From Busan to Tongyeong: Tracing Fiction by Ham Jeung Im   By Ham Jeung Im on Nov 16 2014 13:54:57 Vol.25 Autumn 2014 Topophilia refers to the special love one has for a particular place. For four days from August 6 to 9, along with a group of translators from abroad, I visited Haeundae in Busan and the city of Tongyeong, the two places for which my feelings of topophilia were expressed in my collection of short stories titled Gokdu (Illusion). We began our journey around lunchtime on August 6 in Songjeong, which is located beyond Dalmaji Hill, “the hill where one greets the moon,” on the east side of Haeundae Beach. Songjeong is the stage for “A Refreshing Night,” a short story in a three-part series that includes “Gokdu” and “Plum.” While the narrator of “A Refreshing Night,” Ha-rin, does not physically appear in “Gokdu,” he still serves as the character that propels the entire series. In “A Refreshing Night,” Ha-rin is at Gyeongju Station, waiting at the platform to take the northbound train to Seoul, when he sees on the other side the train to southeastern shores coming in, and on impulse takes that train all the way to Busan. He gets off at Songjeong Station, where his mother had many memories of her youth. To Ha-rin, the place in the black-and-white photo is strange and unfamiliar. Just as his half-sister, whom Ha-rin has never met, visits Tongyeong to ask him to attend her wedding in “Gokdu,” he instinctively follows the traces of his mother of whom he has only the faintest of memories in “A Refreshing Night.”