By Ahn Jung-hyo

Poor thing, said Mr. Han Si-min, the owner of a video parlor in my neighborhood, when I dropped in to rent an oldie meller.

He used to be a high-school teacher but gave up the mission of education when he had come to the conclusion that he had had enough with the system. His mind seems to be at peace these days, but quite bored.

She wouldn’t have lost her father if the TV guys just left her alone, he said.

I gazed at him, wondering whom he was talking about. Education was not what he apparently wanted to discuss today.

I’m talking about Yong-ja, he answered my unasked question.

Oh, I said. The teenage poetess in the woods.

Lee Yong-ja, the amateur poet living on a secluded mountain in the eastern Kangwon Province, had been given a lot of coverage by television lately.

Perhaps a little bit too much visibility.

She has written poems about her mountain life, flowers and trees and clouds and dragonflies, etc., and probably deserved the spotlight....

When the television network started to do a series on this young girl living all alone with her father in the woods, I resented the media people, Mr. Han Si-min said. Somehow I had a premonition that the big publicity might bring harm to the girl and her father...Yong-ja had been leading a peaceful life with her hermit father, who taught her painting the hills and writing simple poetry. Their solitary hut didn’t even have electricity and the only means she maintained her daily contact with our world was her old squeaky transistor radio.

Must have been a very lonely life, I said, checking the titles on the rack.

Some people don’t mind loneliness, or destitution, as long as their heart finds peace, he said. Yong-ja didn’t mind a lonely and poor life. Nor did her father.

But people began to notice them when some of her poems were published in local magazines, I said. I made the pick and handed the tape over to him. Rare kind of people get attention one way or another.

Too much attention this time, the video shop owner said,registering my choice on his ledger. Beginning of the whole tragedy it was. A big trouble was in store for them when the television people started to tell the nation about their ‘beautiful life away from the mundane world.’

Treasures should remain hidden, I guess, I chimed in.

This world eventually destroyed their ‘idyllic’ life, Han said,dropping the tape in a plastic bag. She used to be a poet of novelty, not exactly of artistry, and the world should have left her at that - a rare soul in this overpopulated and contaminated world.

But they made her a star anyway I prompted. A celebrity.

And people started to crowd in, invading their solitary world, as the five-part TV series went on air. They had reruns too. The whole nation came to know who they were.

A real celebrity, I agreed. She even made a commercial for a cell phone company. To let the world know that the cell phone even reaches her remote home.

Things started to change, very fast, Han said, handing me over the plastic bag. Fame is often measured by monetary denominations and money brought them disaster.

Too bad, I said, paying. What happened to her after the commercial success.

You heard about the man who organized a group of sponsors for the hermit family, I guess.

I nodded.

That man even went on TV and told the viewers that he wanted to raise some money to help the poet and her father, Han said. And he sounded so fishy. You know how much money he stole from the donations people made for Yong-ja and her father.

I read the papers.

When there’s a prey, predators gather around. Like vultures. As maggots collect on a carcass.

Too many people went to see Yong-ja for different reasons, for sure.

With gifts, at first, Han said, annoyed. They provided the family with electricity. Then a TV set. Then a cell phone and a computer. Trying to help her enjoy the conveniences of modern civilization. He scoffed, A real help.

They should’ve just left her alone in the woods.

All these gifts and donations only made her an easy target.

Poor thing.

And this heinous thief made a secret visit to their hut one night when the hermit father was home alone.

Did the thief - the suspect arrested by the local police - did he confess to the authorities of murdering the father? I asked.

He did, Han said. Killed the poor man for the little money the hermit might have kept at home. Did you notice how stunned and stupefied Yong-ja looked when she was interviewed on the evening news immediately after her father’s death?

I said I missed the interview.

She didn’t even cry, he said. Too shocked to grieve. She simply could not understand the new world the television discovered for her. I don’t believe these TV people. Interviewing the poor girl after what they have done to her. I think television is partly responsible for the murder, don’t you?

Maybe guilty of inducement, if not an accomplice. I turned back to leave.

Do you know that the television company make copies of those programs
of The Human Drama and sells them too? he said.

I didn’t have to answer. I knew. And he knew I knew.


Ahn, Jung-Hyo is a writer in Seoul.