Fucking ants, man! Where they coming from?

The Atchison Daily Globe, Kansas, September 26, 1918

The Choctaw Herald, Butler, Alabama, November 13, 1884

Bismarck Tribune, North Dakota, January 11, 1884

“I’m in the process of trying to restore my life to normalcy after it fell apart when I became homeless. I especially owe a lot to the people who helped me when I was struggling, like one of my friends from the military. When I told him the situation that I was in, he introduced me to the pastor at his church. On the first day that I met the pastor, he asked me to come see him separately at a cafe and gave me some money, telling me to sleep at a sauna instead of out on the street. He bought me some gukbap too, and one day he gave me another 100,000 won and told me to support myself with that for the time being.” “What was the most memorable way in which he helped you?” “One day, the pastor told me that even if others help me, there is no point if I don’t try to pull my own self together. If he hadn’t told me that, I still wouldn’t have been able to come to my senses. Thanks to him, I was able to put my life of homelessness behind me, and I start working next Monday at a call center. I was so busy with the interview that I forgot to give him a call. I need to hurry up and get paid so I can pay him back, and now I should be the one to buy him some gukbap.”

“I was at an orphanage called Sinaewon for a long time. I still remember an orphan there named Im Chunja. She was about three or four years younger than me, and this young lady had come down with tuberculosis. She had to take her medication by injection, but it was a bit much to go the the hospital every day, so the hospital told me to give her the injections. I did it for about two years. Eventually I reached adulthood and went out into the world, and a few times I brought Chunja out to have fun in places like Dongbaek Island. We went to Busan’s Jagalchi and Gukje Markets and I showed her the movies, too. I wanted her to know that this is how people live. You eat the food and wear the clothes that the orphanage gives you, so you don’t know how society works, you see. I did feel a bit of attraction to her at the time. Even so, I didn’t make a madcap move on her. But it seems that’s what she’d wanted—a madcap move. There was a chicken farm at the orphanage back then, and this foreign laborer there, this scoundrel, took an interest in Chunja. To cut to the chase, Chunja married that man. I heard the news from the orphanage director, and I had mixed feelings, of course. Some time later, I got married too, and during the holidays I went back to the orphanage with the woman who’s now my old lady. But Chunja had come too, and she was in the room over there. She’d been married two years at the time, me for for one year. I had nothing to hide so my old lady knew who Chunja was. I remember all the kids going, ‘Big brother, big brother, Chunja’s in that room.’ I entered the room and Chunja burst into tears the moment she saw me. She was screaming and yelling. ‘If you’d grabbed me by the wrist just once… I wouldn’t have gone with that man even if he tied me up with rope and dragged me away. I went because you were indifferent.’ She was crying resentfully at me. But that wasn’t true… Even with my old lady next to me, it was all over by then, so Chunja opened up and spilled out her story. As it turned out, she’d been badly abused and hit a lot while living with her in-laws. Eventually that woman died giving birth to her third child. I cried a great deal then. Even now I want to cry.”

“There’s something called a brooch that women pick out and wear. My friend and I were the very first to start selling those in South Korea, and I sold them by erecting a pole, covering it with cloth, and pinning brooches all along it. These peach or rose-shaped brooches back then were nothing special, but it was the first time women were seeing them, so business was brisk and I earned a bit of money. Once a week, I’d take the money I’d earned to the director of the orphanage, and the director put aside the money in a savings account under my name. Around that time, it seems my biological father somehow found out that I was alive. Someone said to me, ‘Your father’s at so-and-so in Dalseong County in Gyeongbuk. Forget the past and go see him.’ My father had remarried so he ate home-cooked meals after my mother passed away, but he had forced me to go out and beg for my food with an empty can. I hated him, but I went to see him. He was a scrap dealer so I told him, ‘If you’re going to run a scrap business anyway, wouldn’t it be better to do it in a city? Go to a place like Busan, I’ll buy you a house.’ Then I bought them a house in Gupo, Busan—him, his wife, my two younger half-sisters. All four of them. I’m really soft at heart. I felt bad for him, and still, he was my father. I thought I had to do what I had to do, you see. But as soon as the scrap business took off, my father wanted a bigger house. I said I didn’t have the money to buy a bigger house, of course. But still he said, ‘There’s a house with a tiled roof by the elementary school, and it sure would be nice to buy it.’ So I sold the first house and moved them into the tile-roofed house as a rental, and bought the house one year later. I felt so good. If I had that house now, people would say I’m a rich man. Business went well for my father for quite some time before he got neck-deep into trouble. Someone he worked with had secretly cut off copper stripping and sold it, and my father bought it. He went to jail for having bought stolen goods, and I pulled strings to get him out. Pulling strings like that worked during the Liberal Party era, you see. So I got him out and not long after, I went to the house but nobody was there. I asked all around but nobody knew where he’d gone. Words can’t express that feeling of betrayal then. I did eventually find him in Gimhae. After he’d gotten out from sleeping behind bars for a few nights, he’d realized he didn’t want to run his business anymore. He’d quit, taken all the money from selling the house I’d bought for him, and went to make a living helping on someone else’s farm. ‘How can you do this to me?’ I asked him. I remember him saying, ‘I sure feel sorry toward you.’ I told him, ‘Do you even have a conscience? I’ll have nothing to do with you now,’ and left. A few years later, I heard the news that he was dying, so I went down and took good care of his funeral. Doing all those things for my father, I don’t regret them. Because anybody can see that I did everything I could. When you repay a wrongdoing with another wrongdoing, you sink to that level.”

