Badang, filled with life and sorrows

"Badang, Walking the Road" is a picture book depicting the four seasons of Jeju's sea (Badang), with the sea as its main motif.
That's why the Jeju sea is depicted so colorfully in this picture book. It's a familiar landscape you can see just by leaving home and walking a short distance along a familiar stone wall path. The sea is also the means and space through which Jeju's female divers and grandmothers make their living.
Also, at night, the lights of boats fishing for cuttlefish in the sea create a magical and majestic light pillar landscape, and even the sight of migratory birds in the snowstorm of the winter sea depicts the four seasons of Jeju Badang.


But for the people of Jeju, the sea is not only beautiful and abundant.
It is a place where strong typhoons come and where strong winds make people cower.
When I look at the scenery of the narrator in the picture book looking out at the sea, it feels like the vast sea is embracing the narrator, but at the same time, it feels like the sea is erasing a boundary that prevents them from going any further.
Perhaps the author wanted to capture the complex emotions and meanings the sea holds for the people of Jeju in this book.

Wind, blooming flowers in the crevices of rocks

In 『Walking the Road, the Wind』, the next most important thing after the sea is the wind.
The story begins by describing the change in the wind that had been blowing all winter, and then moves on to depict the scenery of a day with frequent spring breezes, the scenery after a typhoon, and the bitter wind of midwinter.
And it depicts the flowers that bloom in the wind blowing from the sea and the cactus that bears purple fruit after the typhoon has passed.


The author is expressing that Jeju people do not avoid the wind, but rather live with it.
Perhaps the wind blowing from or toward the sea signifies fate and symbolizes hardship and trials.
The author may have wanted to quietly say that the sight of flowers blooming and bearing fruit amidst such winds is the true image of Jeju.

Jeju's four seasons captured in a simple way

"Walking in the Yard" is a picture book that contains the four seasons, from the end of winter to spring again.
The author painstakingly depicted the details of Jeju Island in watercolor on each page.
From daffodils blooming between basalt stone walls, to the red sunscreen of female divers and seaweed washed up on the rocks, female divers coming up on land after diving, yellow flowers or purple fruits of cacti blooming between rocks, pillars of light from squid fishing boats, and cormorants flying over the blizzard sea, the author realistically and simply depicts things he saw and felt while walking around.