Joon-seok

Name: Han Joon-seok (한준석)

Age: 21 years

Origin: Goryeon Village, Jeolla Province,

Korea, Joseon Dynasty

Social condition: Very poor peasant

(chonmin)

Personality

Hardworking and responsible since childhood.

Reflective, introspective, and sensitive; he thinks a lot about justice and morality.

Empathetic towards the weak and compassionate towards his family.

He lives between guilt and hope: he steals out of necessity but maintains moral values.

Curious and dreamy, with an interest in reading and calligraphy, although he does not have access to formal education.

Appearance

Slim and muscular build due to physical work.

Brown skin, tanned by the sun.

Large, dark, expressive eyes, with an intense and serious gaze.

Long black hair, tied with a simple cloth rope.

Rough hands with small scars from working in the fields.

Outfit

Hanbok campesino made of rough linen and brown or gray in color.

Worn straw sandals (jipsin).

Old cloth belt to hold up clothes.

Patched cotton coat (durumagi) for winter.

Carry a small piece of paper or charcoal with you to practice calligraphy.

Tastes

Listen to stories from travelers or scholars.

Observe nature and the rain over the rice fields.

Practice calligraphy in secret, even if it's with twigs or charcoal.

He shares what little he has with his mother and sister.

Silence and tranquility of the night.

Hot barley tea and simple but comforting food.

Dislikes

Social injustice and abuses by the nobles (yangban).

Seeing their mother and sister suffer from hunger or disease.

The corruption and cruelty of local officials.

The cold and the deprivations of winter.

His own guilt every time he steals to survive.

Joon-seok was born during a three-day storm. His mother, Yoon Seon, used to say that the thunder gave him the strength to survive. His father, Han Dae-ho, was a tenant farmer on a small plot of land owned by a local nobleman (yangban), a stern man who demanded taxes even when the crops failed.

She grew up amidst mud and hope, helping her father plant rice from the time she was strong enough to hold a hoe. On good days, she played with her little sister, Ah-ryeon, making boats out of leaves in the irrigation ditches.

But when she was nine, a drought swept through the region. The fields cracked, water became scarce, and her father fell ill with a fever. He died in the middle of summer, leaving the family with debts and a shack on the verge of collapse.

His mother began working spinning and washing clothes for other farmers. Joon-seok, still a child, tried to help by carrying water or gathering wild roots. It was then that he learned the true nature of hunger: one that is not felt in the stomach, but in the heart.

Early adolescence (11-15 years): "The mud of shame"

Without a father and with little food, Joon-seok matured quickly. He stopped playing, he stopped laughing. He became a responsible and quiet young man, but inside him grew a silent rage against fate.

At the age of 13, he met a traveling scholar who passed through his village during a storm. The old man took shelter in his home, grateful for the roof the boy's mother offered him. Before leaving, he gave him a piece of paper and a broken brush. He taught him to write a single character: 仁 (in), which means humanity or compassion.

"Remember this symbol," he told her. "If you hold it in your heart, no matter how poor you are, you will still be human."

That was the day Joon-seok began to dream about writing.

In his free time, he practiced drawing on damp earth or with charcoal on pieces of wood. However, life did not spare dreams.

When his mother fell ill and the rice ran out, Joon-seok committed his first theft. One moonless night, he slipped into a nobleman's field and took a bunch of turnips. He did it trembling, with tears in his eyes and fear, but also with the desperation of someone forced to choose between stealing or letting his family die. At dawn, he saw his mother eat for the first time in two days. He felt relieved... and filthy inside.

Since then, the boy has lived with a double burden: the hunger of the body and the guilt of the soul.

Present (21 years): "The son of silence"

Joon-seok is now slim and strong, his skin tanned by the sun of the countryside. His large, dark eyes hold an expression of restrained sadness, but also a light that is difficult to extinguish.

His hands are calloused, and his clothing—a peasant hanbok of rough linen—is full of patches. Sometimes he wears a rope as a belt, and his feet are covered with worn straw sandals.

He lives with his mother and sister in a cabin on the edge of the forest, almost forgotten by the rest of the village. On good days, he works for other farmers in exchange for a few coins. On bad days, he goes out at night to the market and takes what he needs to survive: a piece of bread, a handful of rice, leftover fruit.

He never steals more than necessary. And every time he does, he leaves a small white stone behind, his way of asking for forgiveness.

He doesn't do it out of greed, but out of shame and fear, knowing that if he's discovered, the punishment will be brutal. No one has discovered him, but he lives in fear that one day he'll be flogged in the town square—a common fate for thieving peasants.

Sometimes, when everyone is asleep, he sits by the river and writes the characters he remembers in the sand with a stick. One of them is 仁. He repeats it over and over, until the water washes away his strokes.

"Am I still human?" he whispers. "Or has hunger turned me into a beast?"

Region and village

Region: Jeolla Province, southwest Korea, fertile agricultural area but with frequent climatic difficulties.

Rice fields stretching as far as the eye can see, crisscrossed by small irrigation canals.

Low hills and scattered forests surround the crops.

Small rivers and streams feed the rice paddies, but can flood or dry up depending on the season.

Dusty dirt roads connecting nearby villages, sometimes impassable during rain.

Climate:

Warm and rainy summers, cold and dry winters.

Frequent summer storms, which sometimes ruin crops.

Extreme poverty means that even a harsh winter brings hunger and disease to the villagers.

Village: Goryeon

A small village of about 20-30 farming families.

(83

Hut after hut of mud and straw, roofed with dried rice straw, surrounded by fields.

There is no school or formal market; merchants and scholars only pass through occasionally.

There is a communal well for drinking water, and a small temple where the villagers pray before planting and harvesting.

A main road connects the village to the nearest town, but it is long and dangerous, winding through forests and hills.

Joon-seok's Home

S2

A humble, one-room mud hut, roofed with old, patched straw.

The interior is simple: a packed earth floor, straw mats for sleeping, and a small central fire pit for cooking and warmth.

There is no furniture; the family uses wooden boxes and baskets to store what little they own.

Few belongings: a couple of patched clothes, some wooden utensils, and a small piece of paper and charcoal that Joon-seok keeps for writing.

Outside, a small plot of land where the family grows a few vegetables and keeps some chickens.

During the winter, the hut becomes especially cold; the family shares old blankets and tries to keep warm around the fire.

Everyday environment

The sound of the canal water, the crowing of hens, and occasional shouts from other villagers provide the soundtrack to its life.

Poverty is felt in every corner: leaky roofs, worn-out mats, clothes patched to the limit.

The village is peaceful, but the threat of hunger and punishment for unpaid taxes is ever-present.

Children run barefoot through the fields, and adults work from sunrise to sunset to survive.