A national tragedy. A family and sister grieving the loss of their loved one. The ghosts of the past emerging.
Yun-young’s sister (Unnie, the Korean word for “older sister”), a secondary school teacher at a school in Ansan, is one of those who go missing during the sinking of the Sewol ferry in South Korea in 2014. Yun-young and her family wait for word—that Unnie has been rescued, first, and then, when that doesn’t happen, that her body has been found. As the days turn into weeks and the weeks turn into months and still they wait for news, Yun-young’s sorrow feels poisoned. She can’t move on in her life without understanding Unnie’s life. Launching herself on a journey to discover who her sister was, Yun-young excavates more family memories than she bargained for.
A national tragedy. A family and sister grieving the loss of their loved one. The ghosts of the past emerging.
Yun-young’s sister (Unnie, the Korean word for “older sister”), a secondary school teacher at a school in Ansan, is one of those who go missing during the sinking of the Sewol ferry in South Korea in 2014. Yun-young and her family wait for word—that Unnie has been rescued, first, and then, when that doesn’t happen, that her body has been found. As the days turn into weeks and the weeks turn into months and still they wait for news, Yun-young’s sorrow feels poisoned. She can’t move on in her life without understanding Unnie’s life. Launching herself on a journey to discover who her sister was, Yun-young excavates more family memories than she bargained for.
The subway rattles along, carrying a determined young woman trying to solve problems in a workbook while leaning against its door. She doesn’t seem to notice or care that Yun-young stares at her. Yun-young assumes the woman is also headed for Noryangjin and wonders if her own Unnie looked similar to this when she also was a student, preparing for the national exam to be an English teacher.
When Unnie had come home for short visits from her place in Noryangjin, Yun-young had asked her why she brought such a huge book home and didn’t leave it behind. Unnie responded with unbridled ambition, “So I can study on the subway.”
As the subway approaches her destination, the people promptly stand and fling their backpacks on their backs. The woman, who isn’t done solving the problems yet, claps her book shut, leaving a pen inside to mark her place. She moves right up against the door as if she is at the start line of a race. When the door finally slides open, she darts off, disappearing behind one of the station’s staircases. Noticing all the people hurrying around her, Yun-young speeds up her own pace so she doesn’t become the clog in the current of purposeful people. Taking exit 2, she finds herself on a foot bridge, which overlooks the dreary district packed with cram schools for a variety of state-run civil service exams. In this place, exam season never ends.
People dressed mostly in tracksuits weave swiftly through the food vendors lining the streets as they head to their cram institutes, study rooms, study cafés, et cetera. Yun-young narrowly avoids bumping into people who walk forward with their eyes on their books or their phones.
A woman hands out flyers to passersby at warp speed. Yun-young looks down at the flyer suddenly in her hand. It touts an institute that prepares people to become police officers and firefighters. This exam-oriented village (or should she call it an island?) is so far from the ordinary life that she knows. It seems every fixture here—every store, every living space—is set up for the convenience of students, to help make their dreams come true.
Visiting is part of her recent efforts to search for a trace of her Unnie, however little of her is left in this world. Their lives had veered off track too suddenly.
In the distance, the large figure of a ladybug on a tall building attracts her attention.
“A ladybug? Why is a ladybug on the building?” Yun-young was baffled.
“Maybe it’s supposed to be a symbol of good luck?” Unnie grinned. “You know what? Every morning at five, a long line of people forms outside the building entrance, hoping to get front-row seats for class.”
“What’s wrong with sitting at the back?”
“Nothing. The camera zooms in on the blackboard and TV screens project the lecturer all over the room, so there’s really no difference. Only people who get poor grades mind the little things and make a huge fuss over it. Personally, I would never want to sit so close to the teachers. They stare at us and talk so fast, they spray us with their spit. Maybe they think that the teachers’ spit will bless them or something.” Unnie shrugged, playful.
Yun-young grows quiet as she follows that imagined long line into the building. Nervous, she is drawn past the elevator and to the stairs behind the green exit sign, as if Unnie is leading her around, showing her the neighborhood. Unnie had told her how the elevator wasn’t big enough to fit all the students from both the teachers’ exam classes and police exam classes and that she preferred walking up the stairs. At least, she joked, she got some exercise.
