The Disaster Tourist

by Yun Ko-Eun

  ‘I realise that some of my actions were a breach of etiquette. But I’m begging you,’ the manager implored. ‘You can’t abandon us now. There’s still a lot for you to see here.’

  The manager’s pleas echoed Yona’s imagined pleas to Jungle. I dedicated so much of my time to the company, giving up weekends and working while buried deep in shame—and now you want to get rid of me?

  ‘The rating I’m giving Mui is a D. Usually, Jungle renews the contracts rated B or higher. Of course, a D has more room for re-evaluation than an E or F does.’

  As they came out of her mouth, the sentences made Yona uncomfortable. She felt empathy for this D-rated programme.

  ‘So it’s not completely out of the running,’ the manager responded. ‘Why do you think Mui is a D?’

  ‘Jungle offers about one hundred and fifty different travel packages. Programmers are constantly designing trips, so a package has to be powerful to survive. We’ve got earthquakes, typhoons, volcanoes, avalanches, droughts, floods, fires, massacres, wars, radioactivity, desertification, serial killers, tsunamis, animal abuse, contagious diseases, water pollution, asylums, prisons and more. The packages Koreans like are those with something exotic, the spirit of adventure. But there’s nothing like that on Mui. Headhunting and a sinkhole opening up in the ground are appealing premises, but the problem is that they happened fifty years ago. Also, it’s hard to call the desert here a desert. It’s really more of a dune. And the home-stay at the house on stilts, well … that kind of attraction could be recreated at any old museum or theme park, so it just felt like fluff. Mui is appealing in that it’s an unknown place, like any foreign country. But it doesn’t really seem like a disaster destination you’d pay money to visit, does it?’

  ‘It was very popular at the beginning.’

  ‘Its time has run out. If a destination doesn’t have enough tourist attractions to keep it going, it’s kicked off the roster.’

  They heard a knocking sound, and the manager got up from his seat.

  ‘It looks like Mr Hwang has arrived. This is someone you’ll know.’

  The door opened, and the writer from the Jungle trip, Junmo Hwang, entered the room. As soon as he saw Yona, he opened his mouth in surprise.

  ‘It’s you! Someone told me there was another Korean here, but I didn’t realise it was you, Yona. Hey, why have you got so thin over the past few days? Have you not returned to Korea yet, or did you leave and come back again?’

  Yona gasped upon seeing the writer. ‘I haven’t been able to leave yet,’ she replied. ‘Why are you here again?’

  Only a few days had passed since the two had parted, but the writer looked incredibly happy, as if they hadn’t seen each other for a very long time. Raindrops hit the window with increasing strength. The manager brought out coffee with evaporated milk and macaroons.

  ‘Sit down and let’s talk. We have a lot to discuss, so make yourself comfortable.’

  The writer downed half his coffee in one gulp.

  ‘Oh my gosh, our guide was about to explode when we realised you were gone. We were considering missing our flight and getting a later one. Everyone in the group wanted you to come back with us, so we waited. But we couldn’t contact you, so finally we just got on the next plane. And that kid wouldn’t stop crying the entire flight. Something about leaving her sketchbook behind.’

  ‘Did you come to retrieve me?’ Yona asked.

  ‘If that were the case, I would be honoured,’ the writer said in jest.

  Feigning disappointment that he couldn’t play the role of Yona’s saviour, the writer inhaled deeply and drank the rest of the coffee.

  ‘I came for work. I told you about the various side gigs that help me earn a living, didn’t I? I’m a freelancer; during our trip, I worked for Jungle, and now I’m working here. I’ll be in Mui until my contract expires.’

  ‘You worked for Jungle?’

  ‘Yeah, it was a temporary gig. That trip originally needed at least five people to depart, but because there were only four, I was hired to fill in. The idea was that I’d be a monitor. Anyway, I met a beautiful lady like you, Yona, so it wasn’t bad at all. Ha ha.’

