#litbc discussion

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Love in the Big City: Part Two

Once again I find myself without an original essay already floating in my head, so shout out to @bengiyo for the discussion questions. They are a life saver! 

I find the question about I maintain effective distance from a narrator when the story gets heavy, but I am not sure that that is something I know how to do. In my day to day life I often feel cut off from emotions. I process my emotions through media, where putting myself in the experiences and feelings of the characters can be used like armor as I turn to face my own. I fail time and time again to maintain effective distance from my characters, because my characters are how I maintain effective distance from myself. I suspect Mr. Young and I have that in common. 

I’m glad for these essays because last week’s made me really have to think about Young, what he was like, why he was like that, how his friendship with Jaehee broke down when Young wasn’t able to be serious. Because I feel like Part Two is proof for me that my initial read was correct. But just like in Part One, where Young mentions his own problems almost off-handedly, his suicidality being a single sentence sandwiched somewhere in a paragraph. Here too, Young is rather distanced himself when he recounts his traumas. 

He does not linger on the fact he spent his summer in a psychiatrist facility because his mother saw him kiss a boy. He merely bluntly gives the details, but doesn’t really mention how he felt about it. At least not until closer to the end of Part Two. His boyfriend is the same, in some regards. Beyond the dickmatization of our narrator, I think the initial draw for Young was that there was another gay with mommy issues who was willing to talk about them. I think sadness speaks to sadness and that can call people to one another. The failing here is in the difference in their courage. 

Young has suppressed his sexuality as much as he could in places where he knew it might get him hurt (the military as an example). But even after suffering what he did in that psych facility, he left it with the knowledge that his mother was the one who was sick, not him. Young’s boyfriend, however, grew up in a different generation. Ben’s right, in BL we usually root for reciprocal couples to get together, and here we are watching a relationship fail. But I am not rooting for these two to be together, because that relationship was not balanced in what it gave and what it took. Young and his boyfriend stood on different ground from the beginning, both in what they wanted out of it and in how they navigate the world. 

I am not someone who thinks everyone needs to be out of the closet, I think it is quite rare that we get a closeted and out couple where their need to hide their relationship does not impact their relationship (shout out to Cooking Crush yet again for defeating that trope!) Young does not seem like the kind of person used to be looked at and he’s in a younger generation. He isn’t closeted, and does not at least outwardly appear to fall victim to internalized homophobia, he wants to hold his boyfriend’s hand in public, he does not give a shit what elders think. But he is with someone that is deeply ashamed of his queerness, to the point where he tortures himself with the news. Young is right to be upset after he finds the articles on his boyfriend’s laptop, it would be horrifying to find out that’s what your boyfriend thinks of you. 

But I don’t think Young mentioned, and he definitely did not reflect on the fact this has less to do with how he feels about Young and more to do with how he feels about himself. I love that this book got in to the complexities of activism. Now, I know someone did some very incredible work on the Korean history timeline, I just did not have an opportunity to finish it. So I’m not sure about the politics at play for what those students were activists for, but if I know one thing, it is that activists are never perfect. In the US, for example, racism existed within the women’s sufferage moment, homophobia existed in black liberation movements, and transphobia exists in the feminist movement and in queer communities as well. 

If Young’s boyfriend and his classmates were activists together, got arrested, fought against whatever it is they fought against and the boyfriend had respect for them, it would be a massive thing to internalize to find out they are homophobic. Hell, when we met that couple at the park, the husband said he believed that queer people existed as if there was a time when he didn’t think homosexuality was real. Young’s boyfriend ranted a lot about the American Empire and the influence of Western culture on Korean society and Young made a point to emphasize religion as a part of that. 

Korea has a pretty decent Christian population, and as we saw from Young’s umma that evangelical nature resulted in massive punishment for Young out of his mother’s fear of his sins. And she’d been a Christian for 25 years. I think every character we meet is really supposed to be some sort of reflection for Young, a way to show us alternate futures for Young. Jaehee is what his life could never look like because he was gay in a country that does not have gay marriage rights. But at the very least, Jaehee got serious when Young could not, and she got a serious boyfriend, and entered a serious relationship. Young and Jaehee were so similar for so long, that I do think Young would have been able to maintain a longterm relationship if he could actually emotionally commit to one. 

