September 30, 2025 • 42 mins
Award-winning Korean Author Bora Chung (Cursed Bunny, Your Utopia, The Midnight Timetable) joins me to discuss how fiction warns, resists, and reimagines our world.
What if fiction isn’t just storytelling, but a foreshadow of things to come?
In this episode of The Bánh Mì Chronicles, I’m joined by acclaimed Korean author Bora Chung, best known for her award-winning collection Cursed Bunny, her visionary Your Utopia, and her forthcoming novel The Midnight Timetable.
Together, we explore:
How fiction reflects and warns us about real-world crises
Why speculative and dystopian stories resonate in times of upheaval
What readers can expect in her upcoming The Midnight Timetable
Role as a writer in current political times, back in Korea and globally.
Bora reminds us that fiction is more than escape — it’s a mirror, a warning, and a tool for resistance.
#BoraChung #TheMidnightTimetable #fiction #speculativefiction #resistance #storytelling #diaspora #BIPOC #Korean #KoreanAuthors
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Hi everyone. So today I am joined with a
former guest. Her name is Bora Chung.
She's a Korean author based in the and based in Korea and she
was on my sub stack over a year ago.
I want to say that was when she released her last book on Your
(00:28):
Utopia. And Bora has released both Chris
Bunny and Your Utopia, and thesebooks have received critical
acclaim. And Bora is about to be on the
verge of releasing her upcoming novel, Midnight Timetable, a
novel and ghost story. This is your third time
(00:49):
collaborating with our good friend, author, translator Anton
Hurst. So first of all, thank you for
being on my show. And how have you been navigating
2025 so far? Hi, thanks for having me.
(01:09):
I've been, I don't think, I don't feel like I've been
navigating. I'm just like I'm swamped.
If I'm navigating, I'm doing it very haphazardly.
Yeah. I mean, I know it's kind of wild
(01:29):
that we are three months away from 2026.
It feels like a one day feels like 2025 feels like it's been
an eternity. And then other days it actually
feels like it's a blip of a radar.
So yeah, I, I can only imagine how how so many things have
happened and before you know what, we're already halfway
(01:51):
through this decade. So in your previous books you
have taken on issues such as AI,late stage capitalism, futurism,
through dark humor. There's always this very ominous
tone that you're sending throughyour do your writing.
(02:11):
What was your approach when you began writing Midnight
Timetable? The publisher said I could write
whatever I wanted to write. They didn't give me a topic or
any kind of direction. So I just wrote a lot of ghost
(02:34):
stories and I really, really enjoyed it.
I I got a lot of inspiration from The Legend of Three
Kingdoms and the The History of Three Kingdoms and the Legend of
Three Kingdoms. It's from the the both books are
(02:56):
from historical records from 5thcentury, 6th century all the way
up to like 9th century. So like early Middle Ages in
Korea. And they like all the historical
records from early Middle Ages. I think it's pretty much same
(03:19):
all around the world. Like people recorded actual
historical or real events along with fantastical happenings or
things that sound totally made-up with all the like wars,
(03:42):
famine or good crop, bad weather, all kinds of realistic
things. They were all recorded together
in these historical records. So it's, it's immensely
fascinating. I love them.
And I got a lot of inspiration from them and I kind of
incorporated a part of it too inIn Midnight Timetable.
(04:05):
It was fun. It was so much fun.
I'm also like wondering about ghost rays because I've always
been fascinated by the paranormal and also the
historical context of ghost stories.
But I'm very curious from the Korean perspective of how they
view ghosts in general, but alsohow how the stories of ghosts
(04:27):
actually in a way inform the writing that you do.
So Korean ghosts as far as I know fall into roughly 2
categories. Things that supernatural beings
(04:48):
that were never humans. So like the spirit of the
mountain, the fairy of the lake,the the dragon people, certain
parts of people from certain parts of Korea really, really
love dragon. And there are a lot of records
(05:08):
and a lot of stories about Dragons.
So those those beings were neverhuman.
And in the Korean concept of ghosts, they are all lumped
together with ghosts, meaning spirit from dead people, people
who were once alive, but now their bodies are the dead and
their spirits are roaming aroundthe world and, and haunting
(05:30):
people and places. Those are, they're all up
together. And this one word goes And I, I
like that kind of idea. And also Koreans were obsessed
with being married. So and the Korean thinking, if
you're not married and die, I mean, if you die a virgin,
(05:53):
especially then you're going to be a ghost.
You're, you're going to haunt, you're you're never going to go
to the the netherworld because because you've never like
consummated your life purpose. I guess so.
And it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman.
