The sad, lonely dragon and the happy village

 

The Happy Village

Once upon a time there was a small village hidden in the mountains. In that village, there lived the happiest people in all of Korea. A laughing river ran through the middle of the village, bringing clean water for all the people. The people loved the river, which provided them with water to drink, to cook, to grow rice, and to wash their white hanboks. The river's laughter echoed throughout the village, spreading joy to all the people.

The happy village was protected by a group of frightening wooden statues at its gate. When the villagers passed the gate, they always placed a small pebble in front of the statues or tied a bright ribbon to the rope fence around them. This brought the village good luck and blessings from the spirit world.

The fame of the happy village swept through every province of Korea, from the Yellow Sea east to the Sea of Korea and north to China. When pilgrims arrived from far away to dis- cover the secret of the happy village, each was made welcome inside the walls and was given a warm place on the floor to sit, plenty of sticky rice, and fresh water from the river.

One night, a dragon came to the village gate. He stopped next to the wooden statues and said to the tallest one, "I have come from far away. I have been very sad, because people fear me. I wish to live in the happy village, where everyone is full of love and happiness." The tall statue shouted, "You cannot live here! It is my job to keep dragons and evil things like you out! That is why people are happy here."

A silver tear dropped from the dragon’s eye. “But I am not evil," he said. "I am just different. If you will let me stay in the village just one night, you will see good I really am.” The statue looked at him suspiciously, but because he had never seen a dragon cry before, he felt pity for him.

"All right, I suppose you can stay here," said the statue "But you can't go in. You have to sleep outside the gates."

 

"Thank you, thank you!" exclaimed the dragon, and he went off into the bamboo a few meters away and fell asleep curled up like a jade ring.

 

The next night, the dragon again approached the tall statue. "Please let me inside the gate," he said. "I have shown you that I am a good dragon. I have nowhere else to go."

 

"You have shown that you can act like a good dragon for one night. That is all. I don't believe that you are a truly good dragon," said the tall statue.

 

"But I am!" The dragon's silver tears started to flow again. "Oh, all right," said the tall statue. "I suppose you can stay another night." "Oh, thank you, thank you!" exclaimed the dragon. And so, the dragon stayed next to the tall statue, hiding in the bamboo, for thirty nights, showing how good he was. He began to get very hungry and thin. On the thirty-first night, he came to the tall statue again.

 

"Please," he said, "I'm afraid that I cannot wait much longer. Please let me in.” "You have shown that you can be a good dragon for thirty nights. What if you're a bad dragon on this night? I cannot let you in.”

 

The dragon's eyes filled with silver tears, which fell in twinkling puddles around his feet.

"I will never be able to go through the gates," he said to himself. And with that, he shook the silver tears from his feet and walked slowly away from the happy village.

 

He set his eyes on the North Star and journeyed north toward his homeland, dragging his tail on the cold stone road. He walked many days and many nights, for his sorrow would not permit his tired legs to rest. Finally, he was overcome with thirst, so he made his way beyond the rice paddies, through the hollow reeds, past the long river grass, and down to the riverbank, where he balanced on the slippery, round rocks. But when he dipped his nose into the water, his legs were overcome with weakness, and he slipped into the river. The river pulled him down, down, past dragonflies and lilies, carp and eel, filling his ears and mouth, stealing his breath. Then

the light disappeared from his eyes, and he was drowned.

The laughing river closed her arms around the dragon and tasted his kinship with sorrow, warm and sweet, like a ripe peach. She knew in her heart that the dragon was not bad. She sang a smooth lullaby in her liquid voice as she gently rocked the dragon's tired body through the night.

The next morning, the women of the happy village brought their yokes and buckets to the river to carry water home. But The next morning, the women of the happy village brought no one could explain why, just on that one morning, the laughing river was still, and filled with drops of silver. -Language of Blood, Jane Jeong Trenka, page 55

When I read this passage, tears immediately filled my eyes and I cried very hard for a while, unable to continue reading. As an HSP, highly sensitive person, this isn’t too out of the ordinary for me. However, there was something to this story that touched so deeply in my soul, a feeling of unbelonging, that I have only found a few other times- pieces of writing that are able to reproduce the loneliness I sometimes feel. “I know how that dragon feels”, I realized. I looked in vain to find this story online. Was it a folk tale? A Korean story passed down generations to teach a lesson? The lesson of “following your north star” is a practice that my own mother taught to me so maybe her mother told it to her? I could not find anything. So, I am writing this in response to what I believe is an original story, written by the author, to explain how she feels. The author feels like she doesn’t belong, has no one that trusts her, and that she is left on the outside of the possibility of living a normal life. I know how that feels.

 In this story, a new chapter begins just after this quote. The story touches on her father’s grief after his mother passes away, the author’s paternal grandmother, and the father is left to cry alone as the author’s mother is unable to process the feelings of others. The mother shies away from sympathizing with anyone or seeing from other’s points of view. The author, having been adopted by her parents from Korea, deals with this same issue. Her mother cannot understand her longing to want to fit in. She cannot understand her desire to meet and know her birth family. To see and experience the culture of Korea.

This story within a story, helped to flip the switch for me to really, I believe truly, feel how the author felt about being adopted. Having a cold and distant mother made the process of assimilating to her surrounds made things even harder. I understand what it is like to want to be understood and I can’t help to feel as though my own feelings, as a woman who is not adopted but has faced many other adversities, have maybe resembled what those who have been adopted feel and think.