In Part Two, Young’s boyfriend is his mirror. The anti-American imperialist that pays attention to flags versus the kid who does not even pay attention to the symbology he is wearing. The former activist versus the passive kid. The internalized homophobe and the one who rebelled against that. I said it already but Young was tortured for being queer, and the first thing his mother did when the therapy failed was to hand him fucking scripture. Young could have ended up just as disgusted and ashamed as his boyfriend, but he didn’t. 

I think the author intercut Young’s relationship with his mother and his boyfriend in this part because they act as catalysts, they change Young, they show him what his weaknesses are, and the pain he will suffer when he bites his tongue…and when he doesn’t. His relationship with his boyfriend implodes when he starts saying more of the thoughts in his head, he waits for his mother to die after he cannot bring himself to ever tell her he wants an apology. 

I think so much of this part is about being let down by the people around you, which I think is how Young felt when he realized Jaehee had left him at the end of Part One. We get the homophobic activists as an example, but we also spent a significant amount of time with Young talking about his boyfriend who was the first to make a move, and the first to sit and listen, and how that turned out to be an act, his boyfriend was deeply stuck in his homophobia and stopped really listening to Young early in to their relationship; Young talked quite a bit about how stubborn and strong his mother used to be. The force of her. And he spends this entire part just watching her wither away to skin and bones. He describes how long she kept up the act, that he’d help her use the restroom and then ten minutes later you couldn’t even tell she needed help. 

And then he lays his head in his mother’s lap at the end, and he wants an apology. He wants an apology so badly. But he knows he will never get it, not in the way he wants.  But honestly, I think his mother does apologize to him, in her own way, when she admits that she was scared. And I think the hardest truth he could ever tell his mother is that he was sorry he felt like the whole world in her hands. 

#love in the big city #litbc #litbc book club #love in the big city bookclub #litbc analysis #litbc discussion

[lurkingshan]

Love in the Big City Book Club Meta Round Up

Already so many great essays and we’re just getting started! If you haven’t had the chance to read and share everyone’s thoughts, here is your weekly round up. Any additional essays that post after today will be added to the list next week, and I'll add on a new section for each part every week as we progress.

So let's see what our book clubbers had to say!

Background

AMA with Anton Hur, LITBC Translator

Translator’s note by @stuffnonsenseandotherthings

Part 1

Blueberries and Cigarettes: Universalities and Differences when reading Love in the Big City by @brifrischu

Jaehee: a good distraction–until she wasn’t by @serfergs

LITBC: Jaehee, and why she matters so much to me by @starryalpacasstuff

LitBC Part 1 – Timeline by @dylogpenchester

Love in the Big City Book Club: Part 1 by @fiction-is-queer

Love in the Big City: Reflections on Part 1 by @becomingabeing

Love in the Big City Part 1 Check in by @bengiyo

Love in the Big City, Part 1 by @emotionallychargedtowel

Love in the Big City Part 1: Jaehee by @sorry-bonebag

Love in the Big City Part 1: On Friendship by @lurkingshan

Love in the Big City Part 1: Reliable and Unreliable Narration by @twig-tea

On expectations by @hyeoni-comb

Part I: The unacknowledged relationship by @doyou000me

Rose Reads Love in the Big City by @my-rose-tinted-glasses

Two Friends Diverged in Emotional Sincerity: Reflections on Love in the Big City–Part 1 by @wen-kexing-apologist

Young’s world is small and private by @colourme-feral

Part 2

Finding Familiarity Despite Cultural Differences: Love in the Big City Part 2 by @fiction-is-queer