“I learned Hangul for the first time when I was 21 years old. Though I learned late, I wrote quite well, especially love letters. Of course if I try to write a love letter like that today people would say, "Wow, how old fashioned.” Back then, we’d write with four-character idioms to try and seem educated. For example, ‘Hae Ro Dong Hyul.’ It means being buried together in one grave after being together for your whole lives. Spicing up a love letter with something like this was sure to be a killer. When I was 23 or 24, I worked with this kid Hong-seob Lee in the brooch business. Back then, Hong-seob was trying to date this girl who worked at a big company called Joseon Textile Manufacturing. I wrote love letters for him until they married. It’s been a long time since then. One day, after coming back from visiting the Hapcheon graveyard, where my parents are buried, a friend called me. Said Hong-seob had passed away from cancer. If any of my Busan friends pass away, I’m the kind of person who still goes all the way to see them off. So I went straight to the funeral. I talked a bit in front of his memorial picture, saying, ‘Ah, friend, how could you go like this?’ and such. Then I went outside to get some air. Hong-seob’s wife followed me out, and said, “Thank you for coming all the way from Seoul. I just have one question for you. Back then when Hong-seob and I were dating, you wrote those letters, right?” Whew, was I surprised. I thought she’d never know. She said she had known all along, from the very beginning. That felt a little strange.“

“45 years ago I was accepted to the Seoul Institute of Arts, but I couldn’t go because my family was against it. I wanted to go into the arts, but you can’t make money in that career. Eventually I became a legal document assistant. But then maybe ten years ago, shaving was such a hassle that I just let it grow out, and people at my office said I looked good and that I could even model. When I heard that, I had an awakening. I started working out to become a model. I remember my family telling me to snap out of it. To stop or I’d ruin my health. But after experiencing my awakening, there was no way I could stop myself. Ultimately I went to college at 63. Now I’m a judicial scrivener and a student in the Department of Modeling. Not too long ago, I did a photoshoot as practice at school, and the studio staff took one look at me and asked to work together. I’ve gotten a casting offer. It’s something I never could’ve imagined.” “What do you plan to do moving forward?” “Who knows! It’s just rolling along as if yet another opportunity might show up tomorrow, life is.”

via reddit

“(Left) It’s been since July 17, 1979, so that’s exactly 40 years. “What does it mean to you to have been together for those 40 long years?” “(Left) It means it doesn’t matter even if someone farts in bed under the covers.”

The Atlanta Constitution, Georgia, December 2, 1937

“She was ‘The Grandma.’  She worked as the head nurse at St. James hospital.  She owned her own house.   I lived with her up until the sixth grade.  We’d have these long conversations every night.  And every morning she’d make a ball of coconut for me to bring to school.  She was the most consistent thing in my life.  Even after Mom got mixed up in drugs, Grandma paid to keep our phone on.  She paid to keep our lights on.  She checked my grades and sent me to after-school programs.  She even bought me my first computer.  It was made especially for me, big tower, lots of lights.  It kept me off the street for months.  Grandma was the only person who ever took me out of the state.  We went to theme parks.  We went to water parks.  Once she even took me to the Bahamas for four days.  Most of my friends had never even left the block.  I did get mixed up in the streets for a while.  Grandma was upset when I dropped out of high school, but she still did her best to keep me level.  She helped me get my GED.  She talked to me about nursing.  She supported me when I joined the military.  I never thought I’d be where I am today.  I’m working construction.  I recently joined the union.  Everything is because of her.  She’s the only woman who’s name I have tattooed on my body.“

“The doctor told us if she had a baby, it could endanger her. But my wife stubbornly said that it was fine and that she’d have the baby. From the time that she had our daughter until the day she left us, she stayed in the hospital. My daughter doesn’t know her own mom’s face. You see, I never took her to the hospital. Even now, I still can’t tell my daughter. Would she be able to grow up normally if I told her that her mom passed away giving birth to her? I just told her that her mom had poor health, that sort of thing. All my friends tell me, ‘You know your daughter’s smart. She won’t bend out of shape even if you tell her the truth, so why keep covering it up?’ I know they’re right, and eventually it’ll come along. Her uncles know it all. But my daughter also got pregnant, and her body weakened as a result. A professor at the ob-gyn clinic that my daughter went to is a fellow alum of mine. I remember him telling me, ‘Hey, your wife was like that, and your daughter is the same.’ My heart sank when I heard that. My wife’s determined look had come back to me.”

“We’re getting married soon.”

Kesai Eisen. Water dragons (Mizuchi), from the series: pictures of birds, animals, insects and fish. 1830-1848.

- 이 캠페인은 서울시·평생교육진흥원의 서울 청년 갭이어 프로젝트, ‘청년인생설계학교’ 와 함께합니다 -

“When I was a boy I’d skip school to sell roses on the street.  My parents gave up trying to educate me.  They said: ‘He’s lost his mind over the roses.’  I wanted to be around flowers all the time.  I sold so many that I opened my own kiosk across from a famous country club.  But I could never sell on Fridays.  The police would close our entire street so the governor could visit the club.  But once I ignored their instructions.  It was the day before Mother’s Day.  My biggest day of the year.  So I took a chance and remained open.  When the police found out, they confiscated all my flowers.  They even took my license.  It was a fatal blow.  All my money was in those flowers.  I had piles of them.  So I had to start from zero.  I’m a street vendor again.  For awhile I was ashamed, but I’m fine with it now.  It’s better than working for someone.  I buy the roses I want, and sell them to whoever I want.  Maybe I’ll have a shop again.  But as long as I’m around my roses, I’ll always feel peaceful.”   (Cairo, Egypt)