I am leaving too,
"Yong-ah's Birthplace"
The Poet Pak “Yong-ah” Yong-cheol and His Birthplace
Summary
- Archive
- Essay
- #Poet
- #Park Yong-cheol
- #Yongah’s Birthplace
- #Lyric
The refrain of I’m Leaving Too, sung by Kim Soo-cheol in the 1980s, is so famous that anyone can recite the lyrics. I’m reminded of the singer dancing and singing with a guitar. The song was also used in the original soundtrack (OST) of “Whale Hunting” and was created by quoting Pak “Yong-ah” Yong-cheol’s poem The Leaving Ship, in which he writes, “I’m leaving / I’m leaving too / How can I spend my youth in tears?” Pak Yong-cheol, a trailblazer of Korean lyric poetry during the Japanese colonial period in the 1930s, started his artistic career by publishing poems, such as The Leaving Ship, Sending You in the Night Train, Cool Forehead, and A Rainy Day in the first issue of the Poetic Literature in March 1930. He released many other poems in various magazines but died of tuberculosis at an early age in 1938. If you walk for 2 min from the Jungang Elementary School bus station in Sochon-dong, Gwangsan-gu, Gwangju City, you will see a rare stone wall between the modern houses. If you follow the stone wall, you will find a small thatched house in Solmeori Village. This house is the birthplace of Pak Yong-cheol called, “Yong-ah’s birthplace” after his pen name “Yong-ah.” On such an emotional, sunny day with a slightly chilly wind, I entered the faded, thatched house to meet Cultural Commentator Kim Min-seung, who came out of the paper window.
Cool Forehead
As soon as I entered the main gate, the word “serene” came to mind. I only entered the gate, but I felt like I slipped through time and entered a different space, probably because I could see the high-rise apartments and villas over the walls. Before me was a thatched house that seemed to have transcended time, while behind me was a purely urban landscape. Astonished at the discord, I stared blankly at the persimmon tree by the gate, where there was a guesthouse right behind. I could also see the main house, study, and shrine. The small house with a bamboo forest and stone walls on either side evoked a strange nostalgia from the moment I walked in. Songjeong-ri was the hometown of the Chungju Park family; Pak Yong-cheol was born as the son of a wealthy farmer, and it was said that no one could pass Songjeong-ri without stepping on their land. If it was the house of a wealthy farmer, shouldn’t it be a magnificent tile-roofed house like Vice Minister Choi Champan’s house in Hadong? It was quite strange that Yong-ah’s house was such a small, thatched house. It’s said that when Yong-ah’s father tried to improve the old, thatched house by putting tiles on it, Yong-ah stopped him, saying, “A country house should be a thatched house. Imagine the soft moonlight illuminating the roof after we put a straw thatch on it in the autumn. How beautiful will the color be when it shines in yellow?” These are truly the words of a lyrical poet. It was mid-October when I visited and new thatch had not been put up. Some parts of the roof were missing, and its color had faded to gray, but the appearance of the house was special.
Yong-ah’s birthplace / Cultural Commentator Kim Min-seung
“When I harvest the rice and get new rice straws, I will put the thatch on the roof. In November, you will be able to see the new thatched roof, but you came a little early. Many people who study geomancy also visit this house, and they say this house is ideally located in ‘Jeongdu,’ the head of the pot lid. People call this place Solmeori Village because it resembles the head of a pot. This house was built by Yong-ah’s grandfather at the end of the 19th century, and it is about 170 years old. It’s unusual for a private house to even have a shrine.”
The guesthouse consists of a room, flooring, kitchenette to make a fire, and storage room. No one lives there, but it’s managed by the ward office. Since it was opened, it has been a place for cultural commentators to rest. It’s said that it was renovated with cement tiles and turned into a slate house as part of the Saemaul project in the 1970s, and restored to a thatched house in 1995 as part of a cultural property restoration project. I peeked into the storage room to find plastic chairs piled up. When I asked what they were used for, Kim said that they’re used for various programs, such as concerts and cultural events, in the large yard. To the left of the guesthouse, a wonderful pine tree showed off its beauty. I went further inside after passing the guesthouse to find a private main house past the jar platform. It had a warmer atmosphere than the guesthouse, and I felt that it was more tightly structured. When I sat on the main house’s floor, I could see the guesthouse’s roof behind the garden. I felt cozier, rather than stuffy.
A song of the endless wind
Yong-ah’s birthplace / Cultural Commentator Kim Min-seung
“When the spring comes, magnolias start to bloom, and other flowers, such as camellias and ginger trees continue to bloom and wither from season to season. Until five years ago, two old ladies lived there and took good care of the trees, but one passed away and the other got dementia and is now in a nursing home. The flowers they planted and looked after also bloom here and there. There are rosemary and roses in the garden, along with the garden balsam and Houttuynia cordata under the wall. The best time to see them is in May, when the azaleas are in full bloom.”
