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Yun Ko-eun (author), Lizzie Buehler (translator), Table for One: Stories, Columbia University Press, 2024. 280 pgs.
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Columbia University Press releases a thrilling anthology of short stories by South Korean author Yun Ko-eun this coming April. When I read Yun’s debut in translation, The Disaster Tourist, during the dog days of COVID in 2020, it immediately became one of my favourite novels and one that I have since gifted to several people. I was impressed with its wit and satire, and appreciated the way it made me think about pressing issues like unsustainable tourism and the dynamics of exploitation. Ever since then I have been hungry to delve into more of Yun’s work. This is finally possible, thanks to the efforts of translator Lizzie Buehler, who also translated The Disaster Tourist.
Table of One includes nine distinct stories of varying lengths, including the provocative yet disturbing “Piercing,” which was awarded the Daesan Literary Award for College Students the year Yun graduated from a creative writing program at Dongguk University. It also features the Kafkaesque “Roadkill”, in which a vending machine operator becomes trapped during a snowstorm in a motel, which he is then unable to leave. It was previously published in Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature and Culture, vol. 11 (2018).
Yun’s original and surreal stories, infused with a subtle humour, blur the line between fantasy and realism. They introduce characters outcast from society and narrate how everyday people grapple with emotions like anxiety, loneliness, alienation, as well as other hardships of life.
The titular story deals with Korea’s honbap (dining alone) taboo, though there is universality to its concept. I was immediately drawn in and could easily relate to many of the main character’s feelings.
The narrator is an office worker, who finds herself ostracised from her colleagues for no apparent reason. Left behind when they go out for lunch, she enrols in a course that promises to equip participants with the skills and confidence they need to find comfort and enjoyment in eating alone.
Before I came to Korea, I lived alone and travelled alone often. Exploring new restaurants and visiting them by myself was exciting and not something that made me anxious. I was confident when I was out alone, although fleeting feelings of loneliness might occasionally arise. When I first arrived in Korea, however, eating alone in a restaurant suddenly began to feel like something of a burden. Even though I did not have a kitchen in the first place I lived, I sought to avoid dining out alone even if it sometimes meant forgoing a meal entirely.
Solo diners in Korea can easily get served at fast-food chains, bunsikjip (snack/street-food restaurants), and in food courts, but if you’re looking for a nicer meal and show up to a sit-down restaurant there is a fair chance that you will be unceremoniously rejected. Of course, this is invariably an unpleasant experience. If you do manage to get seated, staff can sometimes make you feel unwelcome and treat you like an inconvenience. Table management and profit margins certainly have a role to play here, which is why certain types of restaurants will insist that solo diners order two portions minimum. The collectivist nature of Korean society is another factor. Surrounded by big and seemingly happy groups, it is easy to feel self-conscious about damage to your reputation should other patrons shine a spotlight over and judge you as a loner.
Ultimately, the office worker comes to the realisation that what she was seeking was not to learn to eat alone naturally, but rather the comfort of knowing that there are others like her eating alone too. Although the rapid rise of single-person households in recent years has helped to chip away at the honbap taboo, readers may finish the story with a newfound appreciation for the enjoyment of eating alone while also acquiring a few actionable tips for the next time they need to say, “just a party of one”.
In the second story, “Sweet Escape”, a man who recently became unemployed falls down a rabbit hole of hysteria and develops a fear of bedbugs while preparing to embark on an overseas vacation with his wife. The idea of a bedbug attack not only sucks the enjoyment out of the couple’s trip but follows him home afterwards and completely consumes his existence. Ultimately, when units in his own building becomes infested, he is forced to surrender himself as living bait to lure the blood-sucking creatures out of their hiding spots.
I could not help scratching subconsciously and feel my skin crawl as I read this one, especially given its pertinence today. Although South Korea had been practically free of the pests for the past decade, the end of 2023 saw bedbugs rear their ugly heads once again. As hyperbolic media reports planted fear in the minds of citizens, local governments declared war on the parasitic creatures upon reports of infestations at saunas, tourist accommodations, university dormitories and train stations.
Another highlight, “Invader Graphic”, features a young woman who like, many emerging Korean writers, has won a newspaper-sponsored short story competition. She has still to find success as a published novelist though she is working on a manuscript whose plot unfolds in parallel to the author’s narration. It features a salaryman who quits his job and begins to travel obsessively with the goal of tracking down ceramic tile alien mosaics. Such works, by the pseudonymous French street artist Invader, are based on the arcade game Space Invaders, and as of December 2023 over 4,000 have been installed in 172 cities in 32 countries. Meanwhile, without a salary the writer tries to get through the days without spending any money. As she takes advantage of amenities like Wi-Fi and electricity and helps herself to rolls of toilet paper and food samples in a department store and a café without being a paying customer, it becomes apparent that her freeloading makes her a living, breathing invader of space.
Other noteworthy inclusions are “Iceland”, and “Hyeonmong Park’s Hall of Dreams”, in which dreams and illusions are counted on to endure reality. In the former, we encounter a female office worker, a stand-in for the many young Koreans dissatisfied with the lives, forced to battle from birth to stay afloat in the country’s hypercompetitive society. After an online quiz informs her that she has a significantly greater affinity with faraway Iceland than Korea, she joins Café Iceland, a community of Iceland fantasisers and establishes in her mind an idealised image of the land of fire and ice that makes “everything that [isn’t] Iceland [start] to look pitiful” (p.185). Eventually her grass-is-greener syndrome is shattered as Iceland suffers a severe economic meltdown with the collapse of its three major banks, becoming one of the first victims of the global financial crisis of 2007–2008. The second story revolves around a serial entrepreneur who launches a booming business that retells desired dreams to clients, but when his ability to dream suddenly disappears everything comes crashing down him.
It is hard to recommend this anthology to a specific audience because it really is eclectic. However, the variety on offer speaks to Yun’s commendable breadth as a writer. While not every story will necessarily resonate, readers of different generations and backgrounds should easily be able to find more than a few stories that strike a chord and compel their curiosity to ponder their meaning further.
How to cite: Greenberg, Jack. “Original and Surreal: Yun Ko-eun’s Table for One.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 19 Mar. 2024, chajournal.blog/2024/03/19/table.
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Jack Greenberg resides in Seoul where he is pursuing a master’s degree at Korea University’s Graduate School of International Studies as a Global Korea Scholarship recipient. He is a former management consultant and originally hails from Toronto, Canada. Jack regularly contributes to KoreaPro, an online subscription resource that provides objective insights and analysis on the most important stories in South Korea. His writing has also been featured in The Korea Times and Asian Labour Review. He is interested in housing issues and urban development and enjoys documenting changing cityscapes through photography in his free time and travels abroad. Follow his work on Twitter at @jackwgreenberg. [All contributions by Jack Greenberg.]