Eemyun Kang

Fungal land,
the joUrney to a world
I have Never been to before
Text written by Eemyun KanG
ChApter I
'Darkness and the smeLl of
animaLs'
Everything is uncertAin,
aNd all I can see are tiny little
Dots glittering in the mars black darkness.
I am looking For shapes
and coloUrs
that I caN possibly
recoGnise, but nothing,
I can see Absolutely nothing in this darkness.
SuddenLy, the tiny
Little dots
in the dArkness come
iN a row
towarDs me.

The glittering balls seem to Float
aroUnd
iN the darkness.
They are definitely somethinG
Alive, something shiny.
I am not sure what they couLd be. They remind me
of the winking of the firefLies
At my
g raNdfather's farm.
But the fireflies woulDn't move in such a slow motion;
they seem to be Floating,
bUt it could be
the darkNess
which is floatinG.
I Am waiting for my eyes
to become accustomed to the gLoom so that I will
be abLe to see what they are.
I don't know how long I hAve
beeN
stanDing here.

I am aFraid
and Unconsciously step backward.
They appear to be comiNg forward; no, in fact,
they seem to be followinG me.
But I only moved A few steps back.
Are they reaLly moving? Perhaps they are not moving.
Perhaps it is an iLlusion
in the blAck black
darkNess.
I remember I useD to think that stars in the sky were
Following me everywhere. I am staring and
trying to convince myself that they mUst be stars.
If the glittering dots are stars, the distaNce between me and the dots will be
so far that I will not be able to clearly Gauge
how fAr. But I have
a feeLing
that they are pretty cLose to me.
MAybe
eveN three to five feet near to me.
It is still so Dark.

I Feel blind as a mole in this
darkness. I am waiting for the darkness to disappear In time. BUt time seems to
have disappeared iN the dark.
The wind blows into my nose; I can smell thinGs, smells of
cold, humid, but fresh
Air,
smeLls of rotten trees
and Leaves on the ground, and most strongly, the smell of
Animals,
aNimals with hairs. This smell awakes my memory of smelling
wet Dog's hair;
the dog From my childhood which ran
aroUnd
iN the rain
and spranG on me.
But Any
animaLs with hair
couLd smell very similar when
they Are wet.
So I caNnot be really sure what these animals with hair are.
The Darkness made me blind

but my sense oF smell and hearing
are sUrely better
thaN usual. I can also hear
the breathinG of this
Animal, 'hung-hung, hum-hung'.
I am sLightly shaking,
trembLing like leaves in the trees,
becAuse of the mixture of the wet, foggy and frosty air and these
uNknown creatures. I can’t stop thinking that
they coulD be very aggressive animals.
The time must Have bitten the darkness.
I can start tO see things slowly. I can see the animals that I could
smell so stRongly.
They are animalS with hairs as I thought, standing
in front of mE. The glittering dots in the darkness
were tHeir eyes. They are in fact
nOt as
scaRy
aS I
imaginEd in the darkness

but tHey
lOok
pRetty
aggreSsive.
ThEy are facing towards me all in a row
like tHey are
prOtecting
theiR territory from
a Stranger.
ThEy also remind me of
tHe
pOsition of
defendeRs
againSt
protEstors, or lined up criminals.
WHile I am staring at six standing animals
in frOnt of me and thinking about
theiR
poSition,
thE light becomes brighter and warmer.

CHapter II
'Fungal land and the ever grOwing puffball'
Now I can see eveRything clearly.
These animalS
in font of me arE like
Horses.
But hOrses in this shape
and postuRe
I have never Seen
bEfore.
The cHaracteristics
Of these
hoRses are quite extraordinary.
They are hairy, have Short
lEgs and big round stomachs.
THey have quite
shOrt bodies as well.
They Resemble Icelandic
horSes or
ShEtland ponies,

but tHe specific
pOsture
and expRession
of their faceS
resEmble more
tHose of men. I can see
anOther
thRee
horSes coming from
somEwhere
and standing, tHree
Of them are going away,
assumingly they aRe having their break in rotation.
Whilst the three new horSes
wEre making
tHeir
pOsition to fill the gap, I decided to follow the
other thRee
horSes that
arE leaving, to see where they are going.

HopeFully, I can find out more
aboUt them as well as this strange place.
The morNing sun is
shininG
And everything
Looks
so magicaL.
The beams of light Are
comiNg from between the trees and I can smell
the fertile lanD.
I Feel dazzled by the
coloUrs of this place. I'd better
coNcentrate on
followinG
the tAil of the three horses in case I miss them.
The horses are going after a Little stream of water through the woods.
Everywhere I Look is covered with
All sorts of
fuNgi.
The Drumstick-like

Fruitbodies of
onygena eqUine clustered waxcap
oN cal MoNotropa UniflorayptriFormithe,
a rottinG
sheep's horn,
pInk Indian pipesthe Grey-green
LecanoraMuralIS, the brIght yellow
CantHarelles cibari US,
the beard Mosses Usnea ceratina, the oranGe yellOw
TRemella aurantia,the cep BOletUs eduliS,
mOrcHella

