Korean Literature - Blog Posts
I want to love and be loved. I want to find a way where I don’t hurt myself. I want to live a life where I say things are good more than things are bad. I want to keep failing and discovering new and better directions. I want to enjoy the tides of feeling in me as the rhythms of life. I want to be the kind of person who can walk inside the vast darkness and find the one fragment of sunlight I can linger in for a long time. Some day, I will.
Baek Sehee, tr. by Anton Hur, from I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki
News Box: Belle Époque
George Eliot wrote in the novel Middlemarch that youth is frequently the season of hope only in the sense that older generations are hopeful about younger ones. Lacking life experiences, young people, for all their physical vitality and cognitive advantages, find each struggle soul-crushing. Likewise, Age of Youth (available on Dramafever) peels back the rosy veneer of life in one's 20s to reveal the socioeconomic difficulties and family/personal tragedies that may afflict young adults without waiting for them to "grow up" first. Its oldest main character, college senior Yoon Jin-myung, already 28, is forever too busy making ends meet to properly experience the springtime of her life. Fake college student Kang Yi-na, 24, escapes from a near-death experience only to lead a wasted life hooking up with rich men in bars for an indulgent lifestyle out of survivor guilt. Princessy Jung Ye-eun (pictured above), 22, can hardly bring herself to break up with her atrocious boyfriend. Dirty-talking liar Song Ji-won, also 22, ironically seems to be the most well-adjusted and one of the wisest among the pack. Timid Yoo Eun-jae, only 20, may have been a murderess. With courage and companionship, though, it may still be possible to live life to the fullest, in spite of scars and missteps, making these truly beautiful years of their lives.
Below is a selection of literary references in the show:
Korean independence fighter Yun Dong-ju's poem anthology Sky, Wind, Star, and Poetry - Jin-myung's mother, giving up hope on her comatose son, underlines the last two lines of the work "A Dream Shattered." (A translation can be found here.)
Hermann Hesse's Demian - A German youth's quest for self-discovery and spiritual enlightenment.
Nikos Kazantzakis's Zorba the Greek - A Greek intellectual befriends a foreman under his employment who has a fervent zest for life. Read together with (2) by Jin-myung and led to her decision to take some risks and live according to her wishes for a change.
Liane Moriarty's Big Little Lies - A chick-lit novel on domestic abuse. Discussed by Ji-won while making up her mind about whether to disclose a truth.
This weekend drama has concluded its run last Saturday. Some episodes contain suggestive references.
Lost Heroines
“Is there a taste you want to remember?” In a quaint alleyway in the heart of Seoul, a scarred, reticent chef known only as “Master” operates a low-key eatery from midnight to seven in the morning. The menu has just one modest dish, but patrons are free to order whatever they want. Night after night, various sorts of workers drop by and share their woes and joys over the hearty dishes, while…
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