Rereading the Book That Told Young Koreans It Was All Right to Struggle

In the early 2010s, “healing” was a word you saw everywhere in South Korea. The English loanword could describe a book, a television program or almost anything that promised a little comfort. It spoke to young people unsure of the future and to adults who needed some of that comfort themselves.

Kim Rando’s Youth, It’s Painful caught that mood. Published at the end of 2010, it became a bestseller in 2011 and 2012. A Seoul National University professor was writing directly to people in their twenties, in a voice that made it easy to keep reading.

Criticism grew later in the decade. Looking back, it is easy to forget how ready many readers were for what the book had to say when it appeared.

A book for readers who felt lost

Kim writes for readers who feel that their lives have stalled before they have really started. Things seldom fall into place all at once. A difficult stretch can become something you draw on later.

I nearly passed it by. I was skeptical of advice books by people who had already won the success they were explaining. At a bookstore, I decided I wanted to see what so many people had found in this one.

The voice surprised me. Much of the book is about failure and how it feels to be in the middle of it. It took that feeling seriously enough to be of use to me.

If a lifetime were one day

Kim imagines a lifetime as a day on the clock. At an age when you may already worry about falling behind, his clock may show that it is only eight in the morning.

Stretch a hundred years across a day and your twenties and thirties still fall before lunchtime. I can see why that simple image traveled. It let readers picture the time they still had.

The distance between students and professors

Kim also thought students and professors had grown too distant from one another. He had a plain suggestion for closing some of that distance.

Go and see a professor. There are fewer professors than students, so there is some logic to students making the first move. It still takes nerve to do it.

I took the book to my professor

I first read the book in 2012 as a university student. I was at Sungkyunkwan University, so I went to see Professor Kim Yu, who chaired my English department, instead of trying to visit Kim Rando at Seoul National University.

There was no actual obstacle at the door. I still hesitated before going in. When I did, I held out the book as a way to begin.

• “This book says students should go and talk to their professors first.”
• “Oh? What book is it?”
• I handed it to him and he read the title.
• “All right, then. Tell me about yourself.”

We talked about the things I had found difficult in school and before it. I asked about course registration, studying English and keeping up with classes in my major.

I doubt I would have walked into the office on an ordinary day. I am glad the book gave me a reason to do it.

What comfort can do

The same advice can land differently years later. When someone has an immediate problem to solve, sympathy may be the beginning of the conversation.

When I revisited the book, the news was full of war, rising prices and high interest rates. In South Korea, I was also worried about the prospects for people just starting their working lives and the country’s falling fertility rate.

A good job can be hard to find, and the difficulty of planning a family does not vanish when somebody tells you to be patient.

I found myself thinking about what a university, employer or government could change to make those decisions less precarious.

I still remember what it meant to open the book and feel that somebody had made room for uncertainty. Its closing lines return to the feelings that come with being at the start of something.

• Pain comes with being young.
• So does anxiety.
• So does losing your footing.
• Loneliness can be part of it.
• There is anticipation, too.
• Together they give youth its shape.
• Starting out can make anyone feel vulnerable.
• Kim asks the reader to see something beautiful in that beginning.

Book details

Youth, It’s Painful

Author

Kim Rando

Published

December 24, 2010

ISBN-13

9788965700036

View on YES24

We may earn a commission if you buy through the affiliate link in this article.