The long Inwang Mountain stretches right behind the house where I grew up.
It ranges in the center of and in the western part of Seoul.
At the leftmost side of a chain of mountains, a big stone pops out. It resembles a person’s profile depending on the view angle, and its facial shape is perfect in a certain position in a certain moment. The way to climb up along with the stone rampart which has been newly built lately, located at the left side of the entry of Bukak Skyway following turning around Sajik Park is one of ways to see the perfect facial shape.
Ever since a certain time, while I was looking at the stone when I was young, I began to think it as the ‘Great Stone Face’.
‘Great Stone Face’, the short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, along with ‘The Last Lesson’ by Alphonse Daudet was included in the textbook when I attended at Ewha Girls High School. The structures, sentences, vocabularies, and literary values of the two short stories are excellent. I could automatically imagine images of them without opening my eyes, and those images became inscribed on my heart as they were in my youth days.
When my Korean teacher sometimes asked my classmates who would read aloud stories in the textbook, they tended to call out my name. And I had come out and read them holding the textbook tightly. That may be the reason that I much more clearly remember the story.
I was naturally reminded of the story that I read in my youth whenever I looked at Inwang Mt. and the big stone having the facial shape of the person in and out of my house.
There is a legend in a small rural town in America saying that a figure resembling the shape on a stone popping out from the mountain would be born in the town, become a great man and then return to the town. A boy also heard about it. He was raised as a young boy of literary interests with curiosity as to the figure and waits for the figure looking up the stone and writing pieces of works.
One day, a general who won the war returned to his hometown, so all people in town expected him to be the great man, but he was not the great man. Another day, a businessman who earned large money in a larger city came back to the town, but he was not, neither. Scholars, scientists, and many successful people returned to the town, but all of them were not the great men. This disappointed the boy
Many years had passed. One day, village people indicated the literary man, who loves his hometown and has written many pieces of works and used to be a literary boy in the past as the figure whom they have waited for so long.
When I was reading the story for the first time, I was curious about the great man, for whom the literary boy was waiting. By the time I was reading towards the end of the story, I was thrilled and moved that the boy becomes the figure.
A great man is not born in a great way or does not land down from the sky. Such a small and normal person is grown up with sincere, earnest and desperate heart. In the process of growth, such a common person realizes that he becomes the great man whom he has waited for so long, by himself.
Depending on our decision, we can be a Great Stone Face.
A literary work by a great author has a large influence on our lives as such.
Through the work, while I realized it by myself and was proud of it, I gave a name to the unknown stone in the Inwang Mt. in the back of my house and then looked at it like in the dream.
To some of my friends from America who visits me, who can accept such mind of mine, I tend to tell them the story of my youth days and show the stone to them. Then, some of them tell me that the story was the most impressive in their mind while they stayed in Seoul.
I sometimes tell some of my friends residing in Seoul the story while walking around my house, they tend not to listen to my story because the scene is common in Korea where they live in.
Although I indicated about the big stone face standing up in the sky with my fingers, Seochon villagers have tended to show no curiosity or interest perhaps because they have not missed it.
The stone face, which I have missed for a long time during my overseas stay, had waited for me all along silently when I came back to Korea.
Although many things have changed, it is amazing that the stone face and the dreams are still there. Further, I am deeply moved, thankful and touched thinking that they will always be there even in the future.
Maybe, the thing we may need to do now is to keep the dreams of our youth days, not to lose it, rather than to merely seek for more success and comfort.
Whenever I come in and out of my house I look up at the stone face.
Then, I find myself smile.
