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Modern Korean Literature #7
삼포 가는 길
Text in Korean.
- GenresClassics
First published January 1, 1983
1 person is currently reading
131 people want to read
About the author
Hwang Sok-yong
75 books336 followersHwang Sok-yong (황석영) was born in Hsinking (today Changchun), Manchukuo, during the period of Japanese rule. His family returned to Korea after liberation in 1945. He later obtained a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Dongguk University (동국대학교).
In 1964 he was jailed for political reasons and met labor activists. Upon his release he worked at a cigarette factory and at several construction sites around the country.
In 1966–1969 he was part of Korea's military corps during the Vietnam War, reluctantly fighting for the American cause that he saw as an attack on a liberation struggle.
In 1964 he was jailed for political reasons and met labor activists. Upon his release he worked at a cigarette factory and at several construction sites around the country.
In 1966–1969 he was part of Korea's military corps during the Vietnam War, reluctantly fighting for the American cause that he saw as an attack on a liberation struggle.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
October 5, 2025
Watch my review on YouTube here - https://youtu.be/wUTEs-EPZ-k?si=7s0Nx...
Read my review on Substack here - https://open.substack.com/pub/barrywe...
Read my review on Substack here - https://open.substack.com/pub/barrywe...
June 2, 2019
In this short story we meet our protagonists, two laid off construction workers Yong-dal and Chong as they retreat home to Chong's home on the Isle of Sampo after a long stint working away.
However 'home' no longer remains as it was left. The lush landscape and farming/fishing village is now bustling with construction as diggers, bulldozers and trucks full of stones all move around working to form a hotel complex and tourist attraction. A dike has been built to the sea and the usual mode of transport the ferry is now replaced by a new road over the sea which connects to the mainland, people are everywhere and a market is now trading. Yong-dal see's the positive and thinks of the work opportunity in front of him but Chong had lost his definitive objective, his hearts home.
A thought provoking tale about what keeps us grounded or make us fly!.
However 'home' no longer remains as it was left. The lush landscape and farming/fishing village is now bustling with construction as diggers, bulldozers and trucks full of stones all move around working to form a hotel complex and tourist attraction. A dike has been built to the sea and the usual mode of transport the ferry is now replaced by a new road over the sea which connects to the mainland, people are everywhere and a market is now trading. Yong-dal see's the positive and thinks of the work opportunity in front of him but Chong had lost his definitive objective, his hearts home.
A thought provoking tale about what keeps us grounded or make us fly!.
December 1, 2018
Nov. 30
125. Hwang Sok-yong, The Road to Sampo [1973] 118 pages
A short story rather than a novel (since it is a bilingual edition, the English text is probably no more than sixty pages even including the afterword and biography of the author), The Road to Sampo follows the travels of two laid-off construction workers, Yŏng-dal and Chŏng, to the home of Chŏng on the island of Sampo, which he has not seen for over ten years. Along the way they meet Paek-hwa, a runaway prostitute also trying to get to her home. In the end, it turns out that "home" no longer exists; the former fishing and farming village of Sampo has been connected to the mainland and has become a construction site for a hotel and tourism complex. The reader of course has suspected something like this all along; the story has no surprises or real plot, just a very powerful depiction of the life of Korean day laborers. (Hwang himself was a construction worker in his twenties, and later, after a stint in the military fighting in Vietnam, he returned to be a factory worker; after a while he became known as an author, and an activist in the workers', peasants', democracy and reunification movements, who eventually spent many years in exile and prison.)
125. Hwang Sok-yong, The Road to Sampo [1973] 118 pages
A short story rather than a novel (since it is a bilingual edition, the English text is probably no more than sixty pages even including the afterword and biography of the author), The Road to Sampo follows the travels of two laid-off construction workers, Yŏng-dal and Chŏng, to the home of Chŏng on the island of Sampo, which he has not seen for over ten years. Along the way they meet Paek-hwa, a runaway prostitute also trying to get to her home. In the end, it turns out that "home" no longer exists; the former fishing and farming village of Sampo has been connected to the mainland and has become a construction site for a hotel and tourism complex. The reader of course has suspected something like this all along; the story has no surprises or real plot, just a very powerful depiction of the life of Korean day laborers. (Hwang himself was a construction worker in his twenties, and later, after a stint in the military fighting in Vietnam, he returned to be a factory worker; after a while he became known as an author, and an activist in the workers', peasants', democracy and reunification movements, who eventually spent many years in exile and prison.)
