Sample Translations
OK JUNG Snail Spaceship E ng l i s h
Book Information
Snail Spaceship (달팽이우주선) SAMTOH Publishing corp. / 2013 / 16 p. / ISBN 9788946416956 For further information, please visit: http://library.klti.or.kr/node/772
This sample translation was produced with support from LTI Korea. Please contact the LTI Korea Library for further information. library@klti.or.kr
Snail Spaceship Written by JUNG OK, Illustrated by LEE HAN-SOL
Make Sure You Read This If You Are Not a Snail!
I’m telling you the following because not just snails will read this. Snails have four antennas that stick out like horns, which make them pretty amazing organisms. There are two large antennas on top of the head, and there are two small ones below. The snail’seyes are at the end of the large antennas, but when a snail gets startled, the eyes disappear right into the antennas. The smaller antennas are used for smelling and are also used to detect cold or heat. The smaller antennascan also tell which direction the wind is coming from. And all snails are sleepyheads. During the hottest summer days, they sleep, and they also sleep when it’s really cold out in the wintertime. Oh, and there’s one more thing you should know. There’s no such thing as a female or male snail. They can be moms or dads. That’s why we don’t say mom or dad, but say “mapas.” There are no aunts or uncles; we just call them all “auncles.” Also, they don’t call their siblings sisters or brothers. Snails call all their siblings simply “sisters.” Please remember this.
Contents
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Make Sure You Read This If You Are Not a Snail! 6 A Pink Star 10 Swirling Stars16 A Village Feast 22 One and Only Shell 29 Drumming Snail 36 Gathering the Wind 46 While Asleep in the Summer 52 To the Lake 59 Snail Spaceship 66 Five Antennas 75 Space! 82 Going Back Home 91 Music Festival at the Lake 96 I’m Going to Make a Spaceship, Too 103
A Word from the Writer 110
A Pink Star
Oh my! It’s raining. It feels great getting wet from so early in the morning. Hey, you guys, it’s raining and all. Would you like me to tell you a fun story? Long, long, really long ago… What? When the dinosaurs lived?
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Well, now, even longer than that for sure. One day, something unbelievable happened on a pink star far out there in space. You want me to tell you just how far away the pink star was? Hm… the moon feels like our next-doorneighbor in comparison, so it was much farther than that. It was beyond the cluster of stars where the sun and the Earth are. You had to pass the cluster of stars shaped like a long pole, and then pass the star cluster that looked like a blooming rose, and then you’d come across the whirlpool-shaped star cluster where the pink star lived. There were so many bright stars out in space that you couldn’t even count them all. But I bet the pink star was the most beautiful. It was the most perfect star, with a soft pink aurora in its sky, pink-colored waterwashing around in its sea, and pink trees and pink flowersfilling its forest. It was perfect. But there was a problem. Soon,with each passing day, you saw less of the pink aurora up in the sky, and the pink star began getting hotter. First, the flowers started wilting, and then the trees got sicker andstarted dying. Soon there were no more trees or flowers, and the soil turned to desert. Later the pink sea got so hot that it started boiling, and in the end, it dried up. Then one day…. Bang! Oh no, did I startle you? Yes, that was the sound of the pink star exploding. But you don’t have to worry.The organisms living on the pink star escaped on a space ship. The organisms made it out of the swirl-shaped star cluster on a spaceship. Then they wandered around the universe and looked for a place to live.
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The spaceship passed the star cluster that looked like a rose, then the star cluster that looked like a pole, and then it came close to the sun. Then they discovered a green star. That’s right. That green star was where we live, Earth. Earth didn’t have any living organisms back then, but the organisms from the spaceship liked it very much. But then again, who wouldn’t fall in love with this land that was covered with moss and had a sky that brought down drizzling rain? Don’t you agree? The organisms ended their long search, landed on Earth, and began living here. After they arrived on Earth, so much happened. The sea swallowed the mountains, and many years later, the mountains reappeared. The sea froze and then melted again… and all sorts of organisms were born and then disappeared. But the organisms from the pink star cleverly outlived everything, and are living happily up to today. What? What were they, you ask? Haha, who do you think? It’s us, snails.
To the Lake
Finally, the cosmos started blooming at the lake park. The pink-, yellow-, and scarletcolored cosmos lined the walking path and swayed gently side to side. Mapa woke up first. She raised her antennas first, stretched, andthen woke up the kids. “Ah, I slept well. Wake up, kids. The summer is over already.” Bengbeng and Ssengsseng opened their eyes wide. But Doldol didn’t move an inch. Mapa shook Doldol with her smaller antennas.