If you were a a guy who's never been married and died, then you
(06:16):
become a certain kind of ghost. And if you're a woman, you
become another kind of ghost. And there are like so many
stories about these ghosts. It's just so funny that careers
were so obsessed with getting married.
And that's a euphemism for, you know, something else.
(06:37):
I mean, you know. Yeah.
So like, and. And they were so obsessed with
heterosexual relationship. So in midnight timetable, I
turned to a slightly different direction.
So there's this guy who is gay and his family put him through
(07:00):
conversion therapy. And conversion therapy is not
very actively discussed in Korea, but I know it's happening
in Korea. And because it is not actively
discussed, it's like, I guess it's happening in certain part
of a very fundamentalist extremist religious groups and,
(07:26):
and unbeknownst to the rest of the the society.
So I wanted to talk about that. And also I wanted, I wanted the
minority, all kinds of minorities to be all happy.
And I wanted to kill all the badguys.
So yeah, that was a lot, a lot of fun killing bad guys.
(07:47):
I also want to say that I'm 42 years old and I'm still not
married and I don't really care to get married, so I don't know
what kind of ghost I will be, especially as a gay ghost.
I think I would be a very good kind of a ghost.
I guess I would love to haunt fascist people.
I mean, that would be my dream. So I don't know.
(08:10):
What about for you. Like what kind of ghost would
you be? The goal is to not haunt this
world, just just go wherever youhave to go and get away from all
these living people. But if I if I become a ghost, I
(08:32):
want to I want, I want to be a cat ghost.
I want to be a ghost who lives among the cats that.
Would be amazing. I would love to be a domestic
cat being reincarnated. I think that would be an ideal
goal of mine because I feel likeI do live the life of a cat.
And yeah, I've always been very fascinated by the paranormal and
(08:56):
also by the folklore surroundingit, too, especially around Asian
culture, which I have not been able to spend more time on.
But I've always been like, very fascinated, like Korea, when I
have lived there many moons ago.Christianity has continued to be
on the rise since the Korean War, and I'm very curious how
(09:20):
that in a way, has informed whatis happening in Korean society,
but also through your own writing too.
I'm very curious to know how that's also connected.
I try not to talk about Christianity as a whole in my
(09:44):
writing, but I do see a lot of problem with certain factions of
Christianity that is extremely active and very harmful in Korea
right now. And I actually had the bad luck
of, well, good fortune of going through, I, I had to walk
(10:08):
through like physically walk into their, their protest, their
demonstration. And that was March 1st, the day
of that big Korean independence protest that it was, that was
1919. So it was the 106th anniversary
(10:29):
of the biggest Korean independence protest in the 20th
century. And they were talking, they were
saying that Korea, the this preacher guy, I don't want to
call him a minister because he'snot a regularly like normally
ordained minister, but he calls himself the minister.
So he he was just preaching and he was giving a very loud sermon
(10:55):
and he was saying that Korea is weak and communists are trying
to attack us and Korea is a verysmall country.
North Korea is always trying to eat us up.
So we have to rely on the UnitedStates.
We have to rely on Japan. And what he was saying kind of,
(11:17):
I think it, it was realistic, itapplied to, it has certain truth
probably in 1965 or through 1969or so.
But like after the 1970s, that didn't really it, it, it didn't
(11:43):
really fit. And if I think about the Korea
in the 1980s where I was, I was actually alive and, and able to
like see things. I mean, what they were saying
didn't even apply to Korea in the 1980s.
(12:04):
And I had this very weird feeling that I, I didn't feel
threatened. I had this really weird feeling
that they were living in a different dimension, like they
were, they were literally livingin a different reality where
Korea is still this war-torn country.
People are starving and people are under threat of communism.
(12:28):
And somebody have to come. Somebody has to come, come
rescue us. And that somebody is going to
be, you know who, and I'm not going to say his name because I
don't like him and just no, it'snot going to happen that way.
But these people seem to believeit for some weird reason.
(12:53):
But the goal, the ultimate purpose, the goal of this
preacher guy was to make people subscribe.
I mean, subscribe to his his some kind of group that he made
where he where he accepts like subscription fees instead of
(13:17):
donation. So donation and tides are
voluntary. But this is a subscription fee.
So you have to, if once you subscribe, you have to pay a
monthly fee and he was trying tosell mobile phones, which is
also subscription based, you have to pay a monthly fee.
And he was advertising his credit card.
(13:41):
He, he had a, a contract with one of the biggest banks in
Korea. So he had this church credit
card and a certain percentage of, of the profit was supposed
to go to that church if you use that credit card.
So he was trying to like gather subscription for the mobile
(14:03):
phone, the his, his whatever information group or or SNS
group and this credit card. So it was, it was profit.
