VIII.Walking Sideways
The driver swings open the door and Hyeong Shik lifts his backpack to follow the queue into the intercity bus. Once he gets to this place, his home province, he is always a bit reluctant to leave its peacefulness and splendour.
So lush a green and sprinkled with yellow and red flowers in the summer, these valleys of farm fields looked even richer now in mid-autumn. The rice paddies yellow, the ripe persimmons orange and the leaves brown, everything was golden.
Regardless, there was no harvest more important than the harvest of children.
Once climbing the hill of barley to overcome adversity through decades of war and deprivation, his home town and most others were enjoying new riches and pleasures of life in the present era. Yet, most people could not relax and allow themselves to feel satisfied. They had too much pride and ambition for that. They wanted more and more to make up for past humiliations and shortcomings. Besides they were too used to living a hyper-industrious life. It was as if they had come to love struggle, if not be addicted to it.
Then there was the uncertainty—they were ferociously determined to be prepared for future calamities. There was the danger of war, climate change, and economic fluctuation. Fear was as great a motivator as pride.
So much of this desire to succeed is projected onto the sons. The honour and glory of the family name rested on their success. In this family’s case, like so many others, the parents fervently believe that the pot of gold can be found in business. The eldest son, only five years older than Hyeong Shik, has done everything they wanted and been good at it; he is now a very successful corporate businessman with a high income and fashionable house in Metro Seoul, all which reflects well on the family. Still, though, the parents are not satisfied. They want Hyeong Shik to achieve a similar lifestyle and social status.
While dutiful, Hyeong Shik has been made of a different cloth, however. He is a dreamer dreaming of world travel and foreign adventures. He likes languages and wants to learn Spanish as well as English. He loves the arts. He imagines a life full of novelty and adventures.
“Bah!” is his mother’s usual response. They had argued again this weekend. “You can’t make money like that! We want you to have a business. You should be in business,” she had insisted, as did his other relatives.
He knows that his parents have suffered more than their fair share of loss and shame, and he does want to excel so as to more than make up for it. He harbours han. He too wants restitution, even vengeance.
He knows their story. His father’s family had been resentful when his father married the daughter of a wealthy family and thereby acquired land. His father had come to own a profitable and expansive farm through that marriage. But his greedy and jealous elder paternal uncle had claimed a share of most of it for himself and continues to demand tributes from his younger brother to this day. The feud burns on.
On this most recent visit, Hyeong Shik senses the ongoing tension as usual. He always feels torn. On the one hand, he loves his father and strongly wants to restore his father’s dignity and status. On the other hand, he is tired of them scratching the gourd and nagging him to conform to their wishes instead of letting him follow his heart. He would prefer to be true to himself and find some other way.
Finally, the visit is over. Hyeong Shik takes a seat on the bus and removes a notebook from his backpack in order to review the plans for a project. He has been trying to find a compromise that would both please his parents and realize at least part of his own dream. To that end, he had started his own business earlier in this year, his senior year of undergraduate studies.
He has been working on it staying up late often and sacrificing precious weekend time, so hard that even his English grades had slipped a little. It is imperative that he enable himself to support himself and start saving money for a marriage and house in due course, and he wants to prove to his parents that he can be a successful entrepreneur.
Halfway through the last term of his bachelor’s degree program with an English major, it would be necessary to have a viable living by the following year. The necessity for hard work never ceased, it seemed.
Hyeong Shik envies some of the foreigners he has met who seemed more carefree. Granted, they have to earn money and pay expenses. From what they have said to him, however, they do not have the same burdens. Unchained from such obligations, they can chase their dreams and enjoy life more, apparently.
The bitter taste of a previous disappointment sometimes fills Hyeong Shik’s mouth when he has time to reflect. He could be saving money in a secure career full of potential already had his family not interfered.
This is what had happened. Hyeong Shik had turned 27 years old. He had completed the mandatory two years of military service. Then he had interrupted his studies twice to pursue promising jobs.
The first time, he had been working in the administration of a hospital performing a variety of daily tasks for good money. It had been interesting and fruitful. Yet, his mother and father had told him to finish his degree and establish a business instead of settling for an ordinary life as a hospital worker. They just did not believe that success would be possible in a hospital job. So, after a year of learning the ropes, proving for himself in the job and building a savings account, he had been compelled to quit and return to college.
