcarts and Bicycles

It was after permanent markets were established in the cities that delivery workers entered everyday urban landscapes. Vendors who could not leave their stalls to eat would order their meals from nearby eateries.

Typically, the food was delivered by a woman with a large tray on her head stacked with bowls and dishes of food, walking gingerly to keep her balance. Even high-class traditional restaurants had a delivery menu offering dozens of dishes, which were carried on a wooden litter. Cooks and servers were at times dispatched to help at the banquets of wealthy families.

Upscale Chinese restaurants also delivered food on demand as a complimentary customer service. Delivery services on a professional scale began with postal

1. An editorial cartoon titled “A Food Deliveryman and a Lady,” by Ahn Seok-ju, from the April 5, 1934 issue of the daily Chosun Ilbo.

The lady exclaims in amazement, “Oh, my… You carry such a heavy load with one hand!” and the deliveryman retorts, “I’d think those things in your hair and on your fingers are a sight heavier.”

2. A postman in the 1900s. Korea’s modern postal service started in 1884 with the establishment of the General Office of Postal Administration. In the early years, horse carts were used for mail delivery.

3. Deliverymen pose in front of Sajeongok, a famous naengmyeon restaurant in Incheon, in this 1930s photo. The cold noodles served here were reputedly so tasty that orders came from as far as Myeong-dong in Seoul.

4. “Morning,” a 1946 photograph by Limb Eung-sik, captures young women carrying basins full of flowers on the street in Busan. The photo is in the collection of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.

© The Chosun Ilbo

16 KOREANA Autumn 2020

5. In this 1950s photo, a naengmyeon deliveryman puts on an exciting stunt show on the street in Sokcho. He is known to be the founder of a Hamheung-style cold noodle restaurant in the coastal town near the Demilitarized Zone.

3 © Bupyeong History Museum

2

4

© National Museum of Korean Contemporary History

© Lim Sang-cheol

5 © Sokcho Municipal Museum

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 17

1. “Another Hopeful Day” (provisional title), a 1960 photograph by Limb Eung-sik, captures young boys running to deliver newspapers in Myeong-dong, Seoul. It was common for children of poorer families to deliver newspapers to earn tuition and pocket money.

2. “Ikseon-dong,” a 1993 photograph by Han Jeong-sik, shows a Chinese food deliveryman riding a bicycle through the alleys of a residential area in central Seoul, holding a large tin box in one hand. Chinese restaurants started to provide delivery service in the 1960s.

3. A man delivers coal briquettes using a shoulder pole in a hillside shantytown in Seoul in this photo dating back to the early 1970s. The holed briquettes were widely used for heating and cooking from the post-Korean War era to the 1990s.

1 © Lim Sang-cheol

2 © Han Jeong-sik

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3 © NewsBank

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 19

Unlike older generations, digital natives born after 1980 effortlessly adapted to the latest technologies, and in no time, advanced delivery services became a distinctive feature of Korean society. The smartphone generation deserves kudos for the nation’s thriving delivery industry today.

1. Working for a Chinese restaurant near Korea University in Seoul in the late 1990s, this deliveryman known by the name of Cho Tae-hun was a neighborhood celebrity for his decorated motorcycle and “lightning” speed. He became famous nationwide after appearing on television.

1 © NewsBank

20 KOREANA Autumn 2020

2. A woman working for a restaurant in Namdaemun Market in Seoul carries on her head stacked trays of food for merchants who can’t leave their stores to eat.

factories would not deliver them to private homes, leaving buyers no choice but to haul the briquettes in rented handcarts. As demand grew, briquette merchants started providing door-to-door delivery for a fee in the 1970s. Meanwhile, for vendors who had no means of heating in winter, briquette brazier rental services appeared. In the two major markets in Seoul, Namdaemun (South Gate) and Dongdaemun (East Gate) markets, a flock of deliverymen could be seen as early as 5 a.m. on standby with burning briquettes in portable braziers, waiting for orders. To the cost of the briquettes they added a small service fee, and by delivering 200 or so braziers per day they were able to make ends meet.

Motorcycles and Smartphone Apps

2 © Seoul Metropolitan Government; Photo by Mun Deok-gwan

mail, newspapers and alcoholic drinks. Breweries supplied restaurants and bars directly by means of bicycle couriers.

After the nation’s liberation from Japanese rule and the subsequent Korean War, compressed economic development accelerated urbanization and industrialization. Domestic commerce grew rapidly, and logistics between wholesalers and retailers was largely facilitated by hired handcart couriers. Some of the couriers would buy the products themselves and resell them to retailers at the same price. Instead of distribution margins, they earned small profits by selling empty containers back to the wholesalers.

In those days, holed coal briquettes were used for heating and cooking in the cities. On the threshold of winter, it was common for most households to stock their storeroom with high stacks of briquettes. But no matter how many briquettes a customer might order,

Chinese food started to be delivered widely in the 1960s and remained the most popular delivery food for a long time. Bicycles were still almost the only option available for transporting the orders. Toward the end of the 1970s, when the Korean government’s immigration policy made it harder for Chinese residents to enter Korean universities, they moved to Taiwan in great numbers. As a result, many Korean deliverymen who had worked for Chinese restaurants started their own businesses. Just then, demand for Chinese food delivery surged as huge apartment complexes went up in big cities, creating densely populated residential areas.

In the 1980s, an increasing number of consumers became capable of affording delivery fees, giving a boost to the industry. In 1982, an economic newspaper counted delivery service as a business with good prospects. On-demand delivery became more widespread in the run-up to the 1988 Seoul Olympics, when American-style fast food chains opened in the city. A new urban scene unfolded: young people riding motorcycles to deliver pizza, a food hitherto unknown to most Koreans. As motorcycles proved to be excellent in terms of speed and efficiency, Chinese restaurants and traditional markets also opted to use them in place of bicycles or walking.

Delivery in its current form, based on door-to-door parcel service, emerged as a promising business model in the 1990s, with the introduction of the Japanese parcel delivery system. At first, Koreans were rather reluctant to adopt the service, considering the separate delivery charge unacceptable. But they soon came to appreciate the convenience of receiving their purchases at home in return for a small fee. Subsequently, parcel delivery services proliferated, deriving further impetus from the appearance of mobile apps in 2010. Unlike older generations, digital natives born after 1980 effortlessly adapted to the latest technologies, and in no time, advanced delivery services became a distinctive feature of Korean society. The smartphone generation deserves kudos for the nation’s thriving delivery industry today.

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 21

SPECIAL FEATURE 4

Delivery Service: An Inside Look at a Booming Industry

Comics Capture the World of Package Unloaders Products ordered online pass through many hands before they are delivered to the customer. Unloading packages from heavily loaded trucks is one part of the process.

Comic artist Lee Jong-chul portrays his own experiences as a package unloader and episodes about his colleagues in the comic book “Kkadaegi,” published in 2019.

Lee Jong-chul Comic Artist

You should get a proper job quickly. You’ll only end up ruining your body doing kkadaegi .

Pant Pant Pant

22 KOREANA Autumn 2020

I

graduated from an art college in the provinces and came to Seoul with my mind set on achieving my childhood dream of becoming a comic artist, but with no specific plans. My parents supported me financially for a while, but the money they sent wasn’t nearly enough to live on in a city like Seoul. I needed to earn a living while working towards my debut as a comic artist. Ideally, I would work for five to six hours and draw comics the rest of the day. An opening for a morning-shift loading and unloading job caught my eye. Wouldn’t it be too strenuous? I hesitated for a bit, but the work site was near my place and the pay was higher than the minimum hourly wage, which enticed me to call. The person on the other end asked if I could start the next day. I said that I could. That was how I began my part-time gig as a delivery truck unloader.

First Part-Time Job

Online purchases go through several stages before they arrive at the customer’s door. First, the seller confirms the orders and packages the items, then a person from the partner delivery company takes the packages to the warehouse. The packages are loaded onto trucks and taken to the delivery company’s central distribution center, where they are sorted overnight according to postal code. Part-time workers load the sorted packages onto trucks, which take them to regional distribution centers at around dawn.

There, the packages are unloaded from the trucks and the delivery drivers take them to the end user.

My first partWhoa! time job was at a This is h eavy! delivery company’s regional distribution center.

On the first day, the

manager asked if I had done kkadaegi before. This is industry jargon for loading and unloading items from trucks. I told him I had no experience whatsoever.

He introduced me to another part-timer who would work with me as a team: a man in his mid-50s with graying hair. He was brusque but explained to me in detail, step by step, what I would be doing. He only asked me my surname. Due to the grueling nature of the job, there was a high turnover, so he didn’t bother to ask my full name. He called me Lee and I called him Mr. Woo.

‘Cans’ and Lower Back Braces

Our job was to unload the boxes from the trucks and place them on a conveyor belt. Delivery drivers stood waiting by the conveyor to take the packages for their respective zones. An 11-ton truck can carry an average of 700-800 packages, occasionally holding more than 1,000. We worked in teams of two to unload on average four to five trucks a day. It took about 40-50 minutes to unload each truck. After just one truck, my legs would feel weak and wobbly. The trucks, called “cans,” were poorly ventilated and stuffy; as soon as I started work, the dust immediately stung my nose and throat, and I began sweating like a pig.

I realized why the pay was 2,000-3,000 won higher than the minimum hourly wage. I started at 7 a.m. and finished past lunchtime. Only then did the drivers set off to deliver the packages to eagerly waiting customers.

Over time, I became friends with the drivers.

They generally worked from 7 a.m. until late in the evening, and way past midnight during peak seasons when demand surged. They earned a modest fee of less than 1,000 won per delivery. The deliverymen wanted us to work faster so they could head out quickly, while we wanted to take intermittent breaks; such opposing stances bred conflict at times.

Comic artist Lee Jong-chul depicts his experiences as a part-time package unloader for a delivery company in his first comic book “Kkadaegi” (Bori Publishing, 2019). It drew much attention at the 2019 Leipzig Book Fair in Germany for its unique subject and motifs spotlighting a marginalized aspect of Korean society.

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 23

Keep D ry

The icy, biting wind blows in winter.

I met people from all walks of life: an athlete who used to be goalie in the K3 League; a guy studying for the national police exam; a semiconductor factory worker who married young and wanted to provide better for his family; a middle-aged man who worked 30 years in civil service; and our captain in his mid-40s who lived with a sick mother.

Everyone had their own story.

The only way to endure the frigid cold here

is to just brave it out.

It’s still frigging cold even with long johns and two pairs of socks.

It’ll be a long story.

A true tear-jerker.

You’ll draw my story someday, won’t you?

24 KOREANA Autumn 2020

An 11-ton truck can carry an average of 700-800 packages, occasionally holding more than 1,000. We worked in teams of two to unload on average four to five trucks a day. It took about 40-50 minutes to unload each truck.

Workspaces at distribution centers are usually located outdoors, leaving workers exposed to the elements. We had to brave sweltering heat and frigid cold. The so-called “delivery crisis” repeats every year around the Chuseok holidays in autumn. That’s the peak delivery season, when box upon box of newly harvested rice and other crops, salted napa cabbage for kimchi, and ready-made kimchi fill the distribution center. We got through it by wearing a lower back brace.

Mr. Woo eventually quit and went to work at an agro-fishery market on the outskirts of Seoul, carrying vegetables at night. I also quit and went to work with him. One day, a publisher contacted me with a proposal for a children’s comic series. When I told Mr. Woo the good news, he leapt for joy and told me never to come back to that place. I promised I wouldn’t. However, I soon found drawing comics didn’t earn me enough to get by, so I resumed my side gig at another delivery company. But I didn’t tell him. “There was this young friend called Lee Jong-chul who worked with Frag me for a while. ile He plugged away at his comics and achieved his dream of becoming a comic artist.” That’s

how I wanted him to remember me.

The work was even more exhausting than I had expected, but there were upsides. I got to meet people from all walks of life: an athlete who used to play goalie in the K3 League; a guy studying for the national police exam; an employee at a semiconductor factory who married young and wanted to better provide for his family; a middle-aged man who had retired after 30 years in civil service; and our captain in his mid-40s who lived with a sick mother. Everyone had their own story.

Everyone Has a Story

I grew closer to my colleagues as time went by, and I wanted to put their stories into comics. So I began writing down my experiences at work. I wanted to tell their stories, console them and root for them. The culmination was my comic book “Kkadaegi,” which came out last year.

During these trying times, when the whole world is reeling from a pandemic, the delivery industry has been receiving renewed attention. On the flip side of the convenience of getting anything, anytime, anywhere without face-to-face interaction are miserable incidents of overworked couriers collapsing due to explosive growth in delivery volume. Delivery packages have various warning labels attached to them: “Don’t throw,” “This side up,” “Fragile,” and so on.

One day, it occurred to me that these precautions shouldn’t just apply to delivery boxes. These days when I meet people, I tell them, “Handle your body and mind with care!”

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 25

SPECIAL FEATURE 5

Delivery Service: An Inside Look at a Booming Industry

26 KOREANA Autumn 2020

The Delivery Industry Its Light and Shadows

The food delivery industry is thriving as the COVID-19 pandemic propels a shift to a contactless lifestyle. Mobile platforms, no longer mere tools for brokering food orders, have expanded delivery services to a wider range of items. While these platforms are rapidly evolving and prospering, the industry is tasked with addressing monopolization and labor conditions.

Um Ji-yong Reporter, Byline Network

I

n 2018, Korea’s online shopping transaction volume topped the 100 trillion won mark for the first time, reaching 114 trillion won. That year, food delivery accounted for a mere 4.6 percent of the total. In the first half of this year, however, transactions for online food service exceeded 1 trillion won per month, according to Statistics Korea. The monthly total in April, for example, increased 83.7 percent year-on-year, occupying the third-largest share at 10.5 percent, coming just behind groceries and beverages at 12.7 percent, and home appliances, electronics and telecommunications equipment at 11.5 percent.

There is little doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic is a significant factor in these trends. Amid widespread social distancing, dining out has become less frequent while takeout or delivery is considered the “new normal.” According to Open Survey, a mobile data research company, almost 70 percent of consumers in their 40s and 50s surveyed said their reluctance to dine out during the outbreak made them turn to food delivery. Given this group’s previous tendency to stay away from food delivery, the change is noteworthy. Industry figures suggest that, having experienced the convenience of mobile delivery apps, these consumers will likely continue shopping online after the pandemic ends – not just for food but for other products as well.

Mobile app-based delivery platforms have been driving the growth of the domestic market since before the current health crisis. When Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, delivery platforms found their opportunity in the mobile envi-

As demand for non-contact delivery service spikes amid the COVID-19 outbreak, a delivery company’s distribution center in Seoul is crowded with parcels and workers sorting them by destination. The excessive workload and labor conditions of those in the delivery service industry have emerged as a new social issue. © Yonhap News Agency

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 27

ronment. Conventional telephone orders, based on information from flyers and brochures, swiftly gave way to the current method of processing every phase of an order via mobile apps. Delivery platforms developed profit models based on advertising (showcasing client stores on their app) or charging a commission per order.

Expansion of Services

A survey conducted by the Korean Foodservice Industry Association in March 2019 shows that 62.2 percent of all food delivery orders were received via mobile app versus 37.5 percent by telephone. Consumer surveys yielded similar results. Earlier this year, Open Survey’s research on 1,500 men and women aged 20 to 59 nationwide revealed that about 60 percent of respondents accessed food delivery services via specialized websites or smartphone apps.

Delivery platforms are trying to gain a competitive edge by offering different benefits to restaurants and consumers. Consumers obviously prefer simplified mobile pay options allowing one-stop prepayment for both food and delivery. In the current pandemic situation, the COD (cash/collect on delivery) method using cash or credit cards is quickly being replaced by simple online payment. Many consumers go even further, opting to have their food dropped off at their doorstep in order to avoid human contact.

Another prominent trend is the expansion of the range of items

for delivery. The scope of services is widening beyond food delivery to include a great variety of commodities: processed food like snacks and ramen noodles; daily necessities such as bottled water, toilet paper and detergent; and refrigerated fresh food like groceries, meat and semi-cooked meal kits.

