Thank you! 💛 It really is inspiring, but also, a little heartbreaking. That yearning for democracy was so powerful precisely because it had been so violently crushed. That contrast still hits hard.

Wow!!’ Thank you so much! I am outside now, but will come back soon with the list of songs 😍🙏🏻

Oddly relieved is the perfect way to put it. Since the universe stopped my 4 AM work grind, I guess I’ll take it as a sign to rest 🫠Once the kid is off to school, I'm treating myself to a nap instead of work!

Knowing effort is not a vending machine gives me permission to live a fuller life. I work hard in the hours I choose, then I read, walk, talk with friends, and spend unhurried time with my kid and family.
I want a body of work and a life I was awake for.

#writinglife #author #slowgrowth

For anyone working on #democracy, #justice, or #socialchange today, when history feels stuck and it looks like we are losing, maybe we are simply standing too close to the moment to see the full arc.

After closing Han Kang's novel, I wanted to reach back in time. I wanted to tell Dong-ho: "You didn't lose."

Because of you, Korea became a nation that can remove a president who does not serve the people.
You won.
We remember.

#HumanActs #Gwangju #Democracy

5/6
"However," Baek continues, "almost no one today believes the citizens of Gwangju truly lost...The will for #democracy heated up university campuses throughout the 1980s. That power finally ended 36 years of #military #dictatorship. Democracy defeated the #oppressors."

4/6
If we judge only by those few days, it was a clear failure. The military suppressed the city. Snipers and tanks killed innocent citizens. In that moment, the people lost.

3/6
I might not have finished it at all had I not recently read Baek Seung-jong's "Learning the Future from Donghak" ( #백승종 - #동학에서미래를배운다

Baek asks: "The Gwangju Democratization Movement of May 18, 1980: did it succeed, or did it fail?"

2/6
Some books flow easily. Others demand everything from you just to turn the page.

Han Kang's #HumanActs ( #소년이온다 ) was the latter. It took me a long time to finish. The book moves through the 1980 #GwangjuUprising through bodies, voices, wounds that refuse to stay buried.

#한강 #HanKang

This post shows how that unresolved grief moved into living rooms and reshaped modern #Korea: speed over pause, education and property as anchors, love mixed with tension.

Read + watch the clip: yoonjiwon.substack.com/p/korean-war...

#KoreanWar #SeparatedFamilies #History #Media #Memory

Key points: temporary line → system, armistice not peace, democracy built under pressure. Full explainer on Substack!