The three Horses
stOpped by the lake.
They aRe drinking water
and Sharing a giant mushroom
which is growing bEside the water.
The mushroom looks like the shape of an old style jelly-mould.
I might have seen this Fungus in a book.
It also seems like the trUnk of a dead tree
with mushrooms growiNg on it. I am not sure exactly
what the horses are eatinG,
but it was sUrely
some sort of funguS. I do not want to go
too closE to
the funguS out of my curiosity
in case I trouble the Horses.
I tOok some
mushRooms near me,
oneS that
I am surE are edible,
and Some water from the lake.
The lake is so clear that I can see through it. The blue sky and
yellowish light is shimmering on the surface of the water and making a

sPectrum
of coloUr.
This water Feels so sweet to drink.
The aroma of the mushrooms Fills my mouth and nose. It feels a shame to enjoy
it all for myself. No one would Believe me if I describe
where I Am.
WhiLe I was staring at the
refLection on the surface of the lake, the three
horses disaPpeared. Perhaps they went back to where they were before. Maybe
they are the gUardians of this land or the invigilators. Now I am alone in this
land I have never been to beFore,
but I don't Feel so scared anymore.
The light and the weather made me look at everything differently.
I feel I will enjoy exploring this place. The smell of air seems like early spring.
Warm and Bright light is shining upon me.
I went to the jelly-mould shAped giant mushroom that the horses were eating.
I wanted to have a closer Look.
It seems Like the sort of mushroom that
is growing on trees, but it also looks like a big mushroom itself.

It is a really interesting shaPe
bUt I can not recognise
the species oF it.
Might be the Field ling-zhi mushroom?
There seems far more species of fungi than
I could possiBly recognise in this land.
I cAn
feeL some white dusty air coming from somewhere.
I turn my head towards it.
There is another big fungus not far away. I can see such a
bright white coLour
and smooth round shaPe;
I can see so clearly that it is a pUff ball,
a giant puFf ball. It is bigger than me and bigger
than the horses and bigger than everything else I have seen so Far in this land.
The
giant puff Ball
hAs grown
so enormousLy big and it does not seem to have stopped growing.
I guess it perhaps wiLl keep on growing forever.

Chapter III
'Skull of Fungal land and being me'
I am feeling sUffocated.
So many fuNgi are in this land and
they are takinG over
the entire plAce. They are so many different
shapes, coLours, and sizes. They seem to be growing everywhere even in the
dung or in the stomachs of the horses. ALl the
creAtures
and plaNts
I can see in this lanD live on
theSe fungi and
the fungi help return them to nature when they die.The sKy is aglow
with the splendour of the settingsUn and dying
the Lake
a goLden red.
I can see massively growing Fungi
aroUnd the edges of the lake and the landscape starts
to appear as somethiNg
I recoGnise. Something unconsciously
connected with a sense of feAr.
The cLoud

in a bLooded sky,
misty Air
arouNd the lake,
and all sorts of fungi in Different
Shapes and colours,
it is so beautiful a landscape at a first looK,
bUt
the combination is creating some Kind of fear.
Now the sun is becoming more and more red and the pLace
is in reaL silence.
Aargh!
The landscape is appearing aS a human
sKull.
The darkness will soon fall Upon the
Land.
The bLooded skyline rapiliy changes to
a dark Prussian blue. I do not know how I came here and where I am meant to go.
I would like to Find a way back to
where I started this joUrney.
Soon I am Not
Going to be
Able to see anything in the darkness.
I am Looking for

the Little
pAssage of water
aNd the horses foot steps so that
I can finD
where the Horses are standing.
I feel I shOuld be in
a huRry.
In the woodS
it sEems darker than near the lake.
It iS really getting dark.
In the midlie of the walK,
I see some lUminous honey fungus
ArmiLlaria
gLeaming on the broken dead wood.
I bump into a horse by mistake. I Feel really relieved;
I thoUght I am back where I was before.
But I caN not see
the Glittering eyes of the horses.
I Am standing just behind a horse. Not six horses,
but just one. I can see a bLack horse's rear

and taiL.
The plAce that I remember should be empty apart from the horses. But here
there was a pudlie, aNd in front of it the black horse.
I am confuseD.
I must Have
gOt lost in this land full of fungi.
Has the landscape changed while I was exploRing?
Have I come to a Sort
of vallEy?
Fortunately, the Moon light
cAme out from
the darkNess of the night clouds.
I can see a Horse
lOoking into the pudlie.
The hoRse
Seems
to bE trying to find
hiMself in the water.
I decided to stAnd
Next to the

Horse
tO look into the pudlie.
I looked into the water caRefully.
The dark water iS mirroring
thE sky,
I can't see Much.
I looked At it
agaiN;
there is a reflection of a Man.
There wAsn't
aNy horse,
just a Man there. I couldn't
recognise who he wAs.
TheN I realised,
the Man is
mE.

Bibliography
Cage, John. M writings '67- '72. Marin Boyars; London: 1969 Cage, John. Silence. Marin Boyars; London: 1939 Deleuze, Gilles & Guattari, Felix, A thousand plateaus. Athlone; London: 1988. Deleuze, Gilles & Guattari, Felix, Kafka, towards minor Literature. Minuit; Paris: 1975. Translated by Jinkung Lee (Seoul: 2001) Johnson, Galen A, The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader. Northwestern University; Illinois: 1993 Kafka, Franz. Metamorphosis and other stories. Penguin Books; England: 2007. Translated by Michael Hofman Spooner, Brian & Roberts, Peter. Fungi. Collins; London: 2005

Fungal land, 2007