I don't know
Lotte Mart general-discount and underground food-store
is always crowded with people.
It originally discounts 2-30% from normal price but today
it puts up the slogan 'Final appreciation-event of Korean
discount-stores for the first half year of 2007'.
Outside, the summer day's scorching sun creates the heat
of a frypan on fire, but inside, a cool wind keeps penetrating
into my pants.
Every emloyee wearing a white cap, white jacket, black trounsers
and white apron raises his or her voice urging customers to taste
sample food of various kinds.
Crab sticks, sausage, tofu, tuna cutlet, front leg of black pork,
pork belly...I may be full if I eat only free-of-charge sample food.
I ask them as a joke why they offer only snack and no drink,
to which one of them indicates the wine shop, where wines
imported from France, Germany, California, New Zealand,
Australia, Portugal and Chile await tasting.
On the opposite side, the dessert corner welcomes me.
Not only watermelon, oriental melon, and tomato but also kiwi,
pineapple and melon lure me to taste them.
On my way to the counter, they tell me I should eat fish, too,
offering me Cheju hairtail, live mackerel, live Pacific saury, and
live squid. At the bakery, they offer me just-baked delectable
rye bread on a fork.
I don't know why they say I should buy even though I don't
have to buy and why I go on living even though they say
I don't have to live.