10 stories
Age was nothing more than a number. Young man! Get up, this instant! When an elder is standing, you ought to know to offer your seat— the impudence, the sheer lack of manners! · I look back and ask myself— have I not, at times, been just such an elder? — The…
The sesame oil and the peanuts were both from China. The goods the old women sell, huddled side by side — now I doubt them all. Beyond the city limits, a five-day market opens. Vegetables fragrant with spring line the stalls. Some come for the pleasure of…
"Mommy is going to die!" A page from the daily life of the television personality Jang Yoon-jung is filled with a story of love that tugs at the heart. One day in her home, a fresh spring breeze drifted in through the window. Carrying the family's happiness…
Harvard students, and those living on borrowed time. I am sharing quiet conversation with a high school friend at a serene café on the edge of town, the air laced with the scent of coffee. We are, as always, sparing with words. Meeting him is, in a word, an…
그는 우리의 작은 성자였다 He was our little saint. "모두 책가방 책상에 올리고, 눈감고 두 손을 머리에 올려라" "Everyone — bookbags up on your desks, eyes shut, both hands on your heads." ㅡ 나는 아직 그 시절을 잊지 못한다. I still cannot forget those days. "모두 머리에 손 올리고 눈감아라" 우리 반 한 친구가 필통을 분실했다. 범인은 분명히…
동생은 판사가 되어 처가에 갔다 The younger brother became a judge and went off to his wife's family. 주정뱅이 아버지는 술로 죽게 되고, The drunkard father died of drink, 한평생 그 남편에 시달린 엄마는 정신질환을 앓고 and the mother, worn down a whole lifetime by that husband, fell ill in her mind, 그렇게 나간…
"I only gave you extra because the rolls had split open." "Oh, please, don't mention it!" "The gimbap had split, that's all — so I slipped in a piece or two more." — This happened long ago. On winter dawns when the cold came driving down hard, I used to buy…
The gentleman was humble. Long ago, Confucius said: "It is not easy to be poor and yet resent neither Heaven nor one's fellow man. But it is harder still to possess much and not grow arrogant." We are prone to think this way: when want presses too hard upon…
The pencil stub is still waiting for me. We sometimes take great joy in small things — and those small things are so often the memories of long ago. Everyone remembers the games they played with a dear childhood friend, or how it felt to fall in love for the…
"Mommy and Daddy are right here — don't you worry." A scene I witnessed at the park last weekend still lingers before my eyes. A young couple, beautifully dressed, strolled along with graceful smiles. The stroller they were pushing gleamed dazzlingly, as…
What Korea is talking about today — with the context that does not make it into the English headlines.