6. The Old Man and the Han
The real estate old man went above and beyond for an out-of-town customer, whom he hadn’t seen in a while.
They called it the real estate business, but this was before professional licenses were required. Since it was a registration-based industry—you need only report to the district office your intent to broker real estate, and you could start—expertise was sorely lacking.
Instead, in rural villages like this, the village headman or well-connected locals often handled real estate, which actually made transactions quite convenient.
“This here’s a hidden gem. The owner’s getting on in years, so he’s giving up farming to rest.”
“Please mark it down for now.”
“Now, this here is golden land—they say you’ll strike it rich if you farm it. The owner’s children all went up to Seoul for government posts, so he’s following them up and looking to settle quickly. How about it?”
“That’s good. Please mark this down too.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake! I showed you every good plot of land because I thought a young gentleman had brought plenty of cash, so why do you keep marking things down?”
Come to think of it, we’d been walking around looking at land for so long that even my feet hurt. No wonder he might feel irritated, what with me only looking around endlessly.
“I’ll buy all the land you’ve shown me so far.”
I figured I’d seen enough by now.
Land prices per pyeong in Yeongdong varied by location, but truthfully, the seller set the price.
It was the opposite of the Gangnam of the future.
It meant the buyer could purchase at whatever price the seller named.
Not that an outrageous price would close the deal, but if you matched a reasonable price, there were plenty of people willing to sell.
The Japanese colonial period.
The Korean War.
Having survived these two national crises, this was an era of massive population decline. Labor was scarce, and land was in surplus. Money was concentrated in the city centers where the small remaining population gathered, so land in Yeongdong was practically worthless.
Later, prices would catch fire, stoked by speculators and market manipulators, but right now, even the preliminary draft of the ‘South Seoul Plan’ had yet to be drawn up.
“The average price is about 1,300 hwan per pyeong. All the land you’ve seen totals roughly 40,000 pyeong. It seems unlikely you brought enough money for that...”
Cheap.
Overwhelmingly cheap.
Even without factoring in the era’s value, whatever the amount, it was incredibly cheap.
That was precisely why land transactions in Yeongdong were not very active during this period.
Because no one thought it was land that would appreciate.
“Let’s draw up the contracts first. Surely the money I have on hand is enough for the deposits. I’ll pay the full remaining balance within a week.”
“You really mean to farm...?”
“I intend to farm, and I intend to build warehouses. The land for the warehouses should be separate from what we’ve seen today—a bit farther away. Show me again when I pay the balance.”
Why had I been reborn?
If I was reborn, how should I live?
I had agonized over this countless times.
Of course, making my mother happy came first. And one of my next priorities was embracing the sorrows of that era, the same pains my mother had endured.
My goal in returning was to prevent, even slightly, the sacrifices forced by the era.
I had worried briefly that I might be stealing the fortune of those who originally lived on this land, but I quickly dismissed the thought.
After all, of those living here now, not even one in a hundred would enjoy the fortune of rising land prices.
In the end, this land would change hands repeatedly and become profit for a handful of powerful figures and those with information—in other words, people who did not live here now.
The one in a hundred who might seize that fortune had no reason to sell to me now.
I had offered a generous premium.
If not now, I could never buy this much land so easily.
Heaven’s luck was with me.
Money?
Far too easy.
In my original life, that damned thing called money had always hounded me, forcing me to live like a sinner, but now making money seemed like the easiest thing in the world.
What I had agonized over was creating the initial lump sum, not rolling it and multiplying it afterward.
Luckily, having been reborn before the stock market crash, I had skipped over the difficult intermediate steps.
I already had a lot of money now, but because I had an even grander plan, this investment was essential.
I would let it sit for a long time.
Now was the best time to buy this land.
In the near future, government officials and all manner of parasites would swarm in to speculate, and at even the faintest whiff of rising prices, those who had wanted to sell would pull back.
Furthermore, buying now meant there would be nothing to contest later.
Since I couldn’t complete all the contracts that day, I stayed three more nights at the real estate agency owner’s house.
In the end, I purchased additional land for warehouses, buying a total of slightly over 50,000 pyeong.
Since the area of Gangnam District is roughly 12 million pyeong, I had purchased quite an enormous amount of land.
In between, I stopped by the bank and paid the balance precisely. Finishing my four-day schedule in Gangnam, I headed back to the ferry crossing carrying a bag full of land deeds instead of money.
*
“Did you see enough of the orchards and rice fields you wanted to see?”
It was that same boatman from before.
“Yes. I saw plenty. They were overwhelmingly beautiful.”
“Well then. Four days should be plenty. But it seems it wasn’t just looking.”
“After seeing them, I wanted to buy some, so I purchased a little.”
“A little? Has the era changed? That’s quite different from the ‘little’ I know.”
He had been smiling subtly when I first saw him a few days ago, but now for some reason he seemed combative.
“Would the meaning change even if the era does? I misspoke. I bought a considerable amount.”
“Considerable? Hmm... That’s different from what I know as well.”
“Does size matter? What matters is how it’s used.”
