Sweet alcohol, bitter vegetable juice, and salty and spicy pain of life!

“Once upon a time, a girl was living a hard life delivering vegetable juice.”

A narrative completed with the painstaking effort of the author’s blood, sweat, and tears

The Juice Delivery Woman portrays a day of a vegetable juice delivery person with realistic details. The author once worked as a juice deliverywoman herself, who woke up at 5 a.m. and started making rounds at 6 a.m. The job can earn as much as 3 million won a month, but those workers aren’t directly hired by a company, leaving them unprotected by the labor laws. They do not have a labor contract signed and are not entitled to Korea’s four major insurances and three primary labor rights. The author describes in her column “The Unofficial Life of Kim Hyeonjin” the joys and sorrows of the delivery work, which she thought wouldn’t last in three days but continued for over a year. She once won first place in an acrostic poem contest with a vegetable juice name, in which all the juice delivery people in Korea participated. She received 60 bottles of vegetable juice as the prize.

As much as the author’s life was, Jungmin also does not have things easy in the book. She starts to deliver Company P’s vegetable juice to pay off her debt. She goes from Building K, a middle school, broadcasting company, and department store to deliver the juices from dawn to noon while working another part-time job in the afternoon to sustain herself day to day. In her insecure position as a “worker in a special type of employment,” Jungmin often has a hard time dealing with customers who repeatedly delay payment or sexually harass her. The extreme competition and hierarchical relationship between the juice delivery company and the security and cleaning team demanding juice samplers, and customers who ridicule the young deliverywoman’s work to her face while spreading rumors behind her back—you will be able to take a peek and the dark dynamics of the industry that would be impossible to depict without the author’s firsthand experience. As you read the story, you will be able to see Jungmin’s working conditions unfold vividly in front of your eyes. The Juice Delivery Woman gives you a different perspective on the labor of delivery that connects consumers with products. Ten years have passed since the author worked as a vegetable juice deliverywoman—have the working conditions of juice delivery people improved? Or have they remained the same?

“There are not many better jobs out there for women to work in”

The delivery labor of temporary “madam” workers

In March 2020, a woman in her 40s who delivered vegetable juice in the Yeouido financial district was diagnosed with a novel coronavirus; she also worked at a call center where a COVID outbreak happened. Since women are often assigned to customer-facing tasks, including service and sales, they are more likely to work in poor conditions compared to men. To make a living, they must go to work every day in crowded workplaces, risking getting infected. The Juice Delivery Woman also features several married deliverywomen forced to work without their laborers’ rights recognized. They are addressed as “madam,” even when they had to give up their careers over marriage and childbirth and now deliver vegetable juice to earn “side dish money” while their children are at school. Their struggle to secure customers no matter what it takes doesn’t seem unfamiliar; in their stories, we can see the woman who contracted coronavirus while working both call center and delivery jobs.

According to “Comparing Gender Poverty Rates Due to COVID-19,” a report in the August 2020 issue of the Monthly Labor Review, women accounted for 250,000 out of 410,000 employees who lost their jobs in the second quarter of 2020 (approximately 61 percent). A report from the Korea Development Institute (KDI) also suggested that many married women quit their jobs as schools closed and the burden of caring for children increased. Many of the “madams” in The Juice Delivery Woman were also careerwomen in the past, and some even made it into higher positions. However, it became nearly impossible for them to return to a “decent” position after marriage and childbirth; no matter how hard they tried, their efforts turned out to be meaningless struggles. Early on in their lives, the madams were already fulfilling their roles as wives, mothers, and daughters-in-law. The novel poignantly points out the reality that these women, even when addressed by the term used for those in higher social ranks, cannot expect proper treatment as laborers.

“So, my gosh, how could I have endured all that without alcohol, doctor?”

How a woman in her 30s became to depend on alcohol

Jungmin goes to a special clinic for alcohol dependence once a month. Her harrowing college experience where she struggled to pay her tuition, a male-dominated game company where sexual harassment happened all the time, her mother who treated her as a “bread-winning insurance” and spent Jungmin’s money to fund her brother’s wedding, rude customers who look down on her delivery job, and a company interview that felt sexist throughout—Jungmin has no time to look after herself but has more than enough reasons to drink her anger away. Her timid personality holds her back from expressing her opinions and makes her regret over and over. Since she has no other way to relieve her stress, alcohol eventually becomes her only haven and love that comforts her.

Unlike Jungmin, who is unable to express her emotions at the right moment, Minju, her best friend, is boisterous and rough-spoken. When Jungmin is distressed because of a customer who ran off without paying for the juice, Minju has her back and supports her as a problem-solver. She also stops a man who tries to drag Jungmin to a motel and reprimands him, rightfully so. Jungmin also musters up her courage and protects Minju when her friend gets stalked and threatened. The two friends support and cheer for each other’s happiness and gain the strength to keep going. The Juice Delivery Woman highlights the remarkable relationship between the two female characters. They confront the world that doubts the friendship between women; as long as they have each other, they are not alone and have nothing to fear. Can Jungmin overcome the temptation of alcohol and stand on her own?

“Those who force themselves to look away from their lives, saying,

‘My real life hasn’t begun yet’”

A sweet yet bitter consolation of a vegetable juice deliverywoman

For those with little joy but much sorrow!

Jungmin wants to become a cartoonist who draws about daily life, but she discourages herself, thinking that her insignificant life cannot become the topic of a cartoon. After all, who would want to read about a life where she cut ties with her family, lived in a moldy room covered with empty liquor bottles, and dealt with rude vegetable juice customers every morning? However, Joonhee, Jungmin’s other mysterious friend, tells her that an eventful life is meaningful in itself and full of stories that readers would be curious about. Jungmin isn’t a protagonist who leads a luxurious and peaceful life but who gets hurt and fails but stands back up again, which makes her all the more charming. Even though there may be pain and sadness, Jungmin accepts her life as is and fuels her creativity with such experiences, providing comfort and courage to the readers. She would probably write in the “Artist’s Note” in her upcoming comic book: “Even if my life is a kind where I break my nose even when I fall backward, it’s still my life!”

“I hope you aren’t the kind of person who runs away from her own life, Jungmin. While those people are running away, their lives have already begun. The study guide is your life, vegetable juice is your life, and drinking is also your life. Life is a cold-hearted bastard, and it doesn’t give you a grace period. Your life has begun a long time ago. You must accept that fact.” _excerpted from the book.