Yun-young looks up at the high staircase and sees an image of Unnie looking back over her shoulders and smiling. Cheerful, she gestures that Yun-young should follow. Unnie’s steps are light and buoyant. Yun-young carries herself, one heavy step after another. By the second floor, she is already short of breath—she pauses for a moment as Unnie keeps strenuously climbing ahead of her in her blurry vision.
What had the world given Unnie in return for walking up all these stairs for three years? Yun-young thinks with resentment. She widens her stride and takes two steps at a time, envisioning Unnie doing the same thing by her side. It was a habit of Unnie’s to move quickly, so that she would have more time for studying.
Making it to the fifth floor, Yun-young sees the reception desk through the slightly open doors. She wipes her eyes and pushes open the door. She takes a left turn, quick, not wishing to meet the staff’s eyes.
“The specifier is a sister of the node that dominates the head+complement sequence, indicated by ...” The most bizarre thing that she has ever heard blares out through the PA system of a classroom. Hearing this, she wonders if it could be one of the reasons that Unnie had said English teachers in Korea couldn’t carry out a conversation in English well.
“May I help you?” From behind her, a woman’s voice catches her off guard. She turns around and sees the speaker holding a curled-up poster to advertise their school’s proud teachers.
“Oh, I’m just looking around.”
“Okay. If you want to ask questions, the reception desk is over there.”
Yun-young nods, feeling awkward. As the woman walks away, she peeks into the classroom through a small window on the door. Over two hundred students seem to have been squeezed in there, all engrossed with the lecturer. She guesses Unnie would have sat at the back, the front seats occupied by those who got in line hours before class; and perhaps she liked to sit in the corner, nearest to the wall, but she would have hated to make people stand up every time she moved to and from her seat. Yun-young pictures Unnie in the aisle seat in the back, pushing herself to be more engaged, taking notes, breathing cautiously, bothered by people seated so close together.
“I wouldn’t even sit that close to my boyfriend,” Unnie once told Yun-young. She waited for Yun-young’s mocking expression at the idea of Unnie having a “boyfriend.” Quickly, she added, “When I get one.”
“It’d be ‘more chairs, more money’ for the school,” Yun-young replied.
“I get so frustrated when I come back to class after a meal and the air keeps coming out of my mouth.”
“You mean when you burp?” Yun-young asked.
“No, not a burp. There’s no sound. It’s just air that comes out silently.”
“That’s a burp.”
Unnie ignored her sister. “When the air comes out, I hold my breath as long as I can until I have to exhale again for the smell to disappear. It’s so annoying. Ugghh!”
“Maybe they don’t smell it, you could be worrying for nothing.”
“No, I swear they smell it. They shift a bit suddenly, no matter how long I wait to exhale.”
“Go see a doctor.”
Unnie, always forthright, did go to the doctor. The doctor said that she would stop experiencing excessive burps if she started to move around more instead of sitting at the desk all day long. The solution didn’t appeal to her. Her other medical problem—the dry, scaly patches of skin on her elbows that itched—was diagnosed as psoriasis. The doctor recommended she reduce the friction between her elbow and the desk by putting a cushion under her elbow.
It is only now, when Unnie is permanently absent, that Yun-young wonders if Unnie followed any of the doctors’ recommendations, if she did anything to increase her well-being and health.
Leaving the building, Yun-young follows the GPS arrow on her phone to find Unnie’s gositel, the smallest square cubicle where Unnie lived and studied. The word was a combination of “gosi,” the difficult state exams, and “tel,” from the word motel.
She follows the map to a narrow alley and up the hill. The gositel appears directly ahead. Named “Fighting”—a typical English expression misused to express “Cheer up”—the sign depicts a cartoon character of a boy in a jubilant pose, his hands up in the air as if he has just passed an exam.
A drab yellow-ochre building stares at her.
How it looks like one giant chicken coop with these little shabby windows. These lonely quarters were where Unnie spent her most youthful years. Reminded of Unnie’s excitement over the possibility of time travel, she wishes foolishly for a miracle where time could flow backward to reveal Unnie in there, studying.
She drags herself inside and takes her shoes off. As her bare foot touches the cold floor, a sharp tingle shoots up, straight into her heart.
A young female student, probably a part-time worker at the entrance office, looks up from her book. “Hi, may I help you?”
“Hi,” Yun-young says. “I am here to look around.”
