If you collect the days of a person, you will be able to catch glimpses of that person’s life. If you collect each and every side of that person’s life, you will be able to see that person.

 

What surprised me when I worked a couple of years or so at an office was how people wanted to fill my day with work. Someone told me that it was what I needed to do in order to grow. Other people said that my desire to leave work right on time was immature. After 4 hours of sitting in the office, my bottom was killing me, and I kept craving sweet food. Right up to the moment I quit work, I couldn’t understand why we would go have a drink after work to solidify our teamwork. I thought it would be better to fill the remains of the day differently, even if it were for the sake of increasing the efficiency of work.

 

I like to work in moderation. This is the small lesson I’ve learned after a series of experiences working in the labor market. It’s better to work hard for the shortest time possible, just enough to make a living. If I work only in moderation, I can play properly. I gain the time and space to really play earnestly and wholeheartedly.

 

‘How do my friends make a living?’

 

I had affection for the work I did. If I didn’t even have that, there wouldn’t be any story to write in the first place. And there were various targets I aimed for that required money. In the short run, I was putting money into my savings account, and in the long run, I was dreaming of getting (renting) my own place with that money. Although my parents were sorry to see me move out, I thought it was difficult for an energetic person in her twenties to eat and sleep in the same space as her parents. The long commuting hours were also difficult. So I would add up numbers on the calculator thinking that I would be able to move out in 2 or 3 years if I worked hard to earn money.

 

But no, my working life fell apart earlier than I expected. The business closed down, people scattered everywhere, and I once again became completely unemployed, before even graduating college. Even after checking the remaining balance in my account and raking up all the coins in my room, they were not even close to being sufficient to pay the deposit for a place.

 

Resolving to find a job again, I tried meeting my friends one by one to talk about how they made a living. Looking back at how I didn’t immediately apply to a similar place using my work experience, but went around meeting people, I see that perhaps I didn’t have any ambition towards the kind of work commonly called “office work.” During that time I met many people, I had a chance encounter with an eonni who wanted to create a studio.

 

▲ Sharehouse. Us working all night at home. We pour our heart and soul into taking pictures while having fun. ©Yoon U

Who cares if it isn’t a house which only I use? We can work together, eat, sleep, and above all, split the costs. On impulse, she, I, and another person decided to find a place together. The money I had gathered became more than enough to cover my living expenses for a year, even after paying the 1/nth of the deposit.

 

Life supported by roommates and friends in the neighborhood

 

Once I secured a space and started to make a living, many fun things happened. We developed relationships with the members of another “sharehouse” next door, and we rapidly become close with friends who similarly lived in communal spaces around the neighborhood. Even when these people were completely broke - like I was - not a single one of them had a face wrinkled by the exhaustion of earning a living.

 

Since we started living together without money, we decided we may as well work on projects together and buy rice or corn together as well. I had thought becoming independent was about living as “myself in my house,” but in fact, my roommates and friends in the neighborhood are the ones that support my materially and spiritually abundant life. Together with these people, the pressure and anxiety of having to earn at least as much as others fades away.

 

There are people that do what they want even without much money, sometimes living off others. There are others that use money when they have some, and then lay low for a while until they earn more again. There are still others that have dilemmas over completely different ways of living. Each person becomes an example showing others that there are different ways of living. We mutually encourage each other, just by how we bravely live.

 

And right now, although I’m a non-regular worker close to being unemployed, I do not do work that cheats or abuses me, or forces me to turn a blind eye to violence. I do not want to work with someone who views me not as a person but as money. Furthermore, I do not wish to earn money while enduring the pain of working on something that is boring and uninteresting.

 

Regardless of the size of the economy, work is in the realm of choice, not force. In other words, no work that goes against common sense or invades human rights can be allowed under the compulsion of having to make a living. These principles support me more than a salary that comes in every month.

 

Making cotton sanitary pads and decorating event spaces...

 

Still, if I think about the rent, I can’t just sit around and play. I literally need the minimum amount to pay the rent. Fortunately, there are several things I can do to earn small amounts of money that don’t violate the stern principles above.

 

One such job is to make cotton sanitary pads. I started this because I wanted to share with other people the good experience of using them after making and using them alone for three years. I don’t have a sewing machine, and because I also want to make them more in detail, I do the sewing myself, somewhat foolishly. At first, I got together with my friends and made them together. After making them for a friend who didn’t want to do the work of making them herself, I ended up selling them.

