한국국제교류재단

On a hot Sunday evening in Seoul, Jeong-su leaves his home for a walk and a smoke. Everything seems normal until a mysterious black orb appears and begins to absorb people. Kicking and screaming they disappear into the pure black mass. Terror engulfs Seoul as the orb slowly and methodically stalks its residents, and fear heightens as the orb multiplies. Jeong-su hurries south to find his parents, but he soon finds himself fleeing for his life from the ever-growing menace of the orbs. Can he escape, or will he ultimately succumb to despair?

This is the peril facing our protagonist in Ewhan Kim’s The Black Orb, originally published in 2009 but only recently translated into English. Despite being well over a decade old, the book feels just as relevant as ever, almost as if it were a commentary on the COVID-19 pandemic. The similarities with zombie films will also be apparent to readers familiar with the genre. Just like zombies, the orbs are a seemingly mindless, inexorable horde intent on consuming the living. They too move slowly and can be outrun; their horror is in their numbers and the fact that, ultimately, the orbs are unstoppable. As in zombie films, once the crisis spreads and sheer panic ensues, the veneer of civility that we regard to be a hallmark of human society rapidly dissolves, leaving a desperate struggle for survival in which nobody matters but oneself. On a deeper level, the unreliability of media is another common theme in zombie films, and in The Black Orb as well the inability to deduce which sources of information can be trusted leads to widespread fear and suffering.

On the other hand, the orbs are quite different from zombies. They do not fall into the same chasm between human being and monster. And while a zombie apocalypse usually has an explanation such as a virus outbreak or supernatural activity, the orbs are a total mystery. They are utterly foreign and inexplicable in terms of logic and motivation. This makes them even more horrifying, but that allows them to better serve as a metaphor for the gnawing anxiety and despair of modern society, the feeling, as the author puts it, that we are “on the run from something, without ever knowing exactly what [we] are running from.”

The Black Orb is — like most good science fiction — a commentary on and criticism of society. As a book written by a Korean author and set in Korea, it naturally deals with certain aspects of Korean culture, such as the culture of mandatory military service and the toxic masculinity that it engenders in Korean society as a whole. But the questions it asks are ultimately addressed to all humanity. Whom do we believe in a crisis? Will we behave with integrity when everything starts falling apart? And what exactly is it that we are running from? With its surprising ending, The Black Orb will leave readers asking themselves these questions and more, as they re-examine their own values and their understanding of society.

Nani Park’s Hanok Today is the next step in the author’s journey of appreciation for hanok, traditional Korean houses. While her first book dealt with hanok as residential spaces, this book focuses on them as public or commercial spaces. The author’s insights into the houses, gleaned from visits and interviews with their owners, are beautifully illustrated by photographer Jongkeun Lee’s artistic architectural portraits. The hanok in this book cover a wide range of public and commercial uses, with holiday rentals or hotels, art galleries and events spaces, and bars and restaurants being the most common; interesting exceptions are the Swiss Embassy, a test kitchen, and an artist’s studio and showroom. The featured hanok include both renovations of traditional buildings and new builds, and they often fuse elements of traditional Korean architecture with Western influences.

What becomes apparent as we are taken through each of these buildings is that while hanok are an important part of Korean tradition they are not fossils stuck in the past. Instead, they evolve as living manifestations of the Korean spirit. Their owners often mention feeling a sense of “cultural responsibility” to tradition, but at the same time they strive to bring that tradition into the present. Hanok Today will open your eyes to new possibilities for old architecture.

The debut album Hail to the Music by Danpyunsun & The Moments Ensemble received Album of the Year at the Korean Music Awards this February. Established in 2004 and modeled after the Grammys, the Korean Music Awards is Korea’s most prestigious music prize, and this accolade signifies the highest recognition from the country’s most discerning music critics.

Danpyunsun (real name Park Jong-yoon), the leader of Danpyunsun & The Moments Ensemble, is a pivotal figure in 21st-century Korean indie music. A journalism and mass communication major at university, he also immersed himself in aesthetics and philosophy.

His stage name was inspired by his love for the short stories of Russian writer Anton Chekhov — a clue to the literary sensibility that pervades his music. In the early 2000s, Park was an active voice in Korea’s online music criticism circles. He released his first full-length solo album in 2012 and formed the four-member band Danpyunsun and the Sailors the following year. The group released two studio albums, widely described as “acoustic horror fantasy hard rock” for their avant-garde flair. After disbanding in 2017, Danpyunsun spent the next several years establishing himself as a singularly original producer.

Hail to the Music marks Danpyunsun’s return as a performing musician. It is also the first full-length album by his new band, Danpyunsun & The Moments Ensemble, formed with a group of diverse instrumentalists. Blending rock, jazz, and classical elements, this album seems to shift his artistic aim. Whereas his previous work could be described as a pursuit of distorted beauty, this album feels more like a search for beautiful distortion. The emphasis has subtly moved — from distortion as the first impression to beauty as the lasting impact. As a result, several tracks flow gently, even invitingly, almost reminiscent of ballads in their warmth.

Still, it would not be Danpyunsun without a healthy dose of defiance. Some tracks resist easy listening; they simmer with tension and unpredictability. The title track, “Hail to the Music,” is mostly instrumental, yet a spoken-word passage introduces an unexpected emotional surge midway. By inserting the impassioned speech of a labor activist, Danpyunsun delivers a stunning musical collage.