He studied. He didn't know what to study, he just studied. It was his vacation, but that just meant studying without going to school; without the hassle of snatched moments of study on the bus, disrupted by the big kids; without the teachers interrupting his learning by droning on.

Welcome to the Daniel’s Nemesis podcast reading Heungbu and Nolbu. 

So, a quick bit of background before we get into this. 

Heungbu and Nolbu is a Korean story, written in the late Joseon dynasty and probably about 200 years old. In the story, Heungbu and Nolbu are brothers. Upon their father’s death, Nolbu takes the entire fortune that was to be left to both of them. Heungbu does not complain that he has missed out on his half of the inheritance. Later, Heungbu comes across a bird with a broken leg. Tending to the bird, and helping it to heal, the bird flies off and the next spring gives Heungbu the gift of a gourd seed. This was planted, and when the plant yielded gourds, Heungbu and his family split one open to find gemstones inside, and became rich. Nolbu, finding out about this, wants to repeat Heungbu’s success. Finding a bird, he breaks that bird’s leg. The following spring, that bird returns to Nolbu with a gourd seed. However, this gourd seed brought many bad things - goblins that beat him for his greed, debt collectors demanding payments, and a deluge of muddy water that flooded his house. 

My version of Heungbu and Nolbu is an update, focussing less on material greed, but taking the structure of the original story and reimagining it in a winter camp for EFL students. 

This story was written in, I believe, 2012. Possibly 2013. It was somewhere around then because I was directing a lot of camps and I personally had to deal with the very issues presented in this story. 

Remember,

This is fiction.

Updated traditional Korean fiction!

Culture is

as Culture does. 

Heungbu and Nolbu

(1,769 words)

Some say this is a country founded on Buddhism. The stories regale us with Buddhist morals. Most say this is a country grounded on Confucianism. Twisted and embedded into language and society, it’s hard to escape even today. Either way, this is the country of Heungbu and Nolbu – a testament to the attitudes and conflicts of this country for many centuries. But Heungbu and Nolbu are no longer reflective of this fast-developing country that's barely pulled its socks up in the race of economies, and yet has still managed to poke its nose into the leading pack's wake. 

***

Heungbu was a studious lad. Somewhere in the middle of his elementary school career, he worked hard and got noticed by his teachers. A model student he was called. A mother's pride, his teachers exclaimed. And the city council were happy to help him and his brother out to get into an English camp that winter. Nervous, he was, as this would be a camp that needed a level test to sort out the wheat from the chaff. Open to everyone, regardless of their English level, he wanted to be the best. The test was 90 minutes. He knew someone whose dad worked for the city. That kid'd be in the high levels, surely. How many other kids would be the same? How many actual positions would there be in the top ranks for someone like him, outside of the system, with the actual skill to play the game, but pushed out by those who ran the game?

He studied. He didn't know what to study, he just studied. It was his vacation, but that just meant studying without going to school; without the hassle of snatched moments of study on the bus, disrupted by the big kids; without the teachers interrupting his learning by droning on or focusing learning through art or presentations to demonstrate comprehension; without breaks, where he'd be left alone, thinking about what he'd studied through the day. His was a world where the book was the king. The teacher only emphasised the book, and in that respect alone was the teacher correct and to be looked up to, only when the teacher personified the book. 

And then it was the day of the test. Really nervous, he was. Maybe 200 students were here? He didn't know if ranking was important today, but knew he needed to score well enough to beat the officials' sons and daughters to get into that top grade. That was all he needed. 

Two days later the camp started, and after all the hoo-hah of the opening ceremonies, he was guided to his class. He wasn't the top level, but the mid-level. After a few days, he began to know the others outside of his class in the dorms at night. Many students were the offspring of farmers, restaurant owners, store workers. Many were of a low level of English, even the kids at the same level as him. Some were in the high levels, but had a good sense of English. True, there were a handful of kids whose parents were officials, but this hadn't affected their place in the camp, other than what the kids themselves demanded of their status. These officials' kids were in the same level as him, or below. Only one was in the high levels. He had strong English. 

Over this first week, the fury of his placement dissipated, and he began to accept his own level of English. Those who were in higher levels deserved to be there. He himself was young, and perhaps could have done it, but he was already the youngest kid in his class. The higher classes would be even older than him. And they were motivated, dedicated, and desperate to get away from the limitations of the countryside, a need that had not sunk into his young self. 

He focused in on his own classes; became accepted as the youngest, and supported, not jeered at by his peers; gained the respect of his teacher as the strongest, most willing in the class; put aside the books when the teachers demanded, but was still every day, challenged, still everyday learning more than he had at school. He accepted his position, knowing that he was gaining, and that ranking was no longer enough. He was now only in competition with himself to improve his daily test scores, and didn't worry whether anyone else was doing better or worse than he.