In 2019, Woowa Brothers Corp., which operates Korea’s largest delivery app, Baedal Minjok (a.k.a.

Baemin), launched B Mart, an instant grocery delivery service that deals with almost all products available in supermarkets. Delivery Hero Korea, owner of the second and third largest platforms, Yogiyo and Baedaltong, respectively, is also enlarging its list of service items in partnership with local convenience stores and supermarkets.

In addition, a growing number of delivery platforms are expanding services available to restaurants. They even provide food materials, packing containers and other subsidiary items, and develop POS (point of sale) systems for restaurant management.

Korea’s food delivery market has a duopoly structure. On one side is Woowa Brothers, a home-

1. Delivery bicycles for Vroong Friends are on standby near a subway station. Anyone who signs up as a part-time rider on the platform can use the bicycles to carry out deliveries. Delivery service providers, finding it hard to deal with the flood of orders with their full-time staff, started to recruit parttime riders.

2. Popular food delivery apps: from left, Baedal Minjok, Yogiyo and Baedaltong. Figures from mobile big data platform IGAWorks show that the number of Android OS users is the highest for Baedal Minjok (9,701,158), followed by Yogiyo (4,926,269), Coupang Eats (391,244) and Baedaltong (272,139).

Baedaltong had consistently ranked third since its launch in 2010 but was overtaken by Coupang Eats in the first half of 2020.

1 © Um Ji-yong

28 KOREANA Autumn 2020

2

grown company that launched Baemin in June 2010, and on the other is Delivery Hero Korea, the Korea branch of Delivery Hero, a German-based multinational food delivery giant. After establishing Yogiyo in 2012, Delivery Hero Korea drastically raised its market share in 2014 by acquiring Baedaltong, which launched the world’s first click-to-call delivery application in April 2010.

Monopoly and Competition

This duopoly is expected to collapse very soon. In December 2019, Delivery Hero Korea announced its plan to take over Woowa Brothers, heralding a tectonic shift in the domestic delivery industry. If the acquisition plan passes the M&A review by the Korea Fair Trade Commission, the combined firm will possess the industry’s three largest platforms and a market share of 99 percent. The prospective birth of a behemoth monopoly has stirred heated controversy. Affiliated stores worry about collusion resulting in unreasonable commissions and advertising costs, while consumers are wary of possible

hikes in delivery fees.

Woowa Brothers was quick to explain that, despite their merger, the two companies would maintain independent management and competition, though this was insufficient to quell the controversy. As a countermeasure to prevent monopoly, some local governments have already launched, or are developing, public delivery apps for their respective regions. Moreover, Coupang Eats and WeMakePrice O have joined the competition, foreshadowing significant changes in the geography of the food delivery market.

Along with the impressive growth of delivery platforms, another notable phenomenon is the appearance of delivery providers.

First-generation platforms, which functioned as brokers between restaurants and consumers, lacked their own delivery networks.

Actual delivery was handled by restaurants, either by the owners themselves or the deliverymen they employed. Since orders were concentrated at lunch and dinner time or late-night hours, restaurants with their own delivery workers had to find ways to make the most of them during lulls in business, sending them to hand out flyers, for instance.

Delivery providers saw an opportunity in this niche, offering their services to restaurants for a monthly management fee of 100,000-150,000 won, plus a delivery fee of about 3,000 won per

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 29

order. By outsourcing delivery, restaurants can reduce expenditures or losses incurred by employing their own delivery drivers. Back in 2013, when delivery startups began appearing, many restaurants used their services to complement their own workforce, but the number of restaurants relying solely on delivery providers has since risen gradually. Today, the three frontrunners in the market in terms of monthly orders are Saenggakdaero (10 million), Barogo (9.8 million) and Mesh Korea (4 million). None of them has made a net profit yet due to intense competition, but they are growing quickly.

Delivery Providers

The first-generation platform giants Woowa Brothers and Delivery Hero Korea also came to build their own delivery networks, launching Baemin Riders and Yogiyo Plus, respectively. Delivery Hero Korea went further to invest 20 billion won in Barogo, presumably a move to enhance its logistics capacity. This means Baemin and Yogiyo charge higher fees – 15-30 percent compared to 6-12 percent for older platforms – as they include delivery service charges. Coupang Eats (run by Korea’s largest online retailer Coupang), Ddingdong (operating in Seoul’s Gangnam area) and Foodfly (acquired by Yogiyo) are all examples of delivery providers that succeeded with this business model. Now, these second-generation delivery platforms equipped with their own logistics networks are entering the mainstream.

The emergence of second-generation delivery platforms has sparked social concerns regarding “platform-mediated labor.” This system involves a wider pool of independent contractors in addition to full-time delivery workers registered to each platform. Barogo’s Barogo Flex, Mesh Korea’s Vroong Friends and Woowa Brothers’ Baemin Connect are major examples of this system. Coupang Eats hired independent contractors from the beginning because it struggled to process rush orders with its own network, getting complaints for late or missed deliveries.

To cover time slots with high demand in metropolitan areas where orders are clustered, major delivery providers recruit independent contractors through crowdsourcing. The companies emphasize that contractors can choose to work as much as, and whenever, they want. They earn 3,500 to 4,000 won per delivery, whereas full-time delivery workers make 3,000 won per delivery. This recruitment plan has met with a favorable response. According to Woowa Brothers, a

A rider for Vroong Friends leaves a convenience store in Seoul after picking up an order. As demand for delivery surges, convenience store products have been included on the ever-expanding list of delivery items. This store has extended its delivery hours to 24/7 from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

30 KOREANA Autumn 2020

On the other hand, there has been concern about the increase of platform-mediated labor because it creates a class of workers whose rights are not guaranteed by law. Under existing Korean laws, these independent contractors are classified as “workers in special types of employment,” with hardly any protections in case of workrelated accidents or conflicts with their client companies.

total of 14,730 independent contractors had signed up for Baemin Connect as of February 2020. This makes their pool seven times larger than the 2,300-person network of Baemin Riders.

Platform Workers

© NewsBank

On the other hand, there has been concern about the increase of platform-mediated labor because it creates a class of workers whose rights are not guaranteed by law.

Under existing Korean laws, these independent contractors are classified as “workers in special types of employment,” with hardly any protections in case of work-related accidents or conflicts with their client companies. They cannot benefit from social insurance schemes or paid holidays stipulated by labor laws. When demand for delivery services skyrocketed with the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the inferior working conditions of these contractors were laid bare once again, with their basic rights spotlighted as a social issue. There is now a growing voice over the urgency of systemic improvement to protect the rights of this new class of workers.

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 31

FOCUS

WARTIME DEFENDERS OF CULTURAL TREASURES A National Museum of Korea special exhibition, “The Museum and The War: Commemorating the 70th Anniversary of the Korean War” (June 25-September 13, 2020), recalls unwavering commitment to relocate and safeguard cultural treasures.

Here, the writer describes the efforts of her father – who was the museum’s first director – as well as museum employees and U.S. personnel.

Kim Youngna Professor Emeritus, Seoul National University; Former Director, National Museum of Korea

This 1952 photo shows the National Museum staff conducting a meeting at the temporary museum building in Busan, the wartime provisional capital. Dr. Kim Chewon, the museum’s first director, is seen at the center (sixth from left).

32 KOREANA Autumn 2020

© National Museum of Korea

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 33

H

uman lives are not the only casualties of war; important cultural assets and priceless artworks also fall victim. They are destroyed and pillaged intentionally because the obliteration of a culture is tantamount to the erasure of a nation’s identity. This was evident across wartime Europe, as Nazi Germany systematically looted not only artworks and artifacts but historical documents and books as well. An estimated 250,000 pieces of art alone were taken away. After the war, the plundering was included among the charges levied against war criminals at the Nuremberg trials.

A year after the Nuremberg trials and subsequent proceedings ended, the fratricidal tragedy of the Korean War began. Once again, a nation’s cultural gems were targeted: the North Korean army intended to pillage cultural assets in the South. But the collection of the National Museum of Korea survived, thanks to a Herculean endeavor that moved the pieces to the provisional capital, Busan. However, these valiant efforts remain largely unsung.

Collection in Peril

Kim Chewon (a.k.a. Kim Jae-won; 1909-1990), the first director of the National Museum, was instrumental in safeguarding South Korea’s national treasures and artifacts. Kim had watched the rise of Nazi

Germany during the 1920s and 1930s as a student at the University of Munich. After a stint as research assistant to archaeologist and sinologist Professor Carl Hentze at Ghent University in Belgium, Kim returned to Korea in 1940 and taught German at Bosung College (now Korea University).

After Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule in August 1945, the U.S. Military Government began to search for someone to head the National Museum of Korea, formerly the Museum of the Japanese Government-General of Korea. The search ended with the archaeologist who had studied in Germany. In December 1945, Kim was appointed as the museum’s first director, a position in which he would serve until February 1970.

The National Museum of Korea occupied a Western-style structure on the grounds of Gyeongbok Palace. On the fateful day of June 25, 1950, when North Korean forces invaded the South and bore down on Seoul, the museum was still in the process of being reorganized. Three days later, the North Korean national flag fluttered over the museum and one of the employees shouted for the overthrow of President Syngman Rhee. Kim hid in an acquaintance’s house as North Korean troops hunted down key figures.

The North Koreans marked the National Muse-

1. A 1915 photograph of Gyeongbok Palace features a Western-style structure, built by the Japanese colonial government after removing many palace buildings. It housed the Museum of the Japanese Government-General of Korea, predecessor of the National Museum of Korea. To the right are some remaining palace structures and the east gate, Geonchunmun, and on the lower left is the cloister of the throne hall, Geunjeongjeon.

2. Kim Chewon (right) and Eugene I. Knez, who served as director of the U.S. Information Service in Busan during the Korean War. Knez privately arranged safe transport of the museum’s collection to Busan.

1 © National Museum of Korea

34 KOREANA Autumn 2020

tured trove. Gyeongbok Palace, meanwhile, suffered extensive damage from bombings, as did the buildings that had housed the museum’s collection.

Clandestine Operation

2

um’s collection and the possessions of Chun Hyungpil (1906-1962), founder of the Kansong Art Museum, for relocation to Pyongyang. They ordered the museum staff to pack up the most prominent objects and move them to Deoksu Palace on the other side of the downtown area. The staff tried to stall by making up excuses, such as a lack of wrapping paper or materials to make crates, but eventually completed packing. The tide of the war turned, however, and on September 28, UN forces rolled into Seoul, finding the cultural treasures intact. The North Koreans had completely filled their trucks in their retreat, with no room spared for their cap-

After recapturing Seoul, the South Korean army and UN forces advanced rapidly northward. However, Chinese troops entered the war and pushed the allied forces back. Watching scores of U.S. tanks retreating, Kim realized the gravity of the situation.

He told Paek Nak-chun, the minister of culture and education, “We need to evacuate the museum’s collection to Busan since the war hasn’t yet reached the southernmost city.” Kim thought that if the cultural assets fell into the hands of the North a second time, it would be impossible to recover them. Paek agreed and wrote a letter of approval in English to maintain confidentiality. But the next step was daunting.

Arranging transportation for hundreds of museum crates seemed nearly impossible. There was a dire shortage of vehicles even for moving troops and refugees. Eugene I. Knez (1916-2010), an anthropologist who was serving as director of the U.S. Information Service in Busan, came to the rescue. The urgency of the situation motivated him to bypass the formalities of obtaining the approval of U.S. Ambassador John J. Muccio. Aware that the freight trains carrying munitions usually returned to Busan empty, Knez persuaded an American officer in charge and managed to secure one of the trains. The U.S. Army Transportation Corps provided the trucks to transport the museum pieces to Seoul Station.

On December 6, Kim reported to Minister Paek on his departure for Busan; his party of 16, including museum executives and their families, boarded the freight train. The operation had to be carried out covertly, and the train had to stop at stations for several hours. The trip, which would take only two and a half hours today, took four days. A month later, on January 4, 1951, the North Korean army seized Seoul once again.

President Syngman Rhee was well aware of the importance of the nation’s cultural heritage. Seeking a contingency plan to move the evacuated cultural properties in Busan to an overseas location, Rhee turned to the United States. But the U.S. State Department, worried about potentially becoming embroiled in malicious propaganda that the Unit-

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1 © National Museum of Korea

The murals were among a total of 18,883 National Museum objects that were packed into 430 crates and relocated. Through the dedicated efforts of many individuals, the museum’s collection was spared the ravages of war.

1. The catalogue of “Masterpieces of Korean Art,” the first overseas exhibition of Korea’s cultural assets. The exhibition toured eight U.S. cities during 1957-58, showing the world that Korea was making a strong recovery from the ravages of war. The photograph in the catalogue is of the gold crown from Seobongchong (Auspicious Phoenix Tomb) in Gyeongju, Treasure No. 339.

2. “Mural Painting of Pranidhi Scene,” mud, 145 × 57 cm. National Museum of Korea.

One of the Pranidhi (“promise” in Sanskrit) scene murals excavated from Cave 15 of the Bezeklik Caves, a complex of Buddhist grottoes in Turpan, China, dating back to the fifth to 14th centuries. It features Sakyamuni in a previous life, holding blue flowers in both hands.

3. An exhibition hall of the National Museum, which relocated to Seokjojeon (Pavilion of Stone) at Deoksu Palace after the Korean War ended and reopened to the public in 1955.

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ed States had looted the artifacts, recommended Japan instead. This was a solution that Rhee could not accept. Fortunately, South Korean and UN forces reclaimed Seoul again in March 1951 and kept the North Korean and Chinese forces far from Busan throughout the rest of the war.

Although the discussion on relocating the cultural treasures petered out, the U.S. position was not entirely hands-off. In July 1950, just weeks into the war, President Rhee ordered Colonel Kim Il-hwan of the Ministry of National Defense to send 139 important cultural objects, including the Silla gold crowns that had been housed at the National Museum’s Gyeongju branch, and the Bank of Korea’s gold bullions to the Bank of America in San Francisco to be stored in its vault. These artifacts were later included in the exhibition “Masterpieces of Korean Art,” which toured eight American cities during 1957-58; thereafter, they were safely repatriated to Korea in 1959.

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Unflagging Commitment

More than a few pieces in the National Museum’s collection had to be left behind in Seoul. However, particularly weighing on Kim as he resettled in Busan were some 60 murals from Central Asia. A Japanese patron of archaeological expeditions to

Central Asia had donated the murals to the Museum of the Japanese Government-General of Korea during the colonial period. The murals, painted on earthen walls, were too heavy and thick to move to Busan.

A similar situation had occurred at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin, which also owned Central Asian murals. When World War II erupted, the murals could not be transported alongside other exhibits to a safe location; consequently, around 30 percent of them ended up being destroyed. The person in charge is said to have taken his own life.

Kim and a few other museum employees returned to Seoul in April and May 1951. Amid a spring offensive by Chinese forces and the accompanying roars of artillery, they managed to enter the museum, pack the murals and transport them safely to Busan. At the request of Knez, Colonel Charles R. Munske helped with the packaging and transport of the murals to Seoul Station. They were among a total of 18,883 National Museum objects that were packed into 430 crates and relocated. Through the dedicated efforts of many individuals, the museum’s collection was spared the ravages of war.

Even during the tumultuous aftermath of the war, the National Museum did not neglect its role of excavation and exhibition. The museum’s collection returned to Seoul and was placed in Seokjojeon (Pavilion of Stone), Korea’s first European-style stone building, at Deoksu Palace. In 1955, the museum reopened to the public.

I was a war baby, the youngest daughter of Kim Chewon, born after my family had taken refuge in Busan. I don’t remember much about my childhood in the wartime capital, but whenever I looked around the exhibition halls during my five-year tenure as director of the National Museum (2011-2016), I couldn’t help but think what a gargantuan undertaking it must have been to protect the cultural assets there under life-threatening circumstances. What made it all possible was the leadership of a person with international experience, foreign language proficiency, quick judgment and a strong sense of duty. Just as essential were the courageous staff who risked their lives to guard the museum’s collection, and also those who, regardless of nationality, willingly lent a helping hand with a deep respect for cultural heritage.

