life now and the past

 

Today’s phone English topic with Nalee Douanvilay is “Life now and in the past.” What should I talk about? First, I’ll organize my thoughts in Korean, translate them with ChatGPT, and then tweak them to my liking. What an amazing world we live in.

 

I'll talk about life now and in the past, and about who I am today and who I was back then. There’s a famous phrase that often comes to mind when we think of history. Most people have probably heard it: Edward Hallet Carr once defined history as “an everlasting dialogue between the present and the past.” Not long ago, I came across another insight about history: “More important than historical facts is the historian who writes about them.” This, too, was said by E.H. Carr. That second insight resonates with me even more deeply.

 

Writing a book or leaving behind records a hundred years ago — let alone a thousand — was no small feat. And more than anything, reading something from a hundred years ago was an immense privilege, reserved for a rare few. According to a Japanese statistic from 1920, 86% of Korean men and 92% of women were illiterate. And this is also after Hangul education had already been introduced and nation wide spread. Before the 20th century, illiteracy rates probably reached 99%. In rural areas, outside big cities like Seoul or Busan, almost everyone would have been illiterate. Reading was a privilege for the very few, and writing was likely reserved for just 0.01% of the population.

 

Historical records mainly consist of royal diaries, administration, diplomacy, and military affairs. But I’m far more curious about the history that was never recorded. How did my grandfather’s grandfather meet my grandmother’s grandmother? At what age did they marry? How much did they love each other? What animals did they raise? What household item did they cherish most? I want to know about their details of daily lives.

In history, kings are always solemn, and ordinary people always live in poverty. Why is this portrayal so uniform? I believe movies and dramas play a huge role. Kings are always portrayed as tall, handsome, and eloquent in standard Korean. It’s all a kind of manipulation designed to please audiences and generate more profits. Even though we know this, we still fall in love with drama, our thoughts become uniformed, and history becomes distorted.

What about the reality? Even today, if you ride a motorcycle all day long, you’ll see nothing but mountains and fields before finally reaching the East Sea by evening. It's a vast distance. I can say for sure — the old days were truly a different world. I wonder: could someone from Jeolla province and someone from Hamgyeong province have communicated smoothly back then? When kings changed, or even dynasties changed, did the ordinary people even notice it? One question leads to another.

 

I live in an apartment. take a shower in hot water, drink coffee, listen to LP records, and drive to workplace. These days, while shaving in the morning, I often recall myself in the mid-1970s — 50 years ago. Back then, our house was in the mountains. We had no electricity — only kerosene lamps. There was no hot water, no boiler. We fetched water from a spring. It was cold, and we didn’t bathe often. Once we left the house, it was all unpaved dirt roads. Cars were rare. I rode a bus a few times a year. If the ride was longer than 30 minutes, I’d get carsick. I remember these broad strokes, but not the details. For example, I have no idea what I ate or where I went on the morning of April 15th, 1975. My past self is veiled in mist. That’s why some say, “The present recreates the past.”

On the other hand, I’m not curious about who I’ll be in the future. I’m not even curious whether I’ll be alive or dead in 30 years.

Fortunately, I’ve been keeping a diary for the past 45 years. I lost the diaries from 1980 to 1991 during a sudden move, but since 1992, I’ve carefully preserved 35 volumes on my bookshelf. Sometimes I open an old diary. I have a conversation between my past self and my present self. There’s a mysterious rhythm in it. What would my mid-50s self want to say to my 10-year-old self? This is what I’d say:

 

“Remember there is nothing in this world that can help you as much as your thoughts, and there is nothing in this world that can heal you as much as your thoughts.”