5:40 a.m., the rear room in Sajik Lane 🔍

At 5:40 a.m. in the rear room of the Blue Persimmon House in Sajik Lane, I woke to a handcart rattling over stones and sparrows scratching beneath the eaves. The hemp mat had held the night’s heat, and my cotton undershirt clung to my back before I even sat up. I washed at the brass basin, tied my hair neatly, and put on a pale ramie jacket whose cuffs had been mended twice. Breakfast was cold barley rice loosened with water, a strip of salted radish, and a spoonful of soybean paste. Outside, a man selling firewood called through the lane while the first electric tram bell sounded faintly toward Jongno. This is my first full day here, and every familiar word somehow feels both comforting and fragile.

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12:20 p.m., Willow Paper Shop on Jongno 🔍

At 12:20 p.m. in the Willow Paper Shop near Jongno, white August light fell through the lattice door and showed every fiber floating above the cutting table. I spent the morning trimming mulberry paper, counting brass coins, and moving the wooden beads of the abacus for customers buying brushes and envelopes. The owner then handed me copied figures from a farm-household inquiry, explaining that such surveys were appearing in an agricultural bulletin from this year into the next. I ruled columns and copied amounts for seed, rent, and grain, wondering how a household’s hunger could ever fit inside tidy boxes. At noon I ate a small millet cake with cool well water behind the shop, where the damp paper bundles smelled faintly of straw and paste. Two customers lowered their voices when uniformed men passed outside, so I kept my eyes on the ledger and heard only the tram’s metal wheels grinding along the street.

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7:10 p.m., Reed Lantern Study Room by Cheonggye Stream 🔍

At 7:10 p.m. in the Reed Lantern Study Room beside Cheonggye Stream, the sunset had faded to violet and mosquitoes tapped against the paper door. Six of us sat around a low table while a smoking oil lamp shone on brush handles, worn primers, and chipped porcelain water dishes. Our tutor had us copy a short classical passage, and I rubbed the ink stick slowly until the inkstone held a dark, smooth pool. On the walk there I had crossed the stream by a narrow wooden footbridge, passing laundry spread on flat stones and vendors packing away melons beneath straw covers. No one spoke plainly about the unease hanging over the capital, but every pause seemed longer than the sentence before it. When I returned to Sajik Lane, I folded today’s practice sheet beneath my bedding and promised myself to write again tomorrow, however uncertain the streets may feel.

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Farm-household surveys appear in an agricultural bulletin ↗

At the paper shop, I helped copy household figures connected with agricultural inquiries being published from the February 1910 issue onward. The neat columns made me think uneasily about how little numbers reveal of a farming family’s daily strain.

encykorea.aks.ac.kr

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