A Sonagi boy

'When I die, please bury me with the clothes I am wearing.'

I couldn't help but shed tears in the last part of Hwang Soon-won's masterpiece, Sonagi, which the girl said before she died. It's one of my favorite short stories, and one of many Koreans' favorite short stories.

I went to the opening of an acquaintance not long ago. Whenever I see the acquaintance, I conjure up the boy of Sonagi. He looks like the boy grew up to be an adult. He looks as innocent as he used to be and not very old. As if the cactus I placed by the window changed little by little, and I couldn't notice the change.

Some of us who are born, grow up, become adults, and grow old are losing their innocence as a child, and are living in a clever way. But some people live in the same way, as they are pure. It is because the values of life, the given environment, and the enlightenment of the ages are slowly comes out slowly from the inside.

As a child, I grew up in a very similar environment to Yoon's great-granddaughter and a girl in the Sonagi. I was always sick with a slim face and thin body, sent to the countryside every vacation to play with water in the stream. Except there was no boy sitting on the bank of the stream looking at me.

The original title of the Sonagi was "The Girl," a sad pure love story that ended in a short time. There is no many wordy description, but once you read it, you don't get erased from your head and follow it like a shadow of love.

This kinds innocent love story in literature always comes alive fresh as if biting a lemon. As if I've seen 'The Sonagi Boy' in the pure appearance of an acquaintance that kept his old figure.