[Essay] Day Two: Feeling Our Way Without a Compass — The Road to Bring Back a World Without Nuclear Power

Field Notes in Anthropology

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Oct 12, 2026

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Around lunchtime on the second day of the pilgrimage, a striking phrase appeared in the group chat:

“Plenty of feelers, but no compass!”

The words belonged to Park Min-ja, an activist with the Ulsan pilgrimage group. She had no compass, but plenty of feelers. And so she set out onto the road once more.

On the second day, it was the body that felt its way along the road. The Yeonggwang group set out from the Yeonggwang County Office and walked the full 25 kilometers to the Wolya-myeon Office in Hampyeong. The Sejong group covered 13.4 kilometers, from the Wondong Community Health Clinic in Okcheon to Okcheon Cathedral. Each pilgrim’s body moved through its own distance, its own fatigue. Ha Heon-jong, who had resolved to complete all sixteen days, began to notice a small signal rising from the soles of his feet. Such pain leaves its trace: the body, feeling its way along the road.

“As noon approaches, I find myself increasingly aware of the soles of my feet. They feel strange, unfamiliar. I’ve always prided myself on being a confident walker, but it seems the struggle between body and mind has already begun, before I’ve even made it through two days.”
— Ha Heon-jong, pilgrim

As the body feels its way along the road, the people encountered along the way are feeling their way toward something, too.

An elderly man in his seventies happened to see the Sejong pilgrims just as they were preparing to set off. He turned toward his sweet-potato field, dug up a few potatoes before they had fully matured, and placed them in the pilgrims’ hands. They could eat them along the way. He spoke with pride about his farming, explaining that he loved the environment so deeply that he farmed in ways that restored the soil.

Later, as the Sejong group walked through the Okcheon section, they encountered another elderly farmer, a woman in her seventies. She was removing the vines and weeds that had taken root along the pavement.

“There was no sunlight, but the humidity was so high that we were drenched in sweat as we walked. The woman crouching there and working so hard had every reason to feel exhausted and irritated. Yet she spoke to us kindly and patiently. She didn’t answer our questions about nuclear power, but when we explained what we were doing, she nodded.

Compared with the many urban residents who avert their eyes or walk past calling us ‘a bunch of fools,’ these people had a warmth about them.”
— Ha Heon-jong, pilgrim

Okcheon Jeil Church readily offered the Sejong pilgrims a place to sleep and meals to eat. In gratitude, Ha Heon-jong gave them a hemp scrubber he had crocheted himself. The village management social cooperative Ieum responded in kind with keyrings made by melting down discarded bottle caps.

An acquaintance of Cheong-myeong invited the Sejong group to a meal prepared with care: mugwort soup, wild greens, homemade soybean paste, and lettuce leaves for wrapping the food. It was a generous welcome, offered through the work of many hands.

Ha Heon-jong thought of his usual motto:

“Let’s owe each other, and repay each other.”

And another question emerged: To whom, after all, do we owe our lives?

The question calls forth a multitude of beings, human and more-than-human alike. Yet our feelers are not always sensitive enough to the ecologies in which we live.

Kim Hyeong-yeon, who describes himself as something of a homebody, recounts a remark he heard from a local tour guide while walking through Uljin:

“Uljin is a land that is going to die anyway.”

The words carried a deep loneliness, along with a resignation accumulated over many years.

Kim asks us to imagine that a nuclear power plant has brought money and jobs to a community. Would that be enough? What good is the money earned from a nuclear power plant if people must still pay to bring in water from elsewhere? What, in the end, can money do?

Then he offers a simple reminder:

“You can’t eat money.”

We are accustomed to putting a price on nature. Nature with a price tag. Hands clutching money. Plans to dismantle the natural world. What remains is the price, while the landscape that once existed has disappeared. No amount of money received in exchange can bring it back.

This is what Kim fears for Uljin: that people will gradually resign themselves to the situation and come to accept nuclear power as inevitable. As nuclear power plants occupy an ever-larger share of local employment, the space in which other industries might take root grows narrower.

Speaking of Uljin, he says:

“The ecosystem is living under a colonial economy… It is a city of KHNP, not a city belonging to its residents.”
— Kim Hyeong-yeon, pilgrimage organizer

What the anti-nuclear pilgrims bring into view as they walk is not simply the danger of nuclear power. They also ask what has changed in the places where nuclear power plants have taken root. What have these communities gained from the choices made in the past? And what have they lost?

Following Kim’s questions, the nuclear power plant can no longer remain merely a backdrop to the village. Beside it stands the village hall. There are transmission towers. And there is the sea.

The titles of the photographs left behind by the Uljin group seem to reach toward what this landscape has to say:

“Lunch was bread and bananas, with the sea as our side dish…”

“The sea is everyone’s homeland. Nature, enjoyed without having to pay, is the most precious of all…”

Toward evening, the Uljin group — just two people, smaller in number than the other pilgrimage groups — paused to ease their weary bodies. Then they took turns answering the questions set for the day.

“Hmm… Where am I standing right now?”

“On Earth.”

“Why did you set out on this road?”

“I couldn’t just sit there and listen to the blatant lies told by KHNP and the state.”

“Why did you come all the way here today?”

“I’m exhausted, but I want to keep walking for as long as my body allows. There is no way to escape the Earth. Whether we walk, run, or fly, we cannot leave the Earth behind. And that is precisely why I’m walking: to stop the production of radioactive materials.”
— Kim Hyeong-yeon, pilgrimage organizer

“Why did you set out on this road?”

“To stop nuclear power plants.”

“Why did you come all the way here today?”

“To do my part in building a nationwide network of solidarity. And to let President Lee Jae-myung know that nuclear power is absolutely not an option.”

“When you told your family and friends you would be walking for fifteen days, what did they say?”

“‘Come back healthy. Be careful.’ My younger siblings and even my nieces and nephews called to say the same thing. But I kept wondering — what exactly am I supposed to be careful about?”
— Lee Jeong-suk, pilgrimage organizer

Waste can be moved elsewhere. The costs can be passed on to someone else. But there is no way to escape the Earth.

The two feet that carry us forward keep bringing the Earth back into view: the ground beneath them, the sea rising and falling, the people encountered along the way, a few under-ripe sweet potatoes handed over as a snack, a meeting of eyes, a landscape, hands clutching money that cannot be eaten, the future of a community, and the quiet gestures of support.

Perhaps these are the things the pilgrims are feeling their way toward as they walk.

On the second day, they have no compass. Still, with their feelers extended, they set out onto the road once more.

2026. September, 2nd. National Action Pilgrimage for a Nuclear-Free Society