Korea was under Japanese rule from 1910 to 1945, and “economic output in terms of agriculture, fishery, forestry and industry increased by tenfold”. (source)
I’d guess that, plus the general shift away from an agrarian society and technological advancements all contributed to the population explosion.
Done with the reading for week 3! 
This chapter was heart warming and healing after all the sadness of the past few chapters. Really glad 장만 could finally have some positive experiences and is starting to have hope in his life again! 
It feels like we are starting to see where the story will go (장만 becoming a Buddhist chanter?) and I am excited to see how we get there and learn more about the process.
I have to say, though, I kind of laughed at the scene about the girl getting 급체 and immediately falling over and needing acupuncture. I’ve seen similar scenes in webtoons etc. with people getting sudden indigestion like that and needing their finger pressed/acupuncture or they will be sweating and dying……… but I must say, that has never happened to me just from indigestion?! Even if it is sudden?! Hahahaha. Next time my stomach hurts I will remember to try and press my pointer finger to relieve the indigestion though, just to see if it works. 
As always, your write up on the history and culture was really interesting, @bibliothecary. I haven’t had a lot of free time in the past week or so but when I have time I also want to make some anki cards out of the vocab in the google doc. 
That part made me pause, too. I’ve never experienced it myself, and I’ve always thought indigestion just caused some minor discomfort. I ended up googling it and I guess it can be pretty severe in some cases, with pain, nausea, and vomiting. The fact it was a child experiencing it may have made the situation more dangerous, especially in an age when it was more common for illness to result in life-long disability or death.
Glad you’re enjoying the research! 
Finished with this week! 
장만 was able to become a 독경 apprentice! 
Good for him! And we were introduced to a new cast of characters. 한주 seems very nice and I was interested by his warning about 춘택 at the end of the chapter. He seems like he will be a spoiled 도려님 type character from a rich household, but let’s see - like 한주 said, 읽다 보면 알겠지. 
Eagerly awaiting further interactions between him and 장만 and also learning a bit about 독경 myself as he begins training.
The mistress of the house seems unpleasant, but I wonder if that is because she lost her child to in childbirth or to the infectious disease that’s going around? It was hinted at that when it was mentioned 김소경 helped her when she was bedridden after giving birth (page 63 - 그리고 자네가 산욕으로 다 죽어 갈 때, 진즉 누구 때문에 살았는가?) and 한주 mentioned at the end that only 4 people live in the house. I could be wrong, though.
Week 5
This week we got to see 장만 start his training and got some insight into how chanting is learned. Thinking about it, it seems extremely difficult as 1) the words in the chants are Buddhist terms and not everyday words, so hard to remember, 2) 장만 cannot read them in written form to study due to his blindness, 3) it was the Joseon era so there weren’t recordings he could listen to. I guess the only way is to listen very well to your master when he chants and try to memorize the words and rhythm as best as you can. 
The events with 춘택 and 장만 getting beaten were a bit sad. It seems like 장만 really can’t catch a break when it comes to how he is treated, especially when it’s always someone else’s fault. 
But the following chapter with 한주 made up for it and his care for 장만 and their mountain hike/walk was 힐링 so it made up for it! 
Week 6
사연
This chapter was short, but we got some intrigue and new info about several characters. We found out some more about 태수’s past and that something happened with the others at 명통시 (regarding jealousy?) that caused him to leave. He must have been quite high ranking or talented at chanting if the crown prince wants him to return. 
뭐지 뭐지!?
장만‘s interaction with 연우 and him blushing after finding out from 한주 that she’s beautiful was cute, haha. 
Nice to see 장만 acting like a normal kid his age.
무너진 꿈
What was this chapter?! How awful! 
If it really was 춘택 that caused him to miss the 명통시 exam (I’m sure it was), I hope he finally gets smacked with some karma this time. 
Very late, but finished Chapter 5 - 남산골! I think that’s week 4 done…? 
I found it so sweet in the flashback that little 장만 disobeys his father and sneaks into his mothers room every night to wipe her down and look after her (the way she did for him when he was ill… ). And then it’s so heartbreaking when he notices she isn’t in bed one morning and thinks she must have recovered…
So happy that things are finally moving: 하태수 has been found, 장만 is living in his house as a student, finally he’ll start learning 독경! I was worried a little when 덕수 left and 장만 suddenly feels full of fear - he does try to be strong, but I felt some relief when 한주 appeared.
Looking forward to the 독경 lessons!
I fell slightly behind schedule, but I am happy to say that I am now done with the book! I really liked the ending and was surprised and happy overall with the direction the story went and the depth of it, despite this being a story for younger audiences. 
If anyone didn’t finish this yet or wants to get to it sometime, I would certainly recommend it.
The review I wrote:
I just checked out the preview again, and everything seems so much easier than it was almost 3 months ago when I first tried reading it. At the time, it took me ~50 minutes just to read the first preview page because I was stumped on almost every single sentence. And yet I just read that again in a couple of minutes. Three guesses as to what I’ve been doing since November that’s helped me improve so much?
So, that being said, I’ll be joining the bookclub late! Hopefully I can catch up!
