Your Republic Is Calling You Quotes

“Life is a continuous cycle of once-terrifying things becoming normal.”
― Young-ha Kim, Your Republic Is Calling You

“It was the kind of situation that rendered Communists helpless. Suicide meant you left the socialist paradise of your own free will, for no good reason.”
― Kim Young-ha, Your Republic Is Calling You

“I always thought people got upset when someone betrayed them because they were angry at being lied to, at having the wool pulled over their eyes. But now I see it isn't true. Betrayal dismantles your confidence. That's why it's so upsetting. Now I can't believe in anything. I can't tell if I enjoyed my life until now, or if I'm doing the right thing, or what. How can someone this stupid do anything well? How can I do anything well in the future? I'm probably just going to get used by everyone. Don't you think so?”
― Young-Ha Kim, Your Republic Is Calling You

“I used to think I could change the world, but now I realise that I can't even control my urge to eat something sweet.”
― Young-Ha Kim, Your Republic Is Calling You

“「韓國的國家保安法裡知情不報是有罪的，你知道嗎？」
他點點頭。
「看到像你這樣的人，卻什麼也沒做的話，也構成犯罪事實，對吧？」
「對。」
「我以前覺得，這實在是非常獨特的罪行，不是做了什麼，而是沒做什麼。我一直覺得，遭遇這種事情的人一定覺得很荒唐。
「對不起。」
「我要收回剛才我所說的，無知對於人類毫無助益這句話。知道本身就已經構成犯罪了，我連這個都不知道，還在這裡大放厥詞。」”
― Young-ha Kim, Your Republic Is Calling You

“「如果有群山賊只治理村落一個星期，那這些傢伙大概不到一天就會讓整個村子傾家蕩產；但是如果治理一年，他們就會等到秋收的時候，還會讓村民活下去；如果治理十年，他們就會制定計劃，因為不能大家一起餓死，所以會給村民食物和衣服；如果要治理三十年，他們就會關心要不要生孩子的問題。治理三十年的山賊，那就是國家啊！」
「既然要在山賊底下生活，那治理時間長的山賊比較好，對嗎？」
瑪麗如此問時，張益德咧嘴一笑，給了模稜兩可的答案：「啊，話是這樣說沒錯，但妳不要到處去嚷嚷說是爸爸教妳的。」”
― Young-ha Kim, Your Republic Is Calling You

“聽說孩子在動物園裡對猴子丟石頭，在寵物店用拳頭拍打展示櫥窗，嚇唬小狗的原因，事實上是想和牠們對話。因為沒有反應，孩子才用他們自己的方式，和這些動物交流。”
― Young-ha Kim, Your Republic Is Calling You

“聽說孩子在動物園裡對猴子丟石頭，在寵物店用拳頭拍打展示櫥窗，嚇唬小狗的原因，事實上是想和牠們對話。因為沒有反應，孩子才用他們都自己的方式，和這些動物交流。”
― 金英夏, Your Republic Is Calling You

“I realized something today. I think I always believed that people were worried about very abstract things. Like life, fate, politics, that kind of thing. You know I like math," Ki-yong tries to explain.

"You always said that it was the purest abstract world."

"Exactly. Time flies so fast when I'm working on an equation. I always thought everyone had that side to them. but now, today, everyone's..."

"Everyone's what?" Soji asks.

"Everyone's just struggling to survive. They're doing everything they can to survive. Why was I the only one who didn't realize that?”
― Kim Young-ha, Your Republic Is Calling You

“Citizen ethics, which taught him about the importance of putting the state and societal morals before anything else, was familiar. It all made sense if he replaced "state" and "nation" with "Leader" and "Party." Like the prince and the pauper in Mark Twain's classic, the ethics of the South and the North were similar enough that when they ran into each other, each recognized something in the other.”
― Kim Young-ha, Your Republic Is Calling You

“If there's something I want to do I have to do it," Song-uk says, then stops talking, obstinate.

