Mawe is an elderly man in his seventies living in the neighborhood of Yeonhui-dong. As soon as he turned twenty, he left his hometown in the remote mountains of North Gyeongsang Province and boarded a train bound for Seoul. Watching as the familiar sights of his hometown slipped further into the distance, he found himself lost in the scattered thoughts of everything he was leaving behind and all that was to come. He couldn’t help but cry when he thought of his first love, who left him with nothing but the hazy memory of her retreating figure and the sting of a refused proposal to run away together to Seoul. As he wiped his tears, he vowed to make something of himself and return one day. But life in Seoul was unforgiving; with no education and nothing to his name, he only had the will of his own body to rely on. He got his start hauling goods in and around a corner of the bustling Dongdaemun Market, continuing for a few years until he caught the attention of a store owner who came from the same hometown. The man, old enough to be his father, hired him to work in his store where Mawe learned the ropes of running a business before eventually opening his own in his mid-thirties. He came to realize that whenever he chased after money like a madman, it constantly evaded him, disappearing like a mirage on the horizon. But whenever he decided to cast his greater ambitions aside and settle into the lull of simply making a living, wealth began to pour in from unexpected places. While others copied the designs of high-end clothing brands, he made and sold tracksuits that stretched out after a single wash. He had nothing else in mind besides making small profits and quick returns.

      Fortunately for him, a fitness boom had taken over the nation and his products flew off the shelves as people looked to keep up with the latest trend of dressing in comfortable yet slouchy athletic wear. Runners along the riverside trails wore his clothes, as did teens who raced through the night streets on their motorcycles. You could even catch glimpses of it being worn in the background of news clips and variety shows. With the factory running around the clock, it still wasn’t enough to keep up with the sheer number of orders that were pouring in. He had struck gold overnight. The tracksuit craze wasn’t quick to fade either and even the slightest tweak to his design, whether in fabric or style, immediately made it a bestseller before eventually solidifying it as another staple of his store. But as the money flooded in, Mawe was unexpectedly gripped by fear. In the decades he spent at Dongdaemun Market, he had witnessed countless business owners ride the rollercoaster of life’s ups and downs. He recalled the men who, after cashing their cheques, bought foreign cars, gambled, and paraded their girlfriends on their arms, only to return haggard and in search of money within the year. He couldn’t shake the image of his own face becoming one with their desperate expressions. There was no way he was going to let that happen. With more money than he had ever had to his name, Mawe bought a two-story brick house with a quaint garden in Yeonhui-dong. What was it about Yeonhui-dong that set it apart from the rest? For one, it was the very same prime location that two former presidents once called home. In his younger years, when he would pass through on his delivery route, Mawe often caught sight of the dense treetops that towered over the high boundary walls of the gated properties that filled Yeonhui-dong. It was a refined neighbourhood, its sophistication teased through those fleeting glimpses. What sort of happiness lived within those neatly painted walls? He wanted to see for himself. After setting up his own store and getting married, he had become a father to a son and a daughter. His family of four created a picture-perfect life in their two-story brick home in Yeonhui-dong. It was a portrait complete with a fairy-tale home and garden, not to mention, a lovely wife and children. He had become a man who turned his dreams into reality and no longer shed tears over all he left behind.

      As time passed, his little store grew into a full-fledged business and he went from being a store owner to the head of a company. And rather than being the rollercoaster ride he once feared it would be, his business operated smoothly and steadily. He never demanded too much from his children and they, in return, grew up without causing much trouble. His booksmart son managed to pass the civil service exam early and by all accounts seemed to have settled into a secure path in life. While his daughter was not as academically inclined as her older brother, she possessed a knack for business and ultimately took over the day-to-day operations from her father. With the existing setup they had in place, she took it a step further by putting their products online well ahead of their competitors and launched three online businesses focused on men’s and women’s apparel, as well as athletic wear. 

      After his daughter moved to the Gangnam district and his son relocated to Sejong City, only he and his wife remained in the picture-perfect two-story house in Yeonhui-dong. His wife, being the more sociable one of the two, joined a local meet-up group and travelled around the country, even going abroad from time to time. She regularly went to the community and senior learning centers where she learned ballroom dancing, singing, and English. Their house grew quiet. The neighborhood of Yeonhui-dong was changing too. What was once a sleepy middle-class neighborhood suddenly became a trendy hotspot. As elderly residents struggled to maintain their homes, many of them sold their houses to move into smaller apartments while the remaining properties became cafés, restaurants, and wine bars. Some of the bigger houses were converted into publishing firms or photography studios. A guesthouse with walls painted a vibrant shade of yellow and the unfamiliar sight of something known as an espresso bar also opened in the alley right where Mawe’s house stood. 