I wouldn’t worry about “catching up” - the book club has technically finished and @bungakushoujo is the only one who managed to read the whole book. Glad to have you here, though! Hopefully this gives me a push to get back to 장만’s story. 
After almost 4 hours, I’m done with week 1! According to my current reading speed, that means it’ll take me 32 hours to finish the whole book!
I can already tell that this is quickly going to become one of my favorite reads in Korean. Because I was limiting myself to simpler content before, this is the first time I’ve come across something so emotion filled in Korean. Even with the obvious language barrier from all the unknown vocab, I could still feel the emotions of 장만 and 덕수, their close relationship, the hapiness at 장만 finally getting a job and the fear of the fire, of the unjust punishment.
I was absolutely not expecting the ending, even after reading the book summary. I do feel like there may be a theme in novels happening in the 조선 시대, so far I’ve seen someone get flogged unjustly in two different books!
The one thing that I’m not fully understanding is the involvement of the grandma. She vouched for 장만, saying that he didn’t cause the fire, but they flogged him anyways?
Level wise, vocab is pretty hard for me, as expected. I added a couple more words to the google sheet, chapter 1 is now at 266 words! The grammar is nice however, because although I had to look up a couple grammar points that were pretty much completely new to me, the sentences were mostly still easy to understand. So weirdly, while the grammar points here are technically more advanced than in my other bookclub, 또다시 같은 꿈을 꾸었어 | L24, it’s still a lot easier to understand.
I would say the only moment where I had a little brain fart and struggled a bit was with the straw. For some reason I could only think of plastic straws, so I was really confused for a while.
Doesn’t this just look like a very well handcrafted strawhat?
Wow, amazing job! Crazy effort! 
It’ll get easier to read in no time!
To answer your grammar questions:
-ㄴ 척하다 is a grammar formation that means to pretend to do something, like you thought. Whatever verb you attach it to is what you are pretending to do… like 잔 척하다 is to pretend to sleep.
I don’t have the full context of that sentence because I can’t remember it but there are a few verb endings happening that look confusing stuck all together like that:
So with all those things together, I would assume the context was about something the lord at the palace had said.
I don’t remember the context of this and can’t find it in my digital version, but could it be that this was in the section talking about the work that 장만 and 덕수 were going to get paid for and that 배포 refers to the compensation? 배포 literally means something handed out, so it could be money in this case.
I think it’s like a steady clapping sound, there is also 타탁타탁하다 which is translated as clickity clack. It is onomatopoeic, so just say 타탁타탁타탁 a bunch and I think you will understand what kind of sound it is. 
먹다 can be combined with other verbs to make a kind of compound verb situation. It means to eat normally, but also to be consumed, to be devoured by etc. for emphasis. So you can think here that it was consumed by fire. If it had 서, it would indicate a cause and effect relationship like “it got consumed because it burned”, instead of describing it getting consumed by the burning. Does that make sense? (My grammar explanations are horrible, sorry!) I don’t have enough of the context without going back and reading to tell if it assigns blame, but that sentence alone doesn’t.
ㄹ 판 means a situation where the thing before is happening or about to happen. So it’s saying something like it’s a situation where you can be known/accused of being the criminal who started the fire at the slightest provocation.
The woman appeared while 장만’s punishment was being carried out; they stopped flogging him because of her testimony.
Good job making such quick work of the first chapter! 
So this is like 다는, but with a dropped 는? Or is it a separate grammar point?
Oh, so that’s what all the talk about her being late was about. 장만 could’ve avoided being flogged if they’d just checked if it was really him by simply asking people. And they even had the gall to say that he was 천만다행.
I was actually not planning on finishing the first chapter in one go, but then the story got too exciting so I couldn’t stop myself.
It would be 다고 and not 다는 here but you can just think of the “고” being omitted in this sentence where 덕수 is talking. Usually a 다 floating around in the middle of a phrase after a verb is some kind of quoting particle like 다는, 다고 as you said. Unless it is 다가 which is a different thing…
why are all these grammar points so similar?
I also went back and found the sentence with 배포 to check it for you and it actually can’t mean distribution that context… So I did some digging on the Japanese Korean Naver dictionary since it usually has more definitions and it is a synonym for 궁리하다, which could be something like working or figuring things out or devising a plan. So basically 장만 was impressed how quickly his brother can think on his feet in that sentence.
Highlighted words in the vocab sheet need reviewed because I couldn’t find a suitable definition; anyone can add or edit if they find the right translation!
I’m finally starting back up on reading this, I’m up to week 3! I really appreciate that while we see the struggles that 장만’s disability brings him, there are also some more positive aspects, opportunities that he wouldn’t have otherwise, with the possibility of working at the 명통시.
The bout of the indigestion was indeed quite comical. It’s nice to see 장만 finally being seen for more than just his blindness though.
I don’t know if this is me getting more used to the writing style or if it’s getting easier now that the more difficult vocab has been introduced, but I feel like the more chapters of this I read, the easier it gets. The story is getting very interesting however, so I’ll try to finish it soon, but we’ll see how realistic that ends up being.
