Josun to Maritime Province of Siberia, from Siberia to Central Asia, the history of migration is the past.
While economic or political reasons cannot be considered one’s genuine will, forced migration was without any intervention of one’s choice.
Then the Soviet disappeared. On the traces of socialism, the new governments took place as independent countries.
Grandma and mom speak Koryo-mal, and dad longs for the motherland he’s never been to.
Korean drama series are huge hit, and some of the friends have gone to Korea looking for work and for university.
As a minority of Koryo Saram, he is a citizen but not of Korea, and the mother tongue is Russian.
He knows little of the language of the natives and learns English and Korean.
Living well blended. They know of ethnic discriminations but of no racial.
Must they leave, it would be with economic reasons and to live a good life.
She has farmed all her life. In this land.
Let’s dance and sing. The grandchildren live well in the city.
The fear in the forest of skyscrapers is similar to what I feel in this vast land.
Breathtakingly beautiful and painfully frightening.
The future here is what you build with your hands: Plowing fields, building houses, and digging a canal.
Survival is the future and the life of the children. The future is theirs.
Seoul seems to be a futuristic city.
Live today for there’s nothing certain tomorrow.
We are in a city. It doesn’t know what to dream of.
America, Japan, Korea, wherever it is, you want to live in a place where you can make money.
We can think about it once. About the future of those places.
Not knowing where the wind blows from and where the direction is headed, we may put our heads in many places and cross our thoughts on these and those people with us.
What is the plan for those who will be left and the things to leave?
How long will it last and how valid are the conditions of possibilities?
Tomorrow, right up on my nose; it is too busy.
- Soyung Lee, 2013