The Hybrid Body and Resistive Practices in the Mobility of a Taxi：On Yang Sok-il’s Meisō

This paper analyses Yang Sok-il’s Meisō (Straying) based on the theory of auto-mobility, which explores how the prevalence of private cars impacts society. Yang’s Meisō and his taxi trilogy have been discussed from the perspective of Zainichi Korean literary history and workers’ literature. However, the further potential value of Meisō can be found in the literary practice that accurately captures the dynamism and spatial complexity brought about by the mobility of taxis. The paper analyses the spatiality of the taxi as a secret chamber. In conventional discourse, the taxi driver is invisible. In Meisō, however, the narrator is portrayed as an active agent who, by carefully observing the words and actions of passengers, quickly discovers their wants and needs, and on that basis provides a service. In this process, the struggle between passenger and driver over ‘subjectivity’ always takes place within the confines of the taxi. The paper explores gender and ethnicity in the taxi based on consideration of the taxi’s mobility. By depicting the taxi as closely related to the sex industry, Meisō provides space to consider the gendered imbalance in auto-mobility. Furthermore, the Zainichi narrator’s experience of racism brings with it the possibility of rac(e)ing. The driver’s angry sprint to combat the suffocation of the taxi due to the ethnic stereotypes of its passengers is ultimately a resistant practice.