I suppose you can say something like that if you grow up hearing what a gifted child you are, study at the best undergraduate law department in the nation, tutor high school kids for fun to buy yourself the newest tablet notebook, and hang out with friends who want to become judges, prosecutors, diplomats, or politicians. I'm sure if you say something like this, everyone usually feels guilty and says they're sorry and lets you do whatever you want. I'm different. I know what kind of person you are. I think you expect me to be maternal with you, but that's not part of the deal. I'm a woman, not your mother.”
― Kim Young-ha, Your Republic Is Calling You

“Later, when he arrived in Seoul, Ki-yong saw Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Watching Jack Nicholson go crazy in a cabin in the snow-covered Rockies, he remembered his mother, which he hadn't done in a long time. As Jack Nicholson typed, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," over and over on several hundred pages, he imagined Mother, sitting alone in her store, tittering like an idiot.”
― Kim Young-ha, Your Republic Is Calling You

“...The last war was all about fire. Pyongyang went back to the Stone Age because of American bombs. After that was the era of earth. We picked up our shovels and erected cities. Through the Chollima Movement, we built a republic as good as any other. Now it's the era of water. Water appears placid from the outside but there's actually a very powerful energy within it. That's why we have to control water. We're doing that now, but nobody knows what will happen. Soon it will become the era of air. It may be the most painful era, more than the periods of fire, earth, and water. You can't see air but without it, people can't breathe."

At the time, Ki-yong didn't know what Father was trying to tell him. But soon, he understood that Father was deriding the pointless self-centred worldview of Juche Ideology, and was accurately prophesying North Korea's future. Years later, in the early 1990s, after a series of floods, the so-called arduous march began. It was the era of starvation, where the only available food was grass and bark and dirt. Stomachs went empty. The era of air. People said, If this is how it is, let's fight with anyone, be it South Korea or America. Let's go all the way until the very end.”
― Kim Young-ha, Your Republic Is Calling You

“He remembered the frightening thought that flitted through his mind while he was at Lotte World—that a socialist paradise might be a lie and Lotte World might be the true paradise. Shocked by his audacity, he tried to repress it by scrambling onto an inane raft ride with no line and bouncing down a darkened tunnel.”
― Kim Young-ha, Your Republic Is Calling You

“The tedium exuded by these [indie] movie buffs intimidated Ki-yong. Everything that elicited the disinterested comment "This is so lame" was unknown, or at least new, to him. He devoted energy and time figuring out which parts were boring to others. It was the life of a transplant, having to give his all just to understand the mundane.”
― Kim Young-ha, Your Republic Is Calling You

“The young man plugs his earphones back in and perches on the edge of a bench, bopping along to his music. his hairstyle and face remind Ki-yong of Bart Simpson, and his loose red T-shirt is emblazoned with Che Guevara's face. He is probably listening to Rage Against the Machine, or some similar band. The most capitalist country in the world produced these far-left lyrics, and on the CD—filled with the imagery of a Vietnamese monk sitting cross-legged while engulfed in fire, young Seoulites throwing Molotov cocktails—the singers swear, scream, and yell that we have to smash the system. It's fitting music for the kid in the Che Guevara shirt. If Stalin and Lenin were alive to hear this music, what would they think? Would they feel the urge to send the band to the Siberian archipelago?”
― Kim Young-ha, Your Republic Is Calling You

“He is becoming an average middle-aged South Korean man, his belly round, his chest puny, and his arms jiggly. People relax when they look at his belly. They assume that someone like him can't be a mugger. It's safest to be a man who is uninteresting, neither too old nor young. Someone living a settled life. The kind of man who supports his family but is ignored by them. These ordinary men sometimes take part in risky transactions when the opportunity presents itself, their hearts racing, trying to believe they're safe because everyone does it. They can become mired in a bog of corruption, perhaps in the form of kickbacks, bribery, or slush funds, and they don't foolishly dream that they can wade out of it. Nothing has changed since their college days when they clandestinely studied Kim Il Sung's Juche Idea. Some men say that being involved in politics is like balancing on prison walls—morally precarious. But Ki-young believes that this is the common fate of all men. Those men who were once bewitched by illegal ideology in college are probably leading the same mundane life as Ki-yong. They would have realized the harsh reality that is capitalism and quickly given their all to the world into which they were born.”
― Kim Young-ha, Your Republic Is Calling You