January 24, 2017
I read the English/bilingual version of this book. There were a few mistranslations but I really enjoyed it. I think a person has to have some idea of Korean culture and history to have a better understanding of this short story. It's more about the characters and their environment instead of action or surface level explanation.
January 6, 2024
Une littérature de cicatrices 🇰🇷
Auteur engagé incontournable en Corée, emprisonné pour ses idées politiques, Hwang Sok-yong lutte contre la dictature et pour la réconciliation des deux Corée. Sa littérature, prolongement de son engagement, témoigne du déchirement dont son pays est marqué et des conditions de vie des plus pauvres.
Son recueil La route de Sampo comprend 4 nouvelles se complétant les unes aux autres, pour former un portrait plus large de la société coréenne de la dernière moitié du 20ème siècle. Un enfant, un soldat, un gigolo, un travailleur vagabond… A travers ces voix, d’une écriture limpide et sans commentaire, Hwang Sok-yong raconte des souvenirs d’enfance, le retour à la vie après la guerre du Vietnam ou encore les bouleversements de l’industrialisation. L’histoire rencontre l’Histoire.
De ce point de vue, en tant que novice, ces nouvelles étaient intéressantes, même si j’ai fermé ce recueil en me disant qu’elles ne m’avaient pas non plus énormément marquée. Pourtant, en écrivant cette revue quelques semaines après avoir terminé ma lecture, je me rends compte que son travail est une belle porte d’entrée pour en savoir plus sur ce pays déchiré. Je ne peux que remercier @yelenskaa qui m'a offert ce livre. J'ai même envie de lire d’autres titres de l’auteur, comme « Princesse Bari », une histoire d’exil sur une jeune femme aux dons de voyance qui fuit la Corée du nord.
Après ma lecture de Pachinko, de quelques articles et de ce recueil de nouvelles, l'expression « littérature de cicatrices », que j’emprunte à Céline Ters, s’impose à moi comme la plus adaptée pour décrire ce pan de la littérature coréenne.
Auteur engagé incontournable en Corée, emprisonné pour ses idées politiques, Hwang Sok-yong lutte contre la dictature et pour la réconciliation des deux Corée. Sa littérature, prolongement de son engagement, témoigne du déchirement dont son pays est marqué et des conditions de vie des plus pauvres.
Son recueil La route de Sampo comprend 4 nouvelles se complétant les unes aux autres, pour former un portrait plus large de la société coréenne de la dernière moitié du 20ème siècle. Un enfant, un soldat, un gigolo, un travailleur vagabond… A travers ces voix, d’une écriture limpide et sans commentaire, Hwang Sok-yong raconte des souvenirs d’enfance, le retour à la vie après la guerre du Vietnam ou encore les bouleversements de l’industrialisation. L’histoire rencontre l’Histoire.
De ce point de vue, en tant que novice, ces nouvelles étaient intéressantes, même si j’ai fermé ce recueil en me disant qu’elles ne m’avaient pas non plus énormément marquée. Pourtant, en écrivant cette revue quelques semaines après avoir terminé ma lecture, je me rends compte que son travail est une belle porte d’entrée pour en savoir plus sur ce pays déchiré. Je ne peux que remercier @yelenskaa qui m'a offert ce livre. J'ai même envie de lire d’autres titres de l’auteur, comme « Princesse Bari », une histoire d’exil sur une jeune femme aux dons de voyance qui fuit la Corée du nord.
Après ma lecture de Pachinko, de quelques articles et de ce recueil de nouvelles, l'expression « littérature de cicatrices », que j’emprunte à Céline Ters, s’impose à moi comme la plus adaptée pour décrire ce pan de la littérature coréenne.
August 3, 2016
"삼포 가는 길" / "The Road to Sampo" by 황석영 (Hwang Sok-yong) is Volume 7 in the Asia Publishers bilingual series of Modern Korean short stories.
For my general comments on the series see https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...?.
This story has been translated by Kim U-chang, and the afterword comes from the novelist Bang Hyun-soek.
Hwang Sok-yong is perhaps the most famous of all living Korean novelists, and I have previously read his novels The Guest, The Old Garden with Princess Bari on my TBR pile. This is reflected in the author's biography in this edition which is particularly extensive and helpful, showing how his work has evolved with his life.
Hwang is known not just as an author, with a prolific highly varied output, but as a political activist, anti imperialist and pro labour rights, Korean re-unification and democracy, even spending 5 years in prison (1993-1998) after an illegal visit to the North and a period of exile.
This particular story was written in 1973 while working as a factory worker and serving on the Planning Committee of a trade union, and focuses on the lives of transient construction workers during the period when Korea was transitioning from an agricultural to an industrial economy.