      In retirement, Mawe struggled to fill the seemingly endless amount of free time on his hands. He tried going to the community center with his wife and even paid a visit to the senior learning center, but he found it hard to adjust to the active energy that filled the air. He was better suited to doing things on his own rather than activities that required working with others. One afternoon on his walk, he found himself on a side street he didn’t normally take. Right in the middle of the alley, he spotted a house under construction. It was a worn-down, quaint, two-story house, and by the look of how its surrounding walls were being torn down, it was likely being remodelled as a commercial property rather than a home. After that first day, he decided to pass by every time he took his daily lap around the neighborhood. Where a tall wall once stood, a low iron fence took its place. It wrapped around a small garden, one side of which was filled with camellias, crape myrtles, and a persimmon tree. The walls of the first floor were all but gone, revealing a new spacious studio with large glass windows. Judging by the tables and chairs that were being arranged inside, it was sure to be a café. He pictured himself drinking a cup of coffee as he stared at the bright red camellia blossoms through the glass windows. He could see himself there, taking in the sight of the crape myrtles as he escaped the summer heat, or smiling contentedly as he looked up at the orange persimmons hanging from the tree in the heart of autumn. When he caught himself hoping for the coffee to be good, he couldn’t help but chuckle sheepishly at the realization that he was looking forward to something for the first time in a while. 

      A season came and went, and at last, a signboard was hung outside the finished building—it read: Yeonhui Banggeul Studio. He studied the tiny letters above the low entrance for a long time. “Yeonhui” was obviously for the neighborhood, but what did “Banggeul Studio” mean? Could it be bang for room and geul for writing? Room Writing Studio? If it was a studio, didn’t that make it a place for photography? The thought that it might not be a café struck him with a brief pang of disappointment. His deflated expression was clear across his face as he continued to stare up at the sign until a young woman around his daughter’s age came out and greeted him. Excitedly, she urged him to come inside for some celebratory grand opening rice cakes and to learn more about the new space. 

      Yeonhui Banggeul Studio was a place he had never encountered before in the decades he spent living in the neighborhood. Everything about it seemed so foreign that he wondered if he could even call it a store. But seeing that it wasn’t a place for living, he decided it could be called one after all. According to the woman, the studio was essentially a writing center. The first floor would be run as a café on weekday afternoons while various writing classes would take place in the evenings throughout the week. There were classes on writing poetry, fiction, essays, and journals, as well as reading groups dedicated to the very same genres and more. The center was run by a handful of writers who earned money from the lesson fees they received and the profits from the café, with the second floor serving as their personal workspace and office.

      “So, it’s basically a writing school,” Mawe said.

      The woman responded, “Rather than a school, I hope it becomes a place of gathering. A place where everyone can read, write, and share their thoughts freely.”

      He had already felt a sense of relief when he learned that it was going to be run as a café, but now that he knew its true purpose as a writing center, his heart leapt in his chest. The excitement he felt was a strange emotion, one that even he couldn’t understand.

      In the early spring, he enrolled in the journaling class. While he would never have dreamed of trying his hand at poetry or fiction, he figured that he could at least give journaling a shot. The instructor introduced himself as a novelist who had made his literary debut through an annual spring literary contest held by a newspaper outlet before projecting the class materials onto the screen. 

      Write about your life—to write is to meet, and only through meeting can you finally part

      “What exactly are we parting with?” a young male student asked. 

      “With the version of myself that I’ve recorded; the me that is trapped within my own words. With the version of myself that continues to wander through memories of the past.” The words came spilling out of the impassioned instructor’s mouth before he fell silent. Mawe felt goosebumps trail down his arms. After a brief pause, the instructor continued,  “If there are memories you want to part with, write them down. All shame becomes bearable once they’ve been transformed into words.” 

      To protect everyone’s privacy, the instructor proposed that they use nicknames in class rather than their real names. He began by asking the students to call him “Shado,” explaining to them that he wanted to shrink the size of his own shadow. The young couple requested to be called “Hedge” and “Hog,” after the pet hedgehog they were raising together. A middle-aged woman who hardly ever smiled or spoke wanted to go plainly by “S”. When someone asked why, she replied, “Because it’s somehow shaped like a person who’d be able to walk without stumbling.” Mawe was the last to speak. He initially asked to be called “My Way,” inspired by the title of his favorite song. But the young male student insisted that they should all keep their names to a single letter or word, suggesting that he could condense it into something like “Mawe.” The young man’s boldness left him grumbling but as he repeated the name over in his head—it finally clicked. It had a nice ring to it, almost like the name of some wealthy Chinese tycoon. From that day on, he became Mawe.

      Once a week, he took on this new identity at Yeonhui Banggeul Studio. He wrote his journal entries and found himself being drawn to books he would never have given a second glance before. He even started stopping by the public library every now and then on his walks. When he found out that they hosted poetry readings and book talks every few months, he figured they weren’t the type of events that suited him and so he let them pass unnoticed. That was until he saw a poster for a poetry reading by a male poet who looked to be around the same age as he was. He signed himself up with a mix of curiosity and apprehension. The session was titled “Goodbye Spring,” and the poet would be reading not only from his own works but also from other famous poems centered around the theme of spring. One poem in particular that day resonated deeply with Mawe— The Waste Land by the poet T.S. Eliot: 

      April is the cruellest month, breeding 

      Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing 

      Memory and desire, stirring 

      Dull roots with spring rain. 

