Skip to main content

#14 Caring for Plants (Hey-young Pyun, 2014)

 Rating: 8.5/10

    Nowadays, relationships between people has become so complex that individuals ought to seek for a way of being useful in order to develop stable friendship. Even family members who are not blood related hesitate to fully trust each other when it comes to financial issues. Ohgi, in this short story, is an orphan who loses physical and financial ability due to the car accident. The moment Ohgi opens his eyes after the accident, he was without all the reputation he has established his entire life, but his helpless chunk of body. Everything Oghi had believed was his no longer was, and all he had left was his useless, tattered body and the mattress it lay on. In other words, his life went non-existent after he lost the ‘useful’ abilities. 

    This way, I felt shivers rushing down my spine, thinking of the potentially superfluous friendships I may have. It was also depressing acknowledging that the majority of my friens will turn away from me if I went through such an accident and lost all my social status and physical abilities. It was more confusing to judge this situation white and black since I could relate with both Oghi and mother-in-law. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

#4 Gooseberries

  Gooseberries, By Anton Chekhov(1898) Rating: 7.9/10 As an animal with instinct, consisting of genes that seek to convey the most immaculate components to the next generation, mankind ought to pursue Happiness. While it is erroneous to violate moral standards, man should be allowed to attain the opportunity of seizing Happiness under the ethical codes. With Happiness as a source of motivation, they survive another day in the world of disharmony. Whether or not I should buy a new laptop to replace my old, malfunctioning laptop purely depends on the amount of Happiness I can acquire out of it. As long as I'm affordable, there is no reason for me to get mad over the laptop that freezes every 10 seconds and experience the pain of those who are unaffordable. It does no good to anyone unless the money is donated to those in need. This story simply made me feel thankful for how capable I am of feeling Happiness. Alyohin lives such an ascetic and moral life, yet he seems unhappy with self...

#18 Snowman (YooMi Seo)

  Rating: 8.8/10     South Korea  is a nation of a miracle that stands as one of the most prominent countries in the world, even after successive wars. The world expected the resurrection of South Korea to be impossible, but South Koreans proved them wrong. However, behind this magical success lay the appalling reality where Koreans are chased by slogans yearning for more efficiency and higher competitiveness. Overheated competition resulting in the isolation of citizens and even death is now rather the cause of stagnation than a stimulus for social development.      In this short story,  the protagonist, who the boss constantly pressures to become better, gradually loses self-respect. He passively allows himself to receive provocative remarks from the boss, not attempting to defend himself, albeit he has admissible reasons for his behaviors. This appalling social structure renders citizens to show frantic commitment to their work, and those who c...

#19 Visitors that Come at Night (RyuJin Jang)

 Rating: 9/10     We scorn  developing countries in southeast and western Asia for not establishing complete gender equality. However, looking back at ourselves, neither South Korea nor any other advanced society has developed complete gender equality. Ryujin Jang’s story story make us reflect on our society’s structure where single women in their twenties can’t feel safe outside the protection of a male.      I think  a scene in this story impressively depicted the appalling aspect of our society. When the protagonist encounters two crushed cockroaches, she imagines loads of cockroaches temporarily hiding into the darkness the moment she turns on the light. However, those obscene bugs are not eradicated, but temporarily out of sight. Similarly, I think the author was trying to describe how gender inequality in Korea is pervasive in the dark side of the society, under the cover of perfection.