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ART REVIEW

Music for Global Outreach 38 KOREANA Autumn 2020

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As part of the 8th edition of the Seoul International Dance Festival in 2005, “The Perfect and Precious Dances by Virtuosos” was staged at CJ Towol Theater of the Seoul Arts Center, featuring six veteran dancers showing off the beauty and power of traditional Korean dance. Shown here are four of them: from left, Kim Su-ak (1926-2009), Kim Deok-myeong (1924-2015), Kang Seon-yeong (1925-2016) and Lee Mae-bang (1927-2015). © NewsBank

By adding contemporary elements to traditional Korean music, young artists are creating a new brand of the Korean Wave, which is distinctly different from K-pop. The growing international recognition they are garnering owes much to the caliber of the masters who performed on the world stage before them and the efforts of promoters behind the scenes.

Kim Shin-ah Director, National Theater Foundation of Korea

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while back, I was accompanying a group of musicians for an overseas performance. We decided to go on a picnic after the show was over.

It was spring and we had a day off in the desert. Everyone was carefree because we had promised to “forget about art for just one day.” Humming to ourselves, we made our way to a “cool stream.” The moment we dipped our feet in the water, we were pleasantly surprised at how warm it was.

Just as we were truly relishing being in the Arab region, we heard a rhythmic sound from across the stream. We looked up and saw a few boys carrying something resembling drums and playing a beat. Forgetting our promise to stay away from music for the day, we approached the boys one by one, and soon enough found ourselves singing and dancing to their drumbeat. We only knew two Arabic phrases – “as-salamu alaykum” (peace be upon you) and “shukran” (thank you) – but that was sufficient to keep us talking and laughing together.

Masters on the World Stage

“The Perfect and Precious Dances by Virtuosos” was a performance given in 2005 by six dancers with an average age

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of 80. Renowned for their brilliance, the masters danced to tunes played by yet another group of talented musicians who sat in a long row on a floor mat on the stage. The show was planned by Jin Ok-sub, a producer of traditional art performances and current president of the Korea Cultural Heritage Foundation. It was part of the eighth edition of the Seoul International Dance Festival, also known as SIDance.

Among the audience was Gisèle Depuccio, deputy director of Festival Montpellier Danse. She decided then and there to invite the masters to France a year later for a show to be named “Trésors Vivants” (“Living Treasures”).

With 2006 marking the 120th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Korea and France, the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism eagerly agreed to cover airfare and freight transport for the performers, while the festival headquarters would pay the high booking fees and other costs. There were to be two performances, one at the Opéra Comédie in Montpellier and the other at the Chateauvallon National Theater of Dance and Image in Toulon.

Time was not kind to the dancers, however. Over the course of the ensuing year, some of them would follow the path to heaven, the skirt of their long robes fluttering grace-

1. Kim Hae-sook performs “Gayageum Sanjo” with the string quartet of the University of Music Franz Liszt Weimar at the Rudolstadt Festival in July 2014. She was the first Korean to headline the German world music festival.

2. “Gayageum Sanjo: École Choi Ok-Sam” produced by Ocora Radio France in 2012. Harmonia Mundi released the album in more than 60 countries, introducing sanjo instrumental music to the world.

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3. “Chant Arirang et Minyo,” released by Ocora Radio France in 2014, contains recordings of Lee Chun-hee, master singer of folk songs handed down in the Gyeonggi region.

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4. Lee Chun-hee sings at a joint concert by master musicians held in April 2011 at Deoksu Palace, hosted by the Korea Cultural Heritage Foundation.

fully behind them. The team managed to get on the plane only after a few members had been replaced, slightly lowering the average age. After their performance at the Opéra Comédie in Montpellier Square, the front of the theater was packed with audience members who didn’t yet want to go home. The cast were tired, but felt obliged to celebrate with the crowd. Noreum Machi, who participated as supporting instrumentalists, played some madang nori (traditional outdoor theater) pieces. It was a gala affair, and both local media and Le Monde interviewed farmer-cum-dancer Lee Yun-seok, who, when at home, would occasionally stop watering his grape vines to come out and dance in the empty rice paddies before returning to his greenhouse. Correspondents of the Agence France-Presse (AFP) were busy sending pictures of Kim Deok-myeong’s masculine crane dance to their news desk. One of the theater staff commented, sobbing, “I think Jang Geum-do’s salpuri (exorcism) dance would have consoled my dead mother’s soul.”

International Credibility

On Amazon, buyers can find masterpiece albums sought after by fans of traditional Korean folk music. In 2012, prestigious record label Ocora Radio France produced “Corée: Gayageum Sanjo: École Choi Ok-sam,” featuring Kim Hae-sook playing the solo gayageum piece. Maison des Cultures du Monde (World Cultures Institute) released albums by two other master instrumentalists, Kim Young-gil on the ajaeng and Lee Jae-hwa on the geomungo, in 2012 and 2013, respectively.

These albums received favorable reviews from British and German music critics.

That same year, when the Korean folk anthem “Arirang” was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intan-

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© Jeonju International Sori Festival © Yonhap News Agency

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© Song Jun-ho

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The Korean music community keeps cheering on emerging talents, and in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, world music agents quick to notice them are counting the days until they can fly again.

1. The fusion gugak band Jambinai plays at Palác Akropolis in Prague in April 2017.

In the front are: from left, Kim Bo-mi on the haegeum, Lee Il-woo on the guitar and Shim Eun-yong on the geomungo. At the back is Yoo Byeong-gu on the bass guitar.

2. A scene from “North Korean Dance,” premiered in 2018 by the Ahn Eun-me Company at Arko Arts Theater in Seoul.

It was selected as a seasonal event of the Théâtre de la Ville of Paris in 2019, and also as the closing show of the Festival Pays de Danses, hosted by Belgium’s Théâtre de Liège in February 2020.

© Gadja Productions

gible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, Gyeonggi minyo (folk song) master Lee Chun-hee gave a congratulatory performance at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. And in 2014, Festival de l’Imaginaire, a dream stage for most Korean artists, invited Lee to perform in the opening show. When long years of hard work and training pay off and put you at the top, it seems that even the sound of your breathing becomes art. Numerous talented young musicians would die for an opportunity that practically fell into Lee’s lap. However, it is not talent alone that puts them on the world’s most coveted stages. The promoter who had opened the doors for Korean performers to the Rudolstadt Festival as well as Festival de l’Imaginaire humbly refused to take credit, saying, “I’m happy as long as the masters who have devoted their lives to their art are given due respect.” But all these achievements

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would not have been possible without international credibility built by, among others, Kim Sun-kook, the only Korean music producer at Radio France and CEO of Just Music & Publishing, Inc.

Star Artists

Thanks to young artists who have kept up traditions and injected a modern edge, more and more Korean musicians are performing overseas, and many native Korean musical terms and expressions are being translated into different languages. The band Jambinai, in particular, stunned the world music industry by merging classical gugak (literally “national music”) with rock almost resembling heavy metal.

Recognized as “trendsetters, not trend followers,” this amazing group is more often found overseas than at home. They

have strategically utilized music retail markets and signed a contract with a famous record label. On the back of the band’s success, other musicians are partnering with industry experts to take a systematic approach toward global outreach.

Out of many different music genres, world music featuring “fusion gugak” is especially active, with performers having a relatively better shot at landing an overseas show.

However, the Korean artist that the foreign performance community welcomes with open arms is none other than Ahn Eun-me. She studied traditional Korean dance, continued her studies in New York, and eventually debuted as a contemporary dancer. Her performances are a vibrant mixture of spectacular colors and vigorous movements. Every piece has a story, and she always reaches out to the audience to communicate her message: “Let’s be happy together now!” It’s probably because of this message that French promoter Jean-Marie Chabot works hard to make Ahn an international success. Chabot says that seeing Ahn perform warms his heart and makes him happy.

Adding idiosyncratic elements of Ahn Eun-me’s dance and philosophy to the folk song genre, Lee Hee-moon began his career as a student of master singer Lee Chun-hee.

This “Joseon Idol” has created a sensation with his “seeing music.” He is at once a singer who shouts, “Let’s play!” to his audiences and an actor who has imbibed the fabulous magnificence Ahn Eun-me displays on stage. Donning fishnet stockings, high heels, spangled dresses, and a pink, yellow or blue wig, Lee plays hard on stage and draws fervent responses from his audience. He was lead vocalist for the

Singer Lee Hee-moon (center) formed the project group OBANGSINGWA (OBSG; meaning “Along with the Deities of the Five Directions”) with the folk song duo NomNom and the band Heosongsewol (“Waste Time”). Lee and Shin Seung-tae (left) from NomNom were members of the group SsingSsing, which caused a stir with their performance in 2019 for NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts in Washington, D.C.

group SsingSsing when it was invited to globalFEST 2017 in New York, attracting attention as the only Asian group.

His radically innovative performance there earned him the nickname “Lady Gaga of Minyo,” and America’s National Public Radio (NPR) called SsingSsing one of its top discoveries of the festival. In 2019, the group became the first Koreans to perform on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts, a video series that has featured the likes of Adele and John Legend, with their show racking up more than five million views on YouTube as of August 2020.

Toward the Digital Stage

The Korean music community keeps cheering on emerging talents, and in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, world music agents quick to notice them are counting the days until they can fly again. The epidemic has changed the world overnight, leaving us wondering on which digital platforms we should upload the beautiful music and mesmerizing dances we want to share with audiences worldwide. We don’t have the financial resources to compete with Netflix or the technology to impress the new media generation who are now into extended reality (XR). Nor is there any telling how long audiences will wait patiently for offline performances to resume. Nonetheless, we should give time to the artists who have worked hard to promote Korea to the rest of the world – who are holding tight to their microphones and instruments, craving the loud applause, as they continue to put in long hours of practice – until the day they can deliver on screen the vivid excitement of their live stage performances.

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INTERVIEW

Creating New Value from Discards The two young founders of design studio “Fabrikr” move freely between the realms of furniture and spatial design. The spaces reborn in their hands are making big waves, in particular among the trend-sensitive younger generation.

Park Eun-young Editor-in-Chief, CRAFT+DESIGN Heo Dong-wuk Photographer

“M

onster.” This was the name of the first piece, a chair, unveiled by designers Kim Dong-kyu and Kim Sung-jo after they opened Fabrikr, their design studio, in 2010. It was created by coating abandoned fabric and wood in epoxy. Having established a practice of making furniture out of discarded objects, the duo next turned their gaze toward abandoned spaces. Factories, post offices, public baths and hanok (traditional Korean houses) – all were soon being transformed into cafés, optician’s shops, brand showrooms and more.

It wasn’t just the function of these spaces that changed. Many people had their coffee there, read their books and enjoyed each other’s company. They wanted to spend their time there, and to stay; they grew to love these spaces. If you’re hoping to understand the preferences and sensibilities of the youth in this bustling city, or if you’re simply curious about Seoul’s next up-and-coming hot spot, you would do well to take a look at the spaces touched by Fabrikr.

These places are your answer.

Please explain your interest in discards.

Kim Dong-kyu: We both majored in textile design at university. Initially, we wanted to overcome the limits of fiber as a material; we wanted to use all kinds of cloth to create furniture and objets. Buying material and making something – that’s easy. We were more drawn to the idea of discarded things finding a

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new life and becoming something different because they’ve passed through our hands.

What is the distinction between “upcycling” and revitalizing something discarded?

Kim Dong-kyu: Swiss brand Freitag created a product by using waterproof industrial waste material to make bags. Because an upcycling brand has to put so much intense work into the manufacturing process, there’s no way to avoid an expensive product.

The fact that it still sells well means that the overall enterprise was just that strong. The story of a brand is important, of course, but the product itself must be enough on its own terms to convince shoppers to open their wallet. We felt we were still lacking in that department. So we decided to focus our attention on the discarded material itself, and on the direction of imbuing it with more value. This is why we ended up making works, objets, that could tell our story, rather than commercial products.

Initially, you focused on material and process.

Now, there seem to be no boundaries.

Kim Dong-kyu: Well, the basics haven’t changed.

Founders of design studio Fabrikr, Kim Sung-jo (left) and Kim Dong-kyu, share a table at the Seongsu-dong location of Fabrikrdesigned Cafe Onion. They started out working with furniture and expanded to spatial design.

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© Fabrikr

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“ Whether it’s an abandoned chair, some abandoned cloth, or an abandoned space – once we know our subject, we consider what story we might fill it with. The main difference would be that with furniture, we consider only our own vision, whereas with a space, we strive to capture the stories of the people who will be using it.”

1. “Quantum Project: Sound Holic Exit” (2014).

Musical instruments, furniture, neon light.

9.5 × 20 × 3.2 m (WDH).

2. “Quantum Project: Coral Wave” (2014). Prism film, wire, mirror. 9.5 × 15 × 3.2 m (WDH).

Eyeglasses brand Gentle Monster’s flagship store in the Hongdae area in Seogyo-dong, Mapo-gu, has showrooms on the second and third floors, but the first floor operates as an evolving Project Space. For a full year, Fabrikr unveiled a new design concept for the space every two weeks.

3. “MONSTER” (2010).

Fabric, Formica, wood.

60 × 60 × 85 cm (WDH).

4. “CHEUM” (2013).

Abandoned chair with epoxy. 64 × 54 × 100 cm (WDH).

We simply decided not to have any boundaries, and used the methods of expression we had at our disposal to make furniture, installation pieces, and spaces. Now, we’re thinking about architecture, too.

Kim Sung-jo: Whether it’s a piece of furniture or a space, the actual design process is the same. The difference is what comes first: the subject or the narrative we want to communicate. Whether it’s an abandoned chair, some abandoned cloth, or an abandoned space – once we know our subject, we consider what story we might fill it with. The main difference would be that with furniture, we consider only our own vision, whereas with a space, we strive to capture the stories of the people who will be using it. In designing a space, it’s important to think about how people will move, the paths they will take.

Why do you like epoxy?

Kim Sung-jo: Epoxy has certain properties that are well suited to the projects and view-

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points that interest us. It can hold the past, it’s polished and futuristic, but it’s actually quite soft and warm to the touch, unlike glass. We also like how its color changes over time. And the way it starts out liquid and becomes solid – this interests us, too. It’s also a material that mixes very harmoniously with an original object, so much so that it’s impossible to tell when the whole piece was made. An example is our chair “Cheum” (meaning “Filling”). Its broken arm has been replaced with a splint-like feature made of epoxy. If we had used the original wood, it would have been an act of “restoration,” but by adding a warm, artificial arm of epoxy, we were able to create a new and futuristic image.

It seems your first spatial project established Fabrikr in the public awareness.

Kim Sung-jo: In 2011, Gentle Monster first reached out to us saying that they were making glasses in collaboration with various artists. Two years after that, they commissioned us to install a front lawn for their flagship store opening in Nonhyeon-dong. Early ideas involved bringing some nautical wreckage from Daecheon Beach, but as we kept talking, the idea expanded to involve the whole space.

Rather than have a boat serve as a simple objet, it became a gateway to the showroom. We thought it would be fun to enter this boat and pass through it into an entirely different world.

The Gentle Monster store in Hongdae is the result of actively seeking a way to increase brand awareness through the space. We used an array of materials, methods and displays, redesigning the concept once every two weeks or

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so for a full year. As a result, Gentle Monster became very well known among young people, and a visit to its store was no longer just about buying glasses – it took on the added dimension of a cultural outing, with people coming to actually experience the space itself.

Your next project, Cafe Onion, has three locations now, all loved.

Kim Sung-jo: The Seongsu location was originally built in the 1970s and housed a mechanic’s garage, then a supermarket and a hostel.

There were all kinds of unapproved renovations and extensions. Traces of them are preserved perfectly in the walls and floors. We took these marks and traces as our design inspiration. Word about the Seongsu location spread and it kept on getting more and more love, so we ended up opening our second location. Onion’s CEO wanted us to go beyond a simple café to create a cultural brand. So, we built the Mia location inside the post office building around the concept of a “square” where people gather together. To us, Onion’s Mia location is like an installation art piece.

