Sometimes you come across a friend in an unexpected place. To me it happened on April 1st of 2010. At the time the Memorial Festival for the 100th Birth Year of Literary Men was held under the title of ‘Experiment and Challenge, an Abyss of the Colony’ and I was the chief director of the Literary Night, one of the programs. I vividly remember finishing the symposium in the International Conference Room on the 20th floorof the Seoul Shinmun Press Center in Kwanghwamun, moving to the hall of the Seoul Jungbu Woman’s Development Center and enjoying various programs such as talks with the writer’s family, recitals, plays, dance performances, music and so forth.
The reason why I cannot easily forget is because among the writers whose 100th birth year were celebrated in that year was Pi Cheon-deuk, an English literature scholar, poet, essayist, and most importantly, my favorite writer. I prepared for the Literary Night for poets Yi Sang, Ahn Mak, Ahn Ham-kwang, Lee Book-myung, Lee Chan, Heo Jun, the intellectuals and writers who passed through the Japanese colonial era in their own ways but I did my utmost especially because the name Pi Cheon-deuk was there on the list. It has been long since I have taken pride and pleasure in staging my beloved writers’ plays.
I set the concept of the Literary Night as ‘The Stories Told by the Junior Writers’ but I could not set the reciter for Pi Cheon-deuk’s work even on the day before the D-day. The representative of the writers’ family members was Pi Su-young who is his son and a reputed pediatrician. Dr. Pi said he already had someone in mind to ask to recite but was not sure of her attending due to her shifting schedule - it turned out to be actress Youn Yuhjung. I found out that Dr. Pi and Youn Yuh-jung had been close friends for a long time. Writer Ha Sungran, known as a popular MC for various literary events and also having connections with Dr. Pi was in charge of the Literary Night too, so I might say that many experts from many fields were gathered together.
It clearly remains in my memories: her slender figure appearing on the stage at the small hall and reciting calmly in a low voice Pi Cheondeuk’s <Essay> which starts with the sentence, “Essay is like a celadon ink container” after Dr. Pi’s reminiscence of his father. Ah, how strange and marvelous to see the scene! It gave a great impression and moved the readers and audience even without exaggeration or flourish but in a simple and plain tone. The people who gathered and could experience her recital performed cleanly and ringingly were lucky and too blessed. And I discovered another ‘Youn Yuh-jung’ there - not only as an actress but as a reciter.
I have planned and directed various international festivals for writers, liberal arts concerts, or other literary performances small and grand and seen representative actors of the time reciting poems, novels, children’s stories or plays but it was the first time hearing one leading the audience in a calm and soft tone, attracting them with a ‘power of stillness,’ and at last leaving a cool impact on them. Her soliloquy-like recitation left a louder and deeper lingering sound than any other rhetoric or shouting.
I already knew from the media that she liked poet Ma Jong-gi’s works and had a profound knowledge of literature and art (her major in college was Korean literature!) but from that day on Youn Yuh-jung took her position as the most literary actress in my heart. Youn Yuh-jung is most likely remembered as a femme fatale and director Kim Ki-young’s persona playing impressive roles in the movies like <Woman of Fire> and <The Insect Woman> to those related to filmmaking but to me she showed a little different image of the typical Korean mother in the dramas of Kim Su-hyun and No Hee-kyung. The two drama writers differ from one another in style but it is natural to think that they are the most literary drama writers from this point of view.
We may see the literary actress Youn Yuh-jung’s school life in the movie, <Springtime>(2004). Produced by director Ryu Jang-ha who died in 2019, she played the mother of Hyun-woo, the protagonist played by Choi Min-sik. The movie was autobiographical so his real mother must have been the model; Youn Yuh-jung, the mother in the movie, recollecting her past when lying down to sleep and asked by her son, “What was your dream when you were a girl?”, confessed : “Me? When I was in school I was good at writing so I wanted to be a poet or a novelist.” They say that she played the typical Korean mother for the first time in the movie <Canola>(2016) but I think Hyun-woo’s mother was the first role where she played the typical Korean mother who embraced the unsuccessful son softly and warmly in the movie <Springtime>, unlike the other unique and independent mothers she had played.
Director Ryu Jang-ha strongly recommended Youn Yuh-jung sunsaengnim for a role of mother when film directors were chosen to direct plays. In the winter of 2009 the four representative film directors Ryu Jang-ha, Heo Jin-ho, Jang Hangjun and Kim Tae-yong came together to direct plays instead of films, under the title ‘Directors Have Come to the Stage’. And when I took part in writing the play along with my junior writer I recommended Youn Yuh-jung sunsaengnim and Kim Hye-ja sunsaengnim. In the process I could peep at the film directors looking up to the actress Youn Yuh-jung even with a sort of awe, not only with faith and trust, although she did not end up in being cast and other actresses like Oh Mi-yun and Yeh Soo-jung played the mothers who performed with Kim Sang-kyung and Kim Sung-soo respectively as their sons in the play titled <Mom, a Trip with Me?>
On celebrating the 100th birth year of Korean movies, Cultura set a questionnaire on the actresses most representative of the 20th and 21st centuries. I selected Jeon Do-yeon and Kim Minhee for the 21st centuries like most other repliers but I designated Kim Hye-ja and Youn Yuh-jung for the 20th centuries, unlike others' expectations. It was not because film stars like Choi Eun-hee, Kim Ji-mee, Youn Jung-hee, Jang Mi-hee, or Kang Sooyeon who took the lead and dominated the time are not greater than them, but because I marveled that they had debuted in their 20s and have continued their careers in the field till now as the century changed and they are becoming old. They prove the very common truth of the phrase frequently spoken for a while, ‘Life does not end till it ends’ with their very existence itself.
In the interview right after the Academy Awards ceremony Youn Yuh-jung sunsaengnim left the words with her own unique wit and humor, “I don’t like the top. Can’t we all live in the middle?”, which may be listed in her analects. And she continued to say she wanted to live in a society where we share things together then asked Han Ye-ri sitting next to her, “Then am I to be a socialist or something?” and laughed over it. I believe that her humor had a ‘simple sincerity’ containing her values and view of life she had obtained in this patriarchal, Confucianist system of Korea raising two children as a single mom, not dispirited and unyielding.
I have just entered my fifties. Now I follow her example and brace myself to work hard in the field, consistently and fiercely till the end of my life. I hope I will burn to live with a challenging and learning spirit for something new and creative, like Youn Yuh-jung sunsaengnim, unceasingly every moment for the rest of my life. Whether it is literature, a play, film or another form of life she and I may meet again in any field of art as long as I hang on it. So artist Youn Yuh-jung’s walk of life as a natural born reciter is still under way.
Choi Chang-keun Playwriter, director / Translated by Park Eun-sun
* 《Cultura》 2021 July (Vol. 85) *