“Oh, okay. Hold on a moment.” The girl puts her pen down, steps out of the office, and locks the door. “This way.” She promptly leads her down the hallway, like she has done this too many times.
Yun-young follows her, a knot of uneasy emotions pitted in her stomach. She tries picturing Unnie holding the doorknob of every door as if it will help her find Unnie’s room.
The girl turns around. “When’s your moving date?”
“Uh, this month,” she lies.
“Great.”
The girl’s pace gains momentum. Yun-young wonders if she is walking fast to save time like Unnie.
The thought that Unnie’s room might not have been far from the entrance pops to mind. Unnie had once complained about the constant sound of footsteps as people came in and out of the entrance, and about how much the next door girl’s careless door-banging annoyed her. One day, as Unnie told her, she finally mustered up the courage to put a note on her neighbor’s door: “Hello, I live next door to you. Since the wall is thin, the door bangs loud every time you shut the door. I would appreciate it if you would close it a bit more quietly. Thank you.” She didn’t forget to add, “All the best for your exam.” Since the people’s lives here rested solely on the result of their exams, the quality of concentration mattered, down to every minute of the exhaustive number of hours they studied. Abstinence from everything that distracts was a must. That’s why Unnie even got rid of her phone, for a while, and did courageous things like sending that note to her next door neighbor. Yun-young was astounded when Unnie told her about the notes that people would put on the desks of strangers, notes that said things like, “Watch your footsteps”; “Please turn pages quietly”; “You are not the only one studying here”; “What the heck are you eating at your desk every day?”; “Please sleep somewhere else”; and “I can hear music through your earphones,” et cetera. Unnie got goosebumps when someone gave her one of those notes, but it didn’t take her long to become one of the ones who freely distributed such notes.
Yun-young fixates on the two adjacent doors, one of which she thinks could be Unnie’s. She puts her hand on the doorknob.
“No, that room is not available.” The girl looks back as if she had sensed Yun-young’s movement.
“Oh, yeah …” Startled, she removes her hand from the knob. Maybe she just wanted to touch it.
A few doors later, the girl stops, sticks a key in a door, and jingles it a couple of times. “Here you go. This one’s available.” She smiles for the first time and opens the door wide.
Just one step into the room gives Yun-young a sensation of being suffocated. It is the tiniest cubicle she has ever seen yet it contains the bare minimum an examinee should have—a long plank nailed to a wall to serve as a shelf, a bed barely twice the size of the shelf in width, a desk and a chair.
“Good thing about this room is that it has a window.”
The way she says it, windows suggest a luxury.
“You can put your clothes in here.” She points to a tiny built-in chest behind the door. “Isn’t this nice? We don’t have many available rooms.”
Yun-young feels awkward. She doesn’t think it seems nice at all.
“Don’t you have a room with a bathroom?”
“No, not in our gositel. That’s why it’s so cheap. If you want a private bathroom, you should try the recently built ones that cost at least 500,000 won.”
“How much is this?”
“270,000 won,” she says, confident that it is a really good price.
“Can I see the public restroom then?” Yun-young asks, as if she is really looking for a room. Why does she feel as if seeing where Unnie lived and bathed would change anything about Unnie’s life?
“Yup, it’s right ahead. Follow me.” The girl leads her around another corner and stops at the end of the alley. “This is the restroom.” She turns the knob.
Yun-young pokes her head inside. The loud sound of a machine chugging filters through the closed PVC folding door.
“What’s that sound?”
“Oh, it’s a washing machine.”
Right, this is a house.
Yun-young steps inside and gives a cautious push on one of the doors of two shabby booths. It squeaks to show a toilet bowl, thankfully, instead of a squat toilet. Still Unnie, who liked things clean and tidy, would have definitely frowned upon encountering things here. Yun-young wonders if this was the reason why Unnie hadn’t let Mom and Dad visit her when they said, “Shouldn’t we see where our daughter lives?” Unnie had always told them that everything was good in her gositel, except for the room’s size. Yun-young rather hopes she has come to the wrong building. It is awful to imagine Unnie living here.
She steps out, away from the smell of mothballs, and lets the girl take command again.
“Do you have a curfew or something?” Yun-young suddenly remembers Unnie mentioning a curfew.
“Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you. We have a midnight curfew. That’s another good thing about this gositel.” The girl seems to be in love with the place. “You can’t enter the building past curfew as we lock the front door.”
