River Hangang, with Min and Hana following her. It was a cold Friday morning in early winter, and Soo-Ja was on her way to a meeting with a real estate developer who knew her father. Gi-yong Im sold plots of land in undeveloped parts of Seoul, and speculators (or aspiring speculators, like her) bought and sold those lands for profit. The appointment she had with Gi-yong was her first real business meeting, and though she should be nervous, Soo-Ja was in fact elated. Min was the one sweating; he had repeatedly asked if he could stay with Hana at home. Soo-Ja, too, would have liked to have gone on her own, but she knew the developer would never do business with her. She had to pretend she was simply tagging along, and that Min was really the one interested in investing.
Soo-Ja dressed Min in an elegant brown suit, with a form-fitting, flattering cut that gave him square shoulders and a slim frame. She herself wore a yellow silk blouse with ruffled trim along the buttons, and a long beaded necklace hanging down to her waist, just above her red polyester pants. She didn’t wear hanbok anymore—she thought only maids and old people stuck to it. Western fashions seemed to be all the rage, especially American and French—miniskirts, bright colors, and even things like gold spangles and folk-music-inspired patterns.
Gi-yong had them meet at the plot of land itself, a barren desert of rocks and parched soil, a sea of brown and faint yellow, as lifeless as straw, framed by the clear blue sky above and the cerulean water from the adjacent river. She spotted Gi-yong in a heavy woolen trenchcoat, wearing black leather gloves and a white mask over his mouth to keep his face warm. He looked to be in his late forties, though his hair was still a lustrous black. It was hard for her to tell a man’s age, since their faces often had few lines; she could tell much quicker a man’s status, since powerful men in Seoul never acted humble.
The land was more desolate than she expected, and the closest buildings were kilometers away. Nobody had any interest in constructing here, and so the land was worthless. All the building was being done on the other side of the river, in Gangbuk. As far as everyone knew, that’s the direction in which Seoul would continue to grow. In addition, no one knew if the city had reached capacity, or if it would grow more. The President had been very keen on stimulating the countryside, making those areas more livable, and if he succeeded, the constant move to the capital could soon stabilize. But that, of course, was the beauty of investing. In five, ten years, this land could be worth either ten thousand won or ten million won.
As Soo-Ja stepped forward to walk to Gi-yong, Min reached for her arm and stopped her. For a moment, she thought that he wanted to check her appearance, and she remembered to take her red scarf off her head and wrap it around her neck—she didn’t want to look like she was fresh off the bus from sigol. But Min instead flashed a stern look at her, and he shook his head softly.
“Let’s go home, Soo-Ja,” said Min. “This kind of thing is not for us. Meoggo-salja.”
Soo-Ja looked back at him, stifling her frustration. Min’s motto literally meant “eat and live,” or in other words, if you have enough to eat, be content, for it’s enough. It was an old saying, and many people lived and died by that notion. But just being fed wasn’t enough for Soo-Ja. She saw all around her people becoming rich overnight, like the owners and managers of the large electronic export manufacturer chaebols.
Her country was changing. Some folks lived like peasants, toiling in rice paddies all day and coming home to huts with thatched roofs at night, while the men and women of the city (and in her own hometown of Daegu for that matter) bought into Western-style apartment buildings with—and this would have been unimaginable a decade ago—playgrounds for the children, and well-lit, air-conditioned, indoor shopping centers nearby.
“This doesn’t look like a good investment,” he continued. “Who’d want to build here? It’s too close to the river, and there’s nothing for kilometers.” Min pointed to the vast open space around them, at the fields of dried-up, barren soil.
Soo-Ja noticed Gi-yong looking in their direction, waiting for them, but she knew she had