The Anguk location of Onion really showcases the power of the hanok.

Kim Sung-jo: They say it’s the number three café in the entire Korean market. That’s in an industry vibrant enough that foreign tourists do café tours of Korea, plus there’s a lot to take in on the design front, as well. After the Mia location, we wanted to make a café that could really represent the city of Seoul. We searched a long time for the right space, and ended up at an old hanok in Anguk-dong. The wooden maru floors, the columns, the roof – we preserved as many of the characteristics of the house as possible.

Is there a material or subject that you find particularly interesting these days?

Kim Sung-jo: When we first started with Cafe Onion, it marked a new and deeper consideration of light. We were realizing just how important light is in a space designed for rest and relaxation. We’ve recently become very interested in

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1 © hugefabio

the work of American installation artist James Turrell; he studies light and its effects.

What is most valuable to Fabrikr?

Kim Dong-kyu: It’s difficult to express clearly in one sentence. The words coming to mind right now are “people” and “time.”

Kim Sung-jo: Taking on art direction for Onion showed us how working with a brand can make bigger projects possible. It made us start considering more ways we might have a positive impact on society. There are still so few Korean brands that really rank, culturally speaking. Creating a brand that can represent Korean culture – this is the goal of both Onion and Fabrikr.

Has any recent space or travel destination made a deep impression?

Kim Dong-kyu: Two years ago, when we were first making Onion’s Anguk location, we spent a lot of time thinking about what makes something Korean. By chance, we encountered “Leaning Against an Entasis Column of the Hall of Infinite Life,” a book written by art historian Choi Sun-u, and we went to visit Buseok Temple. That was where we first really felt the resonance of Korean architecture and tradition.

The way architectural structures were arranged in nature, the way perspectives evolved with the trajectories of human traffic – feeling these things, we ended up being deeply inspired.

1. Reviving a forgotten corner of the Seoul Gangbuk Post Office, the Mia location of Cafe Onion plays with the concept of a “public square.” It emphasizes the exposed concrete, with a minimum number of tables installed.

2, 3. Since its opening in 2016, Onion Seongsu – constructed from the remains of an abandoned factory from the 1970s – has become a major site along various café pilgrimage routes across Seoul. The raw walls, preserving the traces of time’s passing in an interior renovated to serve as a café, create a sense of urban authenticity that moves visitors.

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GUARDIANS OF HERITAGE

A Martial Art for Mutual Goodwill Park Shin-young has practiced the traditional Korean martial art taekkyeon for almost 25 of her 29 years. Today, the young master uses her skills and experience to operate a social enterprise that produces stage performances, spreading the spirit of harmony and goodwill at home and abroad.

Kim Dong-ok Freelance Writer Ahn Hong-beom Photographer

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faded photograph more than a century old would determine the course of a young girl’s life. Park Shin-young was still too young to attend the kindergarten run by her parents when they brought in a martial arts instructor one day to start a daily class for children. She joined the class and, without even knowing what she was learning, instantly fell in love with it.

“It didn’t feel like I was learning something, but rather that I was dancing and playing as much as I liked. I looked forward to the class every day,” Park recalled.

This is how Park was introduced to taekkyeon, a traditional Korean martial art which she has now practiced for nearly a quarter century.

Just as she sensed as a child, taekkyeon does indeed look like dance, with its fluid, constantly changing movements. This is what mainly distinguishes it from taekwondo, a more widely-known Korean martial art with a similar name.

The old photograph, capturing a taekkyeon match between two little boys encircled by young spectators, was presumably taken by a Western missionary sometime during the final years of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). In pre-modern Korea, taekkyeon matches were a

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regular feature of village events. The locals were divided into upper and lower village teams, with the most skilled contestants selected from each area to compete. Usually, children’s matches were held first. “Much later, I learned that my parents had come across that old photo of children playing taekkyeon somewhere,” Park elaborated. “They thought it would help children with self-discipline and self-protection.”

Village Events

Taekkyeon, also spelled taekkyon or taekyon, is a combative sport in which the hands and feet are used to strike or take down an opponent. As its other names, subakhui (literally “hand-fighting play”) and gakhui (“feet play”), suggest, taekkyeon actually began as a festive game for outdoor events. Like many other folk traditions, its origins are not clearly recorded in literature.

But its long history can be traced back to similar movements depicted on a sparring mural in Muyongchong (Tomb of the Dancers), dating to the Goguryeo Kingdom (37 B.C.-A.D. 668).

Taekkyeon is listed among both the Republic of Korea’s Important Intangible Cultural Heritage and UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Taekkyeon looks like dance mostly because

Park Shin-young, representative of IK Taekkyon, shows off a variation of the side kick called gyeot chigi, which has earned her the grand prize in several competitions.

© IK Taekkyon

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of pumbapgi, a set of basic foot motions that beginners learn at the start. The footwork creates a dance-like impression, especially when combined with big, circular arm movements called hwalgaetjit.

Fluid Movements

The footwork is rather simple and easy to learn – stepping one foot in front of the other and rhythmically bending the knees, then withdrawing the foot while leaning back nimbly at the waist. The rhythmic motion adds speed and versatility to the footwork, and the limber waist provides impetus.

However, easy to learn does not necessarily mean easy to master. As Park explained, “You can figure out how skilled a practitioner is just by looking at their foot movements. A novice tends to be impatient, moving hastily, whereas advanced practitioners are relaxed. The threebeat rhythm isn’t the same from one performer to another, either. A skilled performer nice-

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ly balances one stressed step followed by two unstressed ones, or two unstressed steps followed by one stressed step. These graceful foot movements can abruptly turn into kicks or are combined with grabs to take an opponent down.

If you fail to read the rhythm, you’ll be helpless and get knocked down in an instant.”

Probably due to the dance-like motions and unfamiliar shouts of “Eek-eh!” or “Ackeh!” often mimicked by comedians, taekkyeon is sometimes seen as a comedic sport. But in fact, it’s an actively practiced martial art with considerable destructive power. As two fighters encounter each other at arm’s length, all sorts of foot attacks can be made with few preliminary motions.

Fighters can choose from an array of kicks, including a front kick delivered with the top of the foot (jegyeo chagi), a roundhouse kick similar to the hard blow of a club (huryeo chagi), a hook kick delivered with the top of the foot to the opponent’s side (gyeot chigi), and an upside-

1. Lee Ju-young, Park’s husband and instructor (left), and Ahn Hyung-soo, deputy representative of IK Taekkyon, perform a side kick while jumping in the air.

2. Park demonstrates hand movements.

Taekkyeon’s hand attack techniques are as diverse as its foot movements and powerful, despite looking rather mild.

“ Dominating without hurting is hard to do, but makes you truly powerful. It’s a state that’s impossible to reach without mental discipline.” down kick performed by pivoting in the air while standing on one’s hands (nal chigi). There is no predicting which kick will be applied when. Park Shin-young’s main skill is gyeot chigi, which has earned her grand prizes at a number of prestigious contests, including the National Sports Festival.

Soft Outside, Strong Inside

Just like ssireum (traditional Korean wrestling) and judo, taekkyeon also incorporates impressive techniques for tripping, throwing and striking an opponent. Elegant movements aside, taekkyeon’s perfect synchronization of defensive and offensive techniques makes it a highly combative sport. At its core, however, is respect for the value of life and common prosperity. In most other martial arts, power means forcefully taking control and relentlessly dominating the opponent, giving them no chance to fight back. In contrast, taekkyeon always allows both parties equal opportunities, as implied by the way the footwork is performed with one leg within the opponent’s attacking range. This basic posture is called daejeop, meaning “hospitable treatment.”

In other words, the opponent is more of a guest to be courteously welcomed than an enemy to be destroyed.

To win without hurting the opponent is one of the major goals of taekkyeon. Perhaps it is the nature of all competitions to instigate rivalry, and contestants may end up inflicting inadvertent damage on each other. But in a taekkyeon match, harming an opponent is considered a violation of the rule of mutual goodwill and leads to a loss. That’s why practitioners should train themselves mentally and physically in equal measure; the hands and feet of a fighter with brilliant technique but no self-possession can easily turn into brutal weapons.

“You might find it easy to harm others with force, and people might say you’re powerful. But that’s not power – it’s brutality. Dominating without hurting is hard to do, but makes you truly powerful. It’s a state that’s impossible to

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reach without mental discipline,” Park said.

For some time, Park was also swayed by a desire to get stronger, visiting one training studio after another to meet eminent masters. She hoped to imbibe their secret techniques and make them her own. Then one day, it dawned on her that she had been seeking technical skills alone, with no regard for spirit. It was a sobering moment. She stopped her quest for strength and launched a social enterprise, IK Taekkyon, with her fellow members of the Korea Taekkyon Federation who had worked together as a demonstration team.

Social Enterprise

Six years have passed since Park launched the enterprise.

In that time, she has visited numerous foreign countries to demonstrate taekkyeon and produced stage performances adopting the formats of performing arts genres such as traditional outdoor theater (madanggeuk) and musicals.

“Nothing makes me as happy and energized as practicing taekkyeon, which for me is both work and rest at the same time,” she said. “I still have a long way to go, and I know I have to work harder because there are still people who ask me what taekkyeon is.”

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 53

TALES OF TWO KOREAS

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Testimonies on Divergences in Music A published collection of interviews with senior pro-North Korean artists residing in Japan provides valuable insight into North Korean music and how its distinguishing characteristics have been formed.

Kim Hak-soon Journalist; Visiting Professor, School of Media and Communication, Korea University

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W

hile the native music of North and South Korea have the same roots, they no longer share the same harmony. What is called gugak in the South is minjok eumak in the North, both meaning “national music” but with different connotations. The two sides even differ in their use of traditional musical instruments.

The South focuses on preserving the original form of these instruments, while the North crafts variations that can also be used to play Western music.

“A Collection of Oral Recounts by Senior Overseas Korean Artists – Japan” parts the curtain on the development and current state of music in the communist North.

The weighty volume, illustrated with rare historical photos, was published in December last year by the National Gugak Center, a Seoul-based public institution for preserving and promoting traditional Korean music.

“North Korea has outdistanced South Korea in terms of the endeavor to modernize traditional musical instruments and try their hands at fusion music,” said Cheon Hyeon-sik, curator at the National Gugak Center and co-author of the book along with Kim Ji-eun, a researcher of North Korean music.

The North’s effort at modernizing native Korean musical instruments has turned the 12-string zither, the gayageum, into an instrument with 19 or 21 strings. It has also changed the tone scale of traditional Korean music from pentatonic to heptatonic scales. Some modernized instruments of the North have been accepted by South Korean performers. They include the okryugum, a 33-stringed zither; the jangsaenap, an oboe-type, double-reed wind instru-

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ment; and the daepiri, a clarinet-like brass instrument.

The co-authors spent three years conducting interviews and compiling the book. “The interviewees unanimously said that it’s impossible to discuss music apart from politics in the North,” they explained. “It has also been reaffirmed that music has greater influence than any other art genre there.” This is based on the background of the late leader Kim Jong-il’s instruction: “Music should serve politics.

Music without politics is like a flower without fragrance.

Politics without music is like politics without a heart.” Thus, music in the North has come to have a different face from music in the South, where it largely plays a part in each individual’s pleasure and taste.

Interviewees

© Yonhap News Agency

The book’s eight senior artists residing in Japan – all of them recipients of North Korea’s People’s Artist, Meritorious Artist, People’s Actor, or Meritorious Actor awards, and recognized as supreme authorities in their respective fields – were interviewed between 2017 and 2018. Two passed away while the book was being compiled.

The interviewees were: Im Chu-ja (1936-2019), choreographer and dancer; Lee Chor-u (1938- ), composer and deputy director of the Isang Yun Music Institute in Pyongyang; Jung Ho-wol (1941- ), singer and former actress of the Kumgangsan Opera Troupe; Kim Kyong-hwa (19462017), former conductor of the Kumgangsan Opera Troupe; Hyun Gye-gwang (1947- ), dancer; Ryu Jon-hyon (1950- ), opera singer; Jong Sang-jin (1958- ), composer; and Choi Jin-uk (1958- ), professor of music education at Korea University Tokyo.

Composer Jong Sang-jin said most of his North Korean cohorts compose “program music,” primar1. A scene from “The Song of Mount Kumgang,” one of North Korea’s five ily based on Russian-influenced major revolutionary operas. Premiered melodic motifs, staying away from in 1973, it tells a story of family Western “melodic fragments,” be members separated during the colonial period and then reunited under the they symphonies or smaller orchessocialist system led by Kim Il-sung. The tral works. However, Jong noted picture is from a 1974 performance that there is slightly more diversifiby the Kumgangsan Opera Troupe, cation these days, and works with which was founded in 1955 under the pro-Pyongyang General Association of more melodic fragments than before Korean Residents in Japan. are being written.

2. The poster for “The Flower Girl,” a Co-author Cheon provides comrevolutionary opera that toured China plementary interpretations to betin 2008. Some 50 Meritorious Artists and People’s Artists performed in the ter explain the different aspects of production, alongside members of the music in the two Koreas. For examSea of Blood Theatrical Troupe. ple, he cites the operas of both

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 55

The interviewees largely agreed that national music has lost its charm in the North, in comparison to the Western music that appeals to young people nowadays.

Koreas based on the ancient folk tale of Chunhyang. North Korea’s folk operas emerged along with the state’s effort to modernize traditional musical instruments in the 1960s. The genre began there with “The Tale of Chunhyang” and went on to yield revolutionary operas in the 1970s.

The North Korean opera version of the tale showcases the Western bel canto technique for beautiful singing, instead of Korea’s traditional raspy vocal style of pansori (narrative song). It also highlights class struggle, a sharp contrast to the Southern version, which sticks to the original plot of a love story between an aristocratic boy and a lowborn girl that leads to a happy ending.

“North Koreans learn pansori as a mere subject of study, no longer enjoying it as a genre of folk music,” Cheon said.

Pansori has been rejected by the socialist regime in the North largely on the grounds that it is permeated by upperclass values, while in the South it has gained remarkable popularity as a representative traditional music genre.

Vocals

In the North, vocal music has undergone changes in techniques, lyrics and even musical forms. In other words, it has been transformed to suit the goals of the North’s socialist revolution and its people’s sensibilities.

Two vocal techniques in particular are emphasized: “minseong” for the traditional vocal genre and “yangseong” for Western classical music. The former is also called “juche style,” referring to a clear and lilting style rooted in the traditional seodo (western province) style of singing. “The Tale of Chunhyang” features singers performing in the traditional folk style, whereas “The Flower Girl,” a revolutionary opera, highlights those singing in the Western style.

Singer-actress Jung Ho-wol said North Koreans prefer high voices. They believe that native folk songs should be sung in a thin, high-pitched tone. But they have come to love songs sung in low voices as well, as many mezzo sopranos have come on stage these days.

“According to Mr. Jong Sang-jin, each of the outstanding North Korean operas has its own characteristics,” Kim Ji-eun said. “For example, ‘Sea of Blood’ gives off a nation-

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alistic and folksy feel; ‘The Flower Girl’ presents many refined melodies; and ‘The Song of Mount Kumgang’ has a very modern touch.”

These characteristics also stand out in the orchestral arrangements. “Sea of Blood” was written with a focus on purely native instruments. The orchestra for “The Flower Girl” initially featured native instruments and Western brass instruments, later adding violins for overseas presentations.

And the orchestra for “The Song of Mount Kumgang” only consists of western instruments, with the sole exception of bamboo wind instruments.

Winds of Change

The interviewees largely agreed that national music has lost its charm in the North, in comparison to the Western music that appeals to young people nowadays, Kim Ji-eun noted.