  ‘I work for Jungle, too.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I’m a full-time employee.’

  ‘Huh, you’re a cut above me, then. Were you doing some sort of secret job? And what kind of Jungle employee gets marooned like this?’

  Yona shrugged her shoulders to show that she didn’t know. The writer told her that her suitcase was currently in a storage box at the airport in Ho Chi Minh City. He also let her charge her phone, which had been dead for the past few days. When the phone turned on, Yona realised that the text urging her to ‘ask Paul’ didn’t come from the guide’s number. ‘Ask Paul the way, and find beautiful ladies in your area’ was the whole text. Yona felt drained.

  This spam text that had followed her all the way to a foreign country made Yona’s head hurt. She thought about how she’d ended up in such a preposterous place. But hadn’t the guide definitely mentioned the manager? That’s what she remembered. Had she failed to understand something else? Maybe this entire situation was the finale to a yellow card designed to test her. The current trial she was undergoing? Maybe it was part of the work trip she’d been sent on. Yona recalled how Kim had told her she needed to find the way back herself. She wondered if the debacle she’d fallen into was a disaster, or the chaos that lay beyond disasters. She couldn’t stop thinking about it; somehow, the more she entertained doubts about what was going on, the deeper she seemed to be falling into a swamp. Now, ironically, when Yona couldn’t trust Jungle, the resort trusted Yona. Precisely because Yona worked for Jungle.

  ‘But what kind of job are you doing here, Junmo?’ Yona asked.

  ‘First get in the car. There’s somewhere we need to go.’

  The three of them got in the car and drove down the road that circled Mui. The writer whispered something into Yona’s ear. Don’t be surprised.

  The car stopped in front of the red sand desert. It wasn’t far from the white sand desert, but the land here gave off an entirely different energy. For a start, the whole place resembled a construction site. In front of them was a wall, three metres tall, that seemed to encircle the entire red desert area, and all they could see above the wall was the incomplete tower, soaring upwards. A tower that, according to plan, would become a lookout point where you could take in both the desert and the ocean at once. But since construction was suspended a year ago, everything had stopped. Even if the company in charge did finish erecting the tower, the structure was sure to eat up money, so they were leaving it alone for now. The tower mimicked the form of a human body, and inside it a spiral staircase leading to the lookout had been installed. But it had no real features above the neck. At first the sculpture had been designed in Jesus’ image, then the current company had taken charge of the project and turned it into a Mary statue. But now it had no face at all.

  The writer stared at up the expressionless mass and asked, ‘If I do my job well, will they carve my face up there?’

  The manager answered, smiling.

  ‘Construction on the tower is going to begin again. Paul started resolving things about six months ago, and they’ve decided to finish the task. Did you guys know that our resort is affiliated with Paul, too?’

  Yona lightly shook her head.

  ‘The truth is, two construction firms already pulled out because they thought the project was a money pit. But now that Paul has invested, it’s obvious that things are turning around. Paul has invested a significant amount of money in Mui.’

  Yona had loosely assumed that Paul was just a shipping company. She still didn’t know anything about Paul. But she didn’t want to reveal her ignorance, so she asked about the business indirectly.

  ‘What do you think about Paul?’

  ‘Well … it’s a skilful company,’ the manager replied, like there was an obvious correct answer.

  �
�Is that right?’

  ‘Paul doesn’t stick its hands into ventures that are going to fail,’ the manager added.

  Your resort is so dead that flies are buzzing around it, Yona thought to herself.

  ‘We have to save Mui, if only to avoid disappointing Paul. That’s how Belle Époque will survive, too. If Paul pulls out of Mui, the real disaster begins.’

  They entered the humanoid tower through its feet. The narrow spiral staircase rose up in front of them. The manager led the way, and his voice rang out between the rounded steps.

  ‘Do you know why Paul invested in Mui?’