Then he had landed a great part-time job in the administration of a public school. Between college terms, he had put in a lot of hours as a volunteer in the school and his superiors were pleased with him. They decided to give him a paid job with a future in education administration. He had liked being in the school. He had liked the atmosphere and the work. He had felt important and needed, as he had in the hospital. As had been the case in the hospital, his proficiency in English had been an advantage and he could meet people and learn a lot.
However, his parents had reacted as before. Therefore, he had turned down an offer of a full-time career in the school system and enrolled in a senior year of studies.
To what end, he could not conceive. The irony was that he would have been living comfortably by now and in a situation in which buying a home of his own and marrying would have been feasible by this time. Not that there was anyone to marry around, so busy working had he been and so without means for courting so far. Instead, he found himself struggling to be in such a position still, all because his family was attracted to the glitter of private enterprise and invested their faith in the business world.
Hyeong Shik looks at the numbers on the pages in his lap. They are discouraging. While there had been 350 hits on his website in its first week, the figures had plummeted since then. He had opened the website and promoted it in the summer. Some loyal friends and acquaintances had clicked on it, while a few shoppers had found and perused it.
True, power tools were not the sexiest of products (even though the American media makes them out to be, though it makes nearly everything appear sexy), but his research had revealed a gap in the market and a need for an intermediary to connect impatient sellers of new and used specialized goods with anxious or particular buyers. The website should be a handy resource for both consumers and sellers. Sellers could list their stores and gain advertising plus access to buyers. Buyers would have a handy reference for rapid browsing with ready contacts linking to online ordering. It was a simple concept.
The main problem is a lack of funds for marketing. Advertising is very costly, not to mention labour intensive. For instance, he had begun to draft a flyer but the task of distributing it had been daunting. He is already paying for a business license, web space and website development. The cost of having flyers printed and paying for staff to do it for him is beyond his budget. Besides, distributing a lot of flyers would be complicated, considering what would be involved as an employer. Electronic distribution is more feasible but it would get few results, he surmised, because people are wary of spam.
He had emailed the link to his site with a cover letter and gotten a few leads by word of mouth. Now and then he had been meeting prospects in coffee shops. Mostly, though, he is relying on the registering of suppliers and supposed need to search for products on the internet to bring forth clients. He counts on the fees from the registrants and their success in making sales in order to sustain his own participating customers. He should not have to do much except wait for the money to come in. Maybe it is just a question of time, he muses.
He does not really know what he is doing because he had not studied business or marketing much, having committed to the English major program. At least his family recognizes that English is important and beneficial. “Study English!” has become a mantra and studying English fashionable and influential, even without good scores. It is the perceived way of the future, modern life and success. Furthermore, everyone knows that good scores produced study grants, awards, slick resumes, and job offers and promotions.
At this point, what Hyeong Shik really wants to do is spend a year abroad in an
English speaking environment. He aspires to having an adventure and opening up doors for international business. It is realizable because his marks are good enough for him to earn a travel subsidy.
He has spent six months in England already at his parents’ expense and they would not want to throw away that investment now. That trip had been the best time of his life—free from the worries and obligations of social life in Korea, he had reveled in exploring a new culture. It had been heaven, at least for the first three months.
Then there had been problems with the English teacher in the private institute he attended in London. The teacher had given Hyeong Shik a low evaluation. The teacher was also the owner of the small business and Hyeong Shik guessed that he had some financial troubles and personal issues. The teacher-owner had decided to close the business all of a sudden, but the students had unfairly taken some flak. His parents had pulled him out and made him return home after only four months.
Hyeong Shik sighs ruefully. When the bus pulls over for a rest period, he disembarks and goes to find a cup of coffee. There are three hours left on this bus trip, plus it would take a 40-minute commute from the bus terminal to his flat in Busan. All the same, he would refrain from eating now and have a meal later.
As a studious youth, Hyeong Shik had been obese. He had shed 30 kilos five years ago and was now thin. He wants to stay that way. He has been enjoying a new found attractiveness and healthy outlook too much to go back now.
His parents do not seem to admire this accomplishment, despite the hard, hard work it had taken to lose the excess weight. His parents had been sold on fast food and bakeries, and he had learned the “modern” habit of eating donuts, fries, burgers and soda drinks for the sake of efficiency on his busy schedule of school and after school academies. The habit had been supplemented by the candies and colas offered by the academy and parents intended to cheer up children unhappy with their imprisonment in classrooms. The habit and all that misguided good will had taken its toll.
