{"id":17252,"date":"2024-08-19T05:20:40","date_gmt":"2024-08-19T05:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/msp-journal.com\/?p=409"},"modified":"2024-08-19T05:20:40","modified_gmt":"2024-08-19T05:20:40","slug":"our-happy-time-gong-ji-young","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/?p=17252","title":{"rendered":"Our Happy Time \u2013 Gong Ji-Young"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/image008.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-420\" src=\"http:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/image008.jpg\" alt=\"image008\" width=\"198\" height=\"282\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Our Happy Time is a book that in its native Korea had a massive impact on people\u2019s attitude towards the death penalty \u2013 not surprising when one reads this poignant tale of two misfits. The book follows Yujeong, a girl who seemingly has it all and yet at the beginning of the book has attempted suicide for the third time. She is visited by her aunt Monica, a Catholic nun, who gives her a choice between going for therapy \u2013 again \u2013 and accompanying the aunt to visit death-row inmates. Desirous of avoiding therapy Yujeong opts to visit the inmates and this is where the story truly begins. She meets Yunsu, an inmate condemned for rape and murder, and while in the beginning she loathes him for his crimes, slowly she comes to know the man and in a strange way love him.<\/p>\n<p>The narrative switches between first person \u2013 Yujeong \u2013 and diary entries \u2013 Yunsu. It showcases the theme the author wants to convince the reader of, albeit a bit heavy-handedly at times. The traumatic and sometimes violent pasts of both these characters and how they have led them to where they are today form the mainstay of the story. In particular, Yunsu who at first seems reprehensible, becomes a very sympathetic character as we see him through Yujeong\u2019s eyes. Through all of this Aunt Monica\u2019s maternal love provides a strength the two have not been able to find elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Philip Morales<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Our Happy Time is a book that in its native Korea had a massive impact on people\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17447,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}