  ‘Uh …’ Yona didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Because it’s cheap. Right now, everything in Mui is available at rock-bottom prices. Especially if you compare it with other countries in the region. Paul bought Mui’s potential, and for hardly any money at all. If you think about it, this is an opportunity for Jungle, too. Mui is so low, all it can do now is rise back up.’

  Yona listened without talking. Every time the group completed one rotation of stairs, a round window appeared in the wall, and if not for those windows, it would have felt like the structure was suffocating them. The writer grumbled that they’d barely reached the sculpture’s knees. This wasn’t his first time here; he’d already visited three times. If you entered on the opposite side, an lift went up to the lookout point, but the lift wasn’t working.

  ‘Paul is going to succeed in its investment,’ the manager continued. ‘According to what I’ve heard, international organisations are soon going to launch a disaster recovery programme in this area. The organisations will pick one of the region’s disaster zones and donate an enormous amount of money for urban redevelopment. For sewage repairs, problems with electricity, road maintenance, even people’s jobs: everything.

  A window hadn’t appeared for a very long time.

  ‘If all of that is true, do you think that Mui would be selected for such a programme?’ Yona asked.

  ‘We have to make sure it is,’ the manager said.

  Because there were no more windows, it felt like they were continuously revolving around the same spot, and motion sickness welled up inside Yona’s stomach.

  ‘Isn’t it possible that Paul’s investment could lead to nothing? If disaster doesn’t hit Mui, it won’t be a candidate for a recovery programme. And you can’t hope Mui will fall into ruins for specifically this reason. The timing of disasters isn’t something humans decide.’

  ‘Well, timing is the easy part.’

  Now the manager was addressing the writer.

  ‘Mui suffered from a drought all spring. Once the wet season began, rain started to fall in torrents. Sinkholes occur in areas where the ground is weak, especially when there’s heavy rain to set them off. Our timing’s okay.’

  Yona wondered what he meant about timing. The writer strode ahead of the manager and opened the door at the top of the steps. Finally they’d reached the tower’s neck and could look out. Wind mixed with crunchy flecks of sand rushed into the formerly enclosed space. Far off, they caught sight of the ocean surrounding them, throwing its blue undulations at the wind. Between the water and this tower lay the red sand desert, which resembled a golf course. The sand in the middle of the desert sank down into two rounded holes. The sight shocked Yona. They looked exactly like sinkholes.

  The hole on the right side was close to a perfect circle, nearly as expansive as the head lake. The one on the left was slightly smaller, but it looked deep. Yona had never witnessed sinkholes this big, not even in photos, and especially not two that had occurred right next to each other. And right in the middle of the desert? She was surprised, too, by how sturdy the walls of the holes looked. Maybe it was because she was looking down from a distance. Perhaps if she got a closer view, she’d see sand plummeting inside.

  ‘When did this happen? This incident—or did … ?’

  ‘Or what?’

  Or, was something else going on? This place still seemed like a construction site. At the edge of the desert, a large digger was parked. It was frozen, its long neck stooped, like an animal so thin its bones were exposed. And what was the wall surrounding the desert for? Yona wondered if it was protecting—or hiding—something other than this incomplete tower. She looked down at the two grave-like valleys: they looked like the site of the head hunting from fifty years earlier. The nearby sand’s reddish hue gave the area even more of a murderous atmosphere. The holes were so deep, the desert sandstorms probably couldn’t even reach them. It was the same up here, on the tower. This vertical structure successfully avoided the horizontally blowing wind. Yona rubbed her arms.