Hyung’s internalized homophobia and hatred for the US by @stuffnonsenseandotherthings

libtc part 2 by @hyeoni-comb

LitBC Part 2: A bit of rockfish, taste the universe by @dylogpenchester

Love in the Big City - A bite of rockfish, tase the universe by @littleragondin

Love in the Big City Book Club: Part 2 by @profiterole-reads

Love in the Big City: Part 2 by @wen-kexing-apologist

Love in the Big City: Reflections on Part 2 by @becomingabeing

Love in the Big City Part 2: Emotional Distance by @twig-tea

Love in the Big City Part 2 Check In by @bengiyo 

Love in the Big City The Playlist by @brifrischu

On Parents and Apologies Never Received by @lurkingshan

Part II: Historical Context and Hyung’s Background by @doyou000me

Rose Reads Love in the Big City (Part II) by @my-rose-tinted-glasses

Part 3

LITBC Part Three: Now Introducing, Kylie by @wen-kexing-apologist

Love in the Big City Book Club: Part 3 by @profiterole-reads

Love in the Big City Part 3 Check In by @bengiyo

Love in the Big City Part 3: Kylie Recontextualizes Everything by @twig-tea

Love in The Big City Part 3 - Notes from A Reader by @stuffnonsenseandotherthings

Love in The Big City Part 3 - Notes from A Reader 2 by @stuffnonsenseandotherthings

Love In The Big City Part 3: Words and Miscellaneous Context by @doyou000me

On Gyu-ho, the Mundanity of Great Love, and the Destructive Nature of Shame by @lurkingshan

Part 3: No Disappointment Without Expectations by @doyou000me

Rose Reads Love in the Big City (Part III) by @my-rose-tinted-glasses

Part 4

Adaptation Concerns by @doyou000me

Anticipating the LITBC Adaptations by @lurkingshan

Depictions of physical intimacy by @stuffnonsenseandotherthings 

LitBC - The Structure of Change @dylogpenchester

Love in the Big City Book Club: Part 4 by @profiterole-reads

Love in the Big City Part 4 Check In by @bengiyo

Love in the Big City Part 4: Having Trouble Letting Go by @twig-tea

Love in the Big City: Part Four- Regret, Rain, Love, and Loss by @wen-kexing-apologist

the story | relationships + Young by @hyeoni-comb

Young and Imperfect Character Growth by @lurkingshan

Young asking himself meaningful questions by @hyeoni-comb

And that's all for now, folks! Thanks to everyone who participated; it was such a fun experience discussing this book with you. Excited to get the chance to talk more about this story with all of you when the adaptations arrive later this year.

#litbc book club #love in the big city #korean bl

[starryalpacasstuff]

LITBC: Jaehee, and why she matters so much to me

Ok, I don't have a lot of time, so this is going to be messy, apologies in advance

When you're queer and living in a country that is generally homophobic, the default expectation one has is for people to be homophobic, hence Young's shock when Jaehee doesn't seem surprised or disgusted when she finds him kissing a guy. The two of them bond quickly due to their mutual status as social piranhas, and I can't stop thinking about why Jaehee matters so much. To be honest, Jaehee is everything one could want from a straight friend in a conservative country. Not only is she completely fine with Young being gay, I want to stress how important it is that Young can talk to her about his flings and one night stands openly. In asian society, it's typical for queerness to be something that people know about but never acknowledge, and for openly discussing it to be taboo. I've had experiences where friends that know I'm queer simply don't acknowledge the fact, choosing to act as though I'd never come out to them. That's the standard for 'acceptance' in asian society; tolerance. People don't stop associating with you, they simply act as though your queerness doesn't exist (and get visibility uncomfortable when you bring it up). That's why Jaehee is so important. Jaehee talks with Young about sex, his flings, and sizes up his dates from behind a coffee shop counter. She doesn't treat Young's queerness as something she has to tolerate and ignore.

