The Courage to be Disliked in Hyunam-Dong Bookshop
Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop: A Review Written Halfway Through
The night I published my first ASMR video, I was filled with post-publishing anxiety. I felt for sure I'd failed already. And charged with energy that had nowhere to go, I turned to my books. Despite being too overwhelmed to do any reading, I opened Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop and just read over the chapter contents. My eyes scanned the list and they passed over a chapter I've yet to reach: Can I Make a Living with a Bookshop? I jolted and a rush of excitement tingled up my spine as I reached to uncap my pen and write. The doubt in that single question resonated so deeply it felt like the book was asking it directly to me.
This story follows Yeongju, a bookshop owner, through short excerpts of life surrounding her small shop. Sometimes we switch perspectives to other characters, like Minjun, the only other employee at the bookshop. Minjun was hired on to be the barista, where he is in charge of everything coffee so that Yeongju can focus on being a bookseller. At first glance, you might assume Yeongju and Minjun don't have much in common, but while Minjun is clearly characterized as a little lost in life, striving to be comfortable living an unassuming existence, Yeongju is doing the same. Just as disillusioned with society's idea of a conventional life, Yeongju went through a divorce that caused her parents to stop speaking to her. I got the feeling that this bookshop was a fresh start and a risky experiment, an act of quiet rebellion against her parents and society.
There's this quiet emphasis on the strength of pivoting in life and the okayness of not striving for conventional success; to not try as hard as everyone says you should. There's a beauty in slowly figuring yourself out even though it can be brutal in a world where they seek to punish you for your individuality and 'how-dare-you-live-a-peaceful-non-busy-life?'
Personally, I resonate with these undertones all the characters seem to give off. My life, much like Minjun, have been made up of beautifully crafted buttons, only to realize there are not any holes for the buttons to attach to. I've been listless in life, jumping from one part-time job to another, seemingly not having any ambitions to join the so-called rat race and achieve a conventional life. But in doing so—in prioritizing my energy and funneling in more happiness—I'm labeled as a failure, lazy, a bum living off the good graces of others.
But sometimes you need to not only craft your own buttons but cut out your own holes for those buttons. Which takes more time and is something people see as dilly-dallying, especially since results aren't always immediate. However, it only makes sense that when society tries to fit you into ill-fitting pigeonholes, some are driven to create opportunities of their own, despite how daunting it is. Like Yeongju and her bookshop. She tells Minjun upon hiring him that she may only be able to keep the bookshop running for two years. Though she predicted this creative project would be temporary, throughout the book she was trying to answer questions like: what makes a good bookshop? Can I make a living with a bookshop? What keeps a bookshop alive?
These questions act as the three themes underlying each chapter, answered within each short story that unfolds.
It called me to question my own creative project and its temporary lifetime. I started an ASMR YouTube channel with the goal of creating consistently for six months. To put it concretely, I'm striving to publish 20 videos within six months. I would say it somehow morphed into uploading on Spotify, creating a podcast, starting a blog, and nattering into the void on BlueSky—but it wasn't random. Gradually, I added to this ecosystem, and it was important that I stayed consistent instead of obsessing over comparison. It's true I didn't have the kind of equipment others did, or the aesthetics, or even the know-how and it made me self-conscious about my ability. I feared looking at the analytics, scared they would tell me I was a failure. I self-imposed a 48-hour ban whenever I posted a video to not look at any of my analytics. Then I picked one day per week where I allowed myself to look at them for 20 minutes to study what I needed to improve.
I asked myself: What makes a good ASMR channel? Can I make a living from this? What keeps me going when the views don't come?
I tried to let the data be as is and to not project onto them the story I tell myself - that I'm a failure, that I will fail because I find the whole journey scary and I don't want to do it if it's scary. But diving back into this book about a woman who left her conventional life and began an endeavor she predicted she'd likely see the end of within two years of opening, reminded me that just because something is temporary, doesn't mean it's pointless or that it's effort wasted. I lived through Yeongju, who gave herself those two years to experiment without knowing the outcome. She became a model to me about how to hold uncertainty with grace. That even though it's daunting and unconventional, creating your own path is a legitimate choice.