The main character 노영달 (No Yeong-dal *), is one such worker and the bleak life such workers faced in the cold Korean winters is established from the first, atmospheric, lines;
"Yeong-dal stopped in order to try to decide which road to take. The cold winter wind was especially sharp at the break of day. As the sun rose across the scraggy fields, the frozen streams and puddles, lying about here and there, threw back glints of sunlight. The wind blowing from afar passed overhead, cutting through the air above him. The bare trees standing in clumps at the edge of the plotted fields shook in the wind.
The construction season was drawing near to an end. Winter was not far off. The construction would come to a stop only to resume in the spring. He would have to leave."
As he leaves, covertly as he leaves his bar debts behind, he encounters Mr. Jeong (he never shares his given name), another, slightly older, worker. "He came across this man of about thirty years of age several times at the construction site, on the village roads, and in the taverns."
Jeong plans to make the lengthy journey ("several hundred li, that is to the sea coast, and then we have to take a boat") back, after ten years, to his home town ("고향" - a term that has more cultural resonance in Korea than in the West), the small southern island of Sampo (a fictional place) with just ten houses.
And with nowhere particular to go Yeong-dal joins him, although he is curious why Jeong is making the journey now:
"그냥 ....... 나이 드니까, 가 보고 싶어서."
"For no particular reason (+). As I'm getting old, I just feel like visiting it."
(+ The Korean word 그냥 is one of my favourites and encapsulates "for no particular reason" much better than any English equivalent, of which "just because..." is perhaps the closest).
The previous winter Yeong-dal had shacked up with a barmaid, and although they had to go their separate ways "we promised to each other that we'd come together as soon as we could make some money", but, he adds sadly but realistically, "what is a promise to people like us."
On the road to Sampo, they find Baek-hwa, a 22 year-old barmaid, having left home at 18, who also sells her body to the customers and GIs ("I've let more than a military division of men pass over my belly"). Baek-hwa is herself running away from an even larger debt (50,000 Won). Indeed the landlady of the tavern at which she worked had offered them 10,000 Won if they find Baek-hwa and bring her back, which Yeong-dal, to Jeong's amusement, initially tries to facilitate, before Baek-hwa rapidly makes it clear that "if you think you can sell me off to that fatso for some snotty pay, however, we'll die together, you and me."
Baek-hwa (her working name, "I never tell my real name to anybody") also says she is returning to her home, which is on the road to Sampo. She admits that girls like her "think every night that we will go home first thing in the morning, but that's only what we think at night
...
[but] there are times when we really make up our minds and head home. Twice I almost made my way home. Once I looked at the village elders from afar."
So the three journey on together, each carrying the tools of the trade on their back, the men their hammers and nails, and Baek-hwa "a couple of old slips, panties, lipstick powder and what not."
As they travel, Yeong-dal's underlying decency shines through and his friendship with Baek-hwa deepens to the extent that she invites him to come with her to her home village. He is tempted to go and try to settle down with the girl but realises "I don't have anything to settle down with." They separate but at the moment of parting:
"She turned round and came back. Tears still in her eyes, she was smiling. 'My real name is', she said to the two men standing, 'not Baek-hwa but Jeomrye, Yi Jeomrye. I wanted to tell you that."
The two men prepare to take the train to where the ferry departs for Sampo. Only to be told that in the ten years since Jeong left the construction boom has reached Sampo. A dyke has been built and filled with rocks to make it part of the mainland and the small village is "full of construction workers ... They say they're going to build some tourist hotels."
Yeong-dal reacts "that's all the better, we will get work at the construction sites."
But "Jeong did not feel like going. He had just lost his heart's home."
A relatively simple although highly atmospheric as well as humorous story, which explores, in an unromantised fashion, the lives of the workers on which the South Korean industrial and construction boom was built.
(* I've reverted to my, and the Korean government, preferred Romanization for names rather than that used in the book)
For my general comments on the series see https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...?.
This story has been translated by Kim U-chang, and the afterword comes from the novelist Bang Hyun-soek.
Hwang Sok-yong is perhaps the most famous of all living Korean novelists, and I have previously read his novels The Guest, The Old Garden with Princess Bari on my TBR pile. This is reflected in the author's biography in this edition which is particularly extensive and helpful, showing how his work has evolved with his life.
Hwang is known not just as an author, with a prolific highly varied output, but as a political activist, anti imperialist and pro labour rights, Korean re-unification and democracy, even spending 5 years in prison (1993-1998) after an illegal visit to the North and a period of exile.
