Pastor documents migrant worker lives in 8-part novel series

Pastor Kim Dal-seong, a dedicated advocate for migrant workers' rights in Pocheon, South Korea, has penned an eight-part novel series, 'Foggy Sangsaengsi,' after more than eight years of documenting their struggles. The collection, totaling 440 pages, is inspired by real-life incidents and aims to capture the multifaceted lives of migrant workers, a dimension often lost in official reports.

Pocheon, a city of about 140,000 residents, hosts over 16,800 registered foreigners, predominantly migrant workers. Kim, who founded the Pocheon Migrant Workers Center in 2018, has been a vocal proponent of their labor and human rights. He began writing extensively on Facebook in 2018 to raise public awareness about the harsh realities faced by these workers, including verbal abuse, wage theft, and exploitative working conditions, as well as industrial accidents that led to injuries and deaths.

“

Migrant workers are not just labor; they are people. To capture that forest, a novel's form was necessary.

While his previous works, including three books of documented accounts, have shed light on these issues, Kim felt a growing need for a more profound narrative. "Reports and records capture events, but they don't fully convey the 'forest' of a person's complex life," he explained. "Migrant workers are not just labor; they are people. To capture that forest, a novel's form was necessary."

The novel series delves into harrowing experiences, such as the death of a Cambodian female worker in a freezing greenhouse and a Myanmar youth's demise after a boiler explosion. It also addresses the disturbing case of a farm owner falsely reporting a worker's death and disposing of the body. Kim meticulously crafted these narratives, blending factual accounts with imaginative elements, drawing on his deep understanding of migrant workers' conditions and their home countries' socio-religious backgrounds. The title, 'Foggy Sangsaengsi,' is a deliberate irony, reflecting the stark contrast between the proclaimed ideal of coexistence and the often-unseen struggles of migrant workers.

“

The title 'Foggy Sangsaengsi' is an intentional irony. It reflects the reality that while we talk about coexistence and accept many migrant workers, the reality is not like that.