Tuesday 3 April 2012

Adaptation by Song Hoyoung

Intro:
Holden plans to meet his girlfriend at Myeondong at 2 o’clok, and he has some time to kill. He starts walking toward there, from City Hall. On the street, there are a lot of couples, celebrating Christmas ahead of time.

*     *     *
It was just as cold as the day before, but there still were goddam lots of couples on the street. It was near Christmas, so stores had red and green decorations all over the place, with little light bulbs wrapped around it. It was around noon, so the light bulbs were all off, and light bulbs look pretty ancient when they are turned off. What really killed me about the scenery of the street was the way an underwear store hung a glittering “Merry Christmas!” placard on its sign board, right next to “BYC”. I mean, what does an underwear store has to do with Jesus’ birthday?
It was then when I saw something that isn’t so phony among the things that I’ve seen in a week. There was this married couple walking in front of me, holding each other’s hands, in the flood of young couples. They were in their early thirties, and the woman was holding her boy’s hand on her left. They weren’t rich, I could tell by their clothes, but they looked really happy. Especially the wife seemed very excited about being in Myeongdong with her husband. I imagined how she would have longed for things that she had to give up as she married the guy, going out to Myeongdong being one of them. She reminded me of Mathilde Loisel in Guy de Mauppassant’s The Necklace, only kinder and more devoted to her family. Anyway, what interested me was the boy who was walking on the left of his mom’s. The mother was excitedly talking to her husband, as if she has regressed to a young fresh girl that she was ‘bout ten years ago, so she paid no attention to her son. He was just walking along, with his right hand held in the air as her mom held it, and he was keep looking on the ground, the way kids do. The best part is that he was walking on the yellow line in the middle of the road. I guess he wanted walk in a straight line. In the mean time, he was singing a melody that I couldn’t recognize, but was very familiar of. It was a song that every Korean kid sings when he’s a little kid, but I couldn’t recall what that song was. So he was humming this melody that I knew by my heart, rather than my brain. On this street that leads to Myeongdong, people were talking loud like hell, cars zoomed by, brakes screeched in front of people, and this boy, this young boy was looking down on the yellow line, trying to follow it, humming this song. It wasn’t so bad. A boy like him walking among the stupid couples, and Merry Christmas placard on an underwear store didn’t look so bad. It wouldn’t intimidate Jesus that badly, too.

Monday 2 April 2012

Adaptation by Ahn Taehyung


The Catcher in the Rye (Fan Fiction)
A scene when Holden tries to have a conversation with the prostitute.

             In a lousy motel room located in Miari, Seoul, I kept walking around the room, waiting for this prostitute to show up. I usually didn’t get so damn peculiar like this, but it was a little different this time. I kept hoping that she wouldn’t look like a phony ajjumma, who would dress up in fake Gucci dress and accessories. After few minutes, somebody knocked on the rusty door of my room. I instantly realized that it would be the prostitute and opened the door nervously.
             “You the one Ho Yoon said?” She asked me with a pretty demanding voice, and I instantly knew that she is not too goddamn friendly.
             “Is he the guy, who was distributing the erotic commercial papers?”
             “Yeah, that’s him.” She answered without even looking at me and came into the room. Without saying anything, she started to take off her coat and dress.
            “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Tae Hyung An.” After I introduced myself in such a phony way, I waited for her reply, but none came.
             “So, how old are you?” I asked.
             “Twenty-two, ya got a watch on?” She said with an ignorant voice. It was so goddamn obvious that she didn’t give a damn about me and just wanted to finish this thing quickly. Man, I felt so strange and peculiar about this situation, so I kept on trying to have a conversation with the prostitute.
             “Do you work every night, I mean what do you do when you are not working?” I knew this was a stupid question to ask, but I just asked anyway for the hack of continuing the conversation.
             “I dunno’ I sometimes go to movies or just sleep.” As soon as she answered me, she started to take off her dress, so I told her if we could just have a conversation. She looked at me skeptically and sat on the chair next to her. I started to babble like an idiot about some random things, but it seemed to only annoy her more. At last, she sort of forced me to sit and sat on my lap.
             “Hey, you look pretty cute, but I don’t got all night to spend with you, so let’s hurry up.” She started to take off her clothes and after taking them off, she started to unbutton my shirt, so I told her to stop and pushed her away.
             “Jeez, take it easy, I mean I really can’t do this because I’m sick.” I said.
             “Sick, what do you mean sick?”
             “I mean, I got this surgery on my wuddayacallit, so I don’t feel real well.” This was the stupidest lie I’ve ever made up in my whole life.
             “Well, huh, then why the hell did you ask for a girl, when you are sick?” Her voice sort of intensified and I knew that she was getting very annoyed. I have sort of become sick of this whole lousy situation, so I really wanted to end this. So I told her that I would pay her, and asked her to leave.
             “Here’s 5000 won, good bye.” I spoke with a little bit of disgust. Hell, what a mean nervous girl she was.
             “Hey I’m supposed to get paid double, so it’s 10000 won.” She started to play this little game with me, so I started to get a little pissed off at this whole phony situation.
             “No, I already had this conversation with the paper guy, so I ain’t paying you no more.” I forced her to take 5000 won and closed the door quickly and told myself that I was an idiot.