For example, the Samjiyon Band, which mostly performs European classical music, enjoys great popularity, and its concerts that feature conductor Jang Ryong-sik attract even larger audiences. The band drew significant interest when it visited the South to give concerts in celebration of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

Kim recalled the interviewees’ claims that the North’s music scene is undergoing changes in step with overseas trends, introducing a variety of new vocal techniques. “Mr. Jong Sang-jin further said that North Korean music colleges these days mainly teach three types of techniques, following the performing style of the Moranbong Band; that is, the techniques for native folk songs, Western classical music and contemporary pop music.”

Currently, the members of the Moranbong Band, known in the South as a “North Korean girl group,” are the most popular artists among North Koreans. The band was launched in 2012, shortly after Kim Jong-un came to power.

Its leader Hyon Song-wol aroused much attention from the South Korean media and public during the band’s visit for the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Most of the band members are graduates of either Pyongyang University of Music and Dance or Kum Song Music School. The latter is the alma mater of the North’s

1. Cheon Hyeon-sik (left) and Kim Ji-eun, co-authors of “A Collection of Oral Recounts by Senior Overseas Korean Artists – Japan.” The book is based on interviews with eight prominent musicians and dancers residing in Japan.

2. Biographical data of choreographer and dancer Im Chu-ja. She dedicated herself to teaching students after establishing the Korea Dance Institute in 1957, earning a reputation as a “great star” in the dance world of Korean residents in Japan. She passed away in 2019.

3. Jong Sang-jin, a composer, recalls the life of Kim Byong-hwa, conductor of the State Symphony Orchestra of North Korea. Photos of Kim and the orchestra’s concert in 1992 at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre are shown on the right-hand page.

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First Lady Ri Sol-ju. This has sparked speculation that she was the one who initiated the band. Both the Moranbong Band and the Korean People’s Army State Merited Chorus are regarded as icons of the Kim Jong-un era. Their performance style exerts strong influence on other performing arts organizations in the country.

Isang Yun (or Yun I-sang, 1917-1995), a South Korean-born composer who was charged with acts of espionage for North Korea in 1967, is highly esteemed in the North, whereas he has not received a proper evaluation in the South. The Isang Yun Music Institute in Pyongyang and its Isang Yun Orchestra remain active today. “There are many people in Pyongyang who are crazy about Yun’s music,” Cheon quoted the interviewees as saying.

Elements of jazz and rock are also increasingly seeping into North Korean music. Regime founder Kim Il-sung once forbid and demonized the genres, saying, “Western pop singers take drugs and lead dirty lives.” No doubt the carefree lifestyles of many musicians were of little help in dissuading the authorities in Pyongyang. But the interviewees agreed with Kim Ji-eun’s view that swing rhythm and jazz beats seem to have been integrated into North Korean music today. © Ha Ji-kwon

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 57

IN LOVE WITH KOREA

ILLUMINATING KOREAN CINEMA Pierce Conran A mistaken encounter with a Korean movie as a teenager eventually brought Pierce Conran to Korea, where the Irishman turned his passion into a profession.

Today, he produces and critiques movies for fans of Korean cinema worldwide.

Cho Yoon-jung Freelance Writer and Translator Heo Dong-wuk Photographer

P

ierce Conran’s first look at Korean cinema was not teenage love at first sight. Lured by a catchy title and flashy cover while DVD shopping, he thought he would be watching a “fun and crazy” Japanese movie. Instead, he had “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance,” the first film in director Park Chan-wook’s blood-soaked revenge trilogy.

“I found it violent and cruel. I just couldn’t connect with it at all,” Conran says. “In fact, I hated it so much that I told everyone about this Korean film I’d stumbled upon.” Yet, the movie gnawed at him. A few weeks later, he couldn’t help watching it again. “Suddenly I kind of fell in love with it,” Conran recalls.

“When I watched the movie again, I could see there was purpose, there was intention. I couldn’t really fathom the director’s vision, but I suddenly realized that I needed to know more.” With piqued curiosity about Korea, he began to watch every Korean film he could get his hands on.

Conran was 16 at the time, already a film buff thanks to a childhood spent in Fribourg, Switzerland, known as the home of Gruyère cheese. His neighbors were mostly farmers and cow bells woke him in the morning. The pastoral setting, however, made for a rather lonely childhood, and movies became his com-

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panions. When he was 12, Conran was sent back to Ireland to attend a boarding school in Dublin, where he spent his free time at a nearby cinema complex. It was the late 1990s, when modern Asian cinema was beginning to gain attention abroad.

Scribe, Broadcaster & Producer

One sentence only begins to explain Conran’s work life in Korea. As he puts it: “Basically anything that touches on Korean cinema I’ve kind of managed to finagle my way into.” This year he was also on the jury at one of his favorite events, the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, held in July.

Telling moviegoers worldwide about Korean cinema is Conran’s occupation. His main job is English editor of KoBiz, the website of the Korean Film Council (KOFIC). He writes features, news stories and columns for the site, and will soon be hosting a related YouTube channel. His other jobs include writing, producing and doing regular broadcasting slots on the English-language cable TV channel Arirang and TBS radio; reporting for ScreenAnarchy, a Canadian website mostly devoted to independent films; and participating in acquisitions for XYZ Films, an American film production and sales company based

Pierce Conran is a movie aficionado who watches up to 800 films a year. He says his all-time favorite is Bong Joon-ho’s “Memories of Murder,” the movie that brought him to Korea.

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in Los Angeles. And producing movies is his secondary occupation.

Conran produces the “very independent” works of director Lee Sang-woo, whose features on the darker side of society come with titles such as “Mother is a Whore,” “Father is a Dog” and “I Am Trash.”

Their latest production is a segment in the 2019 horror omnibus “Deathcember,” which features directors from around the world. The two first met at the 2012 edition of the Cinema Digital Seoul Film Festival (CinDi) and Lee suggested that they start working together.

By that time, Conran had begun to gain recognition in the Korean cinema world. In 2010, before graduating from Trinity College Dublin with an MA in French literature and film studies, he started a blog called “Korean Modern Cinema” and bounced between producing content for his website and writing his graduate thesis on Bong Joon-ho’s “Memories of Murder.” His efforts led to invitations to present papers at conferences and other international events.

It was also a way for him to reach out online to other Korean film fans. One of them was Darcy Paquet, a film critic who is now a household name in Korea as the man who did the English subtitles for Bong Joonho’s Academy Award-winning “Parasite.”

When Paquet suggested that Conran come to Korea, he didn’t need to be convinced; the trip was already on his mind. Conran arrived in 2012 and began teaching English at a hagwon (private tutorial school). Just a few months later he landed the job editing the KoBiz English website. It all happened very quickly.

Immersed Further

Conran attributes his quick transition mostly to luck, but his passion for film and his self-described “obsessive personality” laid the groundwork. In short, his enthusiasm opened up opportunities. “It has changed my life in all manner of ways, most notably personally,” he says.

“I’ve been very fortunate, there’s no doubt. I often worry that someday, someone’s going to pull the rug out from under my feet. But honestly, I think part of it is that you have a Western white man projecting positive views on Korean cinema. It puts me at an advantage and I’m well aware of that,” Conran says.

On the personal side, there is his marriage to

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Though primarily a film critic, Pierce Conran’s involvement in the film world includes occasional acting roles. He appeared briefly as a journalist in Yeon Sang-ho’s “Peninsula,” a sequel to the 2016 zombie blockbuster “Train to Busan,” which opened in July 2020.

director Lee Kyoung-mi. One newspaper article referred to him as “seongdeok,” meaning a “successful fan,” usually used in reference to K-pop fans who get to meet their idols. Laughing, Conran says, “I was a huge fan of ‘Crush and Blush,’ Kyoung-mi’s 2008 work, and was looking forward to her next movie.”

They first met at a party when a director friend brought Lee over to him and shouted, “Hey everyone, this is Lee Kyoung-mi’s new boyfriend!” Despite the awkward beginning (He remembers people taking pictures as he stood there rubbing his arms and said, “Oh, hello.”), he says everything transpired very naturally and they were married in 2018.

Adding to his other work, Conran supports his wife in various ways when she makes movies. For Lee’s segment in “Persona,” an anthology of four shorts produced by Netflix, he appeared on screen as the aspiring boyfriend of a girl played by K-pop star IU (Lee Ji-eun). She tells him that she’ll agree to a date if he first seduces her father’s new lover

© Next Entertainment World

(Bae Doona), whom she despises. He tries and fails.

Though by no means a would-be actor, Conran says, “I just love being on movie sets. It’s always a thrill for me to be involved at that level.” He also appears in Yeon Sang-ho’s “Peninsula,” this year’s summer sequel to the 2016 hit zombie thriller “Train to Busan.”

Into the Future

Conran has watched attitudes toward Korean cinema change over the years, and then came “Parasite.”

There has always been a certain degree of international respect for the quality, unique stories and high production values of Korean films, he notes. But if the rave was a little forced before, it is now real. “The sky’s the limit,” he says. “I think the whole world is moving toward genre cinema. And that gives Korea an edge.” Moreover, with the increasing shift toward streaming services and the further push in that direction by social distancing due to the COVID-19 pan-

demic, he believes the Korean entertainment industry has an advantage, having proved itself with TV serials.

If anything worries him about Korean cinema, it’s the limited range of references: “These days when it comes to plot and music, all I see and hear are references to Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook, Christopher Nolan … Fifteen years ago there were a lot of flops and experimentation, but that was very exciting. Now, films are very polished but a lot of them are really similar.” His own tastes are wide-ranging, gravitating toward more obscure works as well as genre cinema and films with a strong message. “Memories of Murder” is his all-time favorite. He calls it the “perfect film” that really hooked him into coming to Korea.

What he loves most about Korean movies is actually linked to his dislikes about his adopted home.

“When I first arrived, everything was giddy excitement and I loved everything. Then it suddenly became my life and I came to hate many aspects,” he says, mentioning business practices, patriarchy and various social problems. “Korean cinema is so great because it effectively tries to expunge all the bad things, the tribulations of generations through 20th century history and modern social ills. It all comes out in cinema and that’s what makes it so great.”

Conran’s feelings for Korea have in this way evolved over the years. “Getting married and welcomed into the family have deepened my understanding and love of the country. It also helps that my Korean is improving, though slowly,” he says. In the future he hopes to do more production work, for which he realizes that he will need to speak the language well.

A consummate cinephile and avid Blu-ray collector, Conran seems truly lucky to be doing the thing that he loves. “I watch a lot of movies. But I watch far too many, like 800 per year,” he says, as if a bit surprised at the number himself. Then, with a smile, he adds, “That’s my thing.”

“Korean cinema is so great because it effectively tries to expunge all the bad things, the tribulations of generations through 20th century history and modern social ills.”

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ON THE ROAD

Beginning and Ending in Haenam Known as “Land’s End,” Haenam attracts visitors with its beautiful mountain scenery and historic Buddhist temples. Located at the southwestern tip of the Korean peninsula, the area was once a cultural conduit connected to ancient China and Japan, and a rest stop for political exiles.

Lee Chang-guy Poet and Literary Critic Ahn Hong-beom Photographer

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Gocheonam Lake in Haenam is a winter destination for hundreds of thousands of migratory birds. The main fowl is the Baikal teal but a variety of rare birds designated “Natural Monuments� are also spotted here, making the lake a place of lasting interest for birdwatchers.

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E

veryone has a place where they find it difficult to walk with a carefree mind. For me, that place is Haenam.

I lived in Haenam from the spring of 1980 to the autumn of 1982. I had just turned 20 and had already exhausted the gamut of questions, pent-up anger and passions that should have been meted out bit by bit throughout my life. Mentally drained, I joined the army, as if I were running away. After basic training, I was assigned to Haenam County, South Jeolla Province, the most southwestern region of the Korean peninsula, There, in the farthest place from my home, I began sentry duties, watching the coastline, in the middle of winter.

Stone walls turned green with moss and hardy orange wood fences; the damp, briny smell of the fog-covered sea; the dirt paths and brooks stretching through an endless

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expanse of fields; a couple of goats that cavorted on the hills; the lady who kept shop in front of the base, growing old without knowing how to read her husband’s name on his letters – these were my first impressions of Haenam.

Now, more than 40 years later, I have once again crossed over Useulchi (Cow’s Knees Hill) to reach the town of Haenam, the county seat. My traveling companions and I search for our lodgings. Nothing looks familiar.

If travel or exploration should entail inspection of once glorious sites of cultural heritage, a look back over the past to revel in memories, Haenam would be the last place to visit. It does not possess a glorious past; there is nothing in particular to see. It has largely been known as a place where exiled dissidents stopped to rest before starting years of banishment far from the nation’s capital.

And yet, Yu Hong-june, professor of art history, deemed Haenam worthy of starting the first volume of his “My Exploration of Cultural Heritage” series. He guided readers to enriching aspects of Haenam: Nogudang, the head house of the Haenam Yun clan, located in the inner part of Yeondong Village surrounded by torreya trees; Daeheung Temple, standing quietly in a valley of Mt. Duryun, at the end of a forest road lined with old trees that form a tunnel overhead, blotting out the sky; gracious, old Mihwang Temple sitting on the ridges of Mt. Dalma (or Dharma Mountain); and Sajabong (Lion Peak), where there is an observatory at Land’s End. The scenery, with its sense of quietude and distance, familiarity and elegance, modesty and neatness, so unlike Korea’s other famous tourist destinations, was captivating. But few would know that the serenity of gentle sunlight and wind that casually wraps around the mountains is often preceded by fierce rain and gales that mercilessly rip through the area, making people shiver with fright.

1. “Self-Portrait” by Yun Du-seo. 1710. Ink and light color on paper.

38.5 × 20.5 cm.

This is recognized as one of the greatest self-portraits in Korean art.

Yun Du-seo (1668-1715), a painter and man of letters, was the greatgrandson of Yun Seon-do, a civil official and poet of the mid-Joseon period, and the maternal great-grandfather of famous thinker and statesman Jeong Yak-yong.

2. The outer quarters of Nogudang, the head house of the Yun clan from Haenam. Part of a house in Suwon that King Hojong (r. 16491659) bestowed on his tutor Yun Seon-do was dismantled and rebuilt here. The nameboard was written by the famous calligrapher Yi Seo (1662-1723), who was a close friend of Yun Du-seo.

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Nogudang and Buyong-dong

The day we visited Nogudang, whose name means “House of Green Rain,” it was raining so hard that our convenience store umbrellas were of little use. Our guide was Yun Yeongjin. The Haenam of his schooldays, more than 50 years ago, had been dust flying over newly made roads and bills posted on all the walls urging the public to report spies.

Back then, Haenam’s porous environment made it vulnerable to communist infiltrators. Yun retired as an army colonel and returned to his hometown, finally reading a family treasure, “Jiam’s Diary” (Jiam ilgi). Then he reread it again and again until he had memorized it.

The diary was written by Yun I-hu (1636-1699), a direct ancestor who was a grandson of poet and civil official Yun Seon-do (1587-1671). Yun I-hu was the father

of Yun Du-seo (1668-1715), the man who left behind the most renowned self-portrait of the Joseon Dynasty. He was also the maternal grandfather of Jeong Yak-yong (17621836), thinker and statesman of the later Joseon period. It was in the house where we now stood that Yun Du-seo was born.

Colonel Yun explained that the pillars of Nogudang were round like those found in royal architecture because the house had been granted to Yun Seon-do by King Hyojong (r. 1649-1659), whom Yun had tutored while he was crown prince. Upon the king’s death and the loss of the royal favor that had protected him, Yun Seon-do was exiled. After seven years in banishment, he dismantled the main building of the house Hyojong had made for him in Suwon and rebuilt it in Haenam. He was 81 years old at

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Haenam’s name, literally “South of the Sea,” infers that it’s just a step away from land into a new world. Invested in this place is the power to bring mariners and exiles back from adversity.

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The lotus pond and Seyeon Pavilion of Buyong-dong Garden on Bogil Island.

When King Injo (r. 1623-1649) surrendered to invading Qing forces in 1637, Yun Seon-do gave up civil service and created this garden in his hometown. While living reclusively on the island, he wrote his famous poem “The Fisherman’s Calendar.”

