![]() Observers of Korea thus often find themselves tempted to reference the concept of han, the deep-seated set of negative feelings defined as uniquely Korean. ![]() Even then, film and literature in translation had already shown me that “every Korean story is a tragedy” - which, if not literally true, at times feels practically true. This implied history of misfortune could go on. “Their mother probably died in a factory accident, then their father drank himself to death, then the rest of the family was too ashamed to take them in…” “Oh, I know exactly what this means,” said a Korean friend to whom I showed the opening of one such tale, which simply introduced its young characters, a young brother and sister living in a mountain village with their maternal grandmother. Its short, fable-like stories turned out to be united only by what struck me as an often thoroughgoing sadness, their titular world populated mainly by neglected children, impoverished students, downtrodden mothers and fathers, and crippled elders. There I picked up the first volume in a long-running a series of illustrated books for children called Happy World (행복한 세상). ![]() When first learning Korean in Los Angeles, I went to a Koreatown bookstore in search of simple reading material. ![]()
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