Chapter 3
The next day.
“Hmm.”
With her arms crossed, Hayun paced back and forth around the tavern. Her eyes shone sharply as she observed the place.
‘There are more problems than I thought.’
A yard full of weeds, earthen walls that looked ready to collapse, and a creaking wooden platform.
The basics of running a business began with making sure customers didn’t feel uncomfortable.
That might not matter if it were a shop frequented only by long-time regulars. But if they wanted to serve countless customers from now on, it was important to eliminate anything that the majority of people might find uncomfortable.
Hayun already knew very well that the rise and fall of a business wasn’t determined by taste alone.
‘Leave them with no unpleasant experience.’
No matter how delicious the food was, if there were bugs in it, all that effort would be for nothing. The foundation of a food business was precisely in making sure customers didn’t have an unpleasant experience.
To put it extremely simply, there shouldn’t even be any memory of it. To the point that they wouldn’t even remember when they had visited the place.
Hayun’s philosophy was that, especially for a tavern like this, it needed to feel comfortable enough that people could visit every day without getting tired of it.
‘The entrance is narrow and gloomy. I don’t feel like going in at all.’
Hayun’s gaze fixed on the entrance of the tavern. An old straw mat was crumpled up carelessly, while a pile of firewood blocked half the entrance. On top of that, a musty smell was wafting from somewhere. It was a foul odor of old wood soaked in rain mixed with mold.
‘No wonder nobody comes here…’
The entrance was the equivalent of a person’s face. And the face of this establishment had been completely neglected. It was an absolutely terrible situation. From a customer’s perspective, this tavern was a place they shouldn’t enter.
‘No matter how good the food is, it’s meaningless if they don’t cross the threshold.’
Just as maintaining a minimum level of appearance was necessary to pursue romance, a business also required a certain degree of upkeep.
‘I’d like to tear everything down and redo it, but…’
Hayun let out a long sigh.
She lacked money, time… everything.
All she had was a sturdy body and the knowledge inside her head.
‘I need to choose and focus. I have to get the maximum effect with minimal cost.’
Hayun’s footsteps stopped as she pondered.
What caught her attention was an old flag hanging in midair.
‘Ju (酒), mak (막), water (水)…?’
A scrap of cloth so torn and faded by the wind that it was impossible to tell what characters had originally been written on it. The writing fluttering in the wind was so illegible that it was impossible to tell whether it was even writing or merely stains.
“A sign!”
Hayun suddenly shouted.
“Goodness, you scared me.”
At Hayun’s voice, Ok-bun, who had been peeling garlic in one corner of the yard, raised her head in surprise.
“A sign? What’s that? Is it something you eat?”
Ok-bun narrowed her eyes as she asked. The word signboard itself seemed unfamiliar to her.
“A signboard is like a business card for a shop. Instead of that scrap of cloth, I’ll make you a proper signboard.”
Hayun pointed toward Munsik.
“Uncle Mun! Do you have any spare wooden planks or something? The bigger, the better! And please give me some ink and a brush too!”
Munsik, who was setting down his jige in the yard, asked with a bewildered expression.
“What do you need a plank for? To use as firewood?”
“I want to give the shop a new name. And take down that flag.”
At the mention of taking down the flag, Ok-bun shouted in surprise.
“Why would you take down a perfectly good flag? Everyone passing by sees that and comes in.”
“Or do they see it and run away?”
“W-What did you say?”
Ok-bun’s face turned bright red. Even so, Hayun’s bluntness showed no sign of stopping.
“We need to make it so customers immediately know, ‘Ah! This place is open for business.’ Who’s going to look at those faded letters and know you’re running a business? They’ll think you’re out of business.”
“Hmm… Now that you mention it, you do have a point.”
Ok-bun was gradually persuaded by Hayun’s words and nodded.
In truth, Ok-bun knew it too. She knew that lately, customers had frequently been passing right by the tavern. Even knowing that, she hadn’t known where or how to begin making improvements, so she had simply left it as it was. But now there was Hayun, who was pinpointing the problems exactly, as though scratching an itch in just the right spot.
Creak.
Munsik opened the shed door and rummaged around inside before emerging with a fairly large wooden plank. It wasn’t merely the size of a palm; it was a large plank about the size of a person’s torso.
“Will this do?”
“It’s perfect!”
Along with the plank, Munsik handed her a stub of a brush. Half of the bristles had fallen out, and the handle was cracked.