It was all profit. He was selling his faith to to
get to earn money. It was it was as dirty as it
(14:27):
could be. And that is where extreme alt
right self self acclaiming Christian, what are what they
say is Christianity, alt right Christianity is right now.
And they are very proud to call themselves the alt right.
(14:50):
So I'm not, I'm not being derogatory.
They call themselves the ultra the alt right or the ultra right
and that and they are very proudof it.
And they think that is the only way.
Like that is the only right righteous path.
Yeah, I think it's also very interesting to see the
connection between the ultra right evangelism to late stage
(15:16):
capitalism. I think this is there is such a
deep connection within the two. And I'm also like very curious
because like now that you bring this up, like Korea in the last
60-70 years since the Korean War, I mean, you see North Korea
and South Korea with two very different ideologies.
(15:37):
But there's also, you know, but I think in some ways we see
South Korea as the good person in this relationship.
It's a very binary, but what do you make of the binary versions
that are being fed about North and South Korea and in terms of
of its relationship but also butalso like in the world that we
(16:01):
live in? As I see it as North Korea is
not exactly a country, it's a cult.
It's a cult and South Korea is Iguess a little better because we
have the freedom to choose our own cults in this country.
(16:24):
Whereas in North Korea, like youhave to believe in this one
state chosen cult. So yeah, that's that's the
difference. So, so much has been happening
politically and socially in thisdecade already with the
pandemic, the war in Ukraine, what we are witnessing in Gaza,
(16:48):
and clearly with in the US for the Trump administration.
And while for you in Korea, you have seen a lot of political
chaos that has happened there. And I know that you've touched
on this, you know, earlier, but I'm also very curious, how do
all of these events impact your writing and the message that you
want to convey to audiences? It, it affects my writing very
(17:15):
negatively. It just takes up so much of my
time to go on protests and marches.
And you know, I, I like protesting and I like my
comrades. I love my comrades.
But last December when the crazyguy announced the Marshall Hall
(17:39):
that that was too much, like everything just stopped.
Everything stopped and all all of my people and myself had to
take to the streets with the kind of desperate fear that I
have never felt in my life. And that whole situation was was
(18:07):
resolved ultimately in April. So.
So we already lost like 1/3 of the year.
It was a giant waste of time, a giant waste of everybody's time
and energy. And I want, I want my three
(18:27):
months back and I want to sue the guy.
And people are actually suing him.
And they won the. So the first batch of people
started a class lawsuit against the former president and they
actually won. They, they actually did so.
(18:48):
And it depends on the plaintiff,not, not the, not the
perpetrator, but the victim. So if I claim myself as a victim
and start a new lawsuit, then I can apparently.
So I'm I'm I'm thinking about it.
(19:09):
I mean, I think that a lot of the American people would love
to have some tips about how to reclaim like the the last nine
months and then also like maybe four years of the Trump.
So yeah, I think we need like 5 years that we need to reclaim
back. I think it's, I think what's
(19:31):
interesting for you as a writer,especially in Korea, I'm also
like very curious about like as a writer, do you feel like
there's always the concern of censorship and the repercussions
of speaking out through your writing and through your social
media? I'm very curious from like an
(19:53):
artist perspective because you know, artists, you know, like,
you know, being Cambodian, Vietnamese, like a lot of
artists were killed because theywere seen as threats to.
To the regime, I'm very curious to see how that has been treated
in Korea. As far as I know, artists don't
(20:16):
feel physically threatened. That era is over.
I hope I, I really, sincerely hope that era is over.
I am no longer young and I quit my job so nobody can sack me.
And people are, especially men who are of the crime committing
(20:43):
age are generally not interestedin me because I'm too old.
So I have the relative freedom and I'm also married to a man,
so I conform to patriarchy. So I guess that makes me even
less interesting. So all of these elements
(21:05):
combined, I think I'm pretty lucky to feel not threatened.
And everything else I just ignore.
I don't read reader comments or any kind of comment about my
protests or my writing or anything because I'm sick and
tired of it all and I quit my job, so I'm not afraid of
(21:28):
anything. And you know, going back to like
midnight timetable, comparing itto your Utopia and cursed Bunny,
what did you decide to do differently this time, like from
a stylistic perspective and alsoin the way that you were trying,
the way that you're trying to inform your readers through this
(21:51):
particular book? Your utopia is entirely science
fiction, so that book is very different in and of itself.
It Midnight Timetable and Curse Bunny are different in that when
I was writing Curse Bunny, I wasvery confused and very angry,
(22:12):
but I didn't know why I was angry.
And I strongly believe that I was angry because because there
was something wrong with me and and my proof was that I was
confused. I'm other people don't seem to
be confused as I was and I'm confused so there must be
(22:34):
something wrong with me. But I don't know what is wrong
with me and therefore I was angry.