Nowadays, Hyeong Shik is careful about everything he eats and it takes no strength to refuse anything absent from his list of healthy food. He is in good shape. He runs three kilometers a day most days. He loves himself. He is happy with his new identity. He looks and feels completely different from the image of the chubby boy with the dimpled face in the pictures in his drawer.
It is 9:00 p.m. when he arrives to the door of his apartment. The building is noisy with the sounds of domestic life all about. A child wails while a dog barks and a couple men engage in avid discourse. Doors slam, the elevator rumbles and televisions and radios chatter.
He is just happy to be living on his own with the walls detaching him from others. Here in his own abode he can think and get in touch with his true self. Nobody nags or argues or issues orders here. There is a measure of peace, even if the dilemmas and questions about his life and the society he lives in still bother him.
He unlatches the door and enters, quickly and carelessly slipping off his shoes before padding to his bedside to dispose of the backpack. He roughly empties its contents because he
will need a few things for bedtime tonight.
He realizes he is famished and opens a cupboard at the cooking counter across from his sleeping area. Waiting to eat later had been a good idea but that idea had supposed that there would be something to eat in his apartment.
There is after all some frozen mandu in the freezer compartment of the refrigerator. That and some ready-to-eat soup will have to do even though it means breaking his own rules about avoiding sodium-laden packaged food. Such food is really there for emergencies and it is good enough for now after he has arrived home late in the day from a long journey.
He does not want to make the effort to cook rice at this point but he will probably need to eat rice too if he wants to sleep well through the night, especially since he has missed lunch. He fills the rice cooker with grains of brown rice and adds the appropriate amount of water before switching it on. The rice thus cooking, he fills a saucepan one-third full with water and sets the gas-fed fire at medium to let the water come to a boil. There is only one saucepan, and he must cook the frozen mandu first before he can use it for heating the soup.
After a little while both mandu and soup are before him and he eats it slowly while sitting leaning over the little wooden table near the stove and sink. At least he has both an eating table and a small desk. This lifestyle is most certainly inadequate but the present arrangement is merely a useful stepping stone toward something better in his future, however hazy that picture of his future appears at the moment, and there is little point in building a nest here.
Again, he rues the loss of the hospital job and the rejection of the school job. He does not feel ambitious. He does not need a terribly exciting or glamorous job. He would take an ordinary but secure position if circumstances permitted and work steadily to put aside some money, and maybe try some business on the side as a supplementary source of income. The thing is that his parents want something different. It is about them and not him, and it is the duty of a child, especially a son, to fulfill their ambitions. As the middle son, he is inclined to want to act as a bridge and peace-maker.
There is a saying that says: “As it ripens, the rice bows its head.” The coming of manhood is not the time to be bold and forge ahead heedless of one’s roots in Korean life. It is wiser to remain humble and pay more attention to the role of the family and their sacrifices, and strive to fulfill the duties towards them in order to honour them. Obedience to their wishes is the priority.
If not an impressive slick businessman, then, what—or who, rather—does he wish in his heart of hearts to become? He is not sure. He looks but there is no clear image on the horizon.
That night, Hyeong Shik dreams he is a child again back in the easy days of childhood at home. It is May, the warm and dry month when Buddha was born, a time for checking and reorienting one’s mind toward the heights of existence, a time full of idealism and hope. It is a time when children, parents and teachers are honoured for their commitment, inspiration and wisdom. It is a time for nourishing the soil so that the soil would nourish the plants so that the plants would nourish animals and humans. It is a time for relishing life and sowing dreams.
In the dream, he sees himself change into an adolescent. He walks across the farm one day and encounters a stray young pig emerging from the greenery. Impulsively, he steps forward to grab hold of the creature. It feels warm and rich with life. As he wonders how he can take the pig back to the pen, his problem is solved by the pig breaking free and trotting ahead in the direction of the pen to lead the youth back toward the house.
In the morning, Hyeong Shik feels optimistic for dreaming the encounter with a pig was a very lucky sign. With refreshed energy, walks the two kilometers from his place to the campus.
Classmates and passing acquaintances greet him with the usual questions such as, “Where are you going?” and “Have you eaten today?”