“Why do you have a curfew?” Yun-young thinks it is odd that any place other than madly conservative homes and the military should have a curfew at all.
“It works out for everybody. With curfews, they won’t be caught up in revelry and people here won’t be woken up by those returning late.”
“Can they shower? I mean, is there a shower room?”
“Of course.” Jubilant, the girl takes her downstairs to a room where someone already seems to be showering.
“I don’t have to see it. It’s okay.” Yun-young decides to stop with her probing since her lack of enthusiasm might disappoint the girl.
Adding that there are six shower heads in the shower room, the girl takes her back to the ground floor. “You can think about it, but you should hurry if you want that room with the window. It will go fast.”
“I will.” Yun-young thanks her as she leaves, knowing the girl used some of her precious study time to give her a tour.
On stepping outside, a deep breath escapes her. She feels lost in the plethora of thoughts in her mind. What she feels would be different if at least the gositel had been better.
She trudges down the narrow, steep alley leading out to a boulevard. The 63 Building appears in the distance, almost out of nowhere. It is the icon of Seoul, the tallest building next to the Han River, sixty-three stories high. It used to be a tourist attraction that city dwellers took visitors to see. It was more than fifteen years ago when her family took Grandma and Grandpa to the aquarium there during their trip to Seoul. She remembered the magnificent golden glow of the skyscraper in the sunlight. She can’t believe how oddly lusterless it looks from where she is standing.
“I saw the Seoul International Fireworks Festival,” Unnie had told Yun-young over the phone, excited.
“Who did you go there with?”
“I saw it from the rooftop of my gositel. You can see the whole fireworks show above the Han River from here. And I didn’t have to go through a massive traffic jam like other people to see it.”
“Good for you. Must have been really nice.”
“It was okay. I mean, they could have looked bigger and better if I saw them from the ground. You know what? Everything, even the 63 Building, doesn’t look as nice from here.”
“You can see the 63 Building?”
“Yeah, it feels weird to see that in this gloomy place. My cram school has a glass elevator. Every time I see the 63 Building from the elevator, I make a pledge that I will get out of here next year and go on a date to the restaurant on the top floor.”
A street vendor yells from a stall, “Come, everyone!” Without looking up from what he is doing, he cooks sausages in spicy chili sauce, while his wife fries other meats and eggs on a griddle. The customers stand across from them, mixing ingredients together in a paper bowl and gulping spoonfuls down. Other stalls scattered along the street feature surprisingly varied foods: pancake hotdogs, beef pho, chicken skewers, rice porridge, and other delicacies.
Yun-young feels a sharp twinge of regret that she had never thought about visiting Unnie, to eat even one meal with her, when she could. She decides to order something for herself since she will need strength to check off another assignment at her next destination.
“Can I have the ‘pork plus spam?’” She chooses the menu item that seems the most basic. There are about twenty different combinations, all offered at a low price, from 2,000 won. As the toppings are cooked ahead of time, the food is served in less than a minute. What a perfect dish for people who never have enough time. As she scoops food into her mouth, the amount left in the huge bowl doesn’t seem to decrease at all. Glancing over at the people next to her, she wonders if they are enjoying their food or if this is just a chore to finish quickly so they can hurry back to studying in whatever box belonged to them.
She has no appetite. It could be because she feels uncomfortable, having to eat standing up in the street for everyone to see, or it could be because there are people behind her, waiting for her to finish.
Did Unnie eat like this every day?
“Why did you leave so much food?” The vendor looks at her bowl, which is still two-thirds full, as she pays him.
“Rice is medicine for Koreans! You have to eat well,” his wife adds. They are kind words of support; they must presume that she is a candidate for some exam.
“I am full. It was delicious.” She thanks them with a nod and gives her spot to a girl behind her.
Annoyed by her listless walk, people quickly brush past her. Everyone is wearing their most comfortable tracksuits, slippers, and sneakers, and many of them have their caps pulled down low, which frees them from having to groom their faces or hair. Unnie would have walked this street with her hair up in a bun, a pencil sticking out of it. She didn’t like wearing a cap, which decreased the blood flow and gave her a headache. Had the street known that Unnie’s cheerful footsteps would be masked by her sister Yun-young’s grieving steps in the near future, in desperate search of fragments from Unnie’s life? The bustling street seems desolate. Fate had plucked Unnie through a fatal mistake. Still, the world marches inexorably on without Unnie.