But with midnight timetable, I through all those protests, I
realized that maybe there is something wrong with me because
everybody's crazy, but I'm not as weird as I thought.
(22:55):
And some of my anger and confusion were actually
justified or validated by thingsI learned through protest and
and pride and all the good people that I met and all the
angry people I, I marched with. So midnight timetable is less
(23:16):
confusing, I think. Or I as a writer was less
confused when I was writing it, but I I was probably angry at
her because I know what confusedme.
But none of the problems are solved.
And if anything, I I'm seeing more problems and I got angrier
(23:40):
and now I have, I have heard real horror stories from real
life people who really have to go through life with disability
or with a different orientation or identity than the minority
than the majority or who are cutoff from family and are
(24:05):
demonized, etcetera, etcetera. So I think I, I hope midnight
timetable is a little high definition in that respect and
less confused, but as scary I hope.
(24:27):
You have teamed up with Anton her again for this book.
What conversations have you talked about with him and what
makes his translation special toyou?
I didn't have any conversation. When Anton finished, he he
(24:49):
complained to me that the tunnelscene was so damn scared me.
And he told me that when he first read it in Korean, it
wasn't really that scary. I mean, it wasn't that it didn't
really leave a specific impression, but while he was
(25:10):
translating, he really freaked out.
So he complained to me and that was about it.
That was part of the message that he had finished the first
draft. So that's about it.
I don't, I completely trust Anton.
I don't tell him what to do or what not to do.
(25:34):
And with your utopia, I made some mistakes with the sources,
the the citations were wrong. So Anton told.
Anton asked me why he couldn't find that specific text from
this specific literature. And so I fixed the problem.
(25:56):
But with this one that I I didn't have any sources or
citations so I that was not a problem.
So he just did it. And he also translated Red
Sword. It was published in the UK by
Hunt for Star and I translated his Toward Eternity into Korean.
(26:17):
So this is my 4th collaboration if you count all of them with
Anton both ways. Wow, Yeah, I think this is such
a beautiful collaboration. Also because I am biased.
I mean, I love Anton, you know, I've known him for years now and
and I just I marvel at his dedication and his commitment to
(26:43):
to literature and especially in the world of translation and how
critical that is, especially during the time of AI.
So shout out to Anton on this one.
And also like the last time we spoke, you mentioned how you
were virtually almost unknown inKorea when you released Curse
Bunny. How have you interacted with
Korean readers and how have theyreceived your work?
(27:12):
I don't know because as I said, I don't read reader comments and
I avoid like listening to my readers about their opinions.
I'm really sorry, but. And when I go give lectures at
I, I give a lot of lectures at public libraries and schools and
(27:38):
school's a little bit different,but at these library talks, at
the audience are usually people who like my work or people who
actually approach me and want totalk to me are people who like
my work. So I've met a lot of people who
(27:59):
told me they like this story or that story.
So I just tried to believe, I just tried to brainwash myself
that everybody loves me. And also a lot of my protest
buddies read my books and then they come to my talk.
(28:20):
So they, they told me that they,they, they actually told me that
they saw me at Pride or they sawme at this protest, or they
marched with me at that protest.I'm very, I am very, very proud
of them. I am proud of my readers who
protest with me. They're my comrades.
We're going to change the world.Oh, that is, that is awesome.
(28:41):
And I think what I also have been thinking about, especially
in this age of protest, there are while there are, you know,
plenty of writers worldwide, they're speaking out on the
current social injustices and genocide in Gaza, Congo and
(29:02):
Sudan. There are many that remain very
silent due to perhaps pressures from the publisher, losing
lucrative speaking deals and so forth.
What do you have to say to thosewriters who are still either
struggling to be vocal or that are choosing to stay on the
sidelines? I think being able to voice
(29:28):
one's opinion is a privilege. I can't really speak.
I mean, I, I don't know every single writer situation.
Some may, some may fear financial consequences and in
(29:52):
certain cases people may actually fear for their lives or
their safety. So I can't really say.
I mean, be choosing to stay silent is a a political act in
and of itself. Nobody can escape being
(30:13):
political in this day and age, whether by silence or by
speaking out or staying in the middle.
It would no matter what you do, you're going to be whatever you
do is going to be political because we are living in that
kind of world. But people do their best, and
(30:38):
only they know their own situation.
So I try not to condemn them. Yeah, that's all I can say.
I I do. I do me and they do them.