“Indeed. How will you use that considerable amount of land?”
I stared intently into the old man’s eyes once more.
Leaving aside looks, those who live righteously shine with a bright light on their faces, while those who live darkly grow shadows after forty. Likewise, those who work on boats should naturally carry that physicality in their bearing and gestures, but rather than such a feeling, he exuded a distinctly scholarly air.
Of course, his body looked healthy for his age.
“Are you curious?”
“I am. In over ten years of working as a boatman here, you’re the first young man who has ever spoken like this.”
“I’m curious as well. Why are you working as a boatman here?”
“...?”
“I’m not trying to judge the dignity of occupations, but sir, you simply don’t look like a boatman. And anyone can tell it’s a lie that you’ve been working as a boatman for over ten years. You haven’t been doing it continuously for ten years, have you?”
A slight smile formed on the old man’s face.
“You speak first. Then I shall tell you as well.”
*
“It’s an investment for the future.”
“Investment?”
The smile vanished from the old man’s face.
“Yes.”
“Investment... You’re even more hopeless than I thought.”
The old man glared at me as if he had met his mortal enemy.
“You are not worthy of hearing my answer.”
His face hardened coldly as he spat out the words.
Now that I heard it, the words left a bad taste.
Just one sentence.
I had simply said it was an investment for the future. Yet he picked a fight immediately and sulked just as fast. Absurd as it was, I decided to converse further.
Truthfully, I was curious.
What on earth was this man doing here?
And what was it he wanted to hear from me?
“Investment. Was there something strange about that word?”
“You brat. You look like you’ve just turned twenty. Your family must have collaborated with the Japanese, or you must have soldiers in your family. For a young pup to already avoid the thought of sweating and working, babbling instead about investment and whatnot.”
“What do you think investment is, sir?”
“Not sweating. And making money. Is that not investment! A young man must sweat to build and achieve something while earning money. You types will never understand that in your lifetime.”
Interesting.
“Just as my ‘little’ differs from your ‘little,’ it seems our thoughts on investment differ as well.”
I paused briefly and gazed steadily at the old man.
His face remained stiffly set, showing no signs of softening.
“I will farm here. On a very large scale.”
“Investment is—!”
My following words overlapped with the old man’s shout.
At the same time, upon hearing my words, the old man’s eyes went wide.
“Far... ming??”
“Yes. I bought rice paddies and fields, so I must farm them. What else do you do with rural land?”
“Far... ming...?”
That’s right.
Later, this place would leap onto the world stage as Gangnam, but that was still nearly ten years in the future.
Leaving it idle after buying it wouldn’t necessarily be bad, but I had decided to farm.
“You bought that much land to farm?? Do you think I’m just some boatman who steers ferries at the wharf, saying anything carelessly?”
The old man’s face was full of questions.
To find someone so full of doubt at the idea of farming land in Yeongdong—it was absurd for this era.
He had exploded when I mentioned investment.
He was a man with insight into money and land.
“Whether the land I bought will become gold or dung is probably something only heaven knows.”
A lie.
Right now, heaven and I both know.
“Even so, I believe that land will become gold.”
I am certain.
“And?”
“But what good is it to leave it idle until it becomes gold? I will do what our country needs most but ignores.”
“And that is farming?”
“Yes.”
Myeongdong, Seoul.
It was where I had spent most of my time since being reborn. Though bustling enough to house the stock exchange, just a short distance outside, under railway bridges, countless beggars with sacks on their backs wandered with haggard faces.
Children with faces covered in soot scrambled and fought like demons over the food scraps left by men smartly dressed in suits.
How was Yeongdong now?
Though it was the year 1962, this place felt closer to the Joseon Dynasty than to Korea.
The entire nation was starving.
“When the entire nation is starving and struggling in poverty, what greater investment for the future is there than farming?”
Only then did a smile bloom again on the old man’s face.
“Hehe... You’re the first person since my father to speak such words. I am called Choe Ga. I am too ashamed to speak my name, so just call me Old Man Choe.”
The old man spoke the Seoul dialect, but traces of Gyeongsang-do accent were scattered throughout. So did I.
I knew of a Choe family with Gyeongsang-do accents. Crucially, I had remembered just now. Before my rebirth, I had studied and searched extensively, and I remembered seeing this old man’s face in the materials.
But he seemed to have circumstances, so I pretended not to know.
“If you ever need help, come find me here in Yeongdong. My name is I Dong-ho.”
“Hehe. Why would I need help?”
“Even if you merely feel lonely or stifled, please come find me. Just as you waited for me at the ferry crossing, I too shall wait.”
“Hehe...”
‘I may lack power now, but if you come to me later, I will make sure to help you.’
A world where good people live well is the true world.
I don’t know when things got so twisted, but I want to cut and untie even a little of those tangled knots.
The old man, who had taken me to Seoul, smiled and steered his boat back toward Yeongdong.
As I stared blankly at that sight, I hummed an old song, one I had heard without realizing.
No, a song not yet even released.
“Across the village lives Choe Jinsa, who has three daughters. And among them, the third daughter is said to be the prettiest~.”