You can hide out for a long time in Kijong-dong, if you want to. There aren’t many amenities, true, and the farms on the outskirts don’t grow real food; but there’s heat, and light, and shelter, and they don’t even play the music these days.

Laugh at Kijong-dong if you want: it’s a silly place, as a king once said, absurd in its insistent claims to progress and glory. But what kind of mind has shored it up so well against the world’s derision? Could your will have kept it going all these years, empty and tall and bright?