Someone who knows him better stops to ask him how the commemoration of his deceased grandmother had gone. He replies that it had gone well. Such an event is not a sad event; on the contrary, it might be sad and disturbing if one did not stop and remember one’s ancestors occasionally as one should.
The two young men decide to have a coffee together in the student services canteen. “I visited your website three times, like I promised,” says the friend.
Hyeong Shik nods and offers to buy him a beverage. Beverages purchased and parked open on a table, they sit down at the table and Hyeong Shik asks his companion, “What did you think of my website?”
“I don’t know. I’m not in that market, and I’ve never tried something like that. It looks good. It looks like you’ve worked hard at having it developed.”
“It’s not getting as many hits as I’d like but it’s a good start.”
“Yes, congratulations. So why did you get into it?”
“You know, my parents are keen on me getting involved in business. I thought this was something that might make money yet leave me with my hands free for other things.”
“Right. Well, perhaps you could try different products and see what happens?”
“Hm. I thought I should be practical. I do like music. It would be nice to do something with music. I’ll see. I’m just hoping that I can make enough money for now so that I can take it farther later, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah. Don’t you have partners?”
“No, I’ve done it all on my own so far.”
“You are quite independent in your ways.”
“Yes, I’d like to show I can do it myself, then see what happens.”
“Well, good luck with it.”
“Last night, I dreamed of a pig.”
“Oh! Fortune is on your side then.”
The two friends separate at the quarter hour. Hyeong Shik continues on his way up the hill to his first class. It seems that most universities are situated on hilltops, which he considers fittingly metaphoric for all the struggle that so many students must go through in order to rise upwards to success.
His first class is the beginner Spanish class, an elective course he has taken out of pleasure and for the purpose of completing the required credits of his degree. It just takes memorizing vocabulary and learning basic pronunciation.
In the afternoon, he will go to his second year English conversation class—another easy one for which he is well prepared because of the time spent in academies and abroad to date. He is assured of getting a high grade in English conversation.
The remaining days and weeks of this pleasant sunny and warm autumn roll by until the chilly winds of late November blow to usher in December. His last assignments are light and the exams do not pose much challenge, which is a good thing because Hyeong Shik continues to feel distracted by concerns about what to do, and how to go forward upon graduation.
Friends and classmates start consult each other on their plans and itineraries. They start saying their good-byes. One young woman gives Hyeong Shik a memento for good luck, a figure of a pig on a key chain.
The students are not sentimental about the parting, for they know that each one must carry on his or her own path. Rather, they are excited and optimistic for each other while they focus on their respective duties and obligations. Some young men will have to do military service. Some young people will have to work for relatives. Others are in line for internships or more training. A handful will enter graduate school somewhere. Some will keep trying their chances on the job market and most of them can rely on family support until they land on their feet, however much they long for a new life on their own without strings. Some will get a hand with starting up a new business or be pressed to borrow funds to do it. Others will go abroad to work or study.
Hyeong Shik joins some classmates and buddies for a few evenings out eating, drinking and singing but he is too frugal and industrious to do it often. He enjoys this time and is careful not to burn bridges with friends. It is best to continue some contact, however undefined and uncertain. However, he avoids most of the partying that routinely follows exams. He wishes to celebrate the completion of all four years of the degree program, but he is wise enough to restrain himself. He just hopes that there will be more time for that sort of pleasure later in his life.
One day after his exams are done, he wakes up with a resolution. He suddenly decides his next step. He will take his chances and go to Seoul.
He calls the landlord to give him notice before having his morning tea. That day, he posts some ads to sell off some of his household items and packs up other items in cardboard boxes. By the next day, three boxes have been posted and sent on their way to his cousin’s house in Seoul. Replies to his ads start flowing in and he starts setting up appointments. He begins scanning job ads, though his departure is not dependent on finding a job in Seoul first.
He is not sure what he will do in Seoul but he will take his chances. Seoul is where fortunes and fame are found. Seoul is the place of fashion, art, power, and global connections.
In less than two weeks, Hyeong Shik boards the KTX rapid train bound for Seoul Station filled with a sense of adventure and energized with excitement and hope. While they have nevertheless criticized him for the lack of a plan, his parents have applauded this move. After all, as everyone knows, it is all right as long as you get to Seoul, even if you walk sideways to get there.