Our Past Lives and the Ties that Bind
Inspired by the Korean concept 인연 (In-yeon) and the recent film Past Lives
In the Korean language, there is the concept of 인연 (In-yeon), which refers to a kind of fate specifically between people. There’s a recent movie based on this concept, influenced by Buddhism, called Past Lives.
There’s no exact translation of this word, but it is the idea that no human interaction is random. Even an encounter in the street is never an accident. You were destined to meet across past, current, and future lifetimes.
In the old times, it was even said that “when you marry your soulmate, it's said to be the result of 8,000 layers of inyeon accumulated over 8,000 lifetimes” (great article here from the BBC in reference to the film).
I started to play with this idea in my sketchbook with some rough drawings.
When I was a young child, on some particularly hard days when I was just so hungry, I would sometimes go beg at metro stations in wealthier areas. It was pretty rare that anyone would help me, but on the occasion that I did meet someone who would, I wonder if that was In-yeon?
After all, why else would anyone help a begging child when it’s hard enough for so many of us to survive in this world? Modern life doesn’t incentivize us to help others.
I’ve been thinking a lot about world-building, characters, and the key themes and story elements of what I eventually want to illustrate a visual novel of Moon Child to be, and I think this is something important I want to embody.