6:20 a.m. — Pear Tree Well Alley 🔍

At 6:20 a.m. in Pear Tree Well Alley, I washed at the communal basin while rainwater ticked from the tiled eaves. I tied my worn cotton jacket, tucked my lunch of barley rice and salted radish into a cloth bundle, and counted the few sen left in my purse. A neighbor from the outskirts said survey men had again visited fields near his family’s village, measuring boundaries and asking for papers that his father did not fully understand. The land survey has been under way for several years, and every mention of seals, registers, or missing documents tightens people’s faces. I could offer no remedy, so I helped him lift his water jar and promised to ask the literate compositor at my shop what documents might matter.

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12:35 p.m. — Changgyeong Print Shop 🔍

At 12:35 p.m. in the rear composing room of Changgyeong Print Shop, I ate beside trays of lead type while the treadle press thumped through the noon heat. The air carried oil, metal dust, and the sour trace of wet hemp paper drying on lines. Mr. Han, the senior compositor, quietly showed us a cloth-wrapped historical volume said to have been compiled in June, and he turned its pages only after checking that the front door was shut. I could not linger over the dense classical characters, but the sight of our country’s suffering gathered into a book made my fingertips tremble. Remembering my neighbor, I asked about land papers, and Mr. Han told me to bring any deeds or tax receipts tomorrow so he could examine their wording. Before returning to the press, I slipped a misaligned piece of type back into its case and felt that even small things must be kept from being lost.

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7:10 p.m. — Willow Bridge Noodle Stall 🔍

At 7:10 p.m. beneath the patched awning of the Willow Bridge noodle stall, I sat with my neighbor as evening rain silvered the tram rails beyond the market. A kerosene lamp smoked above our bowls, and cart wheels hissed through the mud while a distant streetcar bell rang twice. I relayed Mr. Han’s advice, and my neighbor said his mother still kept an old deed folded inside a lacquered chest. We agreed that he would bring it before work tomorrow, wrapped against the rain, and that I would carry it to the print shop without showing anyone else. The warm broth cost more than I wished to spend, so we shared one bowl and ate the last barley rice from my bundle. Walking home, I kept thinking of the hidden history book and the hidden deed—two bundles of paper, each holding more weight than its size.

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A Korean history work was compiled in June 1915 ↗

At the print shop, I was briefly shown a cloth-wrapped historical volume said to have been compiled in June. I felt both pride and unease as I looked at pages preserving the pain of our country.

ko.wikipedia.org

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The colonial land survey remained under way in 1915 ↗

I heard that surveyors had visited fields near my neighbor’s family village. His worry over boundaries and old papers became my worry too, so I promised to seek help reading the documents.

ko.wikipedia.org

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