The history of these folk stories is unusual, they were born God knows how long ago, at least a hundred years ago, probably because a hundred years ago my Korean ancestors appeared in Russia, and they took these emigrations with them to a foreign land sweet, unfading values of the national spirit.

Having first found themselves in the lands of the Russian Far East, then in 1937 forcibly resettled from there to Central Asia and Kazakhstan, the Koreans subsequently scattered throughout the vastness of the Soviet Union. Along the way, they lost much of their original culture and gradually forgot their native language. All this was revealed to me already in my mature years, and I, from the third generation of a Korean family in Russia, realized the immensity and sadness of our loss.

And many years ago I somehow decided to go to Central Asia - to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan - to try to find people there who know emmar, ancient Korean tales - fantastic stories based on everyday material and the most disgusting everyday stuff that flies into the highest aerobatics of fantasy. When I, when I was still little, lived in Kazakhstan, in a Korean settlement of migrants, I heard these tales from gray-haired old men.

I was lucky, we were all lucky - near Tashkent, on the collective farm “Politotdel”, where we lived Koreans, I was actually able to find people who knew emmar. These were all old people, men and women, tired of life, which was not easy for them in lands so distant from their dear homeland. But here’s what especially stood out to me. All these different people, guardians, tellers of folk tales and stories, were equally predisposed to jokes and fun, cheerful inhabitants of the earth. Those who knew something about our existence that led every human existence away from the power of injustice, evil, historical adversity and even death itself.

Spiritual joy and a clear outlook on life are what is a precious heritage , preserved by these nice people, old Korean men and Korean women, who will never die for me. And, perhaps, for those to whom I can convey their Korean spiritual treasures in my translation into Russian - for the readers of real tales, I will remain in their memory for a long time! Also like a man of a cheerful soul, who sincerely and innocently believes in the sinlessness of our innocent amusements and eternal joys of life.