“Ink is too precious, so I don’t have any, but I do have something made by mixing soot and oil… Will this do?”
“Hmm, I think that’ll work.”
Hayun placed the plank in the middle of the yard. Then she thought carefully about what characters she should write on it.
‘This is where the real work begins.’
Who names a business carelessly?
Simply calling it a tavern wasn’t enough.
Knowing the importance of naming, Hayun fell into deep thought.
‘I need differentiation. If I simply write ‘Tavern,’ there’s nothing to distinguish it from other establishments.’
Dozens of words appeared and disappeared in Hayun’s mind.
When people thought of design, they usually thought only of visual elements, but linguistic elements also made up a surprisingly large portion of it, such as naming a shop or, when necessary, coming up with a product name.
‘A logo would be difficult…’
She considered a logo with a highly visible image, but there was no telling whether people in an era like this would even understand the concept of a logo.
And above all, pictures had weak reach. No matter how perfect a logo she created, there was no way to explain it verbally.
Hayun realized that in an era where word of mouth was everything, she ultimately had to compete with a word.
‘A word that’s easy, simple, and something anyone can remember!’
One word that fit those requirements came to Hayun’s mind.
‘That’s it!’
Having decided on the name, Hayun boldly picked up the brush.
Whoosh!
Hayun was highly skilled at calligraphy.
Creating an identity through nothing but handwriting. It was one of Hayun’s most powerful weapons.
‘Good lettering is a form of design in itself.’
Although she wasn’t quite at the level of Han Seok-bong, Hayun had considerable knowledge of calligraphy and began writing the characters without hesitation.
Swish–scritch!
The surface of the wood was uneven, but that posed no problem for writing. The black paint made by mixing soot and oil seeped into the plank.
‘There won’t be a second chance. I have to finish it in one go.’
The most important thing when writing calligraphy was not to hesitate.
Hesitation would leave a mark behind. Even if it meant failing, boldly drawing the strokes was the trick to producing good lettering. The same was true when drawing pictures.
Swish!
Hayun put strength into the final character and completed the name of the new establishment.
Munsik and Ok-bun, who had watched the process from the side, opened their eyes wide.
“Oh my, what in the world is that?”
“I’ve never seen writing like that before.”
“The letters twist around and then get bigger and smaller… That’s some truly chicken-scratch writing, isn’t it?”
“But it’s strange how easily you can read the characters despite that.”
Naturally, it was difficult for people from the past to understand calligraphy that transformed Hangul to its extreme.
Going beyond freely manipulating strokes, this calligraphy even invaded the territory of other characters, creating an original typeface unique to Hayun that didn’t exist in this era.
Strokes extended boldly, with subtle control over the strength and weakness of each stroke, and even the characters were given a final accent.
The characters Hayun had written began to breathe like living creatures.
“Phew, done.”
Hayun, who had been swinging the brush as if possessed, wiped the sweat from her brow.
The following characters were written on the plank Hayun had made:
[인생주막]
‘Insaeng Jumak’
A combination of the words ‘insaeng’, meaning “life,” and ‘jumak’, meaning “tavern.”
Ok-bun’s eyes widened at the sight of the new tavern’s name.
“Insaeng Jumak? What does that mean…?”
“It means a tavern you must visit at least once in your life.”
Hayun put down the brush and grinned.
“A meal here could even change your life. It can have that meaning too. What do you think? Pretty good, right?”
In truth, the meaning could be interpreted however you wanted.
It was the same as saying, “A nose ring goes on the nose, an earring goes on the ear.” What mattered was the impact the word itself gave.
‘Insaeng-ju, Insaeng-jeon, Insaeng-gukbap. There are so many things I can derive from this. The fact that no one has claimed it yet is an opportunity.’
Naturally, in the future, even if you wanted to use a business name like this, you couldn’t simply use it however you pleased.
You had to check whether another business was already using the same name, and go through complicated processes such as filing for a trademark. But there were no such concepts at this time, so it was practically unclaimed territory.
Whoever used it first was the owner.
Just like drawing a picture on a completely blank canvas, what kind of picture would be drawn on the country of Joseon was entirely in Hayun’s hands.
“Insaeng Jumak…”
Ok-bun stood there blankly, staring at the sign.
The messy-looking lettering strangely caught her attention. Above all, the word ‘life’ struck a chord in her heart.
“The letters are a little crooked, but they suit it better than I expected.”
