in the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto. She has translated the works of many writers from colonial Korea and is currently writing a book on assimilation and forms of disappearance in late colonial fiction.
pr aise for Eastern Sentiments “Yi T’aejun is one of the foremost modernist writers of colonial Korea. In elegant and readable prose, this translation captures his elegiac contemplation.” JaHyun Kim Haboush, Columbia University “Eastern Sentiments, a collection of essays by Yi T’aejun, superbly rises to the challenge of translating into exquisite English the subtle and complex nuances of his language and the multilayered irony of his prose. Furthermore, Janet Poole’s authoritative, critical introduction significantly contributes to the growing body of scholarship on the political and aesthetic value of Yi T’aejun’s work.” Jin-kyung Lee, University of California, San Diego
www.cup.columbia.edu
E a s t e r N Sentiments
new york
jacket image: Kim Chonghui, Kukhyang Kunja (Fragrant Orchid), Kansong Art Museum
translated by j a n e t p o o l e
Eastern Sentiments
y i t’a e j u n
9 780231 149440
columbia
ISBN 978-0-231-14944-0
printed in the u.s.a.
book/jacket design: chang jae lee
jacket inset image: Namdaemun surroundings in the 1930s, list_Books from Korea, volume 1, Autumn 2008
W e at h e r h e a d B o o k s o n A s i a
y i t’a e j u n
columbia university press
j a n e t p o o l e teaches Korean literature
The Confucian gentleman scholars of the ˘ dynasty (1392–1910) often published Choson short anecdotes exemplifying their values and aesthetic concerns. In modern Seoul one scholar in particular would excel at adapting this style to a contemporary readership: Yi T’aejun. Yi T’aejun was a prolific and influential writer of colonial Korea and an acknowledged master of the short story and essay. He also wrote numerous novels and was an influential editor of cultural news. Born in northern Korea in 1904, Yi T’aejun settled in Seoul after a restless youth that included several years of study in Japan. In 1946, he moved to Sovietoccupied northern Korea, but by 1956, a purge of southern communists forced him into exile. His subsequent whereabouts cannot be confirmed, though rumors claim Yi returned to Pyongyang, only to be exiled once more. It is believed Yi T’aejun passed away between 1960 and 1980, but his works were not made available until 1988, when South Korean censorship laws concerning authors who had sided with the north were eased. The essays in this collection reflect Yi’s distinct voice and lyrical expression, revealing thoughts on a variety of subjects, from gardens to immigrant villages in Manchuria, from antiques to colonial assimilation, and from fishing to the recovery of Korea’s past. Yi laments the passing of tradition with keen sensibility yet, at the same time, celebrates human perseverance in the face of loss and change. Most important, his essays recount the author’s attempt to re-experience the past and keep it alive against absorption into the Japanese nation.
e a s t e r n s e n t i m e n t s [27]
Night Whenever I returned from Tokyo to Korea, I experienced the night anew. Of course day and night exist there too, but, having accustomed myself to the well-lit stations in Japan, I would discover night again once the train had left Pusan and began to stop from time to time in the most unlikely of dark places. I would look out, wondering if the train had broken down, only to glimpse station employees flitting back and forth like bats, and then a closer inspection would reveal the flicker of an oil lamp in the distance. Night, the true dark night! It was not a copy but the real thing that I felt then. And in that dark, deserted village my heart would embrace the comfortable feeling of having returned home. “Oh, what a desolate station . . . ” Some travelers must feel this way, but I was always thankful to find myself in such a dark station, after my nerves had been exhausted by life in the bright city and by my constantly passing through stations bedecked in lights. That feeling could only be surpassed by standing in front of some breathtaking scenery. From that time on, I made a habit of enjoying the dark, unlit night. After I returned to Tokyo, I formed a group that met in unlit rooms; we friends would linger through the long night until day broke. Although we see the night fall every day, still it takes us by surprise. And so sometimes I sit and wait from daylight hours. The night meanders in through the closed door. It removes my mother’s face from a photograph hung on the wall, coils around a lone blossom on my desk, its eyes wide open to the very end, and then I find myself in the depth of the mountains. There I encounter the cries of insects and wait for the dream that will surely visit; deep into the night I hear a cock crow in a village far away.