[MZ Column] The Era of the Seongnyangpali Sonyeo (Matchstick Girl)

[Asia Economy] Andersen's fairy tale "The Little Match Girl" is also said to reflect the harsh reality of the white phosphorus factories of the time. These factories often employed young girl laborers because their wages were low. After working for several years, the girls suffered from white phosphorus poisoning, which caused their jawbones to dissolve and their faces to collapse, leading to their dismissal from the factories. When the factories expelled these girl workers, they were not given severance pay but were handed a single box of matches. The girls barely managed to survive by selling those matches. Although it is a fairy tale for children, the heartbreaking story reflecting the reality of the era still resonates sadly today.

As the cold season approaches, it also makes us think about loneliness in our society. The little match girl appeals to people, saying "Buy some matches," but most people simply ignore her and pass by. The girl has no family, no neighbors, no community, and no society. Without anyone to care for her, she lives in a world where everyone is a "stranger." Gradually, the concept of neighbors is disappearing from our society as well. Just recalling my childhood, the entire neighborhood was like a community of uncles and aunts. When school ended early, we would play at the stationery store or the security office while waiting for our parents, and when visiting friends in the same neighborhood, their parents would naturally feed us. Nowadays, it is rare even to greet the person next door, and children and adults in the neighborhood do not all know each other. While the rise of individualism has the advantage of reducing interference and meddling, it also seems undeniable that loneliness has deepened. To us, neighbors are becoming no different from the people on the street who pass by indifferently when the little match girl desperately says, "Buy some matches."

The past few years of the "COVID era" have dramatically separated us from one another. Meeting together has become awkward. Others have naturally become subjects to be wary of and kept at a distance, not people with whom to share glances, breaths, or droplets. As a result, each person has become immersed in the smartphone worlds of Netflix or YouTube, and real-life encounters have become rarer. As we became more isolated from each other, we grew lonelier. The smartphone world has also made us lonelier. The glamorous images of others on social media make us feel shabby and deepen our sense of relative deprivation. Others have become beings whom we want to keep at a distance rather than get closer to, because being close to them stirs jealousy and envy. Although we connect more frequently and constantly online, we have lost the neighbors beside us with whom we can truly share our hearts.

In such times, perhaps the task given to us is how to regain "neighbors." Of course, these neighbors must be different from those of the past. We need new neighbors who do not compare and judge each other, stigmatize with prejudice, or make each other unhappy through meddling and interference. In fact, the intensification of individualism these days may also be influenced by fatigue toward neighbors in such collectivist cultures.

Rather, neighbors in the new era might be those who quietly look at each other, support one another, and listen to each other's stories?in other words, "neighbors of attentive listening." Not neighbors who lecture, coerce, or gossip, but neighbors who welcome each other. If we could move toward a time like that of a gentleman who gladly buys the little match girl's matches and invites her into his home, perhaps our society would become less lonely.

Jung Ji-woo, Cultural Critic

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.