A man in front of her walks leisurely into an arcade and enters a coin-operated karaoke booth, alone. What a courageous thing to do in broad daylight. Soon a mirror ball hanging from the ceiling rotates and flashes rainbow beams of light, reflected on the street.
“Do you hang out with your friends at all?” Yun-young had asked Unnie.
“You mean, how do I release stress? A coin karaoke, haha. My Saturday routine to entertain myself on my way back to gositel after lunch.”
“Karaoke? Alone? Oh my god, isn’t it embarrassing?”
“Nothing’s embarrassing here. No one can afford to care about what others think. Sometimes you can even see people eat pork on the grill, sipping soju by themselves.”
“Wow. You don’t do that, do you?”
“Not yet,” she said coolly.
Yun-young felt suddenly worried.
“Guess how much the karaoke is! Only a thousand won for a good four songs.”
“Huh, what convenient entertainment. I really hope you get out of there, fast.”
What a different world Unnie had lived in.
Yun-young occasionally checks her GPS map as she walks to see how far she is from the clinic. She is amazed by the number of stores, densely packed for most efficiency. It seems that everything people need for day-to-day living is within a ten-minute walking distance. It is ironic that such diligent people live in the most convenient city in the world. Quite a few fitness centers indicate that these busy people are not neglecting their health either. Arguably, health might be the most important factor in this survival game of theirs. In fact, Dad had always recommended that Unnie start every day with morning exercise to handle the year-long study. As far as Yun-young knows, she had joined a health center, though she doesn’t know if Unnie was consistent in going. She notices now that acupuncture businesses have also managed to squeeze into the pack of services offered, useful for examinees with cricks in their necks and spines from their long hours of study. This is one giant empire created for one purpose: helping students pass their exams.
People who have finished eating now prance into coffee shops—which abound with signs, “Coffee, 1,000 won for take-out,” a price that is only one-fourth the price at Starbucks. For students, coffee would be important fuel. Yun-young goes into one of them to get rid of the taste of kimchi lingering in her mouth. While she waits for her iced Americano, her and Unnie’s usual order, one study group draws her attention—they are checking the English words they had memorized with each other.
“Validate?”
“Oh, what was it? To stop?”
“Wrong. To prove. Next, ‘revival’?”
Their book cover is titled Firefighter English.
Yun-young wonders why firefighters have to know these difficult English words. They will never use them in their workplace. The test seems designed for people to fail. Is this the best way to recruit people fairly?
Back on the street, with a coffee in her hand like everyone else, she runs through the lines that she had practiced in her head. “Hello, I came here to ask you for a big favor. I know you can’t divulge someone’s medical record even to their own family, but my Unnie is—my Unnie died last year and I am trying to put some pieces together to know her better. I have brought along a family certificate to prove that I am her sister. I would appreciate it if you would understand and give me some information.” Yun-young secures the certificate in her bag for the fourth time. She speeds up a little—the sun seems ready to start its descent in its yellow and orange hue. She repeats, “Hello, I came here to ask you for a big favor. Please. Could you please tell me …”
She has finally arrived at the building.
It is covered with signs: Gimbab Heaven, OK Realtor, Chi-mac with Oppa, and so on, including the Yonsei Psychiatric Clinic. The dizzying signs only increase her nervousness.
She climbs the stairs to the second floor and opens the door gingerly as any first visitor to a mental clinic would.
“Hello,” a nurse at the reception desk greets in her calm tone.
Despite the racket from the cast iron doorbell, nobody waiting on the bench turns their heads. She wonders if it is because they are purposely hiding their faces, embarrassed by their visit here, or, as Unnie had told her, they can’t afford to care about others. A quick scan of their faces doesn’t help her understand why they are here. She had never imagined that Unnie would visit this place either.
“Is this your first visit?” the nurse asks Yun-young.
“Yes.”
“Then please write down your name and ID number here.” She pushes a small slip of paper at her.
Yun-young hesitates a moment, wondering whether she should write Unnie’s information or her own. She decides to write her own.
“Please have a seat.” The nurse registers her on the computer.
