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| City of Han cover / Courtesy of Sollee Bae |
By Hallie Bradley
Expats come, expats go, and some even come again. Seoul will no doubt leave a lasting impression on everyone who visits, and what better way to remember than with a book of short stories written by foreign residents, past and present?
Under the title "A City of Han," editor Sollee Bae has brought together six short stories in just over 100 pages to showcase some of those impressions. From modern to traditional, memories of the past and thoughts to the future, the stories express various desires and perspectives.
Bae is a writer herself and runs a creative writing critique group called Fiction Writers in Seoul which meets every other Saturday. In October 2018 she put out a call for submissions across various websites, and by the end of January 2019 she had over 100 submissions. She went through them carefully and was able to meet six inspiring and dedicated writers ― Eliot Olesen, Ron Bandun, Ted Snyder, David Smith, Matthew Grolemund, and Gord Sellar who have provided the stories for "A City of Han."
"The anthology ended up being shorter than I had hoped, but it ultimately came down to a decision between quantity and quality," Bae said.
She didn't have a clear vision when she set out to collect the submissions, but through reading them and bringing them together she saw patterns emerge. "We have two stories showing the social and psychological issues that the Korean youth face in today's society, two stories about the country's historical traumas, and the final two featuring the experience of foreigners living in Seoul ― with a hint of magical realism!" she said.
"Put the three pieces together, and you get a portrayal of Korean society from the perspective of a certain spectrum of foreigners, as one of the reviewers aptly put."
The anthology begins with Eliot Olesen's "Umchina" which follows the story of Min, who has been hunting a job unsuccessfully for two years. Set in Seoul's affluent southern district of Gangnam, it's a relatable tale for anyone who has lived and worked in this metropolis where the job market is highly competitive and difficult to enter in the best of times.
While "Umchina" starts with a relatable story for many, the book leads the reader into some more uncharted territory, literally. "Mosquito Hunter of Korea" by Ted Snyder relays the intriguing and intense story of Bill Lazaer, a biologist working for the U.S. military who specializes in malaria mosquitoes, as he analyzes the mosquitoes that come into Camp Columbia near the DMZ.
Snyder thinks that anyone whose life has been changed by COVID-19 should read his story. "My story is particularly relevant with our COVID-19 pandemic," he said. "Many diseases sit latent in our world, waiting for the proper conditions and chance to expand into an outbreak or even pandemic, as with not only SARS-CoV-2, but also in 2015-2016 with a multi-country outbreak of Zika virus, in 2015 with the dengue fever outbreak in Tokyo, repeated Ebola outbreaks, and even HIV."
He added that readers will gain an "insight into our world's broken preventive medicine and public health systems, including the human side of the public health entomologists whose job is to prevent the next mosquito-, tick- or mite-borne disease pandemic."
Any reader who has ever been confronted by a random local and asked where they are from will likely love Matthew Grolemund's "Playing the Blues in Seoul." The narrator is from Nowhere, Tennessee, and writes a love letter to the souls in Seoul's foreign community that have been brought together from around the world.
The six stories provide a glimpse of the generally untapped expat writing talent here in Korea. Released last month in print and digitally on Amazon, the book can be ordered for 9,900 won from fictionwritersinseoul.com or be purchased on Amazon.
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Hallie Bradley is a writer based in Seoul and runs the popular site?thesoulofseoul.net.