“Indeed. It’s neither Chinese characters nor Hangul, but this strange thing keeps drawing my eyes to it.”
“All right, then please hang this where it’s most visible at the entrance.”
Once the sign was complete, Munsik picked it up and headed toward the tavern entrance. Hayun followed behind him, directing him where to put it.
“Higher! So it’s clearly visible even from across the road!”
“Is this high enough?”
“A little higher on the left. It’s not level.”
“How about now?”
“You need to center it. Move it a little farther to the right.”
“Here?”
“More, more, more, more!”
“My goodness, you’re awfully picky…”
Munsik grumbled, but his expression wasn’t unpleasant.
When Hayun had first said she would take over, he hadn’t had much expectation of her. But once Hayun began displaying her abilities, it was clear she was a professional, and a highly skilled one at that.
“Good. Nail it securely there. Be careful so it doesn’t get wet even when it rains.”
“My, anyone watching would think you’re the owner of this place.”
While Munsik was securing the sign to the post, Hayun approached Ok-bun.
“Auntie Ok.”
“Yes? Why?”
“Do you sell any other food here besides gukbap? Things like seasoned vegetables or ‘jeon’, for example?”
“Of course we do.”
Hayun immediately continued with another question.
“Then exactly what kinds of food do you sell here? Please tell me the prices too.”
“What are you going to do with that information?”
“I’m going to make a menu.”
“A menu?”
“Ah, let’s call it a food list.”
Hayun’s next plan was to make a menu board.
‘The majority of people who consume gukbap are men in their 20s to 60s. They never ask about the menu.’
When it came to the quintessential phrase associated with a tavern, it was undoubtedly, “Auntie! One bowl of gukbap here!”
This didn’t happen because they didn’t want to eat other foods, but because they simply didn’t know those other foods existed.
‘If they don’t ask, how would they know?’
Men were so bad at asking questions that they couldn’t even properly ask for the hairstyle they wanted when getting a haircut.
‘If we want to draw people in, the only option is to sell a variety of foods.’
No matter how delicious the gukbap was, eating nothing but that every day would eventually get boring.
Gukbap should be pushed as the main item, but a variety of side dishes were needed to support it. That was how they could appeal to a large number of people.
And customers needed to be able to see all of those options at a glance.
“Pepper jeon, 2 jeon. Potato jeon, 3 jeon. Pollock jeon, 5 jeon. Seasoned myeongi-namul, 4 jeon. Seasoned bean sprouts, 2 jeon…”
“Good. Keep going.”
Hayun brought over the remaining plank and began writing down exactly what Ok-bun called out.
She arranged the names of the dishes in a line along the left side, with their prices written on the right. For the prices, she adorably used drawings of old Korean coins instead. She completed the menu by adding decorative elements around the border of the plank.
“Done.”
Hayun looked at the completed menu board with satisfaction. It was simple, having been made entirely with a brush, but that also made it highly intuitive and easy to understand.
The menu board Hayun created was as follows:
[Gukbap]
Gukbap / 4◎
[Jeon]
Pepper Jeon / 2◎
Potato Jeon / 3◎
Pollock Jeon / 5◎
[Seasoned Vegetables]
Seasoned Bean Sprouts / 2◎
Seasoned Myeongi-namul / 4◎
[Alcoholic Drinks]
Makgeolli / 3◎
Dongdongju / 3◎
Insaengju / 5◎
.
.
.
After completing the food list, Hayun looked at Ok-bun with a satisfied expression.
“What do you think? It’s much more convenient and better since you can see all the food at once, right?”
“Ooh, it’s neat and easy to look at. You really do have a talent for this, don’t you?”
“What did I tell you? I said I’d turn this place into the best tavern in Joseon, didn’t I?”
“You certainly do know a thing or two about running a business.”
Hayun’s enthusiasm as she painstakingly remodeled the tavern as though it were her own home gradually began to break down Ok-bun’s wariness.
“All right, then the next thing we need to do is…”
And just like that, a month passed.
During that time, Hayun carried out various renovations, including remodeling the kitchen.
She also provided service training for Ok-bun and Munsik, established hygiene management practices, and added various visual elements both inside and outside the tavern.
“Today is D-Day.”
They hadn’t intentionally locked the doors, but because they had been tearing things apart and renovating this and that for a month, even fewer people had come looking for the place.
Occasionally, someone would approach out of curiosity, but after seeing the chaotic surroundings, they would turn around, thinking, “Are they finally closing down?”
