- i wanted to reach over and shake her by the shoulders. stop running around like a fool, i wanted to say. you have so much and you can do anything you want. i would live your life so much better than you, if I had your face.
- it's not an original thought perhaps, but I think people watch so much tv because life would otherwise be unbearable. unless you are born into a chaebol family or your parents were the fantastically lucky few who purchased land in gangnam decades ago, you have to work and work and work for a salary that isn’t even enough to buy a house or pay for childcare, and you sit at a desk until your spine twists, and your boss is somehow incompetent and a workaholic at the same time and at the end of the day you have to drink to bear it all.
- it’s basic human nature, this need to look down on someone to feel better about yourself. there is no point in getting upset about it.
- she looks at me. “do you know that all these ob-gyns and birthing centers and postpartum centers are going out of business because nobody is having children? i heard that on the radio news today.” “good riddance,” i say. “why would you want to bring more children into this world so that they can suffer and be stressed their entire lives? And they’ll disappoint you and you will want to die. And you’ll be poor.”
- she doesn’t understand that i will never have the capacity to shoulder the responsibility of another life when I am scrambling like a madman in my own.
- then the men take turns dissecting her height (too tall), her education (too threatening), her personality (too strong), her clothes (too dark), and start offering advice about how to attract a man (incorporate cute mannerisms in speech).
- ara and stan culture:
- i have to admit that it makes me feel warm all over, to embark on this parallel journey with taein.
- “no matter how dark things get for me, the memory that i saved a life—that my life has mattered—has been something I can cling to,” he says with a catch in his voice. “it is, perhaps, the only lifeline that I possess. and I am so grateful that I can tell you this. what your life means to your parents—you will realize it one day, when you have your own children.”
- they are no better than the managers and the pimps and the politicians and the policemen and the public who vilify only the girls. “this was your choice,” they say. they are gutter trash, every last one of them.
- i cannot imagine feeling that way. i cannot imagine having a child and you have to watch out for him or her and every moment of every day will be devoted to the child with no life of your own. i wonder how that transition happens and what it feels like when that instinct kicks in.
apr 4 2022 ∞
aug 19 2022 +