Top 18 Kim Young-ha Quotes

A military career offers the stability many South Korean women crave.

Of John Le Carre’s books, I’ve only read ‘The Spy Who Came In From The Cold,’ and I haven‘t read anything by Graham Greene, but I’ve heard a great deal about how ‘Your Republic Is Calling You’ reminded English readers of those two writers. I don’t really have any particular interest in Cold War spy novels.

It’s an open secret: Even now, in the 21st century, Korean executives often consult spiritual advisers before making major business decisions – decisions that can affect their employees around the world.

We don’t know why we should be artists, but we have many reasons why we can’t be.

Handwritten political posters – often composed in an artless and unadorned style, usually just words on plain white paper – were ubiquitous in South Korea in the 1970s and 1980s and were one of the few outlets available for expressing political views. Most posters were anonymous and put up under the cover of night.

The constant movement of a military life can be tough on children. My father was an officer in the army, and I was forced to change elementary schools six times.

We are all born artists. If you have kids, you know what I mean. Almost everything kids do is art. They draw with crayons on the wall.

When the moon covers the sun, we have a solar eclipse. What do you call it when birds do that?

Just like any other company, Samsung can fail, and if that happens, how will the South Korean economy overcome the shock? If we don’t decrease our over-reliance on the chaebols and prepare to let smaller, dynamic start-ups fill the gaps in their place, it won’t.

When the head of the Hyundai Motor Company, Chung Mong-koo, was fighting with his younger brother Chung Mong-hun over the company’s management, he is said to have consulted a fortune-teller.

For all the popularity of spiritual advisers in South Korea, it still shocks to see the leaders of huge public companies relying on fortune-tellers. A shaman may advise a struggling executive to move a building’s front entrance, tapping the widespread pungsu belief that your luck depends on the direction of your house.

Here’s a question we all ask ourselves at least once when we’re young: Where does that starlight come from? It’s been there before I was born, and before my grandmother, and her grandmother were born. So just how far is that star from Earth?

In my 20s, I became obsessed with the role-playing game ‘Romance of the Three Kingdoms,’ named after a classical Chinese novel, and later ‘The Sims,’ a life-simulation game, and ‘StarCraft,’ a science-fiction game.

Don’t be a fish; be a frog. Swim in the water and jump when you hit ground.

I like to take certain aspects of genre fiction and modify them in my own way. ‘Your Republic Is Calling You’ follows the form of a spy novel, but it leads readers into a world of Kafkaesque irrationality.

South Korea first allowed women into the military in 1950 during the Korean War. Back then, female soldiers mainly held administrative and support positions. Women began to take on combat roles in the 1990s when the three military academies, exclusive to men, began accepting women.

The moment kids start to lie is the moment storytelling begins. They are talking about things they didn’t see. It’s amazing. It’s a wonderful moment. Parents should celebrate. ‘Hurray! My boy finally started to lie!’ All right! It calls for celebration.

From the early 1960s to the mid-1980s – the era of military dictatorship when South Korea was rebuilding itself from a postwar economic basket case to a humming, modern nation – military schools were the track of choice for ambitious young men.