Sweet Tomato

On the night of his eighth birthday, MinGu finds a orange-red fruit beside his bed. MinGu has no idea where it came from, but when he takes a bite the next day, he immediately recognizes its sweet taste. He begins a search throughout the city which brings him into contact with a number of people, such as a surly flower salesman, an exuberant Italian cook and a melancholic Turkish green grocer, but nobody can tell him where the fruit is from. When he loses the fruit in the street, all hope seems to vanish, but suddenly large sliding doors open. MinGu walks into a mysterious library filled with endless rows of books. When he looks around the corner, he suddenly finds himself at the edge of an authentic Korean market where vegetables and fruit are sold in the street. MinGu hears a woman’s voice talking to him and he walks up to a Korean woman in the middle of the market. As she’s talking to him, she hands him a shiny, fresh piece of fruit, called a Korean kam. Then, suddenly, his dream is over and MinGu is back in the street. He runs back home where his mother is anxiously waiting for him. When she asks him where he was coming from, MinGu says: I’m from Korea.