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the time. There is an exhibition hall built beside Nogudang where the famous self-portrait of Yun Du-seo and the “Comprehensive Map of Joseon” (Joseon jeondo) can be seen. But despite the pouring rain, upon hearing that replicas had been hung for fear that the originals might be stolen, we turned our steps.

The place most clearly marked with the traces of Yun Seon-do’s life would be Buyong-dong on Bogil Island. In the old days, it seems that people arrived on the island by boat from Baekpo, a port village in Haenam. These days, a ferry departs every 30 minutes from Wan Island and from Haenam’s Galduri Wharf. Located in Baekpo is a house that belongs to the Yun clan. A project to reclaim the tidal flats at the bay began in the time of Yun Seon-do’s grandfather. By Yun Du-seo’s era, five generations later, the reclaimed land had become so vast that a farmhouse was built there to manage it. Among the landscapes painted by Yun Du-seo is one titled “Baekpo Villa.”

Foreign tourists who visit the garden of Buyong-dong, meaning “Lotus Cave Village,” will probably marvel at the discerning eye and sensibilities of a Joseon nobleman who fashioned a place of such taste, style, natural beauty and harmony. But Koreans have mixed feelings about the place.

The activities of Yun Seon-do clash with the idea of

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“honest poverty” and Mencius’ creed of sharing happiness fairly with the people, which are traditionally associated with the life and spirit of Confucian scholars. The fact that he indulged in such a luxurious lifestyle when farmlands were devastated and the people fell into destitution in the aftermath of two major wars, makes it difficult for Koreans to simply admire Yun as a man of lofty character who lived with nature as his friend.

Yun’s famous poem “The Fisherman’s Calendar” (Eobu sasisa), written in the verse form for singing called sijo, is set on Bogil Island. It is a masterpiece of traditional Korean literature highly acclaimed for its vibrant, sophisticated expression and sensitive descriptions. But the fisherman who appears as the narrator of this poetic cycle is a mere part of the scenery that was used to facilitate, as Yun wrote in the preface, “another pleasure, the pleasure of making us sing at the top of our voices and row the oars together.” At the same time, the deep-seated wrath of Yun’s patriotism, which embroiled him in political strife and led him to be exiled three times, cannot be denied.

This is why visiting the beautiful garden of Buyong-dong is no walk in the park for me.

With the help of the Haenam Institute of Culture, we were able to hear about the latest developments in the county from Jeon Guk-seong, who retired as director of

the regional health center. He brought back to me the gentleness and diligence of the Haenam people, which I had forgotten. Jeon, 70, is now a visiting professor of social welfare studies at a local university. He is proud that his family’s demise in fortunes when he was young forced him to become independent, making him the person he is today.

We were startled to hear from him that Hwawon, the most remote corner of Haenam, had become the nation’s biggest producer of winter cabbages and supplier of pre-salted cabbage for making kimchi, and that land prices had skyrocketed there since it became linked by road to the city of Mokpo. Hwawon’s area of reclaimed arable land is the widest in the country, enabling its agricultural output. But it was impossible not to sigh with regret upon learning that the thin-legged octopi (sebal nakji), which could be gathered by the shovelful before, and the once plentiful blue-spotted mud hoppers (jjangttungeo) are no longer available. During my stint in Haenam, they were familiar sights as I trudged from one sentry post to the

next along the shoreline, drenched in sweat, inspecting the military supply situation.

Daeheung Temple and Mihwang Temple

Development often alters the fortunes of a historical site and the attitude of the local people. Jeon told us that a new restaurant area has appeared at the entry to Daeheung Temple and that the 200-year-old Yuseon Inn had closed down. The inn was where I had laid on the warm ondol floor with my mother and sister asleep beside me after exploring Daeheung Temple, sleep eluding me after hear-

1. Mihwang Temple, built in 749, is located at the southern end of the Korean peninsula. A record stating that Chinese scholars and officials visited the temple shows that it was known in China as well. On the left is the main hall Daeungbojeon (Treasure Hall of the Great Hero) set against the beautiful peaks of Mt. Dalma.

2. Dosol Hermitage, atop a steep cliff on Mt. Dalma, was neglected for a long time until it was rebuilt in 2002.

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KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 69

ing all the stifling news from home. My mother had come to visit me, traveling more than 400 km, with my younger sister to guide her on the road.

A place that has perhaps changed for the worse is Mihwang Temple. With just a few halls, the temple had barely managed to maintain itself in the past, but it still was a charming place pervaded by ancient atmosphere.

Today, it has tall stone embankments and handsome statues of the Four Heavenly Kings at the entrance, and the compound has been expanded to accommodate visitors for the Temple Stay program. The old narrow path on Mt. Dalma that would have been used only by woodcutters and monks has been repaired and transformed into a hiking trail from Mihwang Temple to Ttangkkeut Maeul (literally “Village at Land’s End”). It has been given the exalted name “Dalma Godo,” meaning “Old Dharma Road.” I was relieved a little to see that the temple’s main hall, Daeungjeon, remained just the same as it had been in the past, with no colorful paintwork on its ancient wooden structure.

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I first came to Mihwang Temple as a soldier. My assignment was to gather bush clover to make brooms.

Haenam doesn’t suffer through bitingly cold winters or fierce snowstorms; a bush clover broom was perfect for sweeping away the occasional snowfall on my army base.

An elderly monk and his wife sat at the end of the narrow porch in front of the temple dormitory. From that spot, you can see rocky mountain cliffs spread out before you, and if you look down, a cluster of little islands that resemble newborn puppies, yet to open their eyes, burrowing into their mother’s embrace. The couple may have given me a glass of water, or the sun may have been setting red in the far distance beyond the sea – I can’t remember.

At Land’s End

Haenam’s name, literally “South of the Sea,” infers that it’s just a step away from land into a new world. Invested in this place is the power to bring mariners and exiles back from adversity. This image of a location where beginning and end exist together has occasionally brought forth lyr-

Sites to Visit in Haenam

1 Cabbage fields in Hwawon-myeon

Nogudang 1

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2 Daeheung Temple on Mt. Duryun

Jin Island Yun Du-seo’s 3 old house

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4

Wan Island

Lion Peak 4 Observatory

Nohwa Island Seyeon Pavilion Dinosaur Egg Beach

ical musings from modest poets, but the poet who stood at the extreme and struggled most fiercely with this paradoxical narrative is Kim Ji-ha (1941- ).

After publishing the poem “Five Bandits” (Ojeok), which adopts a highly original form to satirize those constantly involved with corruption and graft, Kim Ji-ha stood at the forefront whenever critical issues arose during Korea’s democratization process of the 1970s.

Exhausted in body and mind by the cycle of escape, arrest, imprisonment, torture and amnesty, in 1984 he brought his family to live in Haenam, hometown of his maternal relatives. His life gradually stabilized, but he was still unable to feel truly comfortable. Around that time, at the end of the land, he saw “things that come from the past and future together, shouting, crying, beating their chests, swallowing their tears, walking with their heads bowed.” What he discovered in that dark, ominous and clammy image was the Aerin – a being that dies and is reborn.

“Standing at the land’s end / standing at the land’s

Abalone farming boats float off Yesong-ri, considered the most beautiful spot on Bogil Island. With pebble-covered Mongdol Beach and evergreen forests nearby, this area attracts many tourists.

Bogil Island

Soan Island

Seoul

397.5km Haenam

end with nowhere else to go / where there is no return / I become a bird and fly / or a fish and hide / whether the wind, the clouds or a ghost / at the land’s end where there is no other way but to change / I stand alone and call out…” – From “Aerin” (1985) His mental state badly deteriorating afterwards, Kim had to leave Haenam to receive proper psychological treatment.

In his later years, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said that in Franz Schubert’s “non-religious and melancholy” melodies he discovered “the point where thinking becomes acute.” The point: “We want to walk: so we need friction. Back to the rough ground!” (From “Philosophical Investigations”) In the 1983 novel of the same name (original German title: “Die Klavierspielerin”), on which the movie “The Piano Teacher” is based, the author cries out that we must overcome the stupidity of using health, which always sides with victors, as a criterion for something important. “Health – how disgusting. Health is the transfiguration of the status quo.” It seems that the people of Vienna, just when their ability to think is about to hit bottom, also discover something new that allows them to overcome the melancholy that comes just before madness. I wish I could show them the rough ground of Haenam.

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AN ORDINARY DAY

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Honest Days, Shared With Neighbors Some real estate agencies still continue to serve as spaces for local residents to drop by and socialize. Cho Kang-hee, a fixture in a neighborhood of traditional Korean houses in Seoul’s old city center, offers candor over salesmanship.

Hwang Kyung-shin Writer Ha Ji-kwon Photographer

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O

nce known as bokdeokbang, which translates roughly to “room of good fortune,” realtors’ offices long served a role beyond their official purpose. They were a kind of neighborhood parlor, similar to a sarangbang, the master’s study-cum-reception room in a traditional Korean house. With their doors thrown wide open, people would gather in these offices to share stories and connect. This was where the seed of a neighborhood rumor would be planted, watered and grown, expanding out into the world.

When someone was in trouble, a real estate agency could become a place to marshal support. It was where good news was celebrated with warm veggie pancakes and a bowl of makgeolli (rice wine), and hard times saw the sharing of hugs and consolation. This, of course, was a different time, when the distance between people was a bit narrower than it is today, and the rooftops in each neighborhood – row after row – were still low.

As the low roofs of the cities became higher and higher, turning into high-rise apartments that seem to touch the sky, neighborhoods grew less homey. Now operating under awkward, wordy signs that read “Licensed Real Estate Agent Office” instead of “Bokdeokbang,” these spaces no longer play their cherished role. There is still one corner of this world, however, where these doors of the past remain open. The road to that amiable neighborhood feeling, that genuine connection, leads to Seochon.

Gyeongbok Palace is the largest and most magnificent of Seoul’s five major palaces. The villages to its north and west are known, respectively, as Bukchon and Seochon

(“buk” meaning north and “seo” meaning west). During the Joseon era (1392-1910), the nobility made their homes in Bukchon, while members of the emerging class of professionals like interpreters and doctors gathered in Seochon. Famous artists, too, including painters and poets, called Seochon their home.

These days, the hanok of Seochon are preserved by government grants in a manner similar to those of Bukchon. But compared to the bigger and statelier Bukchon hanok, Seochon hanok tend to be more modest. A tangled spider web of little alleyways twists and turns between the clusters of these humble houses, huddled together shoulder to shoulder. Amid these alleyways, Cho Kang-hee has operated his Central Licensed Real Estate Agent Office for the past 15 years.

Road to the Past

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“Seochon is near the center of the city, but it also abuts a beautiful mountain and a large park,” Cho says. “These aren’t people who are buying and selling houses to try and make money; most of them want to live here because they like the neighborhood.”

The houses here are generally small hanok of about 65 to 100 square meters, which can create many inconveniences. But they also have advantages that apartments lack. Cho has compiled a reference list of hanok pros and cons for his meetings with clients.

“These are houses made of natural materials like wood, stone and earth, which are good for your health.

There’s a sense of being grounded, and it’s easy to get to know your neighbors. The actual living area may be small, but it’s also cute and cozy. People have a lot of fun decking out the little gardens, and there’s good air circulation. And you can really experience the changing of the seasons – it’s never boring. On the other hand, the all-natural materials do attract insects, and both insulation and soundproofing can be challenging. Vulnerability to fire and water can be a weakness, but some of this can be improved with renovation. The roof, the walls and the wooden maru floor all need regular maintenance, but the government offers grants to cover that, so it won’t ever be

1. Standing in front of the real estate office he has been running for the last 15 years, Cho Kang-hee explains the ins and outs of the Seochon area.

2. Cho organizes his notes on his activities of the day. His office has an average of three potential clients coming by per day; one or two out of every 10 culminates in the signing of a deal.

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 73

a financial burden.”

Because of its close proximity to the presidential compound, the Blue House, the heightened security that followed an assassination attempt by North Korean commandos in 1968 lasted well into the 1980s, making Seochon a rather uncomfortable area for ordinary citizens to live.

Anyone entering or exiting the neighborhood had to identify themselves at a checkpoint, and any guests staying overnight had to be reported.

Cho recalls, “Riot police were always standing guard, and that, together with strict restrictions on development, meant there was a lot to discourage moving to the area.

There was a moment in the late 1990s when a rumor circulated that building regulations were about to be loosened, and people flocked here. But even then, you couldn’t build very high – seven stories maximum along the main road and five stories further into the neighborhood. When this area became an officially designated hanok conservation zone in 2010, a lot of people were disappointed. Because that meant that even if you tore down an old structure, you could only build another hanok in its place.”

Thus, the neighborhood has remained an island,

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Each time he takes a client to see a property, Cho Kang-hee is sure to provide a detailed list of the pros and cons of living in a hanok. He makes sure to mention that while the hanok of Seochon may be small, the traditional-style homes are cozy and conducive for getting to really know neighbors.

serene and quiet in the middle of Seoul’s jungle of highrise buildings and steady streams of pedestrians and vehicles. Clocks run slower in Seochon. People come here to walk a little slower, to get an unobstructed view of the skies. Bukchon actually first laid claim to this special kind of “slowness.” Before long, cute little shops began opening in between the perfectly preserved hanok, bringing crowds of curious young people. Then, just as business started taking off, landlords raised the rent. Unable to cover the higher rates, many proprietors relocated to Seochon. Around this same time, hanok converted into guest houses began appearing as well, naturally attracting international visitors.

Cho was born in Seoul. His first job was in the office of a construction company. He eventually began working for a conglomerate, managing one of its subcontracts. The

“Sundays I don’t think about work at all, and get some real rest. I clean the house. I go on hikes. I don’t have any particular hobbies, and I’m not a big drinker. That’s about it, that’s essentially my life.” job had him running a factory for 12 years. Then in 2005, a Chinese factory began making the exact same electronic part as his workplace did. His factory closed down virtually overnight. Cho had to take on immense personal debt to cover wages and severance pay for his workers.

“It was just as both my children were starting college.

I needed to keep making money, but being over 50, there was nothing really clear for me to do,” Cho says. “That was when I ran into an older cousin who was working as a licensed real estate agent. I thought I should at least try my hand at it, so I enrolled in a course.”

He was 52 years old at the time.

A Desperate Choice

“My wife was running a restaurant then. Every morning, I would go shop for ingredients and deliver them to her, then head to class. I slept four hours a night. I started studying in March 2006, and I passed the test the following February. I was desperate.”

Cho passed the test in one try, completed an apprenticeship, then took the advice of his course director and chose Seochon to establish his own office. Now, 15 years have already passed in this exact spot, and every day before 10 a.m., he’s there to open the doors.

“Before this job, I had no interest in real estate,” he says. “I always thought you made a living by working hard, earning as much as the effort you put in. Making money by investing was something that just never occurred to me. Even coming and finding my place here, I just blindly trusted that it would be good enough because my course director had recommended it to me. But then, after doing this work a while, I did get a little bit greedy.

I even looked into moving to a different neighborhood, though that didn’t work out.”

The neighborhood he considered was one in Gyeonggi Province, full of apartment complexes. Apartments have identical interior layouts. All anyone needs to do is do a simple check of a unit’s size, floor and interior condition. The properties in Seochon, on the other hand, cannot be known without visiting them one by one to see them firsthand. Moreover, agencies in large apartment

complexes have meetings where they can share their real estate listings, but to attend, one must pay an expensive membership fee. Unable to muster the cash, Cho ended up staying in Seochon for good.

Cho’s day starts at 7:30 a.m. After having breakfast and getting ready for work, he leaves his home in Pyeongchon New Town around 8:30 a.m. for a long subway ride into Seoul. The trip from home to office, door to door, takes 90 minutes. In the evening, Cho returns home around 9 p.m. His routine never wavers, Monday through Saturday, plus public holidays.

“Sundays I don’t think about work at all, and get some real rest. I clean the house. I go on hikes. I don’t have any particular hobbies, and I’m not a big drinker. That’s about it, that’s essentially my life.”