 

As I frequented the market, I discovered non-fluorescent, unbleached, organic cotton, which led me to completely change the original material. Now, I have confidence that the sanitary pads I make are better than the brand names one on the market. But due to the inefficiency of receiving orders and making them all day, it is a bit unclear as to whether I am earning money even when they sell well. These days, if someone seems to need them, I carefully bring it up and sell them in small quantities. (Still, I’m able to buy some snacks with this money!)

 

▲ Selling sanitary pads at a market stall is difficult. Everyone is interested, but also embarrassed(?). They like to order them online or by phone instead. ©Yoon U

Another type of work is to plan the designs for event spaces and create decorations. I became involved in this work while helping my roommate, who originally did this kind of work. The job is to newly organize and decorate the space where a village market or a music festival is to be held.

 

Since outdoor events are not usually held when it is cold, the work is mainly done during the warmer weather periods of the year. And since the events aren’t held every day, the work is done in the form of a short-term part-time job preparing and setting up for fifteen days a month, at most. It’s a fabulous way to make money to have to work intensely for only a handful of days when a month is a staggering 30 days. Since the scale of my living is so small, I’m able to spend another month managing to live off the money I receive after working like this.

 

More than anything, the work is really fun. I can draw as much as I want, something I haven’t done for a long time, and when things don’t go well, me and my roommate can announce that we’ll go slow and drink beer for half of the day. Since our studio is also where we eat and sleep, when we’re tired, we can collapse onto the bed in 5 seconds. And all the while blissfully thinking, isn’t this what genuine welfare is? (When compared to welfare that involves giving you a bonus or indiscriminately giving away amusement park tickets, I mean.)

 

You become lethargic if you don’t go to work?

 

Recently, phrases such as “sampo generation” (the generation that gives up (pogi) on three (sam) things: romantic relationships, marriage, and childbirth), “youth that don’t date”, and “satori generation” (the generation that does not care about materialistic things or social success) seem to be popular. The older generation may want to fit ways of thinking such as mine - that likes playing more, doesn’t feel the necessity to work hard, and thinks earning little and spending it with others as living fully- into those kinds of words. But I think this is nothing more than the anticipatory fear of adults who hold capital.

 

In addition, “satori generation” means we have a tendency for little materialistic desire and a lack of the desire to be involved in romantic relationships or marriage. But I’m merely a few steps away from the standards set by capital; I’m still a normal person with desires and wants.

 

What I am exploring and what I want is something else. It is the potential for a life better than now. Everyone has something they’re good at, even if it isn’t necessarily something that can be transformed into a means for making money. In my case, I want to live my life richly by using such talents in harmony with the environment I live in. From a personal perspective, I want to live my life as such; from a larger view, I want to live with the person I like in that way; and from an even larger perspective, I want to live with my friends all together like that.

 

A person who is good at growing things would be nicely paired with someone good at making food. A person who can build houses can shine even more when paired with a person good at decorating space. A bookworm who only digs tunnels can fly when connections are created for him/her by someone with many connections. The better life I picture is one which actively pairs people together, instead of pairing everything with capital.

 

I want to live together while laughing at all kinds of restrictions, and playing and learning more than now. I would like to further cultivate useful abilities as I live with people. For such activities to become nothing but a means for money is sad. So it’s ridiculous to roughly judge people as lethargic if they are not employed at a workplace.

 

At least I am doing something that can earn money since I’m aware of the rent to pay, but there is no knowing until when the wages for non-regular jobs will cover the rent. The same way I became richer by moving to Yongsan from [the more expensive] Hongdae, the same way my pockets became heavier as I began to live together with others after living alone, I also believe other forms of changes can make poverty into wealth. And will in the future as well. [Translated by Rose]

 

*Original Article: https://www.ildaro.com/6788 Published: August 20, 2014

기사 내용과 관련이 없는 글, 욕설을 사용하는 등 타인의 명예를 훼손하는 글은 관리자에 의해 예고없이 임의 삭제될 수 있으므로 주의하시기 바랍니다. 댓글 작성 시 상대방에 대한 배려와 책임을 담아주세요.

• 닉네임
• 비밀번호
• 
• 도배방지 입력