Yeongju, a former office employee in Seoul, is suffering from intense burnout: After a career-driven life in which she toiled through vacations and saw her husband in their corporate canteen more often than at home, she quits her job, files for divorce, and moves across the city for a fresh start. She doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life—but she loves to read, and uses her savings to open a bookshop in Hyunam-dong, a neighborhood she chooses because one of the characters in its name means “rest.”
But Yeongju quickly realizes that her new life still involves work. She is frequently drowning in book orders, accounting tasks, and inventory checks. When she’s not treading water, she’s hosting a monthly book club or running a popular interview series with authors. Sometimes she will “stew in regret” at all of her freshly assumed responsibilities, but she finds that she usually isn’t satisfied until she completes them…
Such moments underscore that Hwang’s characters don’t actually want to stop being industrious; they’re just trying to build up a more satisfying understanding of work for themselves, one that doesn’t bind their “whole identity and value” to a company. They discover, for one, the benefits of goals that are short-term, simple, and malleable. “Instead of agonising over what you should do, think about putting effort into whatever you’re doing,” Seungwoo, the programmer turned writer, tells Mincheol, the disenchanted high-schooler. Minjun “anchor[s] himself with coffee,” simply focusing on making the best cup he can. The point is not for them to clearly define what makes them happy but rather to recognize the moments in which they are. What the bookshop’s denizens come to see is that the problems with their former office environments—no matter how widespread—couldn’t always explain why they were miserable, or teach them how not to be. What they can do, as they reconsider how to spend their lives, is pay close attention to what they’re doing, and do it with care.
Continue reading “Monday Morning Wake-Up Call”
