By Korea.net Honorary Reporter Emilia Kircheva
Photos = Emilia Kircheva

I always thought that hens were the least fortunate animals. Their main purpose in life is to lay eggs, and most of them they don`t get to see those turn into little chicks. They live in tiny spaces, and rarely go out. They have wings, but they are not able to fly. When they become older, they get slaughtered for their meat or just because they're no longer able to lay eggs and therefore become useless.

That is the main reason why I got so excited when I saw the book "The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly" by Sun-mi Hwang (마당을 나온 암탉). I was very happy someone made a hen into the main hero in a book. A hen finally got some recognition! I learned that it was a children’s book, and because of the colorful pictures of a hen and a little chick on the cover, I thought it would be a fun book about a rebellious hen. I was partly right. The book is indeed about a rebellious hen. However, the part about it being fun couldn't have been more wrong.




Luckily, the Bulgarian language edition is truly wonderful. It's translated from the Korean and the beautiful original illustrations are kept. It's a delight to simply look at and to hold the book.





The story revolves around Ipsak, a hen that lives trapped in a chicken coop on a farm. The name Ipsak, which she gives herself, suits her very well. It means “leaf,” because the freedom of the leaves and their way of living embody her dreams. She yearns to raise a chick, but instead has to see her eggs taken away from her every day by the farmer. The realization that she will be separated from every egg she lays is so excruciating that she is unable to eat properly, grows weak and is no longer able to lay eggs, which leads to her getting selected to be culled.

This death sentence turns out to be both that and a rebirth. The old hen Ipsak dies the moment she manages to escape the mass grave of poultry, and she's reborn as a free hen. She's finally free in the outside world and can walk around the farmyard, a place for which she always longed. Her initial excitement and happiness, however, are sadly short-lived because she quickly understands that her new freedom comes with a loss of the provided shelter, food and security that she used to have.

From then on, her life becomes a constant struggle for survival that is both remorseless and crude, but also inspiring and uplifting at the same time. The animals living in the barn are cruel and unwilling to share their space and belongings with Ipsak because she is different. Day and night, she is hiding from a hungry weasel, searching for new places to sleep all the time.





The only solace and support she has is her fried, the mallard duck Straggler. An outsider just like her, he is a wild duck living in the barn among the domesticated animals. Later on in the story, thanks to him, Ipsak does manage to fulfill her dream and hatch an egg. However, that doesn't mean that there's a happy ending. On the contrary, with the baby chick she now has a new chapter of struggles through which to live.

As I read through the story, I stumble upon so many striking subjects that are depicted in a story about a motley cast of barnyard and wild animals. These themes vary from racism, discrimination, friendship, motherhood, social hierarchy, adoption and many others, just as serious and significant as all the others. I wonder if the label “children`s story” really suits this book and I'm disappointed that I didn`t read it while I was a kid. I wonder what I would have understood. In a way, it reminds me of “The Little Prince.” I had been told many times that one has to read “The Little Prince” three times in one's lifetime: as a kid, as an adult and as a senior citizen. I believe the powerful story of “The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly” should also be read like that.

The book ends with a message from the author Sun-mi Hwang to all her readers. Trust me, it will leave you in tears.

Even before I started reading the book, I knew that there's an award-winning film adaptation based on the book. It was also part of the program at the Korean cinema week in Sofia last year. Since I didn`t watch it then, now was the time. The movie is in Korean and English, and it's translated into English as “Leafie, a Hen Into the Wild.”

The movie differs from the book mainly in the fact that it doesn't concern the topics discussed in the book to the same depth. Otherwise, it's a pure delight. The graphics are stunningly beautiful. It's not an animation, but the drawings are in vibrant colors. The sounds of the animals and the nature in the barn and forest add a wonderful touch and make the movie even more magical. With the addition of new characters, the movie is much more suitable for children than the book.




Both the movie and the book made a deep impression on me, and I would recommend them to anyone willing to know a powerful and uplifting story that may cause some tears.

wisdom117@korea.kr

http://koreanetblog.blogspot.kr/2017/05/reading-childs-fable-hen-that-ran-away.html