The notion of diaspora as being 'scattered away' thus points to an unsettlement in space and time that impedes the flourishing of lives in ways that reverberate far beyond the places scattered from and to, and far into the future.

In 1905, around a thousand Korean farmers left Joseon for Mexico to find there not the riches they had been promised but a harsh life as laborers on the henequen fields. Their fate is described as follows: 'Into unfamiliar lands went everyone, scattered away with no familiar tongues.'

One Hundred Years of Travels, in turn, not only invokes the migration of the prickly pear – called baengnyeoncho or 'hundred-year plant' in Korean – from Mexico to Jeju Island, making clear that transplantations between the two countries have gone both ways.

although the Koreans working the Yucatán henequen fields can no longer enact the farmers' way of life that was theirs in Korea as they have to fulfill the demands of the subservient role assigned to them by the chronotope into which they have been scattered, One Hundred Years of Travels suggests they can continue to enact a degree of belonging to their old way of life by speaking Korean and keeping alive certain (artistic) traditions.

the Korean diaspora has grown and engendered ongoing travels – in multiple directions, including back to Korea – of people, languages, traditions, stories and things, including vegetation.

Scattering or disseminating something across space is never instantaneous... and a sown seed only sprouts and grows into a plant over time. With sowing, moreover, the growth period is lengthened if the seed is placed in hostile soil, while scattered seeds tend to produce fewer and more vulnerable plants than seeds carefully planted at optimal intervals in the same ground."

The notion of diaspora as being 'scattered away' thus points to an unsettlement in space and time that impedes the flourishing of lives in ways that reverberate far beyond the places scattered from and to, and far into the future.

In 1905, around a thousand Korean farmers left Joseon for Mexico to find there not the riches they had been promised but a harsh life as laborers on the henequen fields. Their fate is described as follows: 'Into unfamiliar lands went everyone, scattered away with no familiar tongues.'

One Hundred Years of Travels, in turn, not only invokes the migration of the prickly pear – called baengnyeoncho or 'hundred-year plant' in Korean – from Mexico to Jeju Island, making clear that transplantations between the two countries have gone both ways.

although the Koreans working the Yucatán henequen fields can no longer enact the farmers' way of life that was theirs in Korea as they have to fulfill the demands of the subservient role assigned to them by the chronotope into which they have been scattered, One Hundred Years of Travels suggests they can continue to enact a degree of belonging to their old way of life by speaking Korean and keeping alive certain (artistic) traditions.

the Korean diaspora has grown and engendered ongoing travels – in multiple directions, including back to Korea – of people, languages, traditions, stories and things, including vegetation.