[Current & Culture]How Was the First Snow of This Winter Observed for You?

A Memory of the First Snow with a Junior Years Ago
Recalling the Cold Words I Spoke
I Hope You Tell Those Beside You That It Was Nice

A few days ago, it snowed. In other words, it seems like the first snow of the year has come. I’m still not sure whether it’s autumn or winter right now, but when it snows, when the first snow is observed, it feels like we declare it. Yes, winter has arrived.

There is a certain winter that remains in my memory. A few years ago in winter, I, a graduate student in the doctoral program, was walking through the city with a junior master’s student. She was an international student from China, two years younger than me. Although our detailed majors were different, I was present throughout all the time she spent in graduate school. Because the department’s curriculum was lacking, she took a modern literature class with me, and I helped her by buying meals or assisting with assignments, so we got along fairly well.

Unlike other international students, she was warm and friendly toward Korean graduate students. Everyone liked her because she greeted brightly first. When she first said to me, “Sunbae, buy me a meal!” I thought, ‘Why am I your senior...’ but soon I found myself eating with her often. Later, I even took the initiative, saying, “Our OO should also come eat together,” and looked out for her. At that time, when we walked together, she playfully hit my shoulder saying, “Sunbae!” showing how close we had become.

I’m not sure why we were walking through the city together. In that small to medium-sized provincial city, there was hardly any reason to roam the city without a car. Moreover, the only paths a graduate student would walk were a few hundred meters from the research building to the student cafeteria. Perhaps we went out to buy supplies needed for the department office, and maybe my car was unusable at the time. Otherwise, there was no context for the two of us to be on that street at that time.

Maybe I didn’t realize it was a moment that would never come again. There probably won’t be another time when the two of us walk outside the university together like that. Then, suddenly, she put her two hands together in front of her and said to me, “Sunbae, it looks like it’s snowing.”

It was the first snow of that year, starting to fall suddenly without warning. I was about to ask her if it snows in China too, but I swallowed the question thinking I could just look it up later, and dryly replied, “Yeah, it’s really snowing.” Unlike me, she was excited about the snow and stepped lightly on the street. I wanted to ask, “Does it snow a lot in your hometown too?” but somehow I was afraid of getting to know her too deeply, so I stopped myself.

“Sunbae, this is the first snow of the year, right?”

“Ah, yes, this is the first snow... no, let’s say it’s not the first snow.”

“What?”

I told her that we should pretend we didn’t see the first snow together.

“The first snow should be seen with someone you love. But we’re not that kind of relationship. So let’s pretend we didn’t see it and make the next snowfall the first snow.”

Why did I say that then? To her, who had come from afar, during that moment of first snow that would truly never come again while walking outside the university with a senior she studied with for the first time, I responded so coldly. She looked very downcast as she said, “How can we pretend the falling snow didn’t happen?” When we returned to the school together, the snow had already stopped, and we parted without saying much.

How was your first snow of this year observed? I only wiped away the falling first snow of 2023 with my wiper, but if you had someone by your side, I hope you told them it was really nice.

Kim Minseop, Social and Cultural Critic

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