It's not to say that Jaehee is the perfect ally. She still doesn't fully understand Young's queerness, and she outs him to her fiance, saying that he's basically a girl because he likes men (there's a whole host of issues to unpack with that, but as much as i'd like to, I don't have the time). But it remains a fact of the matter that Jaehee is incredibly progressive by asian standards, for the simple reason that she doesn't treat queerness as a hush-hush topic. And, I think, that's part of the reason that Jaehee outing him to her fiancé hurt Young so much. Young says it himself, his anger and feeling of betrayal was funny if he thought about it, because he'd never really cared about being outed before. He says it himself, the only explanation that he has is, "Because she was Jaehee". He says that he wasn't used to feeling betrayed because he expected so little of others. But his situation with Jaehee was different because Jaehee was different, and unlike the others, he'd come to expect her to understand him, to stand with him no matter what. Because Jaehee wasn't like the others, so Jaehee shouldn't have done what others would have. It hurt him when he realized that Jaehee was choosing to fit fit into society's expectation of her over him.

But that's something I can relate to so much; expecting people to understand you, especially those you hold close, until reality hits. Mistaking tolerance for acceptance, acceptance for understanding. I mentioned that the default expectation for I have when meeting people is that they will be homophobic, and I learned that through finding out, over and over again, that people I held close to me simply did not accept me, or understand me. And even if you do your best to not care about it, once you've figured it out, the crack in the relationship only widens with time, because you simply can't bring yourself to think of the person the same way as before. And that's what happened with Young and Jaehee. Because Jaehee accepted Young, he expected her to stand with him no matter what. But she didn't, and that's what hurt him. Jaehee accepted Young, yes. But she also chose to fit in with society's expectations over him, which ultimately caused the two to drift apart.

To me, Jaehee is a bittersweet character. She's loud and unapologetic, and she accepts Young in a way that seems almost too good to be true; because it sort of is. Because she also represents how people in asian societies have a long way to go before they understand queerness, and how queer people lose friendships because of it, which is something I know painfully well.

#i know i know i'm late to the party #ive been extremely busy #im sure theres a lot more to talk about in this area but i don't have the time to sit down and think about it #anyways i didn't see a lot of people talking about how amazing it is that jaehee accepts young so easily and openly #so i decided to throw together this to give my two cents #litbc book club #litbc #love in the big city #jaehee

[stuffnonsenseandotherthings]

LITBC part 3 discussions should be coming up soon (very excited to finally get to take part!) and I know I'm early but the first thing that came to mind with Young's diagnosis is how HIV is a very very poorly understood and deeply stigmatised disease in Korea, even among the queer community, and how truly shocking and appalling the treatment of people with HIV is in a country with access to some of the best health care in the world.

https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2017/june/20170622_korea

https://web.stanford.edu/group/sjph/cgi-bin/sjphsite/hivaids-in-south-korea-a-societal-stigma/

https://thediplomat.com/2017/06/in-south-korea-being-hiv-positive-might-prevent-you-from-accessing-healthcare/

#litbc book club #litbc #the views and treatment of people with HIV in Korea is genuinely appalling #the access to and availability of care is almost non-existent for many

[lurkingshan]

Love in the Big City: Book Club Schedule

Okay, besties, here we go! Turns out a lot of you are into this nerd project so we will in fact be doing a little tumblr book club for LITBC! Here's how it will work:

We will begin on Sunday, February 4, and discuss a different section of the book each week.

On Sundays, @bengiyo will post a list of discussion questions for whatever part we're reading that week. You can use these as prompts for thinking, actually write and post responses to them, or just ignore them and do your own thing.

We will all write or share whatever we like during the week, using the hashtag [#litbc book club]. Everything from simple reaction commentary to full on essays is welcome. It's also fine not to post anything yourself if that's not your thing, you can participate by reading and sharing other people's posts.

Each following Sunday, I will post a roundup of everything people wrote during the week so we'll have them all collated in one place, and Ben will then post the next round of discussion questions.