This particular story was written in 1973 while working as a factory worker and serving on the Planning Committee of a trade union, and focuses on the lives of transient construction workers during the period when Korea was transitioning from an agricultural to an industrial economy.
The main character 노영달 (No Yeong-dal *), is one such worker and the bleak life such workers faced in the cold Korean winters is established from the first, atmospheric, lines;
"Yeong-dal stopped in order to try to decide which road to take. The cold winter wind was especially sharp at the break of day. As the sun rose across the scraggy fields, the frozen streams and puddles, lying about here and there, threw back glints of sunlight. The wind blowing from afar passed overhead, cutting through the air above him. The bare trees standing in clumps at the edge of the plotted fields shook in the wind.
The construction season was drawing near to an end. Winter was not far off. The construction would come to a stop only to resume in the spring. He would have to leave."
As he leaves, covertly as he leaves his bar debts behind, he encounters Mr. Jeong (he never shares his given name), another, slightly older, worker. "He came across this man of about thirty years of age several times at the construction site, on the village roads, and in the taverns."
Jeong plans to make the lengthy journey ("several hundred li, that is to the sea coast, and then we have to take a boat") back, after ten years, to his home town ("고향" - a term that has more cultural resonance in Korea than in the West), the small southern island of Sampo (a fictional place) with just ten houses.
And with nowhere particular to go Yeong-dal joins him, although he is curious why Jeong is making the journey now:
"그냥 ....... 나이 드니까, 가 보고 싶어서."
"For no particular reason (+). As I'm getting old, I just feel like visiting it."
(+ The Korean word 그냥 is one of my favourites and encapsulates "for no particular reason" much better than any English equivalent, of which "just because..." is perhaps the closest).
The previous winter Yeong-dal had shacked up with a barmaid, and although they had to go their separate ways "we promised to each other that we'd come together as soon as we could make some money", but, he adds sadly but realistically, "what is a promise to people like us."
On the road to Sampo, they find Baek-hwa, a 22 year-old barmaid, having left home at 18, who also sells her body to the customers and GIs ("I've let more than a military division of men pass over my belly"). Baek-hwa is herself running away from an even larger debt (50,000 Won). Indeed the landlady of the tavern at which she worked had offered them 10,000 Won if they find Baek-hwa and bring her back, which Yeong-dal, to Jeong's amusement, initially tries to facilitate, before Baek-hwa rapidly makes it clear that "if you think you can sell me off to that fatso for some snotty pay, however, we'll die together, you and me."
Baek-hwa (her working name, "I never tell my real name to anybody") also says she is returning to her home, which is on the road to Sampo. She admits that girls like her "think every night that we will go home first thing in the morning, but that's only what we think at night
...
[but] there are times when we really make up our minds and head home. Twice I almost made my way home. Once I looked at the village elders from afar."
So the three journey on together, each carrying the tools of the trade on their back, the men their hammers and nails, and Baek-hwa "a couple of old slips, panties, lipstick powder and what not."
As they travel, Yeong-dal's underlying decency shines through and his friendship with Baek-hwa deepens to the extent that she invites him to come with her to her home village. He is tempted to go and try to settle down with the girl but realises "I don't have anything to settle down with." They separate but at the moment of parting:
"She turned round and came back. Tears still in her eyes, she was smiling. 'My real name is', she said to the two men standing, 'not Baek-hwa but Jeomrye, Yi Jeomrye. I wanted to tell you that."
The two men prepare to take the train to where the ferry departs for Sampo. Only to be told that in the ten years since Jeong left the construction boom has reached Sampo. A dyke has been built and filled with rocks to make it part of the mainland and the small village is "full of construction workers ... They say they're going to build some tourist hotels."
Yeong-dal reacts "that's all the better, we will get work at the construction sites."
But "Jeong did not feel like going. He had just lost his heart's home."
A relatively simple although highly atmospheric as well as humorous story, which explores, in an unromantised fashion, the lives of the workers on which the South Korean industrial and construction boom was built.
(* I've reverted to my, and the Korean government, preferred Romanization for names rather than that used in the book)
October 16, 2021
3,5/5*
Pas exceptionnel, mais une bonne lecture. Style réaliste. Inspirations de la vie de l'auteur pour ces nouvelles. Des nouvelles qui montrent les changements et bouleversements qui ont eu lieu en Corée dans la deuxième moitié du 20e siècle.
Pas exceptionnel, mais une bonne lecture. Style réaliste. Inspirations de la vie de l'auteur pour ces nouvelles. Des nouvelles qui montrent les changements et bouleversements qui ont eu lieu en Corée dans la deuxième moitié du 20e siècle.
