“Yeonnam-Dong’s Smiley Laundromat” by Kim Jiyun

Kim Jiyun

Debut author Kim Jiyun majored in creative writing at university, later studied television screenwriting, and found inspiration for her first novel in an unlikely place: a neighborhood laundromat. It’s paid off. Yeonnam-Dong’s Smiley Laundromat has become a bestseller in Korea and now it’s been translated into English by Shanna Tan, a prolific translator based in Singapore who works in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Her previous English translation of Hwang Bo-reum’s Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop was also a bestseller and one of the most popular Korean comfort novels in English translation. Yeonnam-Dong’s Smiley Laundromat is bound for the same success.

 

Yeonnam-Dong’s Smiley Laundromat, Kim Jiyun, Shanna Tan (trans) (Pegasus, January 2025; MacLehose Press, August 2024)
Yeonnam-Dong’s Smiley Laundromat, Kim Jiyun, Shanna Tan (trans) (Pegasus, January 2025; MacLehose Press, August 2024)

The star of the book is Old Jang, a retired pharmacist who lives alone with his Jindo dog, aptly named Jindol. It’s Jindol who opens the book with a whimper. Old Jang adopted Jindo almost a decade ago when he became a widower. He and Jindol live in an old, two-story home in the trendy Yeonnam-Dong part of Seoul. It’s a quaint neighborhood with cafes, a park, and, yes, a laundromat.

 

A large window stretched from the ceiling to waist height, allowing a clear view of the interior, and the ivory-coloured bricks down to the pavement gave the shop a cosy, inviting look. Sunlight filtered in through the glass, touching the industrial washing machines inside. Next to the window, there was a wooden table with a coffee machine, and by the wall stood a small but well-stocked bookshelf.

 
The sign outside reads Yeonnam-Dong Smiley Laundromat and warm yellow lights from above illuminate the letters. One day Old Jang goes to the laundromat and finds a worn diary resting on a table. He picks it up and notices that people with different handwriting have written questions and others have replied with thoughtful answers. When he sees a question asking why life is hard and that the person who penned it doesn’t want to live anymore, Old Jang writes his own thoughtful reply, suggesting the person keep a potted plant.

 

Touch the soil, give it some sunshine, water it. As you’re taking care of it, enjoy some fresh air yourself. Sometimes I wonder if the plants are taking care of me instead, because I feel so much happier being out in the garden.

 

He ends up figuring out the identity of the woman who wrote that cryptic message. Her name is Mira and she’s the mother of a young daughter named Nahee and a husband named Woochul. As it turns out, Mira feels stuck as a stay at home mother and wishes to go back to work, but it’s not easy to find a job that gives her the flexibility to still be home when Nahee returns from school each day. Old Jang gives her a potted tomato plant from his abundant garden. His friendship with Mira, Woochul, and Nahee is timely because Old Jang’s own son and daughter-in-law have started pressuring him to move and rent his spacious house to earn easy money for the family.

One of the later chapters involves Old Jang’s son, Daeju, a celebrated plastic surgeon who finds himself in over his head after his wife and son Suchan move to Southern California for Suchan’s grade school education. Daeju cannot keep up with the expenses for Suchan’s extracurricular activities in the US and takes on a moonlighting job at a private clinic, even though it’s against the rules at his teaching hospital. Daeju cannot hide his secret forever and soon he’s recognized at the private clinic and punished by his full-time employer. He can’t bear to tell this to his wife on their regular video calls. Daeju also feels that his father, Old Jang, doesn’t understand him and all the stress he’s under. Daeju still holds out hope that his father will rent out his house to earn extra income.

There are other characters in the neighborhood who write about their problems in the laundromat diary and work together towards the end of the book, but before Daeju’s unraveling, when they try to stop a phishing scam responsible for the suicide of the brother of one of the neighbors. These other characters are fully fleshed out in the book and give more layers to the main narrative centering around Old Jang, Mira, and Daeju.

 

In her author’s note at the end of the book, Kim Jiyun explains that she learned two important lessons while writing this book: it’s very difficult to open up to others and that having someone who listens is one of life’s greatest gifts. She ends her note with her own words of advice, perhaps timely for the new year:

 

If you’ve been keeping feelings buried deep within, or if you wish to wash away the dreariness in your heart but have no-one to confide in, come in. The door to the Yeonnam-dong Smiley Laundromat is always open.

Susan Blumberg-Kason is the author of Bernardine’s Shanghai Salon: The Story of the Doyenne of Old China, Good Chinese Wife: A Love Affair with China Gone Wrong and When Friends Come From Afar: The Remarkable Story of Bernie Wong and Chicago’s Chinese American Service League.