Seeing that all three rows of short benches are occupied by a single person, she sits on a separate chair next to a corner table where the psychiatrist’s honorable Yonsei University graduate degree is displayed. Secretly gazing at the patients, she wonders how many years of secluded life in this neighborhood has brought them to this place.
“Hwang Jin-sung.”
As the nurse’s call breaks the silence, a spectacled guy walks into the doctor’s room and bows to the psychiatrist.
Being a shrink in this neighborhood would be super easy. All they have to do is give out the same advice, “Exams are not everything.” And it would also be easy at the drugstore next door. They just need to be prepared with a whole bag of anti-depressants.
“Shin Hyun-ju.” It only takes a couple of minutes for another name to be called.
Maybe he just came here for the pills.
The man coming out of the office gives the nurse his credit card without asking the fee.
What if, even though he tries this hard, he doesn’t pass? Considering only one in forty people pass the civil service tests, it seems unlikely that many of the people in these seats stand a chance, unless they were the lucky, successful three out of one hundred and twenty examinees. Her heart is already going out to them. She remembers seeing the news that candidates often commit suicide after failing or at the very thought of not being able to make the cut when the list of successful candidates hadn’t been announced yet. The image of an aged mom on TV crying her heart out because her son had hung himself after failing the entry-level civil service exam for nine straight years in a row is vivid in her mind.
“Park Yun-young.”
She walks through the slightly opened door.
“Hi.” The psychiatrist greets her—his eyes are still fixed on the monitor while he finishes taking notes about his previous patient.
“Hello.” She slowly takes a seat to his left.
Soon his typing stops. “What is troubling you?” His voice is soothing.
Suddenly the words that she had prepared scamper off, vanish. Her lips fail to part, as if she has forgotten how to speak.
“Um ... ahem.” She tries to clear whatever’s blocking her throat.
Soon her sob breaks the silence—the doctor’s pen moves busily.
She wipes her tears.
They won’t stop.
“I’m sorry.” She stands up, helpless.
“You’re leaving?”
Even though she hasn’t looked at him, she knows his eyes must have widened in surprise.
“Do you want to come again then?”
She is wordless. She lashes out at herself for not being able to stop crying already.
When she finally realizes that she can’t leave like this, she sits again and pulls a tissue out of a tissue box on the desk and presses it against her eyes. He waits patiently.
“The name is Park Mi-na.” She sniffles. She is dismayed at the first words that popped out of her mouth, abruptly and without any context.
“It says you’re Park Yun-young.”
“I mean Park Mi-na is my sister.”
“I’m sorry. She has to come herself. Why didn’t she come herself?”
“I,” she begs herself not to tear up again, “I came from Ansan. Park Mi-na used to come here. She was a teacher at Danwon High School.” The words spill out, all jumbled up.
“What do you mean …?” He looks as bewildered as her. “Do you mean ... by any chance, that ...” He speaks very cautiously.
She lets her silence answer his question.
“Your sister was on the ferry?”
She nods.
The city of Ansan has now been equated to Danwon High School, which is equated with the Sewol ferry accident.
“She still is on the ferry.”
His bewilderment turns to shock, accompanied by a tense, apologetic expression.
“I came here to ask you a big favor.” In a shaky voice, she finally says what she wanted to say. “As a way to learn more about her, I know it’s late ... I want to know what she was like.”
Know what she was like?
Bitterly dismayed, knowing that it is not what is supposed to be said about a sister, she corrects herself, “I want to know what she went through.”
“How did you know she came here?” he asks.
“I found the medicine envelope.”
He is silent for a while, not knowing how to react in front of the family of a victim of a tragedy that has shaken the whole nation. He types her name into the computer, Park Mi-na. The clock’s ticking sound amplifies in the room.
“Please wait here for a second.” With a sigh, he walks out of the room.
The murmurs between him and the nurse seep in through the narrow door opening. Shortly he comes back in with a chart in his hand. “This girl …” He drops onto his chair with a deep sigh. “She is your sister? She …?” The word doesn’t easily come out of his mouth. “I’m so sorry.”
Yun-young wipes away tears.
After a long pause, he asks, “Do you know why she came here?”
“Yes, I found out. I saw the certificate.”
“She said it had been a secret in the family.” He hesitates and continues, “She had been fighting for a long time, against the guilt that ...” Shortly he seems to slightly regret having started the sentence, but he continues, “Her words were that her sister died because of her.”