“[on police hypersurveillance] Even a native of capitalism wasn't sure what to make of a situation that could have been written by George Orwell. He was as shocked as Cain hearing God's voice.”
― Kim Young-ha, Your Republic Is Calling You

“Lee Sang-hyok at Liaison Office 130 instructed, "Erase yourself until your alias becomes your second nature. Become someone who is seen, but doesn't leave an impression. You need to be boring, not charming. Always be polite and don't ever argue with anyone, especially about religion and politics. That kind of conversation always creates enemies. You'll slowly fade. From time to time, you'll feel your personality straining to get out from within you. You'll ask yourself, Why should I let myself disappear? Practice and practice again so this question will never present itself in your mind.”
― Kim Young-ha, Your Republic Is Calling You

“For Ki-young, who had just graduated from the Operations Class of Kim Jong Il University of Political and Military Science, commonly called Liaison Office 130, the man's defeatist attitude was surprising. How could he live in enemy territory without being alert? How could he let go of his animosity toward the South, where the great enemy Chun Doo Swan massacred thousands of people in Kwangju in broad daylight? Later, he realized the South specialized in lifelessness and defeatism. Indiscriminate weariness was prevalent. Ki-yong knew what ennui was, but this was the first time he personally observed it. At home, it was an abstract idea batted about when criticizing capitalism. Of course, there was ennui back home, too. But in a socialist society it was closer to boredom. And it was really a matter of inadequate motivation; a bit of stimulation could change the feeling of boredom. But the prototypical capitalist ennui Ki-yong encountered for the first time in the South was heavy and voluminous. Like poisonous gas, it suffocated and suppressed life. Mere exposure to it prompted the growth of fear. Sometimes you encountered people who inspired in you an immediate primal caution, something that made you say, I don't want to live like that. That civil servant in the office had this effect on Ki-yong. He represented depression, emptiness, cynicism.”
― Kim Young-ha, Your Republic Is Calling You

“He unfastens his watch. He takes out a Sunnto scuba diving watch from the drawer and swaps it with the watch he was wearing, which was a part of his wife's dowry. Plated with 14k gold, it's unfashionable now. Unfashionable—it feels foreign to judge aesthetics so fluidly. In his former world, judging beauty and ugliness according to individual standards was one of the most dangerous adventures one could undertake.”
― Kim Young-ha, Your Republic Is Calling You

“A test drive is dangerous in many ways. Drivers are encountering a particular car for the first time, so they are basically beginners. They usually can't located what they need quickly and panic. Since they aren't yet used to the feel of the brakes and have trouble reining in their excitement, the car jerks or swerves. And they floor it without an ounce of hesitation, something they don't do in their own cars. The rpm gauge dances beyond the red line and their bodies are plastered to the seats, as if someone is pulling them from behind. A few times, Ma-ri has actually wondered whether men were aroused by the smell of a new car. As soon as their feet touch the accelerator, their breathing grows irregular and excited. Their upper bodies lean forward, in attack mode, and their aftershave mixes with their sweat, emitting musk. The scent of virile males. Forgetting that Ma-ri is sitting next to them, they swear and revert to a state of boyhood. In this tight space, their shoulders brushing against each other, a peculiar tension grows between the test drivers and Ma-ri. The men become attracted to her, a chick who understands cars, and Ma-ri sometimes feels a burning heat, sitting next to these toylike men. But as soon as they return to the showroom and the men hand over the keys, they revert to being nice, polite middle-aged men. They leave quickly, looking a little embarrassed. They bluff a little, acting as if they might buy the car right away, quickly going over their financial situations in their heads, then get back into their own cars, feeling a little shrivelled.”
― Kim Young-ha, Your Republic Is Calling You