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My rooster was again hounded today. It happened just as I came out to cut some firewood after lunch. As I was leaving for the mountain, I heard from behind me the rooster frantically flapping its wings. 

I looked back and there they were, the two roosters tangled up with each other again. 

Jeom-sun’s rooster, with a big head and a sturdy build like a badger, was harassing my much smaller rooster. It wasn’t just intimidating my chicken but pecking at its neck with gusto. 

오늘도 또 우리 수탉이 막 쪼키었다.

내가 점심을 먹고 나무를 하러 갈 양으로 나올 때었다.

산으로 올라가려니까 등 뒤에서 

푸드득, 푸드득 하고 닭의 횃소리가 야단이다.

깜짝 놀라며 고개를 돌려보니

아니나 다르랴 두 놈이 또 얼렸다.

대강이가 크고 똑 오소리같이 실팍하게 생긴 점순네 수탉이

덩저리 적은 우리 수탉을 함부로 해내는 것이다.

그것도 그냥 해내는 것이 아니라 푸드득, 하고

모가지를 쪼았다.

“The Camellias,” published in 1936 in literary magazine Jogwang (Morning Light) and featuring colloquial slangs and unique local themes, is one of Kim Yu-jeong’s most well-known works.

Interview by literary critic Jeon So-yeong

The most important keyword of Kim Yu-jeong’s life and career was love. He wrote about the difficult lives of ordinary people during the 1930s, under the Japanese colonial regime. Kim Yu-jeong believed that love gave people the power to live on even in difficult situations. He wrote about the resilient vitality of mankind in many of his stories.

Jeom-sun glanced over at her house a couple of times before taking her right hand out from underneath her apron and thrusting something right under my chin. 

She proudly held out in her hands three roasted potatoes, still steaming hot.

“You don’t have these at your house, right?” 

She said condescendingly, and then told me to eat them up quickly because he would get in big trouble if someone found out that she had given him the potatoes. 

“Spring potatoes are delicious.” 

“I don’t like potatoes. You can have them.” 

I gave back the potatoes over my shoulder without turning to look at her. But she didn’t leave. Instead, I heard her breathing grow louder and rougher. 

Wondering what she was up to, I turned around to look at her and was stunned.

It had been three years since my family came to this village, but I had never seen her tanned face turn so red before. Her steely eyes penetrated me before they teared up. 

점순이는 즈 집께를 할금할금 돌아다보더니

행주치마의 속으로 꼈던 바른손을 뽑아서 나의 턱밑으로 불쭉 내미는 것이다.

언제 구웠는지 아직도 더운 김이 홱 끼치는 감자 세 개가 손에 뿌듯이 쥐였다.

“느 집엔 이거 없지“ 

생색있는 큰소리를 하고는 제가 준 것을 남이 알면 큰일 날 테니 얼른 먹어버리란다.

“난 감자 안 먹는다. 니나 먹어라” 

나는 고개도 돌리려 하지 않고 일하던 손으로 그 감자를 도로 어깨 너머로 쑥 밀어버렸다.

그랬더니 쌔근쌔근하고 심상치 않게 숨소리가 점점 거칠어진다.

그때에야 비로소 돌아다보니, 

우리가 이 동리에 온 것은 근 삼 년째 되어오지만

여태껏 가무잡잡한 점순이의 얼굴이 이렇게까지 홍당무처럼 새빨개진 법이 없었다.

게다 눈에 독을 올리고 한 참 나를 요렇게 쏘아보더니

나중에는 눈물까지 어리는 것이 아니냐.

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Kim Yu-jeong (Born in Chuncheon, Gangwon-do Prov., Jan. 11, 1908~Mar. 29, 1937)

: Debuted when “A Wanderer in the Valleys” won a literary contest on Chosun Ilbo in 1935

Noted works include “Spring, Spring,” “Plucking Gold in a Field of Beans,” “Wretched Lives,” etc.