Yeah, because I think it's such an interesting climate right
now, especially for writers, that that there is this growing
(31:03):
pressure to speak out because writing is how we document our
history and how it's being how it will one day be received for
future generations. Do you feel a responsibility to
that as a writer? Do you feel this need to, to be
(31:24):
able to go against the grain andto you know, and to be able to
document even if it really does put your life in jeopardy,
whether it's financially or evenphysically, mentally?
I yeah, yes, of course. I, I was a teacher for 12 years.
(31:49):
I was a teacher for a lot longerthan I've been a full time
writer. So I, I still have the sense of
responsibility, especially when I think about the people who
used to be my students and who used to take my classes.
(32:12):
And back then I thought I didn'twant to feel ashamed in front of
my, my students. And now my students graduated
and some of them became teachersthemselves.
And I, like, I, I meet this one particular former student at
(32:35):
every protest, every single protest.
I see my student and I know thatI have grand students that I've
never met because my student is now a teacher.
I, I still have this vicarious sense of like responsibility
(32:57):
for, for the future generation. I and I have to make this world
a safer place. And I have to, I want to make
this world a more respectful space for everybody so that my
students and grand students can be free when they come out to
(33:22):
the world and try to live their lives.
That that is what I think. Well, we are surprisingly close
to being done with 2025. What, what are you currently
working on and what are you looking to do for the remainder
(33:42):
of this year going into next year?
I'm working on this story about migration.
This is supposed to be for youngadults.
I don't know how to write specifically for young adults,
so I just assume that they I'm going to suck and they're going
(34:04):
to hate me. Yeah.
And I have a lot of translationsto do and and a lot of protests
to do. That's that's the plan.
Yeah, I mean, I, I can only imagine like, especially in this
(34:25):
day and age that protesting is afull time job.
And it just seems to be, if it'snot one thing, it's another
thing. And I'm glad that you don't live
in America for that reason alonebecause I cannot imagine how
exhausting you would be. I mean, not to stay a career as
a walk in the park, but like, yeah, I think it's like, I guess
(34:47):
maybe put it this way. What are you observing about the
US in terms of their protest versus Korea?
I mean I have my opinions, but I'm very curious to know what do
you have you observed from from an outsider perspective of the
US and how they are responding? To fascism, people are I mean,
(35:12):
Americans are being creative, OK, they're surprisingly
creative. And once a a friend of mine, an
American friend who I I met in grad school and loved dearly
told me that she wants to go to these protests with her son, but
(35:33):
she is afraid that somebody might come to the protest with a
gun. And she lives in Texas.
So that, yeah, that was a revelation.
The gun control is very strict in Korea.
I, I never had that kind of worry in Korea ever at any
(35:55):
protest in Korea. But you're such, I mean, the
American, the US situation is very different.
And it depends on the region andthe state and the city.
So, you know, you, you have to be alive to to have an opinion.
So yeah, that, yeah, it just breaks my heart.
(36:23):
I know that, I know that it's been such a very difficult
conversation that we're having today.
But one last question that I have in mind is what gives you
joy? How do you take care of yourself
as a writer and also just tryingto survive in the society?
What are things that you have done to give yourself a level of
(36:44):
self-care and self preservation?I sleep a lot.
I sleep a lot and I drink a lot of oranges, orange juice and
love orange juice and eat a lot of pasta That that's pretty much
what I do. I I clean and I do the dishes
(37:06):
when I can't write. And today I just came back from
a protest. It was not a protest.
It was a celebration. One of the workers who was fired
by So there was this Japanese company and their factory caught
(37:31):
fire and then they dismissed everybody after the the factory
burned down. And then they got the insurance
money to, I mean big enough insurance money to rebuild the
entire factory. But they dismissed all the
workers and they refused to rehire anybody even though they
have another factory at a different city.
(37:54):
So 7 workers have been protesting to get their jobs
back and also protesting the special treatment of foreign
companies by the the Korean government.
It's like foreign companies can legally do this to Korean
(38:14):
workers, while Korean companies are not allowed to do the same
thing. Or they do the same thing.
But it sucks when a foreign company does it because they can
just pack up and go back home and and you're left jobless,
penniless, and nobody's going totake care of you.
So, and one of those workers went up to the roof of the
(38:37):
Burntown factory because the themother company in Japan wanted
to bulldoze the dismantle the entire factory and sell it to
somebody else. So she and two women went up the
roof and that was January 8th, 2024.
(38:59):
And one of them had had to come down because she got really
sick. And the other one stayed on the
roof for 600 days. She lived on the roof for one
year and eight months to tell the world that had the dismissal
was unfair. And this foreign companies,
(39:21):
these foreign companies, including the Japanese company,
are having special treatment from the Korean government.
And that is unfair. And she finally had a
conversation with the secretary of Labor today.