August 29, 2022
A very atmospheric short story, taking place during the early 70s, when farmers were being uprooted for factory/construction work, but the work itself was sporadic and seasonal. I liked all three characters, although the main protagonist (Yong-dal) was a bit of a mystery to me.
And someone mentioned they made this into a movie? I'd love to see that.
And someone mentioned they made this into a movie? I'd love to see that.
February 27, 2024
La route de Sampo
est un court recueil de nouvelles au travers desquelles on découvre un tableau de la Corée au 20ᵉ siècle. C'était différent de ce à quoi je m'attendais et j'ai bien aimé ma lecture.
- Herbes folles
Histoire assez touchante de la guerre du point de vue d'un enfant, avec son insouciance et sa naïveté. Les descriptions de la ville étaient vraiment prenantes
- Œils-de-biche
Un peu perplexe par cette nouvelle, mais malgré son côté glauque j'ai bien aimé la façon dont l'auteur décrit les villes et ses atmosphères ainsi que les différentes opinions de la guerre du Vietnam.
- Les ambitions d'un champion de ssireum
Normalement j'ai du mal avec ce genre de nouvelle mais là je ne sais pas j'ai quand même bien aimé, peut-être grâce au côté comique même si je ne sais pas quoi penser de la fin
Et encore une fois je trouve qu'hwang sok yong est doué pour les descriptions, il y a un côté un peu cinématographique du coup j'ai hâte de voir l'adaptation de La route de Sampo
- La route de Sampo
Deux ouvriers décident de rejoindre Sampo, l'île natale d'un des hommes et en chemin ils rencontrent une prostituée en fuite. Je pense que j'en attendais plus de cette histoire et des personnages, même si la fin reste satisfaisante et leur correspond.
- Herbes folles
Histoire assez touchante de la guerre du point de vue d'un enfant, avec son insouciance et sa naïveté. Les descriptions de la ville étaient vraiment prenantes
- Œils-de-biche
Un peu perplexe par cette nouvelle, mais malgré son côté glauque j'ai bien aimé la façon dont l'auteur décrit les villes et ses atmosphères ainsi que les différentes opinions de la guerre du Vietnam.
- Les ambitions d'un champion de ssireum
Normalement j'ai du mal avec ce genre de nouvelle mais là je ne sais pas j'ai quand même bien aimé, peut-être grâce au côté comique même si je ne sais pas quoi penser de la fin
Et encore une fois je trouve qu'hwang sok yong est doué pour les descriptions, il y a un côté un peu cinématographique du coup j'ai hâte de voir l'adaptation de La route de Sampo
- La route de Sampo
Deux ouvriers décident de rejoindre Sampo, l'île natale d'un des hommes et en chemin ils rencontrent une prostituée en fuite. Je pense que j'en attendais plus de cette histoire et des personnages, même si la fin reste satisfaisante et leur correspond.
July 9, 2024
Ce sont quatre nouvelles intéressantes que nous offre Hwang Sok-yong dans ce recueil en mettant en scène des gens du peuple — ou devrais-je dire hommes du peuple — qui essaient tant bien que mal de (sur)vivre. On ressent fortement la nostalgie qui les caractérise, surtout lorsqu’ils endossent également le rôle de narrateur, mais aussi leur détermination à continuer malgré les difficultés qu’ils rencontrent. À ce sujet, on retrouve dans cet ouvrage ces descriptions frappantes que j’aime tant dans l’œuvre de Hwang : là encore, elles gravent dans notre cerveau des images terribles de la guerre et de la misère.
Par ailleurs, j’ai bien aimé les quelques points communs entre les différents récits qui nous donnent l’impression que certains protagonistes se sont peut-être croisés d’une nouvelle à l’autre. Si je devais en choisir une favorite, ce serait probablement la dernière, celle qui prête son nom à l’anthologie. Elle est empreinte d’une certaine sensibilité qui m’a plu.
Par ailleurs, j’ai bien aimé les quelques points communs entre les différents récits qui nous donnent l’impression que certains protagonistes se sont peut-être croisés d’une nouvelle à l’autre. Si je devais en choisir une favorite, ce serait probablement la dernière, celle qui prête son nom à l’anthologie. Elle est empreinte d’une certaine sensibilité qui m’a plu.
April 26, 2022
Read for my Intro to Modern Korean Literature class. An absolutely iconic text with an even more iconic movie remake. I didn't even realize this was written by /the/ Hwang sok-young himself. Loved the characterization, and I really loved Baek-hwa. A very heartfelt story.
July 20, 2016
7/10 <3
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews