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She ran into the alley like a small bird hiding in the bush. He had just turned around after throwing out a trash bag. 

This is how Lee Hye-gyeong’s short story “Bukchon,” the latest installment in the New Year’s Special Series on the literature that sang of Seoul, begins. 

She turned her head toward the yard. Her gaze jumped from one thing to another, from the sliding door of the inner room to a granite foot stone where a haphazardly thrown pair of slippers lied and to the wall abutting the alley. 

“This house looks like the house on TV.”

The soft hair on her cheeks shimmered in gold under the sunlight. Just when he reached out to touch the golden downy hair, time stopped, and the two froze like a fossil. That was the vision that passed before his eyes. 

여자는 고개를 마당으로 돌렸다.

안채의 분합문과 짝짝이 제멋대로 나뒹구는 슬리퍼 한 벌이 올려진 화강암 댓돌을 거쳐

골목 쪽으로 난 담장까지.

겅중겅중 건너뛰는 시선이었다.

“이 집은..... 꼭 드라마에 나오는 집 같네요.“

여자의 볼에 돋은 솜털이 햇살 받아 하르르, 금빛으로 빛났다.

그 금빛 털에 손을 뻗치는 순간,

시간이 정지되고 그와 여자가 그대로 화석이 되어버리는,

그런 영상이 그의 눈앞을 스쳤다.

Interview by literary critic Jeon So-yeong

The author describes in detail how the streets of Bukchon are like the gates to the past. Maybe that is why the author chose Bukchon as the story’s background. Bukchon is a place where past and present co-exist, a place where past memories still linger. The characters in the story are similar to that place as their past experiences shape their present. Bukchon was used to demonstrate that the characters’ past and present are closely intertwined. 

The Bukchon neighborhood is packed with sightseers on weekends. Tourists venture into every nook and cranny of this quaint village of hanok, nestled among the high-rises in the heart of Seoul. They snap pictures of the decorative hanok walls and the gentle curves of the roofs. Their exclamations of amazement even at a tiny flower garden next to the gate could be heard even on the other side of the wall. 

The man and the woman would take a nap together in the living room and wake up at the sound of the tourists over the wall. When the man gazes at the woman’s eyelashes, the world appears to recede away from his view. 

주말이면 북촌 골목은 동네를 구경하는 사람들로 붐볐다.

빌딩 숲인 서울 한구석의 한옥마을,

사람들은 한옥 담벼락이며 기와 지붕의 선에 홀려

카메라 셔터를 누르며 골목을 누볐다.

문간에 가꿔놓은 손바닥만한 꽃밭조차 새롭게 느껴지는지,

어머머, 감탄하는 소리가 담장을 넘어 들어오기도 했다.

함께 거실에 누워 설핏설핏 낮잠을 자다가 

담장 밖, 지나는 목소리에 깨어나 여자의 부챗살 같은 속눈썹을 볼 때면

세상이 멀찌감치 물러나는 듯했다.

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Lee Hye-gyeong (Born in 1960, Byryeong, Chungcheongnam-do Prov.)

: 1982 Debuted with “Our Abscission“ 

1995 Won the 19th Today’s Writer Award for “A House on the Road”