Reflective Essays and Poetic Musings by Condemiang + Stories About the World

Should it rain...... The backs of people you often see while walking down the street—they carry thoughts like melted candle wax, and in none other than their own figures, they see cars, the street, the road, and others. Why do people's backs look so lonely? Whether it's clear or cloudy or rainy, the faint and worn-out light in a corner of the city is not even enough to draw a single space of my own. Why does your back look so lonely? Whether it's clear or cloudy or rainy, you carry your weary shoulders through a corner of the city. Sometimes, even a metasequoia tree is nice, or even a common plane tree—if it's decorating above your head, walking that road from which no one knows when you'll return could be a good thing. If it’s a rainy day, even better. If you are with someone who will cover your side full of window scars, then even without an umbrella, you will s...

The day after the loud, crashing rain poured down, under the scorching blaze of the sun that replaced the rain, the sky was so clear and beautiful, as if mocking the world. After finishing work, I rushed out of the office and struggled to get to the Han River as quickly as possible, but the heavy streets of Seoul, crowded with people and vehicles packed in like crates, did not allow freedom of movement. Inside the car, I was in anguish, watching with a heavy heart as the golden sunset wilted away. I like the center. Not leaning to either side—and sometimes, only once in a while, leaning slightly this way or that—that kind of taste. But now, the bridge that would hold such balance must be too dangerous, right? Sweating profusely, I hurried along to Banpo Bridge. The beautiful sunset had already passed… And yet— The traces of the sunset mixed with the clouds and the sky, and the clumsy decorations...

What shall we call ourselves? “Man is the measure of all things.” —Protagoras the Sophist— Are we truly the measure of all things, as he claimed? Here, we have captured what can be seen between one meter above the ground and a space one billion light years away. Let us humbly reflect on the size of the “we” we speak of now, and on what the existence of “we” truly means. Just as an ant takes a step to climb Mount Everest, let us too set off into the vast universe with the small power of science.   

When the ups and downs of life cast shadows upon our souls, and even countless joys flicker like city lights in the distance, too far to touch— O you, with just the sight of your back turned, no, with only your shadow, I can dispel the gloom. For your trace, nobler than rest, remains.

Where have all the trains gone? Those massive bodies that once thundered down the rails— their roaring presence is nowhere to be seen. — A car's thought — Where have all the cars gone? Those swarms that once flooded the roads day and night— their restless wheels are nowhere to be found. — A train's thought —

O you! My distant, far-off name— Only now do I wish to part from you. It is not I who leaves beyond this window blurred with tears, but you who lets me go. With no one to send, no one to leave, suddenly it departs— and vanishes without a trace. In this formless space where we have no true being, we are dreaming of an emergency escape. O you! My long-held name—

The spire towering above, and the cross— they no longer meet the eye with ease. Soaked in the shame of sins past, present, and countless still to come, committed in the name of "Holiness," O crimson cross, you dare not show your face while the sun still shines. Not with Your blood, but with the blood and tears of those You longed to save— those frail ones to whom You gave vision and mercy— you are stained, O cross. The days when the first place of life was truth—are gone. Gone are the dreams, the philosophy, the fervor. What remains is a hollow shell, lodged within the fourth, the fifth place of life— fitted to myths long drawn, and crude prophecies patched together. Will He come when even the final sliver of truth can no longer lift its head? The spire towering above, and the cross— even scouring the sky, they cannot be found. And in the nakedness left behind by all that has been stripped in the name of “Reason,” O white cross, you do not return—even af...

The flags of all nations, tucked away in the distant folds of my memory, waited—weary in the shadow of a corner. They once stirred the air with excitement, drawing children—ever thirsty for new delights—into the rapture of a day called Sports Festival. The sky, the flags, and the cradle of students still too unripe—they all hold the setting sun within them, divided by a single invisible border. Slightly less than a third—and yet, because of that, perhaps the sky I sought to paint came to occupy a space larger than I ever imagined. Only now, at last, can even my meager care brush past those hands that once strove to make those flags flutter. The setting sun, at times, reminds us of the border between today and tomorrow.