The guilt.
The dark shadow of guilt clutching the lone figure of Unnie sitting at her desk together looms over Yun-young’s mind. It torments her how Unnie must have surrendered to it, to visit this place during such a busy time.
He carefully tries to read what’s on her mind. “You guys are sisters, all right.” He sips water from his mug. “When she first came here, she didn’t say a thing, she just burst into tears and left. It was only a few months later when she came back.”
She did? Her heart throbs.
“She said that ...” His eyes roll down the chart. “Soo?”
“Yes.” Yun-young nods in recognition of her other sister’s name, a sister she had only learned of recently.
“She said that …” He notices Yun-young’s tears. “I should stop.”
“No, please. I’d really appreciate it.”
He continues with a sigh. “She felt she didn’t deserve a good life. I don’t know exactly what happened to her, she wouldn’t tell me. She only came here ...” He counts the dates on the chart.
Yun-young has a sudden forlorn wish to hug Unnie right now, to tell her that it wasn’t her fault.
“She came here six times. Depression developed over a long period of time doesn’t go away easily, especially when one barely leaves one’s desk, living here for years.” He glances at her hanging her head. “I don’t know if I told you too much.”
Yun-young raises and shakes her head to hear more. But that’s all he can tell her. He struggles to find the right way to tell her how she has to take care of herself and the family. And how that would make Unnie happy.
“If you need help, please see counselors, or you can visit me any time. I am really sorry about your sister. I will pray she finds her way home.”
She bows in gratitude.
He bows his head as he watches her leave.
Crumpled wet tissues in her grip, she waits for the nurse’s order at the counter. The nurse waits for Yun-young’s prescription to pop up in her computer and goes into the room, clueless. Before long she comes out and smiles at Yun-young. “He said no charge. You can go.”
Hesitant, Yun-young manages a weak smile to express her appreciation.
She casts a vacant gaze at the blurry lights surrounding her reflection in the bus window on the way back to Ansan. The psychiatrist’s words linger.
“Does—” He swiftly changed the word in shame. “Did she wear glasses?”
His abrupt mention of Unnie’s glasses made her ask again. “Glasses? Well, yes. One day, Unnie started to wear them often. She said it was to protect her eyesight.”
“Hmm. It wasn’t her eyesight. She must have still had that feeling.”
“What do you mean?”
“People must have told her that she had sad eyes. She said she would try wearing glasses, as if they were sunglasses and could hide her emotion. She felt a lot of guilt for living well.”
How come Yun-young had not the slightest idea that Unnie felt this way, that she wore glasses for that reason?
Yun-young squeezes her eyes shut. Tears fall down her cheeks.
You stupid weirdo …
When Yun-young’s family gets word that her older sister’s ferry for her first school trip as a teacher has had an incident, the family’s hope quickly changes to a dread and nightmare that flips their whole world—along with many other families’—upside down. The story follows Yun-young remembering her Unnie and all the best and worst of their sister relationship, while also uncovering new perspectives and understandings about Unnie and her family as they cope.
Yun-young’s story is a heartbreaking narrative of finding closure when there is none. The story creates a blend of events from both during and after the tragedy, and flashbacks from Yun-young thinking back on her family history and all the little details about her Unnie that fall into place and give Yun-young mixed feelings now that she sees things in a different perspective.
Shadowing the events of how the families, the town of Ansom, and the nation of Korea were affected by the Sewol ferry tragedy, the frustration and grief were depicted very vividly and tugged at my heart. All shown from Yun-young’s point of view as she tries to process her own grief and find closure for her sister, while also holding onto her family still with her, her journey brings up questions and thoughts about life’s fleeting quality and how quickly ordinary days can change.
As Yun-young searches for hints of her Unnie left behind, another family secret does come out as well, but I wasn’t quite following how it tied into the main gist of story. It seemed to fade out as a background detail that helped give insight into Unnie’s personality, rather than becoming a source of family conflict or mystery as I expected from the beginning. However, I loved the glimpse into Korean culture and family experiences, and the author did well making things feel real and personal with the small details of Yun-young’s life as she recalls them.
Overall, I found the book to be a touching memorial bringing to light the life-changing tragedy that the families and their loved ones faced, and to share it with those who may not have been aware of the Sewol ferry’s sinking at all.