      Winter kept us warm, covering 

      Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

      A little life with dried tubers. 

      The poem was long but as soon as he heard the first line, Mawe’s mind went hazy in shock. He felt as if he knew exactly why the beautiful month of April, known for its seasonal flowers, was the cruellest month of all. It was as if this poet provided the key to the deep depressive spells he had fallen into every spring since reaching his mid-sixties. Somewhere along the way, he began to feel an overwhelming urge to cry whenever he was met with the beautiful sight of cherry blossoms fluttering in the wind. He was madly consumed by a deep jealousy over their eternally untouched beauty, leaving him riddled with age spots and withered by time. Spring was the cruellest, as Eliot said, for mixing memory with desire and ultimately stirring the dull roots. All winter long, he convinced himself he had lived enough and that it was time to accept the aging and death that awaited him. But spring kept shaking him, reigniting his desire to live just awhile longer. Spring made him feel ugly. He wanted to argue with the heavens: why must life end in a single instance when the seasons always return if you wait long enough? The ever-changing seasons were always beautiful, yet life felt endlessly bleak and sordid. Every spring, he wept over his insignificance.

      Pouring these feelings into his journal, he shared them with his instructor and fellow students, who offered kinder words than usual. Even S, who had little to say and kept to herself most of the time, gave a lengthy response to Mawe’s words that day. S spoke of poems that compared life to the seasons, specifically of a song she learned from her grandmother as a young girl. She explained that “The Song of Four Seasons” compared youth to spring and old age to winter, mourning the fleeting nature of life but that its final verse offered a sense of hope and resolve. To everyone’s surprise, she asked if she could sing it for them, to which the room responded with applause. 

      Flowers bloom from this mountain to the next, surely it must be spring 

      Spring has sprung yet the ways of the world remain unkind

      I too was in the springtime of my youth just yesterday, but now, humbled by

      time, I am old and gray

      My youth, which has hopelessly abandoned me,

      What good is there in welcoming the spring, knowing it will come and go? 

      Spring, if you are to leave, just go! 

      A song that began with such resentment towards spring ended on a note very different from The Waste Land.

      Friends, gather around 

      and drink another glass! And though we may say we’re done, 

      let’s revel and enjoy the fun! 

By the time S finished her song, they all cheered and clapped. Mawe felt his eyes wet with tears. Shado, their instructor, was the first to speak.

       “It seems like this song suggests that aging can be done in remembrance of the future.” 

      “What do you mean by remembering the future?” asked the young woman they called Hedge. 

      Shado replied, “Instead of waiting around for the future you want, why not create it for yourself? Couldn’t we call that the very act of remembering?” 

      For the first time that night, Mawe bought a round of drinks for Shado and the other students. They all made their way to a newly opened bar in the alley next to Yeonhui Banggeul Studio, where they all shared different types of local makgeolli. The younger ones knew much more about makgeolli than an old man like him. And as he listened to them describe each region’s flavors and specialties, he found himself delighting in the realization that there was still so much left to learn at his age. When he promised himself that they would do this again next week, sharing more stories over drinks yet to be tasted, he felt a sense of relief at having something to look forward to. As the night came to a close, they all headed in the direction of the bus stop on the main street. Cherry tree branches, peppered with buds, extended beyond the yard, reaching over the high walls with the promise of bursting into bloom. Mawe pointed out they were sure to be in full blossom by next week. Hearing his comment, someone marveled, “You sure have an impressive gift for remembering the future!” Even though he was eager to get home to write his next journal entry, Mawe only wished that this nighttime stroll would last just a while longer. It was a spring night—cruel and electrifying. 

Translated by Nicole Lin

KOREAN WORK MENTIONED:

Lee Juhye, The Seasons are Short, But Memories are Forever  (Changbi Publishers, 2023) 

이주혜, 『계절은 짧고 기억은 영영』 (창비, 2023)

Author’s Note:

This is an essay written in the form of a novel. 
Mawe, a choric character in the novel The Seasons are Short, But Memories are Forever, laments the process of aging by likening it to the seasons. By further interrogating this question of aging, the character of Mawe will be brought into greater focus. 

Lee Juhye reads, writes, and translates. She is the author of works including Plum, The Cat’s Name is Long, Whose Spot, The Seasons are Short, But Memories are Forever, and The Room with the Chinese Parrot. She has translated various titles, including Adrienne Rich’s When We Dead Awaken: writing as Re-Vision, Lydia Davis’s  Can’t and Won’t, and Maggie Doherty’s The Equivalents.