***

Dear old Nolbu, the older brother, still in elementary school, looking forward to getting to middle school, which would show clear and easy distinctions between him and Heungbu. Yet still so young, and so surprising that he should already be so defeated. He too was being assisted with the fee to go to English camp, but he wasn't so interested. He'd seen the freedom of the Americans in the movies. Vacations were a time of relaxation. He resented the continual education. He just wanted to be himself. At home, this was easy, he had his position. In school, in his class, he was defined only by his ranking, his teachers looking to him through his younger brother. He had dreams of escape, but knew this to not be possible – the system was too strong. He just needed to play the system by fitting in, and doing the best he could under its restrictions. 

He wasn't a stupid kid, he just needed extra help, which under the system, he wasn't able to ask for. Lack of comprehension grew into boredom. He wasn't apathetic, not yet. He just didn't quite understand: that one bridge not having been developed. Like all bridges, ultimately they need to be built from both sides, but he was doing it solo. He always did his homework, but it was perfunctory. He did the minimum possible, because he wanted to stay within his safety zone. But even this was never enough. 

He didn't go into the test with a good attitude. He could have told everyone what level he would have ended up in. Anyone could have predicted that. The test was needless. Just put him low. 90 minutes to sort this out was too much of anyone's time. However, he tried, he didn't give up. Predictably it was all too hard. A handful of questions were answered, a few of those were probably even correct. 

He certainly wasn't the youngest kid. Most of them were his age. There were a couple of younger kids, one who should have been in the 1st grade class, but had English enough to put him in with the general mob of the beginner level English classes. None of them were rebels, but the foreign teachers spoke too fast. As a class, they quickly learned to ask to go to the bathroom, or state they were sick, hoping that this level of English for them would impress the teachers. It didn't work. They weren't bored, but they were difficult for the teachers to control. They got a lot of games, and videos which would engage them for a few minutes, but quickly they needed something else, restlessness getting them through the remainder of the activity. 

They did learn English, but only with the assistance of Korean teachers. The vocabulary they learnt may be picked up in the speech of the foreigners, but that was all – the words too random to understand the context, and used too rarely to benefit their learning of English. Immersion was too far out of their depths, and not used enough to give them any benefit. They resented it when the foreigners used Korean. 

However, what he did learn, he was able to apply. These teachers weren't so strict. He even managed to get reward stickers for the work he did put in, without begging for them. He made mistakes, but they were corrected, and he was told about them, instead of meaningless red circles, crosses and corrections. His level may not have gone up, but his confidence did. He began a new bridge between the English trapped in his mind and his mouth, traffic in the form of English may have been stilted with many jams and poor signalling in between, but it was a bridge that he could build alone, just because someone on the other end was receiving. Not that the system cared. 

***

And now the mother. A new element in this classic parable that updates it to the standard protagonist-antagonist narrative drama we deal with today. The distinctions between Heungbu and Nolbu have been blurred, because the hard working, younger brother, is not rewarded, but learns to accept his position as well as himself. The older, lazier brother gets his due reward, but also gains something. Because this is a new Korea, there needs to be a new element – the figurehead of the system in this story is the mother. Why? Because this is based on something I personally experienced, and this is what the mother did to inspire this story:

***

The first weekend of the three week camp, and the students got to go home, go to church, and to meet their families for a couple of hours. This would have been the first contact the mother would have had with them for a week. But she must have discovered here what levels her sons were in. Perhaps the issue of word tests came up, because it was to be an issue she would use. The brothers returned to the camp. And the mother makes a phone call to those in charge. 

It isn't correct that her sons should be in different levels, that her eldest should be of a lower level than her youngest. But she’s not concerned with getting her eldest upgraded, knowing his limitations. She conspires to bring Heungbu down a level, in order to even her two sons up. If her youngest son is so bright, then being at the level of his oldest brother should be good enough for him. She uses the excuse that Heungbu is clearly not suited to his level as he gets a couple of words wrong on his daily tests. Perhaps this way, he can start to get the A+s she wants from him – a nice back handed compliment, dragging him down to make him shine more. 

There is resistance, but she is persistent.

***

The story doesn't finish here. Parables don't deal with drama, so our antagonist is to be dealt with only in the real world. But for Heungbu and Nolbu, this is their story updated, unknowing of the drama they involuntarily created. 

***

If you enjoyed this story, please check out my series reading my first novel XBook. A new series will be coming soon, and if you like and subscribe, then you’ll know when the new series arrives. 

Until next time, TTFN!