  The writer began to tell Yona a story that reminded her of the children’s game ‘If You Go to Market’. You just had to change ‘market’ for ‘desert’. If you go to the desert, there is fruit; if you go to the desert, there is fruit and bread; if you go to the desert, there is fruit and bread and tents; if you go to the desert, there is fruit and bread and tents and wheelbarrows; if you go to the desert, there is fruit and bread and tents and wheelbarrows and fathers; if you go to the desert, there is fruit and bread and tents and wheelbarrows and fathers and sons—and so forth. As long as no one forgot a word, the game could continue forever. The writer explained that the desert would be filled with a similarly endless number of items three weeks from now, on the first Sunday of August: the field day for Mui’s only elementary school, to be followed by the village festival in the afternoon. From early morning, vehicles and people carrying food would descend upon the red sand desert. At 9 a.m. field day would commence among the dunes. After avoiding the sun for a bit at lunchtime, villagers would begin the festival at 3 p.m. But instead of this schedule, what would actually happen was that at 8 a.m., the ground would begin to crumble, and the first sinkhole would appear. And before the people of Mui could straighten things out, the second hole would open up. Twenty cars and motorcycles would be sucked into the two holes, along with one hundred citizens.

  The writer explained that the first sinkhole was located in a spot where, two days before the festival, locals would discover a puddle two metres in diameter and one metre deep, the sand hollowed out like someone had excavated the desert with an ice cream scoop. Such puddles appeared every so often. The desert sometimes revealed osteoporosis-like pockets of emptiness. But this time, people would be surprised by the puddle’s size. It was a lot bigger than earlier puddles, big enough to cause an accident. And because the puddle was situated right below the tower, in the middle of the desert, they couldn’t just install a safety fence around it. Two days before the event, the school would fill the hole and place various adornments over it: emergency first aid so people couldn’t walk over the wound in the ground. But then it would collapse, one hour before the event. What was initially two metres in diameter would spread to almost forty metres, with a depth close to sixty. Soon after the first sinkhole, the second sinkhole would appear nearby. Right below where most of the festival organisers were standing, and without warning.

  ‘The second sinkhole will be almost thirty metres in diameter and at least two hundred metres deep,’ the writer explained. ‘That’s where most of the casualties will be. Almost all of them, in fact.’

  Yona descended the tower’s stairs in a stupor, feeling like she had stepped into some kind of nightmare. In the car on the way back to the resort, she was silent. When she did start asking questions back in the manager’s office, the writer didn’t answer any of them, but he did hand her several photos.

  ‘This is a diamond mine in South America,’ he said. ‘In 1871, diamonds were discovered on a hill there, and people flocked to the area. Within a few months, they’d dug a cave one hundred metres deep. Of course, their goal wasn’t to create a sinkhole, but that’s what happened naturally. They had almost thirty thousand people digging for diamonds. We just have twenty.’

  ‘Does—does that mean you made those holes in the desert?’ Yona asked.

  ‘Well, those twenty workers dro
ve the diggers and carried the shovels, of course, not me personally.’

  The writer showed Yona a few more pictures. They were photos he’d taken earlier, of the sinkhole construction site, and the workers operating the machinery digging the holes. Like the Sarisariñama sinkhole in Venezuela, the sinkholes consisted initially of small divots appearing one after another, resembling dens for underground animals. At some point, these tiny openings merged into two enormous holes: the shapes Yona had just witnessed.

  ‘But why?’ Yona asked. ‘Why did you dig those holes? And what was the story you just told me about what’s going to happen there?’

  The writer sighed.

  ‘Yona, you haven’t been listening. This is very important, pay attention. Three weeks from now, it will be the first Sunday of August. We’ve prepared the sinkholes, and on that day we’ll reveal them. Everything’s going to happen just like in the story you just heard.’

  The manager lit a cigarette. He blew out his smoke away from Yona.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked. ‘Will this incident be suitable for a new Jungle trip?’

  The wind changed direction, and the manager’s smoke blew in Yona’s face.

  ‘So, logically, what you’re saying means—’

  ‘Logically, Mui can’t wait any longer. There’s not really a difference between dying in a natural disaster and starving to death, is there? In the current situation, dying in a natural disaster would be preferable. Since signing a contract with Jungle and building the resort, Mui has been tailoring everyday life to fit its role as a disaster zone. That’s led young workers who left for other regions to come back. Now, if disaster disappears from Mui, life disappears, too.’