This means we are going to be on the following schedule for reading and discussing:

Part 1: Sun, February 4 to Sat, February 10

Part 2: Sun, February 11 to Sat, February 17

Part 3: Sun, February 18 to Sat, February 24

Part 4: Sun, February 25 to Sat, March 2

With the final round up posted on Sunday, March 3. Of course, this is Not That Serious and if you fall behind you should still join in whenever you can and I will add your posts in later! Also, please note for your own planning that Part 2 of the novel is the longest, nearly double the length of the other parts.

For those who asked about where to acquire the book, the good news is it's very popular and generally easy to find translated in English. A lot of libraries carry it, and you can also find it at local bookstores, on Everand, on bookshop.org, and of course, Amazon.

For those who are seeing this for the first time and wondering what the heck I'm on about: go here for background on why we're doing this book club ahead of a couple upcoming drama and film adaptations. And if you want to be tagged into future posts please comment in tags or replies so we can add you to the list! We will also use the tag [#litbc book club] for all posts related to this going forward, so you can just track that tag if you prefer. [Note: if you want to be tagged please check your settings to see if other blogs are allowed to tag you. If you asked to be tagged on the first post and you're not in the list below, it's because tumblr wouldn't allow me to do it.]

Tagging here those who have signed up so far: @alwaysthepessimist @belladonna-and-the-sweetpeas @blalltheway @brifrischu @colourme-feral @dekaydk @dramacraycray @emotionallychargedtowel @fiction-is-queer @hakusupernova @hyeoni-comb @infinitelyprecious @littleragondin @literally-a-five-headed-dragon @loveable-sea-lemon @my-rose-tinted-glasses @neuroticbookworm @poetry-protest-pornography @profiterole-reads @serfergs @so-much-yet-to-learn @starryalpacasstuff @stuffnonsenseandotherthings @sunshinechay @thewayofsubtext @troubled-mind @twig-tea @waitmyturtles @wen-kexing-apologist

Excited to get started with y’all in a few weeks!

#litbc book club #love in the big city #korean bl

[lurkingshan]

Love in the Big City: Book Club

Hey kdrama and kbl fans! We recently learned we have not one, but two adaptations of Love in the Big City coming our way this year (a film and an eight episode drama). For those who are not familiar, LITBC is a novel written by Sang Young Park about a gay man coming of age in Seoul. The film seems to focus on the friendship between the protagonist and his best friend (part 1 of the book), while the drama will presumably dig into the full story, including the romance (though it should be noted that the book is not actually a romance in terms of genre, it’s more of a character study that includes romance).

The adaptations are in production and expected to come out in 2024, so @bengiyo and I thought it would be fun to do a little book club this February in anticipation of the new projects. Our initial thinking is we’ll discuss one part of the book each week for four weeks (the book is short, only ~50-60 pages for each section), write and post meta on here, and then do a roundup to share everyone’s posts. That way when the adaptations drop we’ll have an easy spot to go compare notes with our thinking on the novel.

So, our question to you all: who wants to join us? Please reblog and share this post to help spread the word, and if you want to be tagged into a follow up post sharing the details please comment in tags or replies so we can add you to the list! We will use the tag [#litbc book club] for any future posts about this, but also happy to directly tag anyone who wants to participate so you don’t miss any posts. We hope some of you will join us for a little winter reading!

#love in the big city #litbc book club #queer cinema #korean bl #kdrama

[lurkingshan]

Love in the Big City Book Club: Part 4

Hello again book clubbers! I can't believe we're already on our final week. ICYMI, this week we got a very fun visit from @antonhur, the English language translator for LITBC. You can check out the AMA he is generously doing with book clubbers here.

Here are your official discussion questions for Part 4 of Love in the Big City, courtesy of @bengiyo:

On the conclusion of the novel:

What do you take from the narrator's regrets over Gyu-ho?

This story is unlike most BL that squarely fits in successful romance. What do you take from a story like this where the narrator details failed relationships?

Treating the narrator as a queer elder or friend, what do you take from the conclusion of his story as you move on from this book?

On the book as a whole:

What parts of this book do you most want to share with friends and family?

What parts of the book are you most anticipating in the forthcoming adaptations?

