Kwon Soo-jin. Courtesy of JINJIN Pictures

By Lee Yeon-woo

Kwon Soo-jin, 25, has lived a double life for as long as she can remember.

Over the past four years, she was a communications student at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. She spent her weekdays, like other students, attending lectures, writing papers, and taking mid-terms and final exams.

On weekends, however, she transformed into a shaman popular among those who are curious about their future, or those who are facing critical life decisions and want to consult with somebody who can read their future and give them advice.

After graduating, Kwon is now a full-time shaman.

But she still sometimes finds it tough to strike a balance between her two very different realities ―one as a fun-loving young woman and another as a person who tells people's fortunes.

Time management is not her only issue. The real problem she is grappling with is people's stereotyping of her job.

"One day, I visited a hospital and overheard a group of women talking about how a shaman they know accurately predicted the future. As the conversation went on, one woman brought up a story about marrying a shaman. Then the other woman was strongly against that because she believed (a shaman) would be a problem for the family," she told The Korea Times.

Their conversation hurt her. "We are not criminals. Reading people's past and future is part of our job. We don't harm people," she said.

Kwon said she is all too familiar with people's insensitive words about shamans as she has experienced it so many times since her childhood years.

Such experiences didn't help her build a thick skin to protect her from judgmental people as she still gets hurt by such harsh words.

Kwon was raised by her grandmother since she was an infant after her parents divorced. Her grandmother was also a shaman.

When Kwon turned four, she "felt the spirits." She read the future of her grandmothers' clients. Her "unique talent" sometimes made her vulnerable to blunt remarks. She was hurt when some of her friends teased her openly, saying she can see ghosts.

Kwon said the media are partly responsible for her traumatic childhood and adult life, claiming that shamans are frequently misrepresented.

"It is commonly seen in dramas or movies that shamans shout or write something when they read other people's future. And when the media portrays 'gut' (a Korean shamanic ritual), most of the time the shaman shudders to show that her body is possessed by a spirit," she said. "I do 'gut,' if necessary, but I don't shudder that much."

She said this depiction of shamans makes audiences feel fear and promotes misunderstanding.

Poster of the documentary "A Girl Who Dreams About Time." Courtesy of JINJIN Pictures

Kwon chose to break that stereotype and show the Korean public who shamans really are. So she said yes to documentary filmmaker Park Hyuk-ji's offer, to capture a shaman's real life. Park filmed Kwon for seven years from 2015 to 2022.

The documentary, "A Girl Who Dreams About Time," portrays her desperate effort to balance her split life as a shaman and a student. From the time she was a teenager, she read her clients' futures on weekends and went to school on weekdays. The toing and froing continued until her college life.

"Even though being a shaman was my life since I was a baby, I always held thoughts in my childhood, such as 'why do I have to do this? I want to play too, I want to go to a friend's birthday party.'"

But while she struggled with her identity, she was still experiencing conflicts with her grandmother, working hard on her studies and having to deal with day-to-day issues ― like a frozen boiler in winter.

"I wanted to show people what concerns we, shamans have in our daily lives," Kwon said.

All she wants from the documentary is to simply give people a better understanding of her job, and show that shamans are also human beings.

"I'm not asking you to be fond of us. I believe people should hold reasonable suspicion of this job. I just don't want them to look at us as if we are creatures from other planets," Kwon said.

The documentary hit local theaters on Wednesday.