Old Korean Quotes & Sayings

There's a Korean word my grandma taught me. It's called jung. It's the connection between two people that can't be severed, even when love turns to hate. You still have those old feelings for them; you can't ever completely shake them loose of you; you will always have tenderness in your heart for them. — Jenny Han

A South Korean teenager, 18-year-old male, is about five inches taller than his North Korean counterpart. And there are many soldiers who are only about 4'6". The height requirement is supposed to be 4'9". That's the size of my 12-year-old son. — Barbara Demick

She believed that displays of emotion signaled a certain failure between people. The only person who could upset her, make her cry or laugh in the open, was my father. He could always unsettle her face with a stern admonition or an old joke or pun in Korean. Otherwise, I thought she possessed the most exquisite control over the muscles of her face. She seemed to have the subtle power of inflection over them, the way a tongue can move air. — Chang-rae Lee

There is an old saying that goes 'Start by plucking a hair, end by killing a man'. It is also said, 'Two hands must meet to make a sound'. The atrocities that happened here weren't carried out by strangers - it was us, the people who'd once lived together harmoniously in the same village."
"They say it was the superstitious freaks who did it."
"No, it was Satan who did it."
"Come now, what sort of a ghost is that?"
Ryu Yosop replied, "It is the black thing that lives in the heart of every man. — Hwang Sok-yong

I'm an atheist - a good old North Korean-style atheist. — Jim Crace

Korean children get a lot of fuss made over them, I guess because life was tough in the old country, and it was a big deal if you survived. There's a big party thrown when you are 100 days old, followed by another when you make it to one whole year. — Margaret Cho

Korean feminism has been swept away by popular culture. It became a sort of old-fashioned trend or a joke. — Kim Hyesoon

Too young for Korea, too old for Vietnam. — Don DeLillo

Small nose and huge mouth

Once upon a time, there was an old couple who have problems with their appearance. The man has got a small nose, woman has got a huge mouth. Someday, their neighbor invited them to have dinner. They really wanted to go and have a good time with neighbors but they were nervous what they show their face. they got good idea.
He made fake nose by candle, she sewed her mouth. in the party, they talked near the stove. Then his nose began to melt. His wife laughed to see him and her mouth became huge. they were nervous and put they heads down. The neighbor said appearance is not important, we like you because you are so kind. Since then they didn't care so much about their face and lived happily after.
---------
Korean Short Story — Korean Folklore

That's a mistake I think that a lot of Western observers make is to assume that Korean nationalism is hundreds if not thousands of years old. When in fact nationalism is incompatible with Korean Confucian tradition. — Brian Reynolds Myers

This is America, where a white Catholic male Republican judge was murdered on his way to greet a Democratic Jewish woman member of Congress, who was his friend. Her life was saved initially by a 20-year old Mexican-American gay college student, and eventually by a Korean-American combat surgeon, all eulogized by our African American President. — Mark Shields

They were Chinese vampires. They were discovered during renovation work at the Bok Kai Temple in Old Sacramento. One of the priests there told his brother about them. The brother's whatever the Chinese version of mobbed up is. Alex here thinks he's using them to distract the Nortenos and the Black Dragons long enough to take over the marijuana trade in Sacramento using the stuff they're making in a bunch of grow houses in Elk Grove."
Ted stared at me. "And will the Chinese vampires be joined by legions of Korean werewolves who have been cooking meth in trailer parks in Truckee?
"No. The werewolves are refusing to get involved. Trust me, I've tried to talk them into helping. They'll have nothing to do with it. — Eileen Rendahl

My pacifism came after I joined the army and was shipped over to Korea. There was a little one-room orphanage there called Song-do. There were 180 babies in there, and they were GI babies. The U.S. government would not acknowledge this, and the Korean government had nothing to do with them. They were living on a 100-pound bag of rice a month. Some of those kids, when they were old enough, would go out and shine shoes. They would show up at the gate of our compound to shine shoes, and you'd swear they were looking for their fathers. — Utah Phillips

Old Korean adage, "Even jade has flaws." Or, in other words: Nothing in life is ever perfect. — Alan Brennert

I can see the little girl, the face of the little girl. And as much as people say that they don't care about these people and all that, I don't care about these people - but I do, at the same time, if that makes any sense. They don't want to help themselves, they're blowing us up, yeah, that hurts, but it also hurts to know that I've seen a girl that's as old as my little brother watch me shoot somebody in the head. And I don't care if she's Iraqi, Korean, African, white - she's still a little girl. And she watched me shoot somebody. — David Finkel

Nobody knows how many North Koreans have died or are dying in the famine - some estimates by foreign-aid groups run as high as three million in the period from 1995 to 1998 alone - but the rotund, jowly face of Kim Il Sung still beams down contentedly from every wall, and the 58-year-old son looks as chubby as ever, even as his slenderized subjects are mustered to applaud him. — Christopher Hitchens

Nobody has ever called Shea Stadium a cathedral. In style, it was more like the old warehouse or outdated movie theater that Korean worshippers have transformed into a church in the borough of Queens. Not a cathedral - but a place where people go to be fulfilled, nonetheless. — George Vecsey

Carve the peg by looking at the hole.' Eddie looked at me blankly and I explained, 'An old Korean saying. It means, Do things to fit the circumstances. — Alan Brennert

Queens, New York. The most ethnically diverse region not just in the United States, but on the entire planet ... In Queens, you will find Korean kids who sound like black kids. Italians who sound like Puerto Ricans. Puerto Ricans who sound like Italians. Third-generation Irish who sound like old Jews. That's Queens. Not a melting pot, not even a tossed salad, but an all-you-can-eat, mix-and-match buffet. — Victor LaValle