That Insaeng Jumak was now preparing for its new opening.
A cleanly swept wooden floor, neatly arranged tables, and a gleaming sign. It had become such a completely different place that even the phrase reborn from the ashes seemed insufficient.
Munsik and Ok-bun asked nervously,
“Do you really think people will come?”
“Don’t worry. In a few days, they’ll be lining up all the way to the wall to eat here.”
“That would be wonderful.”
Once the preparations for business were more or less complete, Hayun suddenly began striding toward the kitchen.
“Where are you going?”
“We’ve finished preparing. Now we need to draw people in.”
As she said this, Hayun looked at the large cauldron sitting in the middle of the kitchen.
Inside the cauldron was a rich broth that had already been simmering for several hours.
“Here goes!”
Without hesitation, Hayun lifted the lid of the cauldron with a pair of tongs.
Whoosh!
Seeing this, Ok-bun was startled and rushed over.
“What are you doing all of a sudden? The broth will evaporate!”
When Ok-bun tried to close the lid, Hayun explained why.
“We need to tempt people with the smell! What’s the point of having this delicious smell trapped in here?”
“Tempt people with the smell?”
“Yes. From now on, we’re going to spread this smell far and wide. This smell is more precious than any perfume.”
With that, Hayun threw the kitchen door wide open.
“Don’t you have a fan? Quickly, fan it toward the road! Right now is perfect… it’s lunchtime!”
“W-Wha?”
Although Ok-bun was bewildered, she picked up a fan.
“Here, a fan.”
“Good. Fan it as hard as you can!”
“Grunt, what on earth am I doing…”
Even while grumbling, Ok-bun began fanning diligently. They had come this far. Now all they could do was trust Hayun.
Flap! Flap!
Hot steam flowed out of the kitchen. The smoke spreading toward the roadside on the wind was filled with the rich smell of meat broth.
‘With this, all the preparations are complete. Now all we have to do is wait.’
Hayun looked meaningfully in the direction the smoke was spreading.
***
At that time. At the entrance to Mungyeong Saejae.
A group of peddlers carrying bundles was walking along the road toward Mungyeong Saejae. There were eight of them in total, and their backs were loaded with heavy bundles.
“Ugh.”
Crossing the mountain pass while carrying a bundle was grueling work.
In the past, peddlers carrying bundles carried an average of 30 kilograms on their backs and walked about 20 kilometers every day.
In modern terms, it was like marching every day.
As a result, peddlers were always plagued by hunger. They had to regularly replenish their food just to keep walking.
Just as those peddlers were silently making their way along the road,
“Sniff, sniff.”
One of the peddlers walking at the very front flared his nostrils.
“Huh? Big brother, what smell is this?”
“This is… Doesn’t it smell like meat being boiled?”
“My, that smell of meat is absolutely incredible.”
Stimulated by the smell tickling the tips of their noses, the other peddlers gradually stopped walking one by one.
The rich, savory smell of broth was spreading on the wind.
“Come to think of it, isn’t it almost time to eat?”
“I was getting hungry anyway… Shall we head over there and take a look?”
“Sounds good. Let’s go quickly.”
Drawn in by the smell, their feet naturally carried them toward the tavern.
A short while later, the eyes of the peddlers who entered the tavern’s doorway widened.
“My goodness?”
A neatly organized yard and walls decorated with murals. And, capturing their attention, a sign reading [Insaeng Jumak].
“Insaeng Jumak? Was there a place like this here?”
The peddlers tilted their heads in puzzlement as they looked at the sign.
“Come to think of it, wasn’t there a tavern here before?”
“Ah! I remember! The one that was practically falling apart…”
“That place is here?”
The peddlers who remembered what the previous tavern had looked like tilted their heads in confusion.
They had been traveling this road for over a decade, yet they had never once set foot inside Munsik’s tavern. Even when wind and rain poured down, they avoided that particular house.
They couldn’t bring themselves to use it… But today was different.
Instead of the shabby thatched house, there was a neatly maintained yard and a properly erected sign. Above all, the savory smell drifting on the wind caught them by the ankles.
It didn’t take long for their hesitation to turn into curiosity.
“Did the owner change?”
“Hmm, should we go in and take a look?”
“Sure. Let’s give it a try, even if it means getting fooled.”
With mixed feelings of doubt and hope, the peddlers stepped into Insaeng Jumak.
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