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Chapter 4. Haeoreum Pottery Studio
When we landed at Incheon Airport, a burning skull spoke to me.
“This smell, this scenery... I-is this truly the land of Joseon?”
The burning skull spoke right in front of my nose.
“Holy crap! You scared the hell out of me!”
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
Lee Jeong-sik looked at me in confusion as I jumped in surprise. I pointed in front of me.
“Can’t you see that?”
“See what?”
“Th-the... the burning skull!”
“What the hell are you talking about? Did you eat the wrong in-flight meal this time?”
I realized that I was the only one who could see the burning skull before me.
Suddenly, the skull began rattling its jaw.
“Ah, ahhhhh! Have I finally returned?”
Why was I seeing things that weren’t there?
“Ahhh!! This is so overwhelming! To set foot on Joseon soil again, to return to my homeland after 431 years! At last, I’ve returned! I’ve been counting the years while waiting for my homecoming, every time the cherry blossoms bloomed on Japanese soil!”
Whoosh!
The skull was engulfed in even more intense flames. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping the bizarre hallucination before me would disappear.
“Ahhhh!!! Let me make pottery from the soil of my homeland once more! Just once more!”
But all I could hear was the burning skull shrieking even louder.
What on earth was happening?!
When I opened my eyes again, red flames burst out like an explosion and engulfed the entire world.
I slowly opened my eyes and muttered, “That was such a strange dream.”
But what was even stranger was the sight spread out before me.
Instead of the airport’s moving walkways, there were worktables and display cabinets.
I had definitely been walking through Incheon Airport with Lee Jeong-sik. So why was I in this workshop? Was I dreaming? Had I never actually gone on that trip in the first place?
I looked around. The place felt unfamiliar, yet strangely familiar.
“Don’t tell me... Haeoreum Pottery Studio?”
“That’s right. This is Haeoreum Pottery Studio. Somyeong, are you awake now?”
“M-Ms. Han Eun-jeong?”
“You still look half asleep. Why don’t you go wash your face?”
The children sitting nearby giggled.
I couldn’t help staring in astonishment at the tall, slender woman standing before me. She was the director of Haeoreum Pottery Studio, a small pottery workshop in the neighborhood where I had lived as a child.
But why was she standing in front of me now, when I was a five-year veteran of preparing for the civil service exam?
“If you really want to get into an arts high school, you need to pay attention to what I’m telling you.”
...An arts high school?
I’d already graduated from one.
“If you want to prepare a good portfolio, you need to practice harder and focus more than the others. The other kids started in their first year of middle school, but you didn’t come here until your third year. You’re seriously short on time.”
Haeoreum Pottery Studio was where I had first learned to make pottery. That must have been when I was in my third year of middle school.
My memories were tangled together, and my head began to ache.
I was a middle school student? Then what had happened to my years at arts high school, my time in the university ceramics department, and my life as a civil service exam candidate? Had all of it been nothing but a dream?
I looked down at my slender hands. I had been a late bloomer, and my whole body had remained small until I was in middle school. Even in my third year, people sometimes mistook me for a first-year student.
No matter how many times I blinked, my small hands remained unchanged.
Had I really returned to the past? Or was I still dreaming?
“Miraculous things sometimes happen in life.”
An unfamiliar old man’s voice reached my ears. When I followed the sound and looked toward the worktable, I was shocked.
“Why is that here?!”
There was the very same incense burner, with that skull-shaped head staring at me through its two empty eye sockets from above it.
Clatter, clatter!
The skull’s jawbone bobbed up and down, looking as though it were snickering at me.
You scared me half to death, and now you’re laughing at me?
As soon as I thought that, the voice came again.
“How insolent. Laughing at your elders, are you?”
Had the skull read my mind?
Its jawbone rattled playfully once more.
“That’s right. If I concentrate, I can hear your thoughts. It seems we can communicate this way. But tell me, do you recognize me?”
Could you be the old potter?
“That’s right. I’m the nameless man who made that incense burner. Our fates became entangled in Arita.”
Our fates became entangled?
Was the answer to this incomprehensible situation in the hands of this skull? Or rather, the potter?
You seem to know something, so could you explain what’s going on? Why am I here at Haeoreum Pottery Studio when I was just at Incheon Airport?
“I had a long-held wish.”
What? A wish? Why are you suddenly changing the subject?
“It isn’t a change of subject, so listen. My wish was to create the finest pottery in the world, using the soil of my homeland, Joseon, rather than Japanese soil.”
Ah, so that was your wish. But what does that have to do with me?
The potter ignored my question and continued his story.