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“Hey, sleepyhead. You’re still sleepy? Wake up, Doldol, wake up.” Doldol opened her eyes but couldn’t raise her antennas. “Doldol! You’re burning up! Are you okay?” “Mapa… I’m so sick. I feel like my mouth is full of rough sand.” Mapa, surprised, looked closely all over Doldol. “Oh my goodness! There’s no moisture anywhere on your body. What happened? Did something happen while you were in your summer sleep?” “Mapa, I went out every night to make a spaceship. But I haven’t had a drop of water the last few days. All the puddles of water out in the forest are dried up. Mapa, my eyes keep closing. Wah…” “Doldol! No, you can’t. Open your eyes!” Mapa screamed while shaking Doldol. “Mapa! What do we do?” “Doldol, Doldol!” Doldol’s sisters were scared and didn’t know what to do. They had to find water fast. But if the puddles in the forest had dried up, that meant there was no water nearby. Mapa thought for a while and then raised her antennas. “Let’s go to the lake. That’s the only place where we can get water. Kids, go find one iris leaf right away. Hurry.” Bengbeng and Ssengsseng quickly went outside and dragged over an iris leaf. Mapa laid Doldol on the leaf and covered her with moss. “Okay, I’ll pull from the front. You kids push from the back.” Mapa bit down on the leaf and pulled it outside. Bengbeng and Ssengsseng pushed from the back. Doldol’s family made it out of the forest and slowly made their way towards the lake.
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They had to cut across the walking path to get to the lake. But the walking path was full of rocks and rough soil, and unless it was raining, no snail tried to cross it. Mapa and the sisters pulled the leaf over the rocks and the soil. Their feet were soon red with blisters. But they didn’t stop pulling the leaf with Doldol on it. Doldol buried her antennas into the moss and tried to breathe. “Doldol, don’t give up. Just wait a little bit.” “That’s right, Doldol. We have to take the spaceship you built and go see the swirling cluster of stars. So hang in there.” Bengbeng and Ssengsseng worked hard pushing the leaf. But there was no sign of the lake yet. The sound of Doldol’s breathing kept getting weaker. Bengbeng was the first one about to cry. “Doldol, I’m sorry. I’ll never say anything to make fun of your spaceship again.” Doldol moved her mouth a little when she heard her sisters crying. Right then, Mapa stopped and yelled: “It’s the lake!” At the bottom of the hill, you could see the lake. “Ah, we’re almost there.” “Doldol, look, water.” Mapa and the sisters held on to the leaf and rolled down the hill. Mapa dipped the moss in the water and wet Doldol’s body with it. The sisters did the same and kept taking the wet moss from the lake to Doldol. After awhile of soaking up water from the moss like a sponge, Doldol carefully opened her eyes. “Mapa…” “Doldol!”
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Mapa and the sisters hugged Doldol,who appeared to be feeling better, and they cried and cried.
Snail Spaceship
Mapa and Doldol’s sisters sat next to one another on the fallen reeds along the water’s edge and soaked their sore feet in the cool water. Doldol, who now had energy, wet her antennas and wiped her shell, which was full of dirt. Bengbeng poked at Doldol’s shell with her antenna. “Wow, it’s really clear. It looks like a raindrop.” Ssengsseng also looked Doldol’s spaceship over with her big antennas. “That’s amazing. Doldol, how did you make it?” Mapa stroked Doldol’s cheeks lightly. “What a magnificent spaceship. I’m proud of you, Doldol.” Doldol was embarrassed at the compliments and giggled shyly. As the sun was about to set, there was a cool breeze. “With the sun going down, it’s gotten a little cooler. Kids, let’s go back to the forest now.” Mapa led the way and started up the slope. The younger snails followed her. Then there was a loud noise from behind. “Quack quack, what’s this?” Doldol and the gang turned around to look. There was a black duck staring at them. “It’s a duck! Kids, hide quick!”Mapa screamed loudly. Doldol and her sisters quickly hid in their shells. They did that because the color of their shells made them look similar to rocks and they wouldn’t be easily noticed.
