AN ORDINARY DAY
Unwrinkled Devotion Coarse hands move nimbly between rising plumes of white steam. Seconds later, a rumpled piece of clothing is reborn, neat and smooth. Handing their clean, warm clothes back to his customers, an easy smile spreads across Oh Ki-nyeong’s face at his neighborhood dry cleaning shop. Hwang Kyung-shin Writer
Ha Ji-kwon Photographer
“T
earing off a piece of freshly baked bread with my hands; stacking a pile of folded underwear neatly in my drawer; the feel of a brandnew shirt slipping over my head, its scent of clean, new cotton – these are moments when I feel a small but certain happiness,” writes author Haruki Murakami. Every country, it seems, has a way of expressing this sort of peace and the way to achieve it. In Denmark, there is “hygge”; in Sweden, “lagom”; in France, “au calme.” More recently, “sohwakhaeng,” an abbreviation of the phrase “small but certain happiness,” has entered the Korean lexicon. Surely, the dry cleaner’s – that one place in every neighborhood alleyway that seems always to be open, emitting its white steam – must be a purveyor of the sort of warmth that transcends nationality or race. At Hyundai Cleaning, a neighborhood dry cleaner’s on Shinsu-ro street in the Mapo District of Seoul, owner Oh Ki-nyeong starts his day at 8 a.m. “When I get to work, first I organize and sort the laundry by type and then wash it. Once that work is done, I gather all the clothes that have come in for alterations and work on those. Then comes the ironing. At 9 p.m. it’s time to go make the deliveries. By the time I’ve done the rounds of the five or so apartment complexes around here, it’s usually close to 10 p.m. “Spring is the busiest season of the year. With every household taking out their spring clothes and stowing their winter clothes all at the same time, the laundry overflows. So in spring, there’s really no start or end to my workday. I’ll work until 1 or 2 a.m., ’til I pass out asleep, then I’ll get up and work again for as long as I can stand it.” 68
KOREANA SPRING 2021