I visited when I couldn’t really see any flowers. Kim said that the Big Blue Lilyturf and the Magic Lily had recently withered, and the Osmanthus asiaticus, with an aroma known to fill the air when it’s in bloom, was a long way from blooming. Although I like flowers, it was very disappointing to see only a few forsythias blooming out of season. I enjoyed the clear blue sky and a little hot sunlight, and I saw the completely green garden. I was sorry for not being able to see the blooming flowers, but the gentle wind comforted me. Was it because of the quiet and clear atmosphere? When I entered the backside of the house after seeing the poetry monument of The Leaving Ship on the left side, I also found the shrine. It had paperless glass doors and looked like a building from the future. There was a small building between the main house and the shrine, and Kim explained that it was used as a study. The door was locked, so I looked through the windows. The study looked just like a warehouse with a simple floor. Would it have been a good place for Yong-ah to focus after he organized his books on a bookshelf and brought in a desk? I gazed for a long time because I thought that it must have been a place where Yong-ah, who was called a genius, used to study.
I will not be leaving
Yong-ah’s birthplace / Cultural Commentator Kim Min-seung
“Yong-ah is said to have been weak since childhood. It’s said that he survived several critical moments in his life, and even when he was a schoolboy, someone carried him to and from school. Looking at the pictures of him, I realized he was so clever that he memorized everything he learned at school, and he was also very good at math because he was skilled at abacus calculation. While he was studying abroad in Tokyo, there was a rumor that someone from Joseon who went to Cheongsan Academy and was good at math won first place, and Kim Yeongrang, who was curious about the rumor, visited Yong-ah and became his friend. It’s said that he often helped his friends by paying the tuition for his troubled friends and juniors and giving out the poetry books of Lee Ha-yoon, Jung Ji-yong, and Kim Young-rang at his own expense. He had three sons and was active for nine years, from 1930 to 1938, but later died of tuberculosis. He even went to Mt. Geumgang seeking a cure for gastroenteritis, but his body was so weak and so exhausted from working so much that it couldn’t sustain his life. It’s probably because of his father that Pak Yong-dal, Yong-ah’s eldest son, became an tuberculosis expert.”
It was known that many poor writers suffered from tuberculosis, so it’s strange that Yong-ah, who was rich and capable, died at such a young age without resting and getting treatment. Is it because he spent all his energy writing over nine years? He wrote poetry, published “Poetry” magazine, wrote literary criticism, and translated Shakespeare’s plays and Goethe’s poems, but died at the young age of 35. He didn’t publish his own collection of poems during his lifetime, so it’s a pity that he wasn’t as renowned as other active poets in his time.
Oblivion 忘却
At first, I thought the thatched house was small, but after looking around the house, I realized it wasn’t. Imagining the time when thatched houses were common, I thought that it must have been a wealthy farmer’s house because it was spacious and complemented other thatched houses. I was sitting on the veranda floor feeling the wind, and I remembered the time when smoke rose from the chimney of my grandmother's house in the countryside, making me emotional. It seemed natural that Yong-ah, who spent a long time here, wrote lyrical poetry. When I left the house and walked up the alley, I found a shrine called “Songhoyeongdang,” where the portraits of Nuljae Park Sang and Saam Park Soon are found. Nuljae, whose poems were praised by King Jeongjo as the most powerful and beautiful, wrote 1200 poems, and Saam Park Soon, who left the Saam collection of poems, was also gifted with great literary talent. His direct descendant, Pak Yong-cheol, must have inherited his blood. I imagine the yellow moonlight shining on the newly thatched roof or snow piling up on it earlier than expected. Two hours quickly passed while I sat on the veranda floor and enjoyed the autumn sunlight while having a friendly chat with Kim. From the moment I entered this place, I felt as if time had stopped, or I was in a different time zone that made me unaware of the flow of time.
Yong-ah’s birthplace / Cultural Commentator Kim Min-seung
“Even a few years ago, there were many alleys decorated with pretty stone walls around here. As new buildings, such as apartments, were established, they all disappeared, but only this place survived. There were also a barn and house next to the wall, but they were demolished to make way for a new road. It was Yong-ah who started the poetic literature club, but the birthplace of Yeongrang and the Poetic Literature Hall are in Gangjin. My small hope is to have a modern literature hall here because modern literature started from the poetic literature club. I also think that a Yong-ah exhibition hall should be built here, and it would be great to have a literary village that poets can freely use. However, there are many problems with cultural projects, and the villagers living near cultural assets aren’t fond of them. Inconveniences, such as building height restrictions and serious parking problems, will increase. I don’t know how well the residents will participate in a cultural project if they think they cannot benefit from it.”
Sending You in the Night Train
Kim asked me to look at the third flower that bloomed on the camellia tree standing on one side of the yard. Red flowers bloom once during the spring, and the fallen flowers scatter and bloom again on the ground. Showing her exceptional sensibility, she explained that the pods, empty after dropping their seeds, open again like the third flower on the tree. I picked up some of the seeds to germinate them and make the camellia oil that old people used to apply on their hair. Several cultural commentators take turns staying at Yong-ah’s birthplace, and I hope you will listen to their explanations when you visit. They cannot stay here from December to February, when it is too cold during the winter season, so it would be better to inquire with the Tourism Promotion Department of the Gwangsan District Office before visiting. On my way back to my busy everyday life, I saw a street cat lying under the sun-drenched veranda floor. When the night comes and all the tourists leave this place, the cat will be its sole owner, and it was so arrogant that it didn’t even look at me as I left. I became a little envious of the cat, stretching itself as much as possible and turning over lazily, who would watch the house’s ever-changing scenery.
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Written by Ok-Su Kim. mono755@daum.net
Photo. In-ho Hwang. photoneverdie@naver.com
2021.11
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