Maybe We Should Start Building the Cities We Want — 1: Every Path is Possible

"Any path is possible," Suhee said. I believed her. I still do. But after losing two homes and two shops, I had to ask myself: were we moving forward, or just moving? This new series traces our journey, the lessons we’ve learned, and the unexpected turns along the way. If you’re new here, reading the prologue might be helpful.

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As the Daejeon stream began to thaw out, we quickly finished a light remodeling of the new shop space, which we dubbed Corner Shop. The construction used a grip of upcycled materials that would otherwise be headed for the trash or a fire pit. Luckily the neighborhood around the shop was a hot spot for design and printing companies. These companies required many reams of paper, and those reams of paper required wood shipping pallets. Over the years, broken wood pallets pile up in such a neighborhood.

I feel good about the process of re-using materials, not just for economical or ecological reasons, but because it really pushes one to be flexible and creative in order to find a path forward. We stick to a general idea of where we are going, while accepting that everything is subject to change along the way.

This way of working offers good exercise for the body and mind.

As spring came into full bloom, Corner Shop likewise came to life with events. We invited a sitar player to give a concert while we cooked a curry dinner for the attendees. Theater groups used the space in the evenings to rehearse. Meditation and beer were paired together every few weeks. Meanwhile, in between the events and our studio work, we took turns staffing the cafe during the day, serving Suhee’s herb tea, coffee, beer from a friend’s natural farm brewing company, and our own home baked bread topped with honey from a farmer just down the road.

The smell of fresh bread mingling with coffee and herbs when you walk into a shop is something I will never forget. So too, the excitement and general good feeling of having created a space for so many positive activities to take place. It felt like we built a paradise. I loved it, and things were just starting to feel like they were humming along at an unstoppable pace.

This always seems to be when it happens. The inevitable news came soon, and it came twofold.

The Collapse of Paradise

Things turned upside down in the space of one week.

First, we were kicked out of the house due to a family feud. You know Korean game shows? A family feud is nothing to mess with — there was literally a mini war in the street between two families, both of whom claimed ownership of the house that we were renting.

And that kind looking little old lady who was supposed to be our landlord? We witnessed the hidden fury and wrath within, and it wasn’t pretty. Just a few months ago, it felt like we were both living in a spirit of shared humanity, sharing thoughts about life and exchanging food from our gardens whenever we had a bit extra. Suhee and I even offered to pay extra rent, not on account of pressure form our landlord, but because we thought she was charging us too little.

People sometimes say that money rules the world. This is not really true. Money is a story. So it is not the money itself, but the story of money and the way it is told which rules us. A story is a powerful thing, and these days, it often feels like the story of shared humanity quickly runs and hides when other stories — money, image, or power — exert too much influence on our view of life.

In reality, it is the stories we believe in, and how we make sense of them as a society, that dictate how our society functions.

Meanwhile, our partner down the river at Corner Shop called a special meeting between the three of us. We felt something unsettling the moment we got there. Sure enough, it was about the space, and money. The lease had to be terminated, unless we drop some serious money on the building contract. The only money Suhee and I had at that time though, was the fund we had been saving to buy a place of our own.

There was little discussion. We had to give up the lease on Corner Shop.

This, was like two asteroids hitting our little world, one after the other. I was completely deflated — a dizzy, hazy melancholy overtook everything. Once again, we would have to give up a home and a workspace that had just felt like it was all coming into bloom.

The Flow of a Stream

Perhaps luckily, Suhee and I had little time to dwell in this melancholy. We only had a month to figure out both a new place to live, and a new studio / shop space.

Our commute route at the time was a few mile ride along Daejeon Stream, which conveniently ran between the house and shop.

Looking back, this was probably one of the things that kept us sane. The wind, the changing seasons that brought flowers, families of ducks, otters, heron. Every day on that river was a chance to witness something different and miraculous about this place that we lived. On our bicycle commute Suhee and I often talked about life. We cried, we laughed, we even sang together a few times.

The night after we made the decision to give up Corner Shop, we biked home along this stream, filled with a mixture of betrayal, dejection, and confusion about what to do.

Suhee wondered if Daejeon hated us, or if we had been going down the wrong path this whole time. I wondered if all the shops, the moves, the endless reinventions were really a path forward, or just an endless cycle we would be caught in forever.

Holding these dark thoughts, we continued to bicycle at a slow pace, and then Suhee leaned her head towards me. The words she spoke next were simple, but they were like little explosions of light in the darkness. “You know,” she said, “Any path is possible. We can go anywhere. We can even leave Korea.”

Suddenly, a brisk wind came up from behind, pushing us upstream, and the ducks and streetlights looked on as we pedaled. So many possibilities began to appear in my mind that just a second ago were buried in the darkness.

Suhee was right. We can take a step in any direction at any point. Maybe these events over the past several years, as difficult as they felt, were pushing us to realize something.

