Storytellers in my tradition look for stories that hold some sort of "magic." We tell stories that we love--sometimes for reasons that we know and sometimes we just keep telling them until we figure out why.



This story has held me since I first heard it. Folk stories travel across the world and adapt to the cultures that they meet. The wisdom is distilled and often poured into another container. I first heard this as a Jewish story, and it took me some time to track down the original Korean version. I read and listened to several versions, took it down to the bare bones, dreamed on it, combined the elements that spoke to me, and created my own version.



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The Spring of Youth ... a Korean folk tale, told by Dr. Joel Ying, MD