As a reminder, you are welcome to use any or all of these as a jumping off point for your own posts, ignore them and post your own thing, or just participate by sharing and commenting on other people's posts, and given this is the end, please feel free to reflect both on Part 4 and on your feelings about the book as a whole. Please create new posts with the questions if you want to use them rather than adding on responses to this post--it will be easier to capture everyone's content if it's all in separate posts in the tag. I will be tracking everything posted in the [#litbc book club] tag and posting the weekly round up--look for that to go up next Sunday. Feel free to also directly tag me to make sure I don't miss your posts!

Happy reading, and I look forward to your thoughts.

Tagging: @alwaysthepessimist @becomingabeing @belladonna-and-the-sweetpeas @blalltheway @brifrischu @colourme-feral @dekaydk @doyou000me @dramacraycray @dylogpenchester @emotionallychargedtowel @fiction-is-queer @hyeoni-comb @infinitelyprecious @littleragondin @literally-a-five-headed-dragon @loveable-sea-lemon @my-rose-tinted-glasses @neuroticbookworm @poetry-protest-pornography @profiterole-reads @serfergs @so-much-yet-to-learn @starryalpacasstuff @stuffnonsenseandotherthings @sunshinechay @thewayofsubtext @troubled-mind @twig-tea @waitmyturtles @wen-kexing-apologist

#will also be updating the meta round up with part 3 shortly! #litbc book club #love in the big city #korean bl #shan shouts into the void

[lurkingshan]

Love in the Big City Book Club: Part 3

Hello again book clubbers! Here are your official discussion questions for Part 3 of Love in the Big City, courtesy of @bengiyo:

The T-aras are the first sign we get that Young has an ongoing relationship with any other queer people. Why do you think he connected with people younger than him? Share your thoughts on the group dynamic.

In Part 3, Young reveals that he's been carrying his illness since he was discharged from the military. How does that information impact your understanding of prior events?

His relationship with Gyu-ho is the most successful we've seen Young have thus far. Why do you think they worked for so long, and what do you think made Gyu-ho finally end things before moving to Shanghai?

How do you feel about the way Young's illness presents a genuine stigma and barrier in his personal and professional life?

As a reminder, you are welcome to use any or all of these as a jumping off point for your own posts, ignore them and post your own thing, or just participate by sharing and commenting on other people's posts. Please create new posts with the questions if you want to use them rather than adding on responses to this post--it will be easier to capture everyone's content if it's all in separate posts in the tag. I will be tracking everything posted in the [#litbc book club] tag and posting the weekly round up--look for that to go up next Sunday ahead of the Part 4 discussion questions. Feel free to also directly tag me to make sure I don't miss your posts!

Happy reading, and I look forward to your thoughts.

Tagging: @alwaysthepessimist @becomingabeing @belladonna-and-the-sweetpeas @blalltheway @brifrischu @colourme-feral @dekaydk @doyou000me @dramacraycray @dylogpenchester @emotionallychargedtowel @fiction-is-queer @hyeoni-comb @infinitelyprecious @littleragondin @literally-a-five-headed-dragon @loveable-sea-lemon @my-rose-tinted-glasses @neuroticbookworm @poetry-protest-pornography @profiterole-reads @serfergs @so-much-yet-to-learn @starryalpacasstuff @stuffnonsenseandotherthings @sunshinechay @thewayofsubtext @troubled-mind @twig-tea @waitmyturtles @wen-kexing-apologist

If you're not tagged and want to be going forward, reply to this post and let me know!

#litbc book club #love in the big city #korean bl

[lurkingshan]

Love in the Big City Book Club: Part 2

Hello again book clubbers! Here are your official discussion questions for Part 2 of Love in the Big City, courtesy of @bengiyo:

This section went to some heavy places. When reading stories in first person like this, how do you maintain an effective distance with the narrator?

In BL, we spend most of our time rooting for relationships that we think can be mutually beneficial. What was different about reading a relationship that was failing in real time?

