The Camellia
동백꽃
김유정 · Korean
A tenant farmer's son cannot understand why the landlord's daughter keeps tormenting him, and the reader can.
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Pagera Editor's Note
A tenant farmer's son cannot understand why the landlord's daughter keeps tormenting him, and the reader can. She thrusts roasted potatoes at him, sets her rooster on his, and he responds with the exact wrong move every time. Kim Yu-jeong's 1936 story runs on the gap between what the narrator sees and what is plainly happening, and it ends among the yellow camellias of a Gangwon hillside.
Author
김유정
Kim Yu-jeong (1908-1937) was a Korean novelist who wrote about the rural poor of Gangwon Province in a comic voice that never condescends. Spring, Spring and The Camellias are told by narrators slower than the reader, and the humour rarely hides how little the characters have. He died of tuberculosis at twenty-nine.
The Camellia
동백꽃
김유정 · Korean
A tenant farmer's son cannot understand why the landlord's daughter keeps tormenting him, and the reader can.
First paragraph preview
Original (Korean)
오늘도 또 우리 수탉이 막 쫓기었다. 내가 점심을 먹고 나무를 하러 갈 양으로 나올 때이었다. 산으로 올라서려니까 등뒤에서 푸드득푸드득, 하고 닭의 횃소리가 야단이다. 깜짝 놀라서 고개를 돌려보니 아니나다르랴, 두 놈이 또 얼리었다. 점순네 수탉(은 대강이가 크고 똑 오소리같이 실팍하게 생긴 놈)이 덩저리 작은 우리 수탉을 함부로 해내는 것이다. 그것도 그냥 해내는 것이 아니라 푸드득하고 면두를 쪼고 물러섰다가 좀 사이를 두고 푸드득하고 모가지를 쪼았다. 이렇게 멋을 부려 가며 여지없이 닦아 놓는다. 그러면 이 못생긴 것은 쪼일 적마다 주둥이로 땅을 받으며 그 비명이 킥, 킥, 할 뿐이다. 물론 미처 아물지도 않은 면두를 또 쪼이며 붉은 선혈은 뚝뚝 떨어진다.
English translation (Pagera AI)
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Pagera Editor's Note
A tenant farmer's son cannot understand why the landlord's daughter keeps tormenting him, and the reader can. She thrusts roasted potatoes at him, sets her rooster on his, and he responds with the exact wrong move every time. Kim Yu-jeong's 1936 story runs on the gap between what the narrator sees and what is plainly happening, and it ends among the yellow camellias of a Gangwon hillside.
Author
김유정
Kim Yu-jeong (1908-1937) was a Korean novelist who wrote about the rural poor of Gangwon Province in a comic voice that never condescends. Spring, Spring and The Camellias are told by narrators slower than the reader, and the humour rarely hides how little the characters have. He died of tuberculosis at twenty-nine.
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