A Sense of Ethics

Every day, three potential clients on average come by the agency, and one or two out of every 10 end up sealing a deal. There can be difficult clients and unpleasant situations, but it’s still a sustainable living so he is able to take it in stride. When a client returns with a small gift to thank him for finding a good home, Cho returns the compliment, giving credit to “the client’s own good luck.”

“Bokdeokbang” may now have become “Licensed Real Estate Agent Offices,” but local Seochon residents still drop by Cho’s office to catch up on the latest gossip and have a cup of tea. The agency also offers some simple services for free, like sending faxes, making copies, or getting certified proof of registry.

“A broker must have a sense of ethics. This is a line of work where speculation tends to be encouraged. It doesn’t apply to everyone, of course, but if you start to get greedy, that leads to problems. I’m not good at bluffing, and I’m not a smooth talker. I’m really more of a civil servant or teacher type. Even so, what I like about this job is that as long as you can move your body and use your brain, you can keep working. There’s no retirement age.”

The door opens: another potential lucky client looking for an honest broker to help realize the dream of a nice, slow life in nice, slow Seochon.

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 75

BOOKS

& MORE Charles La Shure

Professor, Department of Korean Language and Literature, Seoul National University

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Anything but Normal – But Universally Relatable ‘Almond’

By Won-pyung Sohn, Translated by Sandy Joosun Lee, 272 pages, $25.99, New York: HarperVia [2020]

Sohn Won-pyung’s debut novel and winner of the Changbi Prize for Young Adult Fiction, “Almond” is the story of a boy named Yunjae. As if the pressures of being a teenager in Korea weren’t enough, Yunjae has alexithymia, which means he struggles to identify and express his own emotions and those of others. This is attributed to underdeveloped amygdalae, almond-shaped neuron clusters in the brain responsible for emotional response.

Yunjae naturally becomes a target at school because he is different, but life becomes even more difficult for him when he is robbed of his family by a tragedy on Christmas Eve, his birthday. Unable to fall back on the typical emotional response of feeling sorry for himself, Yunjae sees – perhaps even more clearly than anyone else – that the root of all his suffering is simply the fact that he was unlucky. That same luck, though, brings into Yunjae’s life a troubled boy named Gon. They are both (to borrow the nickname given to Yunjae by his grandmother) “monsters,” one who feels too little and one who feels too much, and their meeting seems like some cosmic practical joke. Yet each may hold the answers to the other’s questions.

Strikingly, the story is a first-person narrative, so we see the world through the eyes of a young man unable to understand emotion. This is a choice that could have backfired, but it allows Sohn to offer a blunt appraisal of the human condition that at times feels startlingly insightful – much in the way Yunjae comes to understand Gon because he is able to see through his overflowing emotions. It also allows Sohn to avoid either pitying or idealizing Yunjae, instead presenting him as sympathetic and surprisingly relatable.

While there are elements of the story that feel culturally specific – Yunjae’s mother’s insistence on and almost religious belief in the power of education, for example, feels very relevant to teenage life in Korea – on the whole, “Almond” is a universal tale that deals with fundamental issues faced by young people around the world. Everyone knows the fear of being different, of standing out, of not fitting in. Everyone struggles to understand what it means to be “normal.” And though this is a work of young adult fiction, the message and its impact will be felt by readers of all ages. Adults may recognize more keenly, for example, how the adult characters deemed most successful by worldly standards in fact failed to appreciate what was most important in their lives until it was too late.

The story that Yunjae tells is anything but normal, yet it still – or perhaps thus – captures all the emotions of growing up and finding one’s place in the world that its narrator so struggles to express.

A Careful Probe of East Asian Religious Paintings ‘Efficacious Underworld: The Evolution of Ten Kings Paintings in Medieval China and Korea’

By Cheeyun Lilian Kwon, 224 pages, $72.00, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press [2019]

This gorgeously illustrated volume traces the evolution of Ten Kings paintings from their beginnings in ninth century China through their transformation in Korea. The Ten Kings represented a new way of thinking about the afterlife: The eponymous 10 kings of hell would judge the deceased in turn, determining whether their souls would be reborn or trapped in one of the various hells overseen by them. (If you are a fan of Korean webtoons, you might recognize this as the premise of the popular webtoon-turned-film, “Along with the Gods.”) An amalgam of Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism, the Ten Kings cult inspired a worldview in which the righteous would be rewarded and the sinful would be punished, and it encouraged believers to carry out both preparatory rituals for themselves as well as rituals providing succor to deceased family members.

The Ten Kings hanging scrolls are a unique genre of

painting in East Asia, depicting each of the kings as they sit in judgment and the horrific punishments they mete out. “Efficacious Underworld” does justice to these paintings with 200 illustrations, 120 of which are in full color. The book begins with a discussion of the paintings as they evolved in China and then moves on to examine the genre and its cult in the Goryeo Dynasty of Korea, including a scripture printed in 1246, contemporaneous with the famed Tripitaka Koreana. The majority of the text, though, is devoted to a detailed study of the finest examples of the paintings in East Asia, now housed in the Seikado- Bunko Art Museum in Japan; Kwon carefully constructs the argument that these paintings were most likely produced in Goryeo. This book is an important addition to the history of East Asian art and is recommended to any reader with an interest in the subject.

A Fun and Charming Site for Exploring Korea ‘Korea Tour Comics’ www.koreatourcomics.com

There is no doubt that interest in Korea around the world has increased as the Korean Wave reaches even the most distant shores. In the age of the internet, information on Korean tourism is relatively easy to find, but is that information itself interesting enough to hold people’s attention?

This was the question that gave birth to “Korea Tour Comics,” a collection of webcomics that introduce Korea to tourists, put together by the venture startup MARU Changjakso, Inc. Currently on the site are two longer series: “Korean Friends,” which follows the adventures of a Joseon Dynasty scholar and his now-human dog and

cat as they experience modern Korea for the first time; and “Ulsan Keunaegi,” which tells the story of a civil servant in Ulsan tasked with producing a tourist guidebook for the city. There is also a shorter comic introducing the sights in Hoengseong County, an area known primarily for its beef.

The energetic art style is sure to capture the reader’s attention, and while the English versions could probably use some editing from a native speaker, that might just be part of the comics’ charm. If you’re looking for a fun way to learn more about what to see, do and eat in Korea, you may give this site a try.

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 77

ENTERTAINMENT

V

ideo game players often create an alternate character as a backup answer to the loss of their main character or for strategic advantage. Recently, the TV industry has retooled this concept for a different twist, asking celebrities to alter their real-life persona – entirely. The new entertainment formula has delighted viewers. It also seems to reflect changes in priorities and behavior among many individuals, a trend that has been crystalizing for several years.

Comedian Yoo Jae-suk, the emcee

of several popular TV shows for nearly 20 years now, became the first adventurer to take long strides outside his comfort zone. “Hangout with Yoo” began airing in July 2019 on terrestrial television channel MBC. On the show, Yoo is tasked with learning a skill that doesn’t match with his existing image or history. Thus, Yoo learned to play the drums for the very first time in his life and put on a solo performance, earning the nickname “Yoogo Starr,” a homage to the Beatles’ drummer, Ringo Starr. In another assignment he played the harp,

landing him another nickname: “Yoorpheus,” a mashup of his surname and Orpheus from Greek myth. Perhaps most notably, Yoo recorded a new trot song and debuted as a singer under the stage name YooSanSeul, a homonym of yusanseul, a popular Chinese dish among Koreans. His performance fueled a sudden trot music craze.

Alternate Characters

Watching this series of missions, viewers began referring to Yoo’s transformations as alternate characters. Other stars and talent managers alike saw

Unmasking Personas Celebrities displaying a thoroughly different persona provide an amusing twist to TV entertainment. How is this trend related to changes in Korean society, which is opening up to respect individuals’ diversity?

Jung Duk-hyun Popular Culture Critic

an opportunity in the latest fad and unleashed a new trend in the celebrity world.

Amid the alt character frenzy, singer Lee Hyori, a successful solo artist and former leader of early pop girl group Fin.K.L (1998-2002), is basking in renewed fame after keeping a relatively low profile while living on Jeju Island following her marriage. She took on a new character, “Linda G,”

78 KOREANA Autumn 2020

who supposedly accumulated wealth by running a beauty parlor franchise in the U.S. and is now enjoying material abundance. There are others, such as comedian Chu Dae-yeop, who is popular as a singer named Kapichu, and comedian Kim Shin-young, who has gained fame for her trot song released under the stage name Kim Davi.

Why are celebrities more popular as their alternate characters than as

their original self? The answers may relate to changes occurring in Korean society. The alt character entertainment trend taps into new attitudes and values.

For one, individuality has expanded. During the decades of postwar industrialization, individuality took a backseat to community and family interests. Additionally, workplaces were male-dominated. Unflagging

Š MBC

Yoo Jae-suk, comedian and Korea’s most popular TV emcee, triggered the alternate character frenzy in TV programming.

Yoo has successfully morphed into a trot singer and a harpist, among other personas.

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 79

dedication and hard work were traded for lifetime job security.

The Rise of Individualism

The 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2009 global financial crisis fundamentally changed both the labor market and attitudes toward work. The crises broke the labor-management pact; companies laid off employees and sharply increased short-term hiring.

Employee loyalty consequently sank.

The younger generation in particular, treated as disposable, temporary assets, began questioning the conventional virtue of sacrificing today for a better tomorrow. In today’s workforce, across generations, there is increased emphasis on happiness here and now instead of chasing after an uncertain dream. The attitude toward work-life balance is also being recast.

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In a March 2020 survey by Job Korea, a support service agency, three out of four company employees said their at-work and after-hours personas differ. Respondents said their true identity is exhibited after work hours when they engage in what they really want to do. The older generation, whose life was only about work, had only one persona. But the younger generation, which values many things besides work, needs alternate personas to explore the various facets of life.

After work, they dive into activities completely unrelated to their job, and they consider that aspect of themselves an alternate character.

At times, the relationship between a main character and an alternate one may be reversed. A hobby or a leisure activity enjoyed by a secondary character may become an even more lucrative source of income than the salary earned by the main character. Digital spaces, including YouTube channels, act as a catalyst, invigorating alternate character activities.

The alt character fad indicates that the way Koreans view personal identities is changing. Before, it was assumed that an individual’s persona remained unchanged, regardless of their surroundings. Now, people increasingly realize that everyone may have two or more personas coexisting within themselves. A new keyword in Korean society in 2020, “multiple personas” refers to “a multi-layered ego that creates new identities by transforming into other beings as if putting on different masks.”

Diverse Identities

Some celebrities had been “multiing” even before the alternate character concept became mainstream. This involved crossing over into a different realm of the entertainment indus© MBC

80 KOREANA Autumn 2020

1. Lee Hyori, leader of Fin.K.L, a firstgeneration female pop group that debuted more than 20 years ago, has had a renaissance as Linda G, an alternate character who enjoys a lavish lifestyle.

2. Comedian Chu Dae-yeop is the talk of the town on YouTube thanks to his alt character Kapichu’s kitschy sense of humor.

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© Captured from YouTube

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3. Comedian Kim Shin-young caused sensation by debuting as her alternate character Second Aunt Kim Davi with the trot song “Gimme Gimme.”

try. Thus, singers took a turn in movies or serial dramas, and appeared on TV variety shows making witty remarks. Some actors released albums.

Of course, not all crossover attempts have been successful; some idol group members who flubbed their rookie role on TV or in movies have failed to receive sympathy.

What’s different about the recent alt character trend is that the alternate character is not involved in a professional stint but rather in a pastime or at play. In the world of alternate characters, therefore, it doesn’t matter much whether an individual possesses the “right” qualities to take on a different persona. The public is also mainly interested in how different or entertaining the alt character is. The reason Korean society has fallen deep into “alt character play” is probably because individuals want to unshackle themselves from group norms and finally unmask their alter egos.

A new keyword in Korean society in 2020, “multiple personas” refers to “a multi-layered ego that creates new identities by transforming into other beings as if putting on different masks.”

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 81

ESSENTIAL INGREDIENTS

Shrimp Simply steamed or boiled, shrimp can be turned into a wonderful dish. Jumbo shrimp, about 20 centimeters long, are often grilled, whereas small shrimp are preserved in salt to be used as a condiment.

Rich in protein and minerals, shrimp are loved around the world for their sweet and savory flavor.

Jeong Jae-hoon Pharmacist and Food Writer

82 KOREANA Autumn 2020

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Š PIXTA

A Tasty Gift from the Autumn Sea

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n the coastal waters of the Korean peninsula, shrimp are in season from late autumn through winter. This is related to the survival of shrimp as crustaceans. While fish become fatty and grow bigger to survive the cold winters, crustaceans, with less body fat, have a few different strategies to survive. One is to move to the deep seas where the water temperature is higher; another is to increase the percentage of their body constituents that do not freeze.

Therefore, shrimp stay in Korea’s coastal waters from spring through autumn and move away for the winter. In autumn, they prepare for the cold by increasing the content of omega-3 fatty acids in their body, as well as the amino acid glycine, which is responsible for their sweet flavor.

This is why autumn is the best season to enjoy the healthiest and tastiest shrimp, or saeu, in Korea.

Pickling and Fermenting

Shrimp are cooked in many ways, all of which are relatively simple. Roasting shrimp on coarse salt in a skillet or briefly boiling or steaming them brings out a sweet, nutty flavor.

The shrimp’s sweet flesh can also be eaten raw, with the heads boiled separately. Among the shrimp varieties living in Korea’s coastal waters is the jumbo shrimp, more than 20 centimeters long, which is called dohwa saeu, meaning “peach blossom shrimp.” As its name suggests, this is a fancy-looking shrimp with a firm texture and sweet flavor, good enough for a main course in fine dining restaurants.

Small shrimp called jeot saeu, however, account for the greatest proportion of shrimp caught in domestic waters.

Actually, these small shrimp make up the largest catch all across the globe. Unlike jumbo shrimp, which are mostly grilled, smaller varieties are soft and spoil easily, so they are packed with salt on the fishing boat as soon as they are caught.

Around the world, small shrimp are fermented to make sauces, pastes and other condiments used for various dishes. Xia gao (or xia jiang) in Hong Kong, kapi in Thailand, belacan in Malaysia, terasi in Indonesia and mă´ m tôm in Vietnam are different in name and type, but all have shrimp as their common ingredient. In Korea, salted and fermented shrimp, called saeujeot, is used as a condiment for many dishes, including kimchi.

Saeujang, meanwhile, is not a condiment but a dish on its own, consisting of raw shrimp aged in soy sauce that has been boiled with vegetables and spices. Its delectable flavor is created by the combination of raw shrimp and the sweet, savory and salty taste of soy sauce. In this way, it’s much like gejang, which is raw crab preserved in soy sauce pre-

2 © gettyimages

1. Shrimp are popular all over the world for their sweet and savory flavor. They taste especially good in the late fall and winter, when their amino acid glycine content rises.

2. Jumbo shrimp from the temperate and subtropical waters of Korea and China make a great dish when simply roasted on coarse salt in a skillet.

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 83

1

pared in a similar way. The texture of the shrimp in saeujang is unique, falling somewhere between cooked and raw.

Eaten with freshly cooked rice, it is dubbed a “rice thief,” meaning it’s so delicious that the rice eaten with it quickly disappears.

Cholesterol

© gettyimages

2

Shrimp has a high cholesterol content of 189 mg per 100 grams. This is because cholesterol is an essential nutrient for shrimp’s growth: it is needed to produce the hormone that accelerates the shedding process as shrimp outgrow and replace their exoskeleton. Cholesterol is also vital to human life, necessary for brain development and a precursor for the biosynthesis of sex hormones and Vitamin D, “the sunshine vitamin.” Vitamin D is made in human skin when it is exposed to sunlight, and accordingly, many people have a deficiency in winter.