The narrator has an emotionally difficult relationship with his mother. Why do you think the narrator intercut the relationship with his mother with the relationship with this boyfriend?

How do you think internalized homophobia expressed itself in the narrator and the boyfriend, and how does that impact their adult lives?

As a reminder, you are welcome to use any or all of these as a jumping off point for your own posts, ignore them and post your own thing, or just participate by sharing and commenting on other people's posts. Please create new posts with the questions if you want to use them rather than adding on responses to this post--it will be easier to capture everyone's content if it's all in separate posts in the tag. I will be tracking everything posted in the [#litbc book club] tag and posting the weekly round up--look for that to go up next Sunday ahead of the Part 3 discussion questions. Feel free to also directly tag me to make sure I don't miss your posts!

Happy reading, and I look forward to your thoughts.

Tagging: @alwaysthepessimist @becomingabeing @belladonna-and-the-sweetpeas @blalltheway @brifrischu @colourme-feral @dekaydk @doyou000me @dramacraycray @dylogpenchester @emotionallychargedtowel @fiction-is-queer @hyeoni-comb @infinitelyprecious @littleragondin @literally-a-five-headed-dragon @loveable-sea-lemon @my-rose-tinted-glasses @neuroticbookworm @poetry-protest-pornography @profiterole-reads @serfergs @so-much-yet-to-learn @starryalpacasstuff @stuffnonsenseandotherthings @sunshinechay @thewayofsubtext @troubled-mind @twig-tea @waitmyturtles @wen-kexing-apologist

If you're not tagged and want to be going forward, reply to this post and let me know!

#apologies for the late post this week y'all #litbc book club #love in the big city

[lurkingshan]

Love in the Big City Book Club: Part 1

Hello hello book clubbers! We are officially a go and kicking off discussion this week with Part 1 of Love in the Big City. Reminder of the schedule and how we expect this all to work here.

@bengiyo generously put together some discussion questions to help prompt thinking and writing and about Part 1:

The relationship between Jaehee and our narrator grounds most of the narrative. What aspects of their relationship stuck out to you the most?

Both Jaehee and the narrator have major health scares in Part 1, and both have terrible experiences with health care professionals. What did you notice about the differences in their experiences with healthcare?

The greatest distance between Jaehee and the narrator begins with her outing him to the future husband. For all of the narrator's prior concerns about being outed, why do you think he was so hurt, and how does this affect the way things went at the wedding?

What are your thoughts on the first major relationship breakup the narrator experiences being with his best female friend, particularly with the fiance's concerns about the optics of their relationship?

As a reminder, you are welcome to use any or all of these as a jumping off point for your own posts, ignore them and post your own thing, or just participate by sharing and commenting on other people's posts. Please create new posts with the questions if you want to use them rather than adding on responses to this post--it will be easier to capture everyone's content if it's all in separate posts in the tag. I will be tracking everything posted in the [#litbc book club] tag and creating a weekly round up post, as well--look for that to go up next Sunday ahead of the Part 2 discussion questions. Feel free to also directly tag me to make sure I don't miss your posts!

Happy reading, and I look forward to your thoughts.

Tagging: @alwaysthepessimist @becomingabeing @belladonna-and-the-sweetpeas @blalltheway @brifrischu @colourme-feral @dekaydk @doyou000me @dramacraycray @dylogpenchester @emotionallychargedtowel @fiction-is-queer @hakusupernova @hyeoni-comb @infinitelyprecious @littleragondin @literally-a-five-headed-dragon @loveable-sea-lemon @my-rose-tinted-glasses @neuroticbookworm @poetry-protest-pornography @profiterole-reads @serfergs @so-much-yet-to-learn @starryalpacasstuff @stuffnonsenseandotherthings @sunshinechay @thewayofsubtext @troubled-mind @twig-tea @waitmyturtles @wen-kexing-apologist.