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But Doldol’s spaceship was so transparent that she couldn’t hide. The black duck waddled up to Doldol and stared right at her. “This one looks super tasty, quack quack.” The black duck opened its flat beak and lunged at Doldol. Doldol was so scared that she forgot to breathe. She closed her eyes tightly. “No! Doldol!” It sounded like Mapa’s and Doldol’s sisters’ screams were coming from far away as Doldol shot up into the sky. “Ah, the duck must have me in its beak and that’s why I’m floating off the ground.” Doldol could see her Mapa and her sisters and her auncle Lala’s smiling face flash before her eyes. But then Doldol felt strange. She opened her eyes gently. She could see below in the distance the black duck with a confused look on its face. “Huh? What happened?” Doldol opened her eyes wide and looked around her. The lake, the reed beds, the walking path and the cosmos lining it -- all looked smaller and smaller. “I’m flying! I’m flying. My spaceship is finally flying. Yahoo!” Doldol flapped around her antennas as she shouted. As soon as she started shouting, she started to descend. Doldol breathed in and waited. She started floating again. Meanwhile, Mapa and Doldol’s sisters had made it up to the top of the hill and waved their antennas at Doldol. “Doldol! Your spaceship is flying. It’s incredible!” “Wow, what an amazing spaceship!” Doldol kept flying with the help of the wind. She could now see the entire lake in her view. She could see the gingko trees here
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and there on the walking path, the playground under the zelkova tree, and the row of faucets next to a field; and she saw a grassy field and a white bench underneath the wisteria tree where she lived. “Whoa, I can’t breathe. I’d better go down now.” Doldol let out her breath little by little. And her spaceship started to go back down little by little. When Doldol got close to the wisteria tree, she could hear the sounds of a drum playing. She could see, at the end of the wisteria tree branch where she used to work on her spaceship, Auncle Lala playing the drum and singing. Doldol quietly went behind Auncle Lala and called her name. “Auncle Lala, long time no see.” “Yes, Doldol. How are you?” Lala turned around and happily greeted Doldol. Then, the drum playing stopped. Lala’s eyes opened wide. “Wow, Doldol!” Doldol gently landed next to Lala. “That’s the most incredible spaceship!” Lala hugged Doldol tightly.
Five Antennas
It was a drizzly autumn day. Auncle Lala was composing a new song as she sat on a pile of leaves getting wet with raindrops. Doldol flew around idly above Lala’s head.
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Doldol was practicing how to change directions. Doldol figured out that when she waved her antenna to the right, she could go right, and when she flung herantenna to the left, she would go left, but she was still getting used to it and every time she changed directions, she would sway from side to side. That’s when a red dragonfly passing by Doldol stopped in its tracks. The red dragonfly stared at Doldol. “First time I’ve ever seen this… What is it? A snail? It can’t be.” “Yes. Hello.” “I can’t believe my eyes. How are you flying without wings?” “Instead of wings I have my spaceship.” Doldol showed her spaceship to the dragonfly. The dragonfly looked at Doldol curiously before flying away. Lala stopped playing the drum and looked up at Doldol. “Doldol, aren’t you tired? You should come down and rest.” “I want to practice just a little more. By the way, Auncle Lala, the song you’re making sounds grand.” “Doesn’t it? This time, I’m going to play with the crickets. We’ll put on a show on the grass when the gingko leaves turn yellow and fall off the trees. The title of the show will be “The Return of Fall at Lake Park.” “That sounds lovely. The song sounds perfect for autumn.” “Yeah? That makes me feel so good, haha. But doesn’t this part sound a little weird? It should sound like autumn, but doesn’t it sound as if the sun is shining brightly?” “Where? Could you play it again?” Doldol let out her breath to get closer to Lala. Then suddenly the sky went dark.
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“Huh?” As soon as Doldol looked up, five antennas came down from the sky. “Doldol, be careful!”Lala screamed, but it was too late. The five antennas grabbed Doldol and disappeared. Lala could faintly hear that the five antennas seemed to be getting away. “Daddy, look!” The little kid with the yellow umbrella ran to his father and put out his hand. “Look!” “What is it?” “It’s a snail! I thought it was a dragonfly because it was flying around, but it looked too round to be one. So when I looked closer, I saw that it was a snail.” “It really is. You say it was flying around? Hahaha.” “It was. It was floating around. Wonder why it’s not now. Snail, fly.” The kid poked at the snail. “Okay, okay. I believe you. Anyway, let’s go. It’s time for the movie.” “Already? Hold on.” The kid took out a bottle from his bag and put Doldol inside. “Jiho, don’t close the top. It won’t be able to breathe, then it could die.” “Oh, okay.” The kid grabble the bottle and followed his dad across the park and disappeared.
Space!
