The short story, “A Footstep in 1950” by Derek Wan was a horrible piece that left me cringing because of its confusing plot. To be frank, I had little understanding of what was happening in the story. All I knew was that there was this Asian man whose soon-to-be wife got kidnapped on his wedding day. Afterwards, he was on the street because of poverty, holding a book he stole from a herbalist to gain money (through the knowledge from the book). Later on, he was reading the book but failed to understand, and then there was some description of the insides of the book. This was the basic plot I only knew from rereading the story a couple of times, which wasn’t something a good story would make the reader do. If this story was purposely supposed to sound deep, the message didn't get across.
     The story was mostly confusing because of the phrasing and over-descriptive details. According to “A Footstep in 1950,” “Slowly, steadily, the silhouette lowers himself into the text. . . . Jeering laughter greets him within – he jumps out of the book and slams it shut onto the pavement, his doubts confirmed.” This part made me think that the man was literally going inside the book and I was convinced this was what happened when it said he jumped out. I thought he was time traveling or something similar to that but after reading it over four or five times to try and understand what it was about, I realized the man was reading the book. The wording and phrasing of how the main character read the book made my head spin and my brow furrow. What also bothered me were the extreme descriptive parts like the beginning description of the ginseng root sketches in the book and the part about the book laughing and smirking. Although I did enjoy the second paragraph of the root sketches where there were plenty of similes, the inability to comprehend what is going on outweighs that by plenty.