“After I burned to death inside the kiln, my soul remained trapped in the incense burner for hundreds of years because my wish had not been fulfilled. What do you think I could do during all those long centuries?”
Find peace and move on?
That would make sense. Once you became a spirit, you were supposed to return to the afterlife.
“If I could have moved on, I would have done so ages ago, you fool!”
“Why are you getting angry?”
“Tsk. Anyway, perhaps because of my lingering regret at failing to fulfill my wish, I became a spirit bound to that incense burner. I prayed and prayed. If I couldn’t fulfill my wish myself, I begged for someone to appear who could act on my behalf.”
Someone to act on your behalf?
“That’s right. I begged for someone who could fulfill my wish in my place, since I no longer had a physical body.”
...
“I prayed so desperately that my soul nearly wore away, yet my wish remained unfulfilled for hundreds of years. And then, at long last, you appeared in Arita! The moment I saw your clueless face...”
Hold on. Clueless?
The skull conveniently glossed over my objection.
“Anyway, at that very moment, I could feel it. The gods had granted my wish. As expected, you recognized the true value of my incense burner and brought me all the way back to my homeland! Oh, and that fat fellow who was with you... he really had no eye for pottery at all.”
The fat fellow must have been Lee Jeong-sik. This old man really knew how to hold a grudge.
Then why had I returned to my middle school days?
“I don’t know for certain, but perhaps you wasted too much of your precious youth? The mysterious laws of fate must have sent you back to a suitable point in your life, when you still had time to grow into a great potter.”
It was true that people in the arts tended to improve more if they started young...
No, wait! What kind of ridiculous explanation was that?
This wasn’t some overused web novel. Had I really regressed because I got caught up in the wish of a mad potter?
That’s impossible!
“Stop resisting and accept reality. Since things have turned out this way, you’ll fulfill my wish through your body, and you’ll act as my representative.”
What? No, thank you! Through my body? Who gave you permission to decide that?
“Struggling is pointless. I won’t leave you until my wish is fulfilled. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life with a dead man like me? I doubt it.”
Of course not. Who in their right mind would want to spend their entire life with a skull?
“If you’re dead, why don’t you just go peacefully to the afterlife?”
“No! If you were in my position, would you willingly go to the afterlife after waiting for hundreds of years? Fulfilling my wish as quickly as possible would be better for you, too.”
The skull rattled its jaw again, cackling with laughter. I wanted to kick that smooth, ball-like skull straight out the window. Instead, I asked him another question.
“Old man, have you perhaps turned into an evil spirit after failing to move on for hundreds of years?”
“An evil spirit? How dare you say such things to your elders!”
“Anyone can see that you look like an evil spirit right now! A burning skull isn’t exactly an angel, is it?”
“I don’t know why I look like this, but I’m not an evil spirit. I’m just an ordinary soul. A soul that loved pottery very much.”
“Then why is an ordinary soul tormenting me?”
“Tormenting you? All I’m asking is for you to make the finest pottery in the world. Once you do, I’ll gladly disappear. However, it must be pottery of the absolute highest caliber, something that satisfies me completely. I know you can’t do it right away, so I’ll wait ten or even twenty years. Isn’t that why you’ve been given another dozen or so years of your life?”
What on earth was this old geezer talking about?
Why was everyone, from Lee Jeong-sik to this old man, telling me to make pottery? I was a civil service exam candidate, for crying out loud!
“Old man, can’t you go to the afterlife and make pottery yourself?”
“What do you think the afterlife is like? Do you think they have kaolin clay and kilns there?”
Haah... They say that when a true artist goes mad, there’s no reasoning with them.
“I’m perfectly sane. I’m not mad.”
“People say that madmen never realize they’re mad. Anyway, forget it. Let’s say I make pottery according to your wish. What do I get in return?”
“Freedom from me.”
“That’s all? That’s how things were before you attached yourself to me in the first place!”
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“You’ll inherit my pottery-making skills in their entirety. How does that sound? Tempting, isn’t it?”
“What...?”
“Even if I say so myself, I was one of the finest potters of my era. And would you like to hear something even more remarkable? My family had been making pottery since the Goryeo Dynasty.”
That meant he knew how to make both Goryeo celadon and Joseon white porcelain. Being able to properly recreate even one of those would be an incredible achievement.
“That’s right. There’s no better pottery teacher than me in this world. Congratulations! You’ve become an apprentice potter with the finest master imaginable!”
The skull’s jawbone curled to one side. It looked as if he were grinning.
It was absurd that he had appointed himself my master without even asking me, but the pottery I had seen when I touched the incense burner came to mind.
One piece after another. Each one had left me in awe.