While cholesterol is naturally produced in the human body, this is not the case for crustaceans. Whether farmed or wild, shrimp cannot grow well without sufficient cholesterol intake. This means that farmed shrimp must be given feed with adequate cholesterol content. Cholesterol can be found in several parts of the shrimp: the fleshy body has relatively little, while the head has a lot. The savory shrimp head is, precisely speaking, a combination of head and chest, and contains internal organs high in fat and cholesterol. The inner organs alone contain seven times more fat and two or three times more cholesterol than the flesh. The end part of the intestinal tract, called the “vein” in English, also has a high percentage of cholesterol, although the actual amount it contains is small.

Many foods are subject to myth, and so is the shrimp.

It is said that a shrimp’s tail contains a certain substance that inhibits the absorption of cholesterol. But this is totally unfounded. A shrimp’s hard skin consists of chitin, which is not digested or absorbed by the body. Only through a

1. Aside from grilling, deep-frying is another typical way of cooking jumbo shrimp. Coated with flour, egg batter and breadcrumbs, the shrimp are deep-fried whole with the shell on.

2. Koreans also enjoy saeujang, a dish consisting of raw shrimp aged in soy sauce that has been boiled with vegetables and spices.

3. Saeujeot, salted and fermented small shrimp, is used as a condiment in various dishes and when making kimchi. Mixed with chopped hot pepper, garlic, red pepper powder, sesame seeds and sesame oil, saeujeot is a side dish that whets the appetite in summer. © Shutterstock

84 KOREANA Autumn 2020

Some people avoid shrimp due to concern for their cholesterol levels.

But that isn’t strictly necessary.

Some 80 percent of the cholesterol in the blood is naturally produced by the body, which means it isn’t easy to lower cholesterol through diet alone.

chemical process involving a strong alkali can chitin be broken down into small molecules called keto acids, which are known to be effective in lowering the cholesterol level in blood. No amount of chewing on a shrimp’s shells or tails is enough to turn chitin into keto acids. Eating the shells is still a good way to enjoy the shrimp, however; the shells contain amino acids, sugars and pigments that add to the savory flavor and aroma of cooked shrimp, and also keep the flavor components in the flesh from melting away during cooking.

Shrinking Catch

Some people avoid shrimp due to concern for their cholesterol levels. But that isn’t strictly necessary. Some 80 percent of the cholesterol in the blood is naturally produced by the body, which means it isn’t easy to lower cholesterol through diet alone. Actually, shrimp may have more cause for worry about excessive cholesterol consumption. To grow, their feed should have a cholesterol content of about 0.5 percent, but once that content reaches 5 percent, their growth is suppressed instead.

Shrimp crackers, a deep-fried snack made from a mixture of ground shrimp and starch, are especially popular in Asian countries. In Korea, medium-sized shrimp were used to make the crackers until the 1990s, but due to decreasing hauls, blue shrimp, or kkotsaeu, are used these days. Like any other food ingredient, shrimp are not unlimited in supply. If we fail to consider the impact of shrimp fishing and the sustainability of shrimp farming, we might not be able

3 © Institute of Korean Royal Cuisine

to enjoy the diverse flavors of shrimp in the not-so-distant future.

Yi Saek (1328-1396), a man of letters who lived during the late Goryeo Dynasty, wrote to express his thanks for a gift of jumbo shrimp: “They courteously bow to one another; appreciating them deeply will help enrich the Way.” The shrimp, with their long whiskers and curved bodies, probably reminded the famed Neo-Confucian scholar of humans bowing in humility toward one another. Similarly, we need to adopt a humble attitude and look around us to find ways to coexist with nature while enjoying the rich taste of shrimp in autumn.

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 85

LIFESTYLE

From Instant to Restaurant-Quality Foods Premade home-style Korean meals are broadening their appeal to people of all ages.

Consumers who want to cook also can purchase recipe kits of ingredients that are curated for easy home cooking in perfect amounts.

Choi Ji-hye Researcher, Consumer Trend Center, Research Institute of Human Ecology, Seoul National University

1

F

ood delivery flyers are ubiquitous in Korean residential buildings, plastered in lobbies and doorways. Usually, they are nonchalantly tossed in a wastebasket. How many flyers from pizza and fried chicken franchises or traditional Korean restaurants does one household need, anyway? But lately, these flyers have been offering dishes for more adventuresome taste buds.

It’s hard to imagine a household in Korea that has never used prepared foods. The convenience makes them a highly tempting option for singles, couples and families who lack time for grocery shopping and cooking.

According to a survey of 1,000 Koreans aged 19-70 across the country on their dietary habits, conducted by Nielsen Korea’s What’s Next Group in 2018, singles bought premade home-style foods three times a week, and twoor-more-person households bought them twice a week. Euromonitor, another market researcher, says the domestic convenience foods market grew from 1.02 trillion won in 2014 to 1.95

86 KOREANA Autumn 2020

1. Precooked, microwavable rice, unveiled in 1996, contributed to the launch of the homestyle convenience foods market. It was initially shunned by many consumers. But now a variety of brands are steady sellers, and overseas buying is rising.

© CJ Cheiljedang

trillion won in 2019. This is expected to more than double to 2.92 trillion won by 2024. The COVID-19 pandemic has probably underscored that estimate; demands for reduced restaurant capacity and social distancing have obviously elevated the profile of meal kits.

Instant Foods

Precooked, microwavable rice blazed the trail.

When it was introduced in 1996, it received a cool response from consumers. Rice, of course, is central to Asian diets. Many people had an unwavering belief that the timeworn tradition of daily rice cooking should be kept in the home.

There were also incorrect beliefs at the time that instant rice was unhealthy. Despite a marketing campaign featuring celebrity faces, several years passed before instant rice was accepted in people’s daily lives.

These days, food suppliers and supermarkets stock shelves with a wide variety of instant rice brands, realizing that fewer people have an aversion to processed foods than before. In

2 Š NewsBank

addition, many kinds of processed dishes such as soups, broths, stews and other sides have since been developed, so consumers can prepare substantial meals using only home-style packaged food from the supermarket.

Home delivery of hansik (traditional Korean dishes) accelerated after the introduction of a mobile delivery app in 2010. In recent years, both main dishes and traditional side dishes are offered for delivery. Taken to the extreme, a household could have home-style meals without lifting a knife all week.

There are four basic forms of convenience meals. They are ready-to-eat (RTE) foods, which can be eaten as they are; ready-to-heat (RTH) dishes, which are precooked but must be warmed in a microwave or pot; ready-tocook (RTC) meal kits of pre-prepared ingredients that must be cooked; and ready-to-prepare (RTP) meal kits, coming with all the necessary ingredients, but left for the consumer to prepare and cook.

Although RTC and RTP kits require more

2. A shopper checks out shelves of homestyle convenience foods.

Stews, soups and broths are essential parts of the Korean diet, but they require an inordinate amount of time to prepare. RTH (ready-toheat) foods drastically shorten time in the kitchen.

hands-on attention and thus neutralize the time-saving advantage of food delivery, they are gaining popularity with customers who want to feel like they are cooking for themselves. After first appearing in supermarkets, these meal kits have increasingly joined the delivery lineup.

In recent years, side dishes have been added to accompany main dishes, sparing even more cooking time.

Haute Cuisine

Marketing in the convenience foods industry has shifted from an emphasis on convenience and price competitiveness to upscale dining.

Restaurant-quality meals are now the most popular items, especially among food enthusiasts who are unable to visit fine-dining restaurants due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

As a result, convenience cuisine now features “premium� foods. Thirteen veteran chefs who have worked in the kitchens of five-star hotels for more than 10 years are developing meals for CJ Foods, including internation-

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 87

1 © Mom’s Touch

2

© CJ Cheiljedang

88 KOREANA Autumn 2020

Restaurant-quality meals are now the most popular items in the convenience foods market, especially among food enthusiasts who are unable to visit fine-dining restaurants due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

al dishes like gambas al ajillo (Spanish garlic shrimp, a favorite among young people), pad thai (Thai stir-fried rice noodles) and oyakodon (a Japanese rice bowl dish of chicken and egg).

Korea Yakult, a forerunner in the meal kit market, is similarly focused on developing chefcooked meals consumers can relish at home.

They began offering signature dishes from star chefs a few years ago, and recently received an enthusiastic response from consumers for a new mutton dish.

According to Market Kurly, a grocery and home-style meal delivery startup, sales of restaurant-quality meals jumped a staggering 175 percent on-year in the first half of 2020.

Market Kurly offers a wide range of products such as galbitang (beef short rib soup), makchang (grilled beef entrails), naengmyeon (cold buckwheat noodles) and ssalguksu (rice noodles) developed by famous restaurant chains across the country.

Millennial Lifestyle

The growth of the convenience meal market is attributed to a surge in the number of single households and dual-income couples, as well as to the prevalence of the millennial lifestyle.

One of the important keywords that describe millennials, referring to those born between the

1. Two types of stews that can be enjoyed in the time it takes to open and heat them up in a microwave oven.

1980s and the early 2000s, and their lifestyle is “efficiency.” They want to cook delicious meals themselves, but dislike time-consuming and cumbersome processes, including shopping and pre-cooking preparations. These competing desires have turned them toward home-style convenience meals, and especially RTC and RTP meal kits that minimize inconvenience but allow them to enjoy cooking to some degree.

The expanding role of homes amid the coronavirus epidemic is another factor behind the boost in the home-style convenience foods market. A new light has been shed on homes as a space for all kinds of activities, such as work, study, hobbies and watching TV and films via home theater systems. Home-style convenience

3

2. Shoppers who seek the pleasure and satisfaction of cooking can opt for RTP (ready-to-prepare) meal kits. High-end varieties made by veteran chefs are the latest attraction for foodies to enjoy without shopping and slicing and dicing.

3. Home-style Korean meal sets are showcased in a promotional event for home meal replacements, held at CJ Injaewon in Seoul in October 2017.

Originally targeted at single-person households and working women, precooked convenience foods are attracting more attention from elderly consumers who previously had a negative attitude toward precooked meals.

© Yonhap News Agency

meals are an important alternative in a situation where young people are unable to eat out.

Ready-made meal kits provide recipes that help them cook even restaurant-quality foods like sukiyaki, pickled salmon and tuna, and yangjangpi (a mixture of seafood, meat and vegetables in mustard sauce).

In addition to young adults, the elderly and households with children are emerging as influential consumer groups. Perhaps the industry will expand to even wider ranges, including weaning foods for babies and liquid foods for patients. It remains to be seen how far convenience food will evolve “beyond a bite.”

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 89

JOURNEYS IN KOREAN LITERATURE

CRITIQUE

Lee Ki-ho, born in 1972, is heralded for his delightful way with words. This has earned him a place as successor to famed storytellers Hwang Sok-yong (1943- ) and Song Sok-ze (1960- ).

First and foremost, Lee’s stories make you laugh, occasionally bring you to tears, and always leave you with something weighty to think over.

Choi Jae-bong Reporter, The Hankyoreh

W

ith his first short story collection, “Choi Sun-dok, Filled with the Holy Spirit” (2004), Lee Ki-ho made himself known as a storyteller of remarkable guile.

The title work tells the story of Choi Sun-dok, a woman of intense faith, who decides it’s her calling to reform and redeem “Adam,” a man who flashed her, and tirelessly evangelizes to that end. The story is made even more entertaining by its format, which mimics the chapter and verse notation of the Bible, and its layout in the style of the Bible’s usual two columns. Beginning with the very first verse, “Being the story of the Lord’s servant Choi Sun-dok, who was made in His image, as she was swayed and moved by the Holy Spirit bestowed upon her, let it be recorded and offered here in its entirety,” it goes on to lay out the protagonist’s life, overflowing with the Holy Spirit, sarcastically and with a touch of dark humor.

Included in the same collection, Lee’s debut story, “Birney” (1999), is a starkly different kind of work. The two main characters are a young man who dropped out of high school and now runs a “good time agency” and a female prostitute called Sun-hui, who suffers a disability. From start to finish, the story has a fastpaced and direct voice that closely resembles rap. Together, these two short stories demonstrate the adventurous and experimental approach that Lee as a young writer took toward new forms of writing.

Lee’s first novel, “At Least We Can Apologize” (2009), portrays the events that unfold when two young men with learning difficulties move out of a welfare facility and into society, deciding to take up the extraordinary occupation of “apologizing on other people’s

90 KOREANA Autumn 2020

behalf.” It’s a curious set-up: the idea of earning money by taking requests from people who need to apologize to someone but cannot face doing it. The stories of those buying proxy apologies for various reasons add an amusing layer to the novel, and while the protagonists seem ignorant of the surrounding context, their adventures and exploits unwittingly bring the essence of each situation to light in a way that has readers bursting with laughter, yet infused with a stinging sadness. By adopting the perspective of an ingenuous narrator, the novel maintains a humorous style even as it unveils how much sin and guilt lurk on the underside of the everyday world, which appears decent and proper.

“A World History of Second Sons” (2014), Lee’s second novel, is set against the 1980s military dictatorship of Chun Doo-hwan. While working as a taxi driver in the provincial city of Wonju, Na Bokman is rounded up as a political prisoner for an absurd reason. After being tortured during interrogations, he becomes implicated in an organized crime case and spends the rest of his life as a fugitive. The title is explained in the novel as originating from the Old Testament story of eldest son Cain and second son Abel: “The curate explained then that the story of Cain and Abel still holds true in our time.

That we are all brethren, and this world is made up of one terrifying person and countless younger sib-

L ee Ki-ho :

“ Do you think you can le arn ethics from a book, from fiction? Do you think th at along with a book, alon g with fiction, you can feel shame?” © Munhakdongne

lings, countless second sons, trembling with fear. […] He went on to lament the bigger problem, the situation whereby us second sons have gone from being afraid of the older brother to worshipping him, the reality that we have come to believe in the eldest son more than we believe in God.” Although titled a “world history,” the novel more precisely takes aim at the harsh reality of 1980s Korea, portraying the agonizing state of affairs whereby Na Bok-man, who had little learning but a clean and clear disposition, became prey for the sport of government agents and met with utter ruin. The quote that follows sets this out with particularly sly eloquence: “The era of our noir hero was a time when every inch of the country was crowded with various agents and detectives, all with abundant foresight, sharp analytical skills and judgment, who were so adept and expert at interrogation that whoever was handed over to them, whether student or office worker, housewife or priest, was made to admit their crime, every single one of them, and in fact could be made to confess to far worse crimes.”

In 2018, Munhakdongne published Lee’s fourth short story collection, “Church Oppa Kang Min-ho who is Kind to Everyone.”

It brings together seven short stories, with each title featuring the name of the protagonist or a central character in the story. More significantly, four of the seven stories feature the writer himself, or a novelist who can be assumed to be Lee Ki-ho based on his circumstances. At the end of the collection is an author’s note that functions as an epilogue and is actually so long that it is almost another short story in its own right. The following questions appear in this note from the author: “What kind of wall stands between the ‘Lee Ki-ho’ in the sto-

ries and the ‘Lee Ki-ho’ writing them? Are they two people who are utterly different beings, two individuals with their own unique souls?”

Instead of trying to answer these questions directly, let’s dive into the stories. “What Happened to Choi Mi-jin?” the first story in the collection, features “writer Lee Ki-ho” who happens to visit a secondhand goods website and discovers one of his books on sale there. After some twists and turns, the writer buys his book back from a young man who is a total stranger, and even gets an apology, but the encounter turns his feeling of outrage into shame.

The young man probably works some kind of service job where he constantly has to say “I’m sorry” just to get by, and when he calls drunk, his words make the narrator even more ashamed.

In his author’s note, Lee Ki-ho poses these questions to the reader: “Do you think you can learn ethics from a book, from fiction? Do you think that along with a book, along with fiction, you can feel shame?” Reading stories like “What Happened to Choi Mi-jin?” the reader may feel shame along with the writer, and just might end up learning a certain kind of ethics. In the other stories in the collection as well, on top of his usual agile and quirky humor, Lee often poses uncomfortable questions and presents subtle situations that could be called ethical dilemmas. This is evidence that his world of fiction has matured immensely in the two decades that have already passed since his debut.

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS 91

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