Someone I know once made the following remark to me:

      “Don’t you think your stories are a bit. . . Seoul-centric?”

      At the time, I assumed that this acquaintance of mine had just recently learned about the concept of “Seoul-centricism” and was looking for a way to make use of this newfound knowledge when he came across my books. His comment seemed to stem from the fact that most of the characters in my novels were Seoulites who wander the streets of Jongno, Gwanghwamun, and the Mapo district, frequenting the hotels, cafes, and independent bookstores in those areas.

      I felt a momentary urge to argue with him but refrained. I didn’t want to spoil the mood and had an inkling that it would just lead to a pointless argument. I made an effort to change the subject with a string of jokes, and in hindsight, I think it was very wise to not speak my mind.

      *

My acquaintance’s remark has stayed with me for a long time. 

      It’s already been three years. . . My memory has become so clouded as of late that I can hardly recall what I had for lunch yesterday, and I’ve become so forgetful that when I go to my bedside table to get my glasses, I find myself putting on my earphones to listen to music instead. And yet, I somehow still haven’t forgotten that remark. Or rather, it seems like it refuses to be forgotten. I wonder why.

     Perhaps my acquaintance’s words pricked something in me. It may have pricked so deeply that it stung, and I decided that I needed to be more careful in the future. Although I dismissed the ridiculous remark with a snort, perhaps I cared more about it than I was willing to admit.

      Words hold that kind of power. They’re invisible, intangible, and seem to vanish into thin air the moment they are spoken, as though they were nothing. And yet, some words unexpectedly pry themselves into our minds where they linger and leave a long-lasting sting, like a needle in an acupuncture point.

      Thanks to this, the more time goes by, the more I become aware of the fact that I was born in Seoul and lived here all my life, that I am a Seoulite through and through. I’ve come to realize that I’m connected to this city in so many ways, that perhaps we overlap, and that I am almost Seoul itself.

      *

Looking back, the beginning of my first short story, “In the Same Place,” really does seem to reflect the perspective of a Seoulite. My debut work features a character named Yeongji, who, after getting completely drunk, tells “me” the story of how she ended up losing touch with a friend in the past. She recalls how astonished she was one day after walking from Jongno 3-ga to Myeongdong to realize it had only taken her twelve minutes.

      Yeongji previously thought the distance from Jongno 3-ga to Myeongdong to be thirty-seven minutes by foot. Ever since she was a child, Seoul had always been a world divided by subway lines in her mind, so the only way she could think of reaching her destination was by hopping on Line 3 at Jongno 3-ga Station and getting off at Chungmuro Station to transfer to Line 4 in the direction of Myeongdong Station.

      That’s why Yeongji declined her friend’s request to come meet her at the Seoul Employment and Labor Office in Myeongdong. Her friend, who had gone there to apply for unemployment benefits, told Yeongji that she was shaking and feeling anxious for some reason and that she would appreciate her company. Even though Yeongji was reading a book inside a Starbucks in the vicinity of Nagwon Arcade—a short distance from there—she replied that it was “pretty far from where I am,” adding that even if she were to leave right away, it would take her between forty and fifty minutes, and that she didn’t want to keep her waiting for that long. 

      The two would never meet again after that conversation, ultimately bringing their eighteen-year friendship to an end.

      Yeongji only realized the meaning of the long silence that preceded the end of the call, which was reminiscent of a theatrical blackout, much later. She then got into the habit of recalling this incident about how she fell out with her friend whenever she got drunk.

      *

This part of the story is mostly based on my own experience. 

      Rather than focusing on a friendship fallout, I chose to write about the astonishment I felt after walking from Jongno 3-ga to Myeongdong with my own two feet. If my memory serves me right, I was around twenty-three or twenty-four at the time. I was shocked to find out that Seoul was in reality much smaller than I had imagined it to be. It felt kind of absurd to me how such a small area had been divided into distinct zones as though each one was completely separated from the other.

      Now, upon deeper reflection, I think that the astonishment I felt at the time did not merely stem from how small Seoul really was.

      What came as an even bigger shock to me was the fact that I had been living in Seoul for over twenty years. I must’ve allowed myself to become complacent, thinking that I knew everything there was to know about Seoul. How could there be something that I didn’t know? And how could I not even be aware of that fact? My astonishment arose from having these assumptions I took for granted turned upside down. In other words, I was mostly shocked by my own ignorance.

      *

Since then, my ignorance of Seoul has revealed itself to me in all shapes and forms. I wonder when it was. . . 
I was once asked to provide a brief author bio to go along with a piece of writing by the editorial team at a publishing house. Since I had to include my place of birth, I wrote that I was “born in Seoul” without giving the matter much thought. However, the feeling I got when writing that sentence was actually closer to “born in ○.”

      Not “Seoul,” but “○.”

