The Spring 2025 K-Comics Guide

Her Tale of Shim Chong

What's It About? 

Based on a Korean folktale, two very different women find themselves making the same wish - to leave this world behind. One is Shim Chong, a young beggar living off the kindness of others to support herself and her blind father. The other is the bride-to-be of old Chancellor Jang, sold off to him for the sake of her family. When Shim Chong rescues this new bride from the river, their relationship triggers both love and hidden intentions. But will these two women be able to find their way forth in a world that favors men?

Her Tale of Shim Chong has a story by Seri and art by biwan. English translation and lettering by WEBTOON. Published by WEBTOON (March 27, 2025). Rated M.

Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

While no one knows precisely how old the Korean story Tale of Shim Chong is, most agree that it dates to at least the 18th century. That tracks with global literary trends, because in the original, the story is a moral tale, meant to uphold a particular sacrifice on the part of the protagonist as a model for good behavior. In the case of this story, heroine Shim Chong throws herself into the Indang Sea in order to restore her father's eyesight, rather than pay the exorbitant fee charged by the temple for the same miracle. It's meant to be a tale of filial devotion, a girl who gives up everything for her parent.

But what if that wasn't strictly the case? Writer Seri takes one small moment in the original story and makes it the center of this retelling: that the wife of a chancellor offered to take in Shim Chong and provide the rice demanded by the priest. Why would this wealthy woman make such an offer? In Seri's version, it all comes down to love.

It's not always easy to update a classic in such a way that makes it feel relevant without losing the main points of a work, but Her Tale of Shim Chong does an excellent job of it. This retelling doesn't remove the filial aspects – Shim Chong really does care about her father and does her best for him – but it contextualizes them in history. The Shim family is well known in their village for their tragedy: Mrs. Shim died a week after Chong was born, and Mr. Shim has always been blind, which has removed him from his family's wealthy nanbang roots. But by the time Chong is fifteen, the villagers' pity has pretty well dried up. Any care they lavished upon her is long gone, and they're now more likely to shun her on the streets or to accuse her of theft. The local priest sort of helps, but there's a sense that he's not doing it out of the goodness of his heart. Nevertheless, Chong prays at the temple every day…wishing for a fatal accident to take her out of her life of misery.

She's at the shore praying for just such an event when she meets the wife-to-be of Chancellor Jang. Like Chong, the young woman is praying for death, although she seems to have everything. But she's around Chong's age, and Chancellor Jang is old enough to be her grandfather, and the villagers and nobles are quick to damn her as a woman marrying strictly for money. She's treated like a doll with no real brain, a fragile creature not worthy of respect. She and Chong are therefore both isolated from and by society, and the young bride (we don't learn her name in the first eight chapters) is drawn to Chong because of it. The story is setting up Chong's sacrifice to be less about filial duty and more about the only way she – and, judging by some early art, the young bride – can escape from the roles they've been damned into.

Her Tale of Shim Chong isn't preachy. It allows us to draw our own conclusions about how women are marginalized. It's one of the webtoons I hope to see get a physical release some day, because this thoughtful reimagining has as much to say as the original…maybe more, for a modern audience.