Jason Erik Lundberg

Two weeks ago, I returned from a month-long writing retreat, spent among nature and about a dozen other creatives. For the month of May 2023, I was the International Writer-in-Residence in the Toji Cultural Foundation Residency Program, at the Toji Cultural Center in Wonju, South Korea. Nestled in the mountains of Gangwon province, the Center boasts three buildings to house writers and other artists throughout the year, and was established by Pak Kyong-ni, one of Korea’s most celebrated and important writers. Primarily aimed at Korean writers, the Residency Program also takes a limited number of international applicants, and I was the sole non-Korean writer for my four weeks there (a month is the minimum stay; most of the other writers were there for two or even three months).

Many other writers from Singapore have also been to Toji, back when they were still partnering with the National Arts Council, and I even edited a novel that takes place there: White Cloud Mountain by Grace Chia. So I’d been hearing about the Residency Program for years, and actually got accepted in 2020, but Covid prevented me from going; then, so much time had gone by that they were asking people to reapply directly to the Foundation, which I did last year; they actually rejected me at the beginning of March, saying that they unfortunately had no space for me, which particularly burned since I’d been accepted in 2020, but then ten days later wrote back and said that they had a spot open after all and asked if I still wanted to come.

I arrived on 1 May, which was Labour Day, meaning that no one at the Center was actually working on that day. But thankfully (after a six-hour flight then a two-and-half-hour bus ride from Incheon Airport to the Wonju Intercity Bus Terminal) Mr Kim Se-hee, grandson of Pak Kyong-ni and chairman of the Foundation, personally picked me up and drove me to the Center. It was so quiet with no one else really around (no traffic sounds, no noisy neighbours, no cacophonous renovations, just sweet silence); there were apparently a few writers there already but I didn’t see them, and another batch was arriving the following day. So I settled in to my Creative Room and made the instant ramen in my goody bag for dinner. There was a meet-and-greet session the next afternoon, though it was all in Korean; still, I introduced myself and what I’d be working on.

I quickly got accustomed to each day’s cycle of the Residency Program, which was much more solitary than I was expecting. Lunch was at 11:30 and dinner at 5:30, at the restaurant/cafeteria in the main building; breakfast was DIY, and consisted of eggs and bread along with a frying pan and toaster. Other than that, we were left completely to our own devices, which mostly meant staying in our Creative Rooms and writing (or trying to write); I’d thought that there might be some group activities, at least to go around the immediate area, but there was nothing like that. I also didn’t realise I would be the only non-Korean-speaker there, though a few of the other writers were fluent enough in English to communicate well. Two in particular, novelist Summer Lee and picture book author/artist Kim Hyun-rae, I befriended and spent a bit of time with, though I also didn’t want to bother them too much and interfere with their own writing, so I largely holed up in my room. Later on, I ventured out a bit more; the Wonju campus of Yonsei University was only a six-minute bus ride away, with a café and bakery near the front of campus, where I would bring my laptop for a change of scenery and to actually be around people. And at one point, I took an hour-long bus ride into downtown Wonju to see the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie.

Time had a very stretchy quality: each day would progress very slowly—the hours not spent writing instead consisting of resting and thinking and then getting bored and watching YouTube or Netflix—and then I’d look up and a whole week had gone by. This also happened during the six weeks I spent at the Clarion Writers’ Workshop in 2002, and it was interesting to experience the reprise. Days would go by and I wouldn’t think that I’d actually written very much, but then I’d surprise myself by seeing thousands of new words. And what a welcome surprise it was; since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, I’ve felt absolutely robbed of creative energy, when I’d previously been quite prolific (I’ve released at least one book a year since 2011, sometimes two or even three).

In 2022 and the start of 2023, I’d managed some progress on a new novel, expanding greatly on an original novelette published in my 2019 collection, Most Excellent and Lamentable. But even though I’d gotten through five chapters, it felt like I was continually pushing against the current, the writing torturously difficult. I knew that there was something there, so I kept going, if at a snail’s pace. But the Residency Program at Toji allowed me both the time and space to freely re-enter that world and thoroughly explore it, with the result that, by the end, I wrote 20,000 words in the novel I’m calling Languishing Under Singaporean Glass, putting me only three chapters from the end; I also wrote a totally unrelated 5,600-word short story, called “The Wind’s Got You Sideways”, which I sent out to a literary journal as soon as I returned to Singapore at the end of May. I also kept a hand-written diary of every day while I was there, which ended up going for 77 pages (though I have no idea how many words that is).

As I said at the start, it’s been two weeks since I got back home, and my time in Toji now feels like a dream, or a story told by a different person. It was both intense and relentlessly laid-back. The weather was far cooler than Singapore’s, averaging around 22°C and getting down as cold as 9°C, which I loved; I wore my hoodie nearly all the time, and slept with only an oscillating fan. The air was so fresh and clean away from any city. They fed us really well; lunch and dinner were buffet-style and mostly vegetarian, often with produce farmed on the property itself, and always with soups. I also surprised myself by being able to take the level of spiciness in many of the dishes, and didn’t find myself missing meat overmuch. To get fed, I had to walk from my building to the main one, up a hill with 127 steps, wooden train ties hammered into the hillside about half a metre apart, and then back down again when I was done; I got more exercise in general than usual, which ended up strengthening my knees.

So would I do something like this again? Absolutely. I missed Anya terribly during my time away, but there were so many positive things that came from it too. I feel like a part of me that was locked tight for nearly three years has been opened wide again; the words written in the novel are still very first-drafty, but at least they’re now out of my head and in a state that can be revised. My spirit was also rejuvenated, especially thanks to the immediate proximity to the natural world. The language barrier was occasionally a problem, but I was able to rely on Papago and other apps to help me navigate my way around. Despite the frequent loneliness, it was a great experience, and allowed me to become reacquainted with my own creativity. It’s a time in my life that I’ll always treasure, even if it was brief, and I hope I’ll get to do it again sometime soon, either back at Toji or elsewhere in the world.

I posted pretty frequently for friends only on Facebook while at Toji, and these are some of the photos I took.