Creator So Jae-won / Korea Occasions photograph by Hong In-gie
By KTimes
A put up titled “Looking for the one who helped me 21 years in the past throughout my homeless days” appeared on a web based neighborhood on Wednesday.
The put up’s writer, now a celebrated author, shared reminiscences of a time when he was homeless and spent three days studying at a bookstore, solely to be requested to depart as a consequence of complaints about his look. But, one bookstore worker had given him the e book he couldn’t end, a gesture that will change his life.
The author is So Jae-won, identified for works equivalent to “Tunnel,” “That Day” and “Want.” In an interview with the Hankook Ilbo, So recalled, “It was round 2002 or 2003 once I was 20, proper after highschool. I had come to Seoul, fallen sufferer to a rip-off, and located myself homeless close to Seoul, Yeongdeungpo or Yongsan Station, although I can’t bear in mind precisely.”
With nowhere else to go, So sought refuge in a bookstore. “On the third day, one employees member lastly instructed me, ‘Folks have been complaining in regards to the scent. That you must depart,’” he remembered.
Embarrassed, he left rapidly, however one other worker known as him again, saying, “I observed you’ve been studying this e book. I don’t suppose you’ve completed, so please take it as a present.”
Yi Chong-jun’s “Your Paradise,” 1996 version / Captured from Aladin web site
The e book was “Your Paradise” by Yi Chong-jun, set in Sorok Island. Deeply moved, So later revealed his personal novel, “Story,” impressed by that e book. Grateful, he had promised the worker, “I’ll present you a e book of mine sometime.”
So has looked for this worker through the years, saying in his put up, “I don’t know in the event that they believed my promise or dismissed it as a homeless individual’s fantasy, however I’ve carried their kindness with me and endured.”
He mirrored, “Does that worker know that the homeless younger man is now a longtime writer, identified for advocating for the susceptible?”
In a message to his benefactor, he wrote, “I hope you’re effectively. Because of you, I’ve change into a good author. I nonetheless consider that point each time I’m struggling.”
So has visited a number of bookstores within the Yongsan space, even making an attempt to find shops that operated since 1993, however he has but to search out the one who gifted him the e book.
“I used to be 20, and the worker was a lady in her mid-to-late twenties,” So stated. “I imagine there’s just one individual in Korea who would have gifted ‘Your Paradise’ to a homeless individual, so I’m sure I’ll discover her.”
This text from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Occasions, is translated by a generative AI and edited by The Korea Occasions.