Doldol didn’t know how much time had passed. Doldol, who had lost consciousness for a moment, opened her eyes. It was dark all
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around her. Had it become night? Doldol moved her antennas to look around her. But there were walls all around. There was a dizzying sweet smell coming from the walls and the floor. Doldol raised her antennas up high. She sensed a soft breeze coming in. Doldol started going up the wall. Luckily it wasn’t very high and she reached the top pretty quickly. From the top, Doldol tried to find a path with her antennas but there was nowhere else she could stand on. “What do I do?” Doldol looked up at the sky. She could see a mysterious beam of light. The beam of light looked like a slender-shaped mass that was swaying from side to side. Doldol stared at the beam of light for a while. It was beautiful and it looked like theMilky Way that you could see on a clear night. After a little while, Doldol looked determined and shrank into the shell. The wind made itself way into the shell slowly.Once the shell was filled with the wind, Doldol swelled her body. Her shell started floating in the air slowly. Doldol’s spaceship went towards the beam of light. Finally, the beam of light looked so close that it seemed as if it was right in front of Doldol. When Doldol looked closely around her, the beam of light was actually behind her. Doldol switched directions and went towards the beam of light. Right then, Doldol realized where she was. She screamed without realizing it. “Space!” Was Doldol dreaming? Doldol stopped breathing. But it wasn’t a dream. “I’m really out in space…” The Earth became small and far away, and then the moon was closer. Like Doldol’s
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backyard after therain, the moon had pits all over it. The moon became far away again, and stars that Doldol didn’t know the name of appeared. There was a star that had rings around it; a star that looked like it was on fire; a star that was blue and looked frozen… and even a star that had a long tail rushed past Doldol. And Doldol saw the cluster of stars that was shaped like a pole. Doldol’s spaceship flew past those stars and went even farther into space. She even went beyond the cluster of stars that was shaped like a rose. Doldol was becoming short of breath and her spaceship was leaking air. But Doldol rounded up all her strength and charged straight ahead. That was when a new cluster of stars appeared. As Doldol approached this cluster of stars, her antennas started shaking. “Ah, it’s the swirling cluster of stars!” The swirl-shaped cluster of stars looked like Doldol’s spaceship. An endless number of stars were spread out in the shape of a windmill. The sight took Doldol’s breath away. There was a pink-colored cloud in the middle of the swirling mix of stars. Doldol was mesmerized by the swirling cluster of stars. “It’s so beautiful…” But Doldol couldn’t finish her thought and started falling. She held her breath for so long that she passed out.
A little while afterward, the beam of light was gone, and it was bright all around Doldol. People were getting up from their seats. “Jiho, wasn’t the movie fun?”
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“Yes, Daddy. One day I’m going to go into space which you can see through the Hubble telescope.” “That’s a pretty cool dream. Be sure to take me, too, okay?” “Maybe if you stop nagging me to study, I’ll think about it, hehe. By the way, what was that thing that looked like a pink cloud in the middle of the swirling stars?” “I think that's what’s produced when a star explodes, gas and dust. Maybe that’s where the pink star exploded?” “You mean it was a star and then it exploded? Then what happened to all the living things on that star?” “Hm… I wonder… hey, everyone’s left. Let’s get out of here.” “Huh? How did the snail get on my lap?” The little boy noticed Doldol as he was about to get up. “Daddy, it looks like the snail crawled out of the bottle while we were watching the movie.” “Ah, I guess it wanted to go home.” “Awww, I feel bad. Daddy, I want to send this snail back home.” The little boy carefully put Doldol, who was asleep,on the palm of his hand.
Going Back Home
It had stopped raining. And the sun was blazing down on the grass. But Lala didn’t care whether or not her shell was drying up. She just kept looking for Doldol. “Doldol, Doldol!” Lala called out Doldol’s name with all her might, but she was nowhere to be found.
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“What do I do? It’s all my fault. I should have looked around more carefully. Ah, Doldol.” Lala cried and buried her antenna in her shell. At that moment, the sky became dark again. Lala raised her antennas straight up and saw the five antennas coming down again. “Ah!!” In a panic, Lala buried herself under the fallen leaves. “Daddy, it should be able to find its way home from here, don’t you think?” “Yes, we should go home now, too.” “Okay. Goodbye, snail.” After the rustling soundsin the grass faded away, the woods became quiet again. Lala came out from under the leaves carefully. She could see Doldol lying on the grass. Lala rushed over to Doldol and shook her. “Doldol, Doldol! Open your eyes. Are you okay?” But Doldol didn’t open her eyes. She was pale and withered and was wheezing. Lala gathered some wet moss and covered Doldol with it. She also massaged Doldol’s feet and fanned some air on Doldol. Doldol’s cheeks began to get rosy. A little while later, Doldol slowly opened her eyes. “Doldol, are you okay?” “Yeah…. Lala?” “What happened? Where did you go? Do you know how long I have been looking for you?” Doldol quietly said, with her voice trembling, “Lala, I went to space and came back.” “What? Space?” “Yes, I flew in my spaceship and went to space and came back. I saw the pole-shaped
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cluster of stars and the rose-shaped cluster of stars. And way past those clusters, I got to see the swirling pack of stars where we’re originally from. It was truly beautiful.” “Wow, Doldol. That’s amazing…” Lala hugged Doldol tightly and rubbed her cheeks. Doldol told Lala everything she had seen out in space. Lala listened attentively and responded with “wow” and “really?” and “ah”s. Just as Doldol was about to finish telling her story, one by one the stars began to appear in the dark sky.
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