By Matt VanVolkenburg
The author Ahn Jung-hyo is best known for writing the novels "White Badge" and "Silver Stallion," but he also wrote a column for The Korea Times in the late 1960s and 1970s. In early 1972 he translated a series of "scribblings" published in weekly magazines, a type of column that had originated in the Weekly Hankook in 1965. As he put it, these pages printed "all sorts of scribblings, cartoons, and sometimes funny poems contributed by readers."
Some people devoted themselves to writing submissions for these columns, and even gathered in clubs with other such writers. The reason Ahn enjoyed these columns so much was that "there was so much wit and pathos there which in a sense showed something of the real life of the common people." For those reading them from the vantage point of the present, they also shed light on what Korea was like in those days.
A reader listing his budget for 1972, which totaled 94,335 won, owned a 7,500 won ready-made suit, paid 3,500 won for underwear, and lived on three bowls of 25 won instant noodles a day (totaling 27,375 won for the year, in comparison to 24,000 won for rent). A pack of cigarettes a day totaled 7,300 won annually, slightly more than the 7,000 won needed to heat the house with "yeontan" or coal briquettes.
Many of the selections highlighted money problems. One person wrote, "I skipped breakfast, fasted at lunch time, and went to bed early in the evening. I saved three meals in a day," while another piece read, "If you make money, you have to spend it. So don't make any money." Ethical and environmental concerns sometimes collided: "Since the smog is so dense in Seoul, God cannot see us from high up there. Let's steal!" This dilemma appeared succinctly in the following, titled "At a makgeolli house": "You have?" "No." "Let's run!"
A resident of a hilltop village, where Seoul's newly arrived migrants squatted in homes that lacked plumbing, wrote, "At our village, we use water the way we use money." And it is only when one remembers that most people used public phones to make calls that the following question makes sense: "A woman was making a telephone call. I waited for half an hour. Did I make the phone call? Or could I not?"
The frequency of train and bus accidents at that time is reflected in the question, "Should I travel by bus? Or by train? I wonder which pays more for injuries and death in accidents." A lighter entry read, "When the bus girl told us to get off at the last stop, I stood up and told the man who was standing before me waiting all the time for me to get off so that he could take my seat, Please take this seat and travel comfortably."
Some aimed at more timeless humor, such as "Should I stop drinking? Or should I get a new wife?" or "If a woman's weapon is tears, my weapon is a handkerchief." The following reflects contemporary targets of the police: "The bald heads are as ugly as hippy hair. Arrest them too."
More satirical entries took aim at the pretention and privilege of the upper class: One quoted a "Wealthy Household" as saying, "They say kimjang (making kimchi) costs so little this year that we decided not to do kimjang." Another, titled "Office of Monopoly," stated, "Has never succeeded in developing anything new and has never failed in sales."
Ahn likely revealed which group he supported when he chose this piece to end his column: "I do not want to live. I do not want to die. I want to eat."
Matt VanVolkenburg has a master's degree in Korean studies from the University of Washington. He is the blogger behind populargusts.blogspot.kr.