And the, she, one of the staff from the president's office came
(39:50):
to talk to her and a lot of members of the National Assembly
and she came down, she left the roof and she came down to earth
to us after 600 days. And I was so worried that she
(40:11):
might just pass out because of the heat on the roof.
I was, I was really, really worried.
And I was getting more and more worried because the heat is just
not going away. It's.
It's the end of August, so it should be like the beginning of
autumn, but that didn't happen. It's still really hot, like it's
(40:34):
100° hot in Korea and it's about130° on the rooftop.
And she's been living there for a year and eight months.
So I was really worried that shecame down today.
She's now in the hospital and getting checked up and being
taken care of. And that was a great victory for
all of us because she, I finallytalked to the Ministry of Labor,
(40:58):
the President's office, NationalAssembly.
And they all, they, they all promise to make changes.
And we have to see, we have to wait and see if that's really
going to happen. And if it doesn't happen, then
we are going to protest the hellout of them.
But we're now for today. It's a good day.
(41:25):
I just want to say like, you know, I'm very excited about how
people are going to receive midnight timetable and I hope
that for my audience that you can pick up a copy from your
local bookstore online or at your library, or at least talk
to your library to to make sure that they have a copy.
(41:47):
I was wondering if there's any last things that you would like
to say about midnight timetable,Anything that we might have
missed in the conversation, Anything that audiences should
really think about? You and me books are trying to
(42:07):
get more pre-orders so they theyasked me to make a little video
promoting the night timetable and you and me books and I love
you and me books. I love you and me books.
Me too. So yeah, please pre-order you
and me books. Thank you.
Thank you so much and Laura, it's been great, you know,
(42:29):
talking with you and you know, this has been such a great
conversation. I love your humor.
I love the irony that you have in your story, so I really hope
that if you haven't read Midnight Timetable, I hope that
you get a chance to recurse Bunny and your utopia as well.
So, yeah, thank you so much for,you know, being on my show,
(42:50):
Bora. Thank you for having me.
Hi everyone. So today I am joined with a
former guest. Her name is Bora Chung.
She's a Korean author based in the and based in Korea and she
was on my sub stack over a year ago.
I want to say that was when she released her last book on Your
(00:28):
Utopia. And Bora has released both Chris
Bunny and Your Utopia, and thesebooks have received critical
acclaim. And Bora is about to be on the
verge of releasing her upcoming novel, Midnight Timetable, a
novel and ghost story. This is your third time
(00:49):
collaborating with our good friend, author, translator Anton
Hurst. So first of all, thank you for
being on my show. And how have you been navigating
2025 so far? Hi, thanks for having me.
(01:09):
I've been, I don't think, I don't feel like I've been
navigating. I'm just like I'm swamped.
If I'm navigating, I'm doing it very haphazardly.
Yeah. I mean, I know it's kind of wild
(01:29):
that we are three months away from 2026.
It feels like a one day feels like 2025 feels like it's been
an eternity. And then other days it actually
feels like it's a blip of a radar.
So yeah, I, I can only imagine how how so many things have
happened and before you know what, we're already halfway
(01:51):
through this decade. So in your previous books you
have taken on issues such as AI,late stage capitalism, futurism,
through dark humor. There's always this very ominous
tone that you're sending throughyour do your writing.
(02:11):
What was your approach when you began writing Midnight
Timetable? The publisher said I could write
whatever I wanted to write. They didn't give me a topic or
any kind of direction. So I just wrote a lot of ghost
(02:34):
stories and I really, really enjoyed it.
I I got a lot of inspiration from The Legend of Three
Kingdoms and the The History of Three Kingdoms and the Legend of
Three Kingdoms. It's from the the both books are
(02:56):
from historical records from 5thcentury, 6th century all the way
up to like 9th century. So like early Middle Ages in
Korea. And they like all the historical
records from early Middle Ages. I think it's pretty much same
(03:19):
all around the world. Like people recorded actual
historical or real events along with fantastical happenings or
things that sound totally made-up with all the like wars,
(03:42):
famine or good crop, bad weather, all kinds of realistic
things. They were all recorded together
in these historical records. So it's, it's immensely
fascinating. I love them.
And I got a lot of inspiration from them and I kind of
incorporated a part of it too inIn Midnight Timetable.
(04:05):
It was fun. It was so much fun.
I'm also like wondering about ghost rays because I've always
been fascinated by the paranormal and also the
historical context of ghost stories.
But I'm very curious from the Korean perspective of how they
view ghosts in general, but alsohow how the stories of ghosts
(04:27):
actually in a way inform the writing that you do.
