The Grasshopper and the Ant

This story starts not too far away. It was 10 years ago. An artist grasshopper suddenly wanted to become a boss. The grasshopper tried to become an ant. At first, she made a living as an ant working as a journalist. By the way, she was having fun, but she couldn’t live on this. The boss of an alternative media company suddenly created a troupe. And she was terrified of doing something she couldn’t afford to represent. She hired other grasshoppers who wanted to be ants to perform. Business was doing well, she managed to run the office. But after paying the staff grasshoppers’ salaries, there was nothing left in the boss grasshopper’s pocket. The boss grasshopper worked even harder to make some of her salary. She worked day and night, doing more than five fund projects a year. For the staff grasshoppers who speak the dialect, the boss grasshopper had to write and direct the script alone, so she had to do both planning and fund management. The grasshopper, who loved to enjoy the sunshine, worked to death for over 10 years without ever going out or meeting her friends. The boss grasshopper, who turns 50 in two years, is now just trying to be an ordinary grasshopper. She wants to live the rest of her life without being tied down to money. The kind faces of the grasshoppers of the staff are trodden on in the eyes, but what can she do? A grasshopper should live as a grasshopper. Now she has to stop acting like an ant on the stage. She must close the play.

(We are waiting for a report from someone who knows a successful grasshopper who is very good at work.)

• Copyright of image and text Ⓒ Park Kyong Ju