      Why did I feel this way? Seoul appeared to me to be something akin to an empty circle or a pair of parentheses with an empty space between them.

      *

Various factors surely contribute to why the place where I was born and raised feels like ○.

      For one thing, I don’t feel like I own anything in Seoul. Regardless of what or how much I actually have, I always feel a certain emptiness. Why could that be? Perhaps it’s because I have a feeling that most of the things I’ve acquired in Seoul will not follow me when I leave the city. Those things will remain in Seoul. People might look at me with puzzled eyes or even think I’m pathetic when I leave. They might even see me as a loser or a runaway.

      As such, I don’t feel like there’s anything that keeps me intimately connected to Seoul. 

      The Seoul I know is a city that collapses and is rebuilt every day. It’s like an amorphous organism which has never had a fixed shape of its own. Many of the places where I once lived, frequently visited, and created unforgettable memories have disappeared with the passage of time. They were erased without a trace and replaced with unfamiliar landscapes. This is the way things naturally unfold in Seoul. That seems to be the physiological cycle of a big city. That’s why I always get the feeling that I could be pushed out or expelled from Seoul at any time. One day, if I ever become physically unable to work, or fall ill and become poor, I think Seoul will spit me out.

      If that ever happens, I’ll be completely broke.

      Not just a poor person without money, but a poor soul stripped of the greater part of its existence. Something tells me that I can’t escape such a fate. Am I the only one? I find myself constantly overcome by this feeling which almost never leaves me. 

      Is this any different from depression?

      Having been born and lived my whole life in Seoul, I might say that it has been no different from having to put up with an unresolvable sense of emptiness. Like living in a place where I could never put down roots, constantly floating some distance off the ground.

      *

Last weekend, I went to CGV Cine Library at Myeongdong Station to meet my boyfriend. 

      I took Line 5 and got off at Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station where I transferred onto Line 4 to reach Myeongdong Station (now that I write this, I realize that I appear to be someone who goes to Myeongdong quite frequently). It was slightly past 2 P.M. on a Sunday, and since three different lines run through Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station, it was packed with people of all ages and appearances. This includes many foreigners of varying skin tones using different languages. However, since I’m so used to squeezing my way through crowds of people in narrow places, this fact didn’t actually occur to me until writing the words “packed with people.” This particular scene merely flashed before me like a blurry, unfocused photo.

      That’s because it’s natural for me when I go up the escalator from one subway platform to another, moving slowly toward the transfer corridor like an object on a conveyor belt, to absentmindedly look over at the other objects—or people’s faces—coming down from the opposite direction only to completely forget about them shortly after. 

      The city crowds fill me up in an instant only to be discarded at once.

      I suck them up like a drain, then spew them back out and forget everything. 

      I leave no one behind.

This sort of sequence repeats itself several times each day. I would have experienced the same thing on my way out of the cinema after watching a movie with my boyfriend and dozens of other spectators, while passing by the thousands of people crowding the streets of Myeongdong on my way to go eat dinner, and again in the subway on my way home.

      Getting filled to the brim and then emptied out as though nothing had ever happened.

      This phenomenon has repeated itself countless times within me while living in this city called Seoul. That’s why I think of it as being the same as ○. I believe that this Seoul-like ○ has also made me into something akin to ○ as well.

      *

      That’s why there is some truth when I say that when I write the words “born in Seoul,” I feel as though I were writing “born in ○.”

      *

When I was first asked to write this essay, I wanted to talk about the beauty of Seoul. However, after writing a few paragraphs, it occurred to me that I was probably not the right person for the task.

      I could have written about the daily routine of a city dweller in detail, describing what a day in my life looks like—waking up, getting ready for work, spending a day at the office, and returning home only to relax and go to bed. However, I felt like I wasn’t the right person for this task either.

      As I’ve already mentioned, having been born and lived my entire life in Seoul, I’m particularly unaware and ignorant about city life, especially when it comes to Seoul. Hence, it almost feels like ○ to me.

      Perhaps that’s why I can’t help but refer to ○ as ○. In reality, it seems like the only way I can address the area inside ○, which is beyond the grasp of language, is through stories akin to thin and faint lines covering up ○.

      One might be led to wonder about the point of this essay. . .

      Through this piece of writing, I was hoping that someone else might also be able to relate—even just a little—to this feeling I have long harbored. I’m hoping it opens up the opportunity to have a discussion about ○, which is only possible among those of us who were born in a city and lived there for their entire lives. In so doing, we can perhaps cut through the void that surrounds language and, even if just for a brief moment, offer solace to each other.

Translated by Léo-Thomas Brylowski

      Korean Works Mentioned:

•   Park Seon Woo, In the Same Place (Jaeum & Moeum, 2020)

    박선우, 『우리는 같은 곳에서』 (자음과모음, 2020)