So Korean ghosts as far as I know fall into roughly 2
categories. Things that supernatural beings
(04:48):
that were never humans. So like the spirit of the
mountain, the fairy of the lake,the the dragon people, certain
parts of people from certain parts of Korea really, really
love dragon. And there are a lot of records
(05:08):
and a lot of stories about Dragons.
So those those beings were neverhuman.
And in the Korean concept of ghosts, they are all lumped
together with ghosts, meaning spirit from dead people, people
who were once alive, but now their bodies are the dead and
their spirits are roaming aroundthe world and, and haunting
(05:30):
people and places. Those are, they're all up
together. And this one word goes And I, I
like that kind of idea. And also Koreans were obsessed
with being married. So and the Korean thinking, if
you're not married and die, I mean, if you die a virgin,
(05:53):
especially then you're going to be a ghost.
You're, you're going to haunt, you're you're never going to go
to the the netherworld because because you've never like
consummated your life purpose. I guess so.
And it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman.
If you were a a guy who's never been married and died, then you
(06:16):
become a certain kind of ghost. And if you're a woman, you
become another kind of ghost. And there are like so many
stories about these ghosts. It's just so funny that careers
were so obsessed with getting married.
And that's a euphemism for, you know, something else.
(06:37):
I mean, you know. Yeah.
So like, and. And they were so obsessed with
heterosexual relationship. So in midnight timetable, I
turned to a slightly different direction.
So there's this guy who is gay and his family put him through
(07:00):
conversion therapy. And conversion therapy is not
very actively discussed in Korea, but I know it's happening
in Korea. And because it is not actively
discussed, it's like, I guess it's happening in certain part
of a very fundamentalist extremist religious groups and,
(07:26):
and unbeknownst to the rest of the the society.
So I wanted to talk about that. And also I wanted, I wanted the
minority, all kinds of minorities to be all happy.
And I wanted to kill all the badguys.
So yeah, that was a lot, a lot of fun killing bad guys.
(07:47):
I also want to say that I'm 42 years old and I'm still not
married and I don't really care to get married, so I don't know
what kind of ghost I will be, especially as a gay ghost.
I think I would be a very good kind of a ghost.
I guess I would love to haunt fascist people.
I mean, that would be my dream. So I don't know.
(08:10):
What about for you. Like what kind of ghost would
you be? The goal is to not haunt this
world, just just go wherever youhave to go and get away from all
these living people. But if I if I become a ghost, I
(08:32):
want to I want, I want to be a cat ghost.
I want to be a ghost who lives among the cats that.
Would be amazing. I would love to be a domestic
cat being reincarnated. I think that would be an ideal
goal of mine because I feel likeI do live the life of a cat.
And yeah, I've always been very fascinated by the paranormal and
(08:56):
also by the folklore surroundingit, too, especially around Asian
culture, which I have not been able to spend more time on.
But I've always been like, very fascinated, like Korea, when I
have lived there many moons ago.Christianity has continued to be
on the rise since the Korean War, and I'm very curious how
(09:20):
that in a way, has informed whatis happening in Korean society,
but also through your own writing too.
I'm very curious to know how that's also connected.
I try not to talk about Christianity as a whole in my
(09:44):
writing, but I do see a lot of problem with certain factions of
Christianity that is extremely active and very harmful in Korea
right now. And I actually had the bad luck
of, well, good fortune of going through, I, I had to walk
(10:08):
through like physically walk into their, their protest, their
demonstration. And that was March 1st, the day
of that big Korean independence protest that it was, that was
1919. So it was the 106th anniversary
(10:29):
of the biggest Korean independence protest in the 20th
century. And they were talking, they were
saying that Korea, the this preacher guy, I don't want to
call him a minister because he'snot a regularly like normally
ordained minister, but he calls himself the minister.
So he he was just preaching and he was giving a very loud sermon
(10:55):
and he was saying that Korea is weak and communists are trying
to attack us and Korea is a verysmall country.
North Korea is always trying to eat us up.
So we have to rely on the UnitedStates.
We have to rely on Japan. And what he was saying kind of,
(11:17):
I think it, it was realistic, itapplied to, it has certain truth
probably in 1965 or through 1969or so.
But like after the 1970s, that didn't really it, it, it didn't
(11:43):
really fit. And if I think about the Korea
in the 1980s where I was, I was actually alive and, and able to
like see things. I mean, what they were saying
didn't even apply to Korea in the 1980s.
(12:04):
And I had this very weird feeling that I, I didn't feel
threatened. I had this really weird feeling
that they were living in a different dimension, like they
were, they were literally livingin a different reality where
Korea is still this war-torn country.
People are starving and people are under threat of communism.
