Sorrowtoothpaste Mirrorcream by Kim Hyesoon
Although “Gangnam Style” and North Korea’s nuclear threats have been replayed in our media, relatively little is known, outside of Asia, about Korean contemporary life. It's tempting, then, to look to a poet such as Kim Hyesoon as being representative of Korean history and of aspects of contemporary Korean culture. At first glance, even Kim’s preoccupation with gore appears to align with a distinctly Korean taste for blood and violence.
Years ago I led a seminar on Korean literature and wanted to show a film to the mostly non-Korean students. This was before South Korean cinema was fully established as the darling of film festival juries and adolescent boys everywhere, so I drove to my local Blockbuster and pulled out the only VHS cover I saw indicating electricity had found its way to Seoul. “This will give you a glimpse into modern South Korean life,” I announced to my class about 301, 302, which did indeed show Seoul as a First World consumerist dream housed within tall, concrete apartment buildings. It also showed one