Koffee & Kpop

After several false starts, I finally put my head down and plowed through The Rainfall Market by You Yeong-Gwang.

If you’re a fan of the “healing fiction” genre, you’ll probably love this book. It’s a quick, cute, comforting read that the publishers knew would bring in revenue, as it was given both a Korean and English edition upon publication. I don’t know of any other debut novel from a non-celebrity that has been given an English edition upon initial publication. (Is this due to the popularity of “healing fiction” or the Korean Wave or a mixture of both?)

Clearly, healing fiction sells. Call it “pop-literature” if you will, it’s certainly dominating shelves all around the world. For many, these kinds of stories are a source of comfort in our tumultuous world.

And yet, the weirdo I am, I find myself gravitating more towards speculative- and science-fiction than anything resembling healing fiction. I can smell healing fiction from a kilometer away–is that a whiff of a freshly iced buttercream cupcake? Is that the slightly musty smell of a page being turned in a book that hasn’t been opened for at least fifty years? Did you just draw a heart in the condensation from the vapor of your cafe latte hitting the rain chilled window?

And who the hell let in this talking cat?

The premise of The Rainfall Market is simple: write a letter to the dokkaebi (“goblin” in Korean) about your troubles and if your life story is chosen, you’ll receive a ticket to the Rainfall Market. Show up on the first day of the rainy season, enter the market, browse the shops (each managed by a different dokkaebi), and choose your new life!

This book is marketed as a “Koreanized” version of healing fiction. However, I found that a bit of a stretch, as the Korean aspect of this novel was rather flimsy. The aspects of the story that center it in modern day Korea–such as the protagonist’s school uniform (that she has to purchase second hand), the fact that she lives in an area scheduled for demolition but her family (which consists of her and her single mother) can’t afford to move out, her being the only student who doesn’t immediately go to specialized academies after the regular school day is finished–are rendered so small that you have to search for them and be somewhat familiar with modern Korean culture to grasp the complexities they add to the book. (For example, while going to after-school academies is not common in the US, according to various sources around the internet, approximately 75-80% of grade school aged children attend at least one academy during the week. Academies range from subjects like math and English, to jump rope, piano, or taekwondo. Many of my students, starting at age 6, would attend several academies everyday, sometimes being away from home from the early morning until late evening.)

One could easily swap out the “Koreanized” bits and still have the same story, whereas I would much rather have read a story where the aspects of modern Korean culture were more interwoven into the plot. Although going light on the “Koreanized” aspects of this book were probably to appeal to an international reader, it really felt like a disservice to the core premise of the book and the author’s experiences as a Korean, let alone a Korean writer.

The dokkaebi, for example, had so much potential as characters but they all ended up paper-thin caricatures, with only one or two characteristics distinguishing themselves from each other. (I often found myself turning to the front of the book where the main characters were drawn and given blurbs, to remind myself who was who.)

The different lives that the protagonist is able to view, with the help of a magical, shape-shifting cat, all inevitably end the same way–oh, you really wanted to get in a good university? Good luck paying back those loans when you can’t get a good job after graduating. Oh, you want to run your own business? Good luck watching it fail. As adults, we get it–the grass on the other side isn’t greener. It’s goddamn astroturf.

Maybe it’s because I’m an elementary school teacher constantly on the prowl to add more fun, interesting English books to her classroom, but while reading this novel, I frequently wondered if it would have been better off being a YA novel.

Its easy-to-understand writing style, uncomplicated plot, the humorous aspects of the dokkaebi’s personalities (one of them picks his nose so much it actually bleeds, not unlike a few of my students), to the very fact that the protagonist is a middle schooler are all signs that this book would have shined as a YA novel. The main characters being drawn in the front of the book is another thing that would have felt less out-of-place in a YA novel.

The lessons here aren’t ones that adults need to hear. We know that there is nothing other than the life we have now, and we need to either accept it or learn to change it. The lessons here are what young students need to hear.

The Korean education system is intense and while Korean students continue to excel academically, they often lack in other areas, such as peer relationships. (You can read an article about that here.) The pressure on them to become the Best of the Best, to go to a SKY university (an umbrella term for what is considered to be the top three most prestigious universities in Korea: Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University), to earn lots of money, is intense, and many of them are going to fail those expectations, despite how intelligent and dedicated and diligent they are.

In the Rainfall Market, if you’re chosen to receive a ticket in exchange for your sorrows, you may choose any life you wish. It comes in the form of a magical, glowing orb–a symbol of promise, of happiness, of a different, and hopefully better, life.

You Yeong-Gwang’s book exists as a physical object that proves that you can achieve your dreams in Korea between delivering orders of fried chicken. What was most disappointing for me was that The Rainfall Market was not written as a YA novel, because I think the lessons in the book are more needed for them than for any adult.

You Yeong-Gwang’s second book, titled “The Wishseekers” in English, is marketed as a YA novel, according to the Korea Herald. I do not know if there will be an English translation.