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#litbc book club #love in the big city #korean bl

[lurkingshan]

On Parents and Apologies Never Received

I intended to write a whole different thing for this section, and probably still will, because I have thoughts about @bengiyo's third discussion question about why Umma and Hyung are in the same section of this book. But in the course of some other discussions I've been having this week, I have been thinking a lot about disappointing parents, the desire to hear them apologize, and the way these dynamics play out in an Asian context specifically. Under Asian cultural norms, parental accountability, when it happens at all, rarely takes the form of an explicit apology from a parent to a child, and this reality is represented well in Asian media. Asian children are expected to swallow all the hurt their parents cause them and bear it with dignity, prioritizing respect for their elders and preserving the family peace over their own needs. And wouldn't you know it, Part 2 of LITBC ends on Young's desperate desire to hear his mother apologize, and his subsequent shame for wishing it.

Here's the relevant passage:

"Umma...you know...there's something..." The words came before I could stop them, but I couldn't bear to say the words. There were so many things to say to her, and I wanted to say something, anything at all, but I hadn't a clue as to how to begin. You know, Umma, there's something I wanted to say...I wish you would apologize to me for once in my life. About trampling on my heart that time. About giving birth to me this way, raising me this way, then deciding to push me away into a place I can't come back from, into a world of ignorance and being ignored, I wish you would apologize for that. I know that what happened to me wasn't really what you had wanted to happen, and I know it's not anyone's fault, I know that, but I- "...I'll never understand it." "Understand what?" "I'm really sorry, but I don't think I can ever forgive you for that. Ever." "What is this child going on about?"

Young begins this passage wanting to demand an apology from his dying mother for all the ways she has wronged him, but he ends up apologizing to her instead. And why? Because in the culture he was raised in, he is expected to maintain filial piety, respect his mother for giving him life and providing for him, and forgive her anything she does in the name of trying to help him, even if he knows it's wrong. In the culture he was raised in, his sexuality is the true failing, and her inability to cope with it is a hardship he has heaped on her. In the culture he was raised in, his unwillingness to forgive her for what she's done to him is his flaw and a source of shame. Young wants her apology desperately, but he is ashamed to feel that way, and so not only does he not demand the apology, he doesn't even express any of his grievances out loud before he gives them up.

That the person I thought I knew best just because we had blood ties could actually be the most mysterious and unknown. That there were times in life when you just had to stop holding on. And that was why the only thing I could do now was to cease all thinking, to simply watch her as she smiled and attached meanings to silly things like the rising and setting of the sun. All I could do was await her death. And hope that she would die without having known.

There's room for interpretation in exactly what the narrator meant in these final lines. But for me, the meaning that rings most true is that Young is hoping she will never know how much she hurt him, and how much he hated her for it, and how he struggled to forgive her. He cannot reconcile these feelings in himself with the values he has been taught and the culture he lives in, and so he stuffs them down, stops holding onto them, and hopes her death will be an end to him feeling this way. It's such a poignant and authentic representation of the unprocessed trauma we all carry and how hard it is to demand accountability for it, especially from those closest to us.

#litbc book club #love in the big city #shan shouts into the void

[stuffnonsenseandotherthings]

I'll (hopefully) be posting my thoughts for the final LITBC discussion soon but, for now, I want to just put a stray thought out into the world.

As someone who, for several reasons, has had an incredibly difficult relationship with sex and the role of sex in relationships, I really appreciated how nuanced the depiction of physical intimacy was in Gyu-Ho and Young's relationship.

In a world where sex and love are frequently depicted as inseparable from one another it was.... comforting to see a relationship where sex wasn't stigmatised but in which it also wasn't necessary. Gyu-Ho and Young do enjoy sex on the occasions they (can) have it but their relationship is separate from that, they have other ways of expressing their love for each other and of being physically intimate with each other that are no less meaningful. The lack of sex does not diminish their relationship nor does it lead to it ending.

I wish I'd seen more relationships portrayed like this when I was a teen/young adult but I didn't, it was one extreme or the other and it really mucked things up.

#litbc book club #personal #but it really hit me this second time round reading