Every path is possible.

The Rise of Moss and Stone

As it was however, it felt like we had a housing emergency to deal with. We needed a new studio space, and place to sleep, quickly.

The very next day, Suhee noticed a for-lease sign in our favorite neighorhood in Daejeon. Although we saw some red flags with the building quality, we signed a rental lease the next day anyway. The next several months were a process of remodeling this new space once again, in our usual way.

We scored dozens of extra long wood pallets that some friends and I would fashion into a long wood bar and floor, but they would take time to prepare. Longer still, on account of dozens of side jobs we were doing simultaneously — all to help save up money for that future plan of ours.

At the same time, the red flags we had noticed with the building started to wave themselves in our faces. Water pipes broke, walls crumbled, wetness seeped up through the floor in the rainy season.

Remodeling moved at an excruciating pace. Nearly a year later, with the help of friends and my brother who came over from the States, we finally opened the new shop in Daejeon, called 이끼와 돌 (Moss and Stone).

I am the moss. Suhee is the stone.

Yet again, we had a feeling of triumph and celebration. Good smells, live music, a community atmosphere where sharing is paramount, and walls filled with artworks from friends near and far. Many people from around Korea, Japan, and the United States visited in the first months.

All the while though, another feeling murmured under the surface, the feeling that this place — just like The Branch in Osaka, and just like Corner Shop — was not really ours.

The problems with the building also continued to compound. The poor initial building quality, combined with equally questionable temporary repairs made over the decades all piled up. Things just kept deteriorating and breaking, and as renters here, we had little power to deal properly with the root of these problems.

My favorite problem — aka, the most ridiculous one — was when the hot water system that heats the floors suddenly burst, unleashing scalding water and steam into the kitchen. Now, I love a good sauna. Just not when your whole shop unceremoniously turns into one.

All the while, Suhee and I continued to look for a place where we could remove ourselves from this cycle of the renter. After three years of searching in Daejeon, nothing had turned up that we could afford.

Actually. I should be completely honest. Something that we could afford did turn up. That thing was a collapsed concrete house filled with trash, on a tiny lot that was deemed almost unbuildable by our architect friends in the neighborhood.

There is possibility in everything, yes. But this was not exactly our idea of a dream opportunity. Still, we would keep looking.

Who Built This City?

At around the time of the kitchen-sauna ordeal, were given the opportunity to give a talk locally. An imagine-the-future in Daejeon kind of talk. We jumped at the chance and put great effort into preparing a talk that would communicate to people in Daejeon, that a small creative village was possible here, in a similar spirit to the one we had lived in during our time in Osaka.

We were ready to talk about bikes, walkable streets, small shops, and building better neighborhoods with the power of community actions. It was a great chance, we thought, to bring sunlight to these ideas in Daejeon.

Somehow that bright, shining talk of hope quickly spiraled down an unexpected void once the Q&A opened up. The general consensus of the citizens, planners, and city representatives in attendance at the meeting was clear. This is a great concept, but too radical, and too expensive to happen here in Daejeon. There was zero interest in making a plan of action.

Returning from that event, which went late into the night, Suhee and I sat at the dimly lit bar counter in our just-finished shop, and I poured a neat glass of Scotch.

Looking down at the wood grain of the bar, I thought about the weeks my brother and I spent ripping boards from pallets, sanding and finishing them. The things we made with those boards were all beautiful, but maybe the real beauty was in the journey — the act of putting one’s heart, mind, and sweat into something. Maybe that’s the bigger part of what it means to be human?

I though secretly, of what Suhee told me last year on our river bike commute, just after Corner Shop collapsed. “Any path is possible. We can go anywhere.” she said. Indeed, at any point in our journey as humans here, we can choose another path. No path is without challenges, but we can try to go anywhere. That understanding is a large part of what has spurred humans to develop unique ways of living in places all around this Earth. Though it might not seem apparent in the course of our daily lives, those paths to new ways still exist today. We just need to be willing to walk them.

Suhee and I had long wanted to work with a hanook as our home base, and to make it an example of what life could be like from our own view. We took many paths on this search, for nearly a decade, even though we often struggled to see how this dream could be possible.

As I poured Suhee her glass, I took the opportunity to remind her of her own sage advice that “any path is possible.”

She held her glass out for a toast. She looked around the shop we had just built, and then into my eyes. Then she asked the question, that for three years we had neglected to ask each other.

“Where should we go?”

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Next Time: We answer this question and take action, hitting the road to a special place, in search of that elusive Hanook.

Another Story: This essay briefly talks about a place called Cornner Shop. It was the first time we put our efforts and ethos into building a space in Korea. It lasted less than a year, but we carry the lessons — and ethos — with us still. We also obviously still ask the same kinds of questions as we move forward. Discover more about the Corner Shop in this writing:

The Corner Shop: Can we Build the Possible City?

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