Could the skills of that legendary potter who created those masterpieces really become mine? Wouldn’t that be better than passing the civil service exam?
If I could become a potter who shone as brightly as a star...
I had just experienced something beyond belief, and to calm my scattered thoughts, I lowered my gaze to the lumps of clay on the worktable in front of me, ready for practice. Looking at the grayish-brown clay somehow soothed me.
I began kneading it, following Han Eun-jeong’s instructions.
As the cool clay touched my hands, memories from my childhood surfaced.
Why had I become attracted to pottery in the first place?
At first, I had been just like any other ordinary boy. I was interested in robots and video games and had absolutely no interest in pottery.
But at some point, I had developed an interest in... plates. Yes, plates.
When I was little, I sometimes went to the supermarket holding my mother’s hand. The supermarket we visited was fairly large. It sold not only groceries but also beautiful furniture and tableware. After buying ingredients, my mother would often head to the tableware section and look at the ceramic plates and bowls.
I could still remember it clearly.
My mother picking up and putting down the same plate over and over, saying, “That pottery is so pretty. But it would be a waste of money, wouldn’t it?”
When I was in elementary school, I used to get annoyed because she would spend so long looking at plates she had no intention of buying. It felt as though she were stealing my playtime.
But when I grew older, around middle school age, I began to understand the value of money. Every time we went to the supermarket, I finally understood what it meant when my mother hesitated in the tableware section. After that, I no longer felt annoyed.
Because my mother looked just like me when I lingered outside a game shop, staring at the expensive gaming consoles I couldn’t afford.
Instead, I began to imagine something.
Someday, I wanted to give my mother a beautiful plate that I had made with my own hands. I wanted to make one even more beautiful than the plates sold in stores.
That simple thought was what led me to enroll at Haeoreum Pottery Studio in my third year of middle school.
Back then, that was all I felt. I hadn’t seriously considered dedicating my life to pottery.
But as I worked with clay at Haeoreum Pottery Studio, I discovered a whole new world. Handling clay was enjoyable.
I loved the way it felt. At first, it was cold to the touch, but the more my hands worked and pressed against it, the warmer it seemed to become. The initial stiffness and distance gave way to a soft, gentle warmth.
The clay, which had been nothing more than a lump of earth, became a pencil case, a plate, a bowl, a bottle, or a jar in my hands.
Clay held every possibility within it, just like me when I was still a growing child.
I had started pottery because I wanted to make a bowl for my mother, but somewhere along the way, I had come to genuinely love it.
Now that I was a middle school student again, touching clay once more, I recalled the feelings I had forgotten during my years of preparing for the civil service exam.
And I remembered the younger version of myself, filled with pure passion.
“You threw away pottery like that to prepare for a civil service exam? Hmph. What a pathetic fool.”
The potter’s gruff voice shattered my thoughts.
Please don’t read my thoughts without permission.
The skull ignored my complaint and looked toward an object placed at one side of the workshop.
“By the way, is that a pottery wheel over there?”
“Yes, it’s a pottery wheel.”
“The wheels nowadays are quite different from the one I used. What is that large metal contraption supporting the bottom of the wheel?”
“It’s an electric device with a motor inside. See that pedal over there?”
“A pedal?”
“A foot pedal. When you press it, the wheel spins automatically.”
The skull’s empty eye sockets widened with curiosity. Since he had no eyeballs, calling them eye sockets was probably more accurate.
“Oh? Automatically? I’m curious about how it works. Hey, young man, hurry up and try it. Come on, give that new wheel a spin!”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I need the teacher’s permission to use it. I’m still learning something more basic than wheel throwing. Do you really think she’ll let me use it?”
“Please. I’m dying of curiosity!”
“Good grief. You’re already dead.”
I ignored the skull’s request, since he was completely obsessed with pottery, and used a rolling pin to flatten the lump of clay in front of me. By cutting the flattened clay into the desired size, shaping it into slabs, joining the pieces with slip, letting them dry properly, and firing them in a kiln, I could make a square plate.
“The wheel! The wheel! The wheel! The wheel!”
The old potter, knowing that I was the only one who could hear him, began throwing a full-blown tantrum.
He wasn’t a three-year-old child, for goodness’ sake.
Still, I wanted to try the pottery wheel more than slab building, too. It had been a full five years since I’d last tried throwing pottery on a wheel.
“That’s right! You’re thinking sensibly at last!”
The skull read my thoughts and began bouncing up and down with excitement.
Ah, I told you not to read my thoughts! Do you want me to refuse to make pottery for you altogether?
...
The skull suddenly looked so dejected that I finally gave in and raised my hand.
“Teacher, may I try using the pottery wheel?”