Ji Hyuck Moon, a writer who debuted with the short story “Chaser” in 2010, has published Korean for Beginners, his fourth novel, as part of Minumsa’s  “Young Writers of Today” series. Korean for Beginners is an autobiographical novel based on the author’s own experiences. The novel’s protagonist, Jihyeok Moon, teaches Korean in New York City while pursuing his dream of becoming an immigrant writer, who inevitably reminds readers of the real-life Ji Hyuck Moon, an instructor, translator, and novelist. According to the author, all novels are “revised autobiographies.” The result of “Saving As” a writer’s life under a different filename, a novel is both fiction and documentary in its own way. Korean for Beginners is another truth showcased by Moon and allows us to see the Korean language from a foreigner’s perspective and reflect on our own lives as Korean speakers from a distance. Consisting of 98 episodes based on a Korean for Beginners class, the novel is a story of a life that can’t be 100 percent full mark, a life that doesn’t always go according to plan as in the answer key.

Annyeong, saying hello in unfamiliar Korean

Annyeonghaseyo? What does this greeting exactly mean? A student asks in a Korean for Beginners classroom at a university in New York. Jihyeok Moon, the teacher, contemplates before writing on the blackboard: “Are you in peace?” As the class laughs heartily, the question of the two syllables—annyeong—persists. When we habitually reply to “I’m doing fine” when asked annyeonghaseyo, don’t we want to say nothing about our own well-being? Yet, aren’t we obsessed with each other’s “well-being (annyeong)” because it is precisely something we don’t have? Seeing the Korean language again in a foreign country in a foreign language leaves us with new questions. In the novel, protagonist Jihyeok reflects on his past, family, and dreams in Korean sentences that have become unfamiliar. The entire novel is organized like a textbook for beginners in Korean, and the story flows from basic Korean sentences to the protagonist’s narrative. He thinks about his name and the family who gave him the name in the unit for “asking a name” and contemplates the past and the present in “asking and answering about time.” What kind of time was that? How will the students remember this time? Those questions asked in Korean, which has become unfamiliar to him, are directed at all of us who speak and think in Korean.

Surviving as “me” in a foreign land

Korean for Beginners is a story of trying and failing. In the novel, Jihyeok Moon must somehow write a book because that’s what “his heart calls for.” But when he quits his good job to pursue the dream, the only comment he gets is an unhelpful piece of advice: “You’re too well-mannered to write a novel.” Once he gets hired as a Korean language instructor at a university in New York City, everything seems to be going well, but surviving in the global city of New York City proves not to be easy. When he witnesses protesters on Wall Street criticizing the economic system for the top 1 percent, Jihyeok, who couldn’t even make it into the rest of the 99 percent, thinks: “What about me, a (former) international student and a (current) foreign worker from the Third World, the far East Asia, a ‘non-resident alien’ as it says on my instructor’s ID card?” He feels like he’s moving closer to his dream of becoming an immigrant writer, but Jihyeok is still a nobody, and his position as an immigrant remains unstable. Korean for Beginners clearly recognizes such harsh reality and depicts the desire to pursue one’s dreams despite the situation. Jihyeok’s struggle will overlap with readers’ everyday lives and comfort them once they meet him, harboring unrealistic dreams despite the reality and when the dry but warm humor shines through the gap.

Support from MINUMSA Publishing Group.