I don't know how this story ends yet. I wrote this review impulsively, too eager to wait until I finished. As of right now, I don't know if Yeongju's bookshop survives beyond the two years, if she's found the answers to her questions. And just like with my creative project, I don't know if it'll last beyond six months, if I will find the answers to my questions and doubts. But right now, halfway through this book and one video into my channel (as of writing), I'm learning that the questions matter more than the answers.
So, can I make a living with this?
Maybe.
But more importantly: Can I keep showing up, even when I don't know?
That's the real challenge.
The Courage to be Disliked
I've been reading this book Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop. It's structured in short excerpts and in one chapter, the bookshop owner talked about how her parents stopped speaking to her after she got a divorce from her husband, one that she initiated. I remember loudly tsk'ing—my tongue snapped the roof of my mouth quickly and sharply. It echoed in the room and I made a caveman grunt. I was thinking how I didn't understand people who wished for a person's happiness, yet rage and call it wrong if it doesn't adhere to their own version of how happy should look like; as if we all aren't chained to our subjectivity and merely share a plane of existence.
Then, because I was reading it at the same time, in The Courage to be Disliked, there's a chapter called 'People Fabricate Anger'. The book claims that before an emotion and its subsequent behavior occurs, there's a goal we settle on. There are only two characters in this book, The Philosopher and The Youth. The Philosopher tells The Youth a story about how a parent and a child are arguing. They are shouting at each other until the phone rings. The parent goes to pick it up, angrily answering the call. Upon realizing the child's school is calling them, the parent immediately calms and adopts a polite tone. When the call ends, the parent goes right back to shouting and the pair resume their argument.
The Philosopher used this story to illustrate to The Youth how people choose emotions to fulfill a certain goal. The parent in this story chose to use their anger, possibly to dominate the conversation and impose their beliefs onto their child; when they so easily chose to be calm and polite when picking up the phone.
The same could be said about how I got offended on behalf of Yeongju from Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop, whose parents abandoned her because she made a decision that prioritized her happiness over maintaining a typical life of marriage. In the same way I wished people would leave each other alone and let them make their own decisions, I too, judged and berated those that judged and berated. It seemed like I was stuck in a never-ending cycle.
I'm glad I started reading this book because it pointed out to me that, yeah, I was fabricating a lot of anger.
I'm trying to choose anger less these days. Even being aware that there are other ways to respond or not respond, it's easier to follow the flare of indignation.
I had an interaction with an acquaintance. This person was somewhere in-between, I knew them for a long time but our relationship didn't have enough depth. Even still, our one-dimensional relationship allowed us to talk about things like mental health.
One day we talked about a specific incident with a family member of mine who this acquaintance knew as well. Me and this family member had a quarrel, one that blazed at first before quietly simmering on low, not visible but always churning in the background and tinting every interaction. When I shared what had happened, this acquaintance asked no follow-up questions and immediately took this family member's side. It irked me how quickly it happened, how unfair it felt that without knowing the story at all, I was deemed the villain and urged to apologize fully. "It's better to kiss ass and smooth things over. Family is important" is what I was told.
My anger pulsed in time with my breath. And for a long time I didn't respond because what would've came out would've be scathing and bridge burning. So I decided I wouldn't speak to this person for the time being. With a wounded pride and an ugly feeling, I chose anger to serve the fact that I didn't feel validated by this acquaintance. What was the goal? Maybe to protect myself from the sting of being misunderstood. Maybe to punish them for taking sides so easily. Maybe to avoid the harder truth—that I wasn't looking for advice, I was looking for someone to just see me. And when they didn't, anger was easier than saying, "That hurt."
I said I'm trying to choose anger less these days. But trying doesn't mean succeeding. I still chose it here. I still let it dictate my response—or lack of one. The difference now is that I can see it happening. I can recognize the moment I reach for anger like a tool, even if I'm not ready to put it down yet.
Maybe that's the first step. Not stopping the anger, but knowing what it's for. Knowing that I'm the one picking it up.