A Single Shard: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

Tree-ear climbs to the top of the Rock of the Falling Flowers, sets down his pack, and looks over the cliff down at the Kum River. As Tree-ear imagines women in colorful dresses jumping, someone suddenly asks whether he knows the story. He turns and sees a pale, badly dressed man. When Tree-ear greets him by the polite formula, “Have you eaten well today,” the man replies that he hasn’t—and smiles ominously.

When Tree-ear picks up his pack, the man offers to “help” with it. Tree-ear refuses, but the man grabs the pack and tugs on it. Abruptly, Tree-ear realizes the man is a bandit. While refusing to let go of the pack, Tree-ear maneuvers himself away from the cliff’s edge. Then the bandit suddenly releases the pack, and Tree-ear falls—into the arms of a second bandit! While the second bandit holds Tree-ear’s arms, the first steals his pack, opens it, and becomes infuriated when he sees beautiful vases. The second bandit suggests they could fence the vases, but the first says the vases are clearly meant for royalty—no one would be foolish enough to buy goods stolen from the king.

The second bandit, roughing up Tree-ear, finds and takes his string of coins. The bandits are about to leave Tree-ear in disgust when the second suggests they have “a little fun.” While the first bandit holds Tree-ear, the second throws the vases over the cliff. After the bandits leave, Tree-ear vomits in horror at his “dishonorable failure” to protect the vases. For a moment, he considers throwing himself over the cliff rather than going home and facing Min. Out of nowhere, he hears Crane-man’s disembodied voice: “Leaping into death is not the only way to show true courage.” Though Crane-man isn’t there, his imagined voice forces Tree-ear to admit that the truly brave thing would be to go home.

Tree-ear begins to reassemble his remaining things. Then, in a fit of rage, he throws his pack over the cliffside—and sees it bounce off various rocks on its way down into the river. He runs down the mountainside, falls, and splits his lip. Suddenly he realizes that he only heard the first vase crash, not the second—what if the second fell directly into the water and survived? Tree-ear climbs down to the river and looks a long time. He finds the first vase smashed into tiny pieces—and the second into larger pieces. He finds one perfectly glazed shard that depicts inlay work of a peony blossom. He rolls his clay turtle into a snake, winds the snake around the sharp edges of the shard, and puts the shard in his pouch, intending to bring that single perfect shard to Songdo.