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Yun Ko-eun (author), Lizzie Buehler (translator), The Disaster Tourist, Serpentβs Tail, 2020. 186 pgs.
After reviewing Yun Ko-eunβs latest collection of short stories, published in this journal, I was asked if I might be willing to write about her first full-length novel in English, The Disaster Tourist. I first read it in 2020 when the translation by Lizzie Buehler was published. At the time, I still lived in Canada and my province was under a tight Covid-19 lockdown. I valued the story, for it gave me an escape from reality and allowed me to travel again, even if only in my mind. I was feeling withdrawal from the travel bug that I had caught just a few years earlier during my first year away at university.
The protagonist of The Disaster Tourist is a young woman named Yona Kim, who, like many of her MZ-generation peers is a cog in the corporate machine. She works as a programming coordinator at Jungle, a niche Seoul-based travel company. The company specialises in selling travel packages to disaster zones. When a disaster strikes, whether it be man-made or ecological, Yona is deployed to the affected area. She surveys the damage and then determines how it can be commodified and marketed to Jungleβs clients as the next cutting-edge destination.
After ten years on the job, Yonaβs work situation has changed for the worse. She finds herself sidelined in her projects for no evident reason and suffers predatory sexual harassment by her boss. The novel was written before the #MeToo movement came to the fore in South Korea. Yonaβs experience, however, is a nod to the reality that many Korean workers have suffered from workplace harassment, yet a majority decline to retaliate, fearing possible repercussions. Rather than join the βlosersβ at Jungle who have faced similar incidents and protest her mistreatment, Yona would rather just quit.
When Yona prepares to hand in her resignation, she is pressured by her offending boss to undertake a sort of working vacation, all expenses paid by Jungle. This is what leads her to a remote island nation off the coast of Vietnam called Mui. Under the guise of a tourist, her task is to evaluate whether Muiβs six-day tour package, one of Jungleβs most unpopular, deserves to remain on its list of offerings.
Yona and her travel companions follow an itinerary that allows them to gaze at poverty and the hardships of local life. When the day is done, they retreat to a luxurious resort where they sleep in beachfront bungalows rather than the stilt houses occupied by the islanders. To βcontributeβ to the community, they do a few hours of volunteer work digging a well and then pat themselves on the back with a soak in a hot spring. Nevertheless, Mui fails to fulfil any of their expectations. Apart from the tired explanations from their guide and the over-commercialisation of the sites they visit, too much time has passed since Muiβs disasters for Yona and her companions to feel even any of the βtypical response[s] to a disaster tripβ (51). The βfrightening and grimβ desert sinkhole that was promised to be a highlight has become nothing more than an ordinary lake while Muiβs volcano proves to be relatively safe, given its long dormancy. Even the homestay with survivors of a gruesome tribal massacre is disappointing in its inauthenticity, held in a staged village.
When it is finally time to leave, Yona gets separated from the group. Without any means to return home and abandoned by Jungle, she ends up stuck on Mui. At this point, Yona gets caught up in a scheme to attract new tourism to Mui concocted by an Orwellian company called Paul. While an element of romance is mixed in, the plot progressively becomes darker, and more Kafkaesque, which leaves Yona to face a fatal dilemma when she is finally prepared to do something about the injustices being plotted.
Taking another look at The Disaster Tourist turned out to be a good opportunity for reflection about my own travels. In recent years, I have visited many places, some close to home and others far away, that undoubtedly can be described as dark. I have been to current and former conflict areas, visited concentration camps and residential schools, explored prisons and asylums, stood at sites where massacres and human rights abuses happened, and seen with my own eyes the devastation wrought by natural disasters and nuclear and radiation accidents. Visiting places associated with death, poverty, and suffering is not a recent phenomenon. It long predates the coining of the term βdark tourismβ by J. John Lennon and Malcolm Foley in 1996, and controversies about whether it is immoral or unethical are not new either. Dark tourism or thanatourism is now the subject of a rich body of academic literature.
The Disaster Tourist is a slim read, but it packs quite a punch. I appreciate that Yun does not spoon-feed her readers, and instead gives space to contemplate the ideas she is trying to impart. She does not point her finger and say that dark tourism, or disaster tourism, is inherently wrong but in her use of darkly comic satire, she raises valid concerns that we should always keep in mind about the exploitation of local communities, which can arise from the activityβs interlinkage with late capitalism. Unfortunately, there are many real businesses and βentrepreneursβ who view dark tourism locations with dollar signs in their eyes. Besides devaluing the lives and memories of those who have endured tragedy and suffering, their enterprise might additionally contribute to the exaggeration of history and distract from what should be non-negotiable priorities: remembrance and education, which will hopefully lead to action that benefits impacted communities too.
Dark tourism can be a very personal and individualised experience. Much depends on the travellerβs state of mind, motivations, and willingness to move beyond a passive level of engagement with what they are seeing and experiencing. Yun encourages the reader to hold a mirror to themself and think seriously about the relationship between the intentions of their actions and the outcomes they inevitably produce.
I cannot deny that I have a curiosity about places that are not typical tourist destinations. As much as I read and research, I know that I will never be able to formulate a clear and holistic idea of certain locations without visiting them. Emotionally engaging with sites and having meaningful conversations, listening with oneβs heart has transformative power. It has the capacity to change oneβs perspectives entirely. That said, Yona demonstrates both through her job at Jungle and entanglement with Paul how a normal person can do evil without being evil. Engaging in disaster tourism is not about thrill-seeking, seeking self-satisfaction or checking destinations off a list. It demands responsibility; a commitment to always be conscientious and should prompt one to leverage their experience towards positive change. Sometimes, βdonβt we need to be distanced somewhat from our ordinary livesβfrom the blankets we sleep under, and the bowls we eat from every dayβin order to see [societal issues in our community] more objectively? (45). The Disaster Tourist reminds me that respect, empathy, a genuine thirst for knowledge, and a willingness to learn should always be my guides whenever and wherever I travel.
How to cite:Β Greenberg, Jack. βNavigating the Fault Lines of Travel: Yun Ko-eun’s Disaster Tourist.βΒ Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 25 May 2024,Β chajournal.blog/2024/05/25/disaster-tourist.
Jack Greenberg resides in Seoul where he is pursuing a masterβs degree at Korea Universityβs Graduate School of International Studies as a Global Korea Scholarship recipient. He is a former management consultant and originally hails from Toronto, Canada. Jack regularly contributes to KoreaPro, an online subscription resource that provides objective insights and analysis on the most important stories in South Korea. His writing has also been featured in The Korea Times and Asian Labour Review. He is interested in housing issues and urban development and enjoys documenting changing cityscapes through photography in his free time and travels abroad. Follow his work on Twitter at @jackwgreenberg. [All contributions by Jack Greenberg.]
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