"Rain Shower", also "Shower" or "Sonagi," (소나기) is a Korean short story written by Korean writer Hwang Sun-won in 1959. "Rain Shower" is a translation of the Korean title “Sonagi.” A sonagi is a brief but a heavy rain shower that starts suddenly, usually on a hot afternoon. In Hwang’s story, the rain shower symbolizes the short but heart-rending love between the boy and the girl. The story begins with the boy encountering the girl playing by the stream on his way back home.
Although many of Hwang’s short stories are notable, “Rain Shower” is cited as his timeless Korean classic by Koreans. Koreans of all ages are acquainted with this story. It is famous for its poignant depiction of the Korean countryside and of innocent adolescent love. The picturesque scenes from this story stir nostalgia for many people.
“Rain Shower,” like many of Hwang’s other stories, was written while he lived as a refugee with his family during the Korean War.
The Korean film ‘The Classic’ replicates many scenes from Hwang’s "Rain Shower." The scene from the story where the boy and the girl avoid the rain shower together has become a favorite in many Korean romantic films (as depicted in Korean romantic comedy My Sassy Girl in 2001).
Famous quotes containing the words rain and/or shower:
“The life of a good man will hardly improve us more than the life of a freebooter, for the inevitable laws appear as plainly in the infringement as in the observance, and our lives are sustained by a nearly equal expense of virtue of some kind. The decaying tree, while yet it lives, demands sun, wind, and rain no less than the green one. It secretes sap and performs the functions of health. If we choose, we may study the alburnum only. The gnarled stump has as tender a bud as the sapling.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Mix salt and sand, and it shall puzzle the wisest of men, with his mere natural appliances, to separate all the grains of sand from all the grains of salt; but a shower of rain will effect the same object in ten minutes.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)