(12:28):
And somebody have to come. Somebody has to come, come
rescue us. And that somebody is going to
be, you know who, and I'm not going to say his name because I
don't like him and just no, it'snot going to happen that way.
But these people seem to believeit for some weird reason.
(12:53):
But the goal, the ultimate purpose, the goal of this
preacher guy was to make people subscribe.
I mean, subscribe to his his some kind of group that he made
where he where he accepts like subscription fees instead of
(13:17):
donation. So donation and tides are
voluntary. But this is a subscription fee.
So you have to, if once you subscribe, you have to pay a
monthly fee and he was trying tosell mobile phones, which is
also subscription based, you have to pay a monthly fee.
And he was advertising his credit card.
(13:41):
He, he had a, a contract with one of the biggest banks in
Korea. So he had this church credit
card and a certain percentage of, of the profit was supposed
to go to that church if you use that credit card.
So he was trying to like gather subscription for the mobile
(14:03):
phone, the his, his whatever information group or or SNS
group and this credit card. So it was, it was profit.
It was all profit. He was selling his faith to to
get to earn money. It was it was as dirty as it
(14:27):
could be. And that is where extreme alt
right self self acclaiming Christian, what are what they
say is Christianity, alt right Christianity is right now.
And they are very proud to call themselves the alt right.
(14:50):
So I'm not, I'm not being derogatory.
They call themselves the ultra the alt right or the ultra right
and that and they are very proudof it.
And they think that is the only way.
Like that is the only right righteous path.
Yeah, I think it's also very interesting to see the
connection between the ultra right evangelism to late stage
(15:16):
capitalism. I think this is there is such a
deep connection within the two. And I'm also like very curious
because like now that you bring this up, like Korea in the last
60-70 years since the Korean War, I mean, you see North Korea
and South Korea with two very different ideologies.
(15:37):
But there's also, you know, but I think in some ways we see
South Korea as the good person in this relationship.
It's a very binary, but what do you make of the binary versions
that are being fed about North and South Korea and in terms of
of its relationship but also butalso like in the world that we
(16:01):
live in? As I see it as North Korea is
not exactly a country, it's a cult.
It's a cult and South Korea is Iguess a little better because we
have the freedom to choose our own cults in this country.
(16:24):
Whereas in North Korea, like youhave to believe in this one
state chosen cult. So yeah, that's that's the
difference. So, so much has been happening
politically and socially in thisdecade already with the
pandemic, the war in Ukraine, what we are witnessing in Gaza,
(16:48):
and clearly with in the US for the Trump administration.
And while for you in Korea, you have seen a lot of political
chaos that has happened there. And I know that you've touched
on this, you know, earlier, but I'm also very curious, how do
all of these events impact your writing and the message that you
want to convey to audiences? It, it affects my writing very
(17:15):
negatively. It just takes up so much of my
time to go on protests and marches.
And you know, I, I like protesting and I like my
comrades. I love my comrades.
But last December when the crazyguy announced the Marshall Hall
(17:39):
that that was too much, like everything just stopped.
Everything stopped and all all of my people and myself had to
take to the streets with the kind of desperate fear that I
have never felt in my life. And that whole situation was was
(18:07):
resolved ultimately in April. So.
So we already lost like 1/3 of the year.
It was a giant waste of time, a giant waste of everybody's time
and energy. And I want, I want my three
(18:27):
months back and I want to sue the guy.
And people are actually suing him.
And they won the. So the first batch of people
started a class lawsuit against the former president and they
actually won. They, they actually did so.
(18:48):
And it depends on the plaintiff,not, not the, not the
perpetrator, but the victim. So if I claim myself as a victim
and start a new lawsuit, then I can apparently.
So I'm I'm I'm thinking about it.
(19:09):
I mean, I think that a lot of the American people would love
to have some tips about how to reclaim like the the last nine
months and then also like maybe four years of the Trump.
So yeah, I think we need like 5 years that we need to reclaim
back. I think it's, I think what's
(19:31):
interesting for you as a writer,especially in Korea, I'm also
like very curious about like as a writer, do you feel like
there's always the concern of censorship and the repercussions
of speaking out through your writing and through your social
media? I'm very curious from like an
(19:53):
artist perspective because you know, artists, you know, like,
you know, being Cambodian, Vietnamese, like a lot of
artists were killed because theywere seen as threats to.
To the regime, I'm very curious to see how that has been treated
in Korea. As far as I know, artists don't
(20:16):
feel physically threatened. That era is over.
I hope I, I really, sincerely hope that era is over.
I am no longer young and I quit my job so nobody can sack me.
And people are, especially men who are of the crime committing
(20:43):
age are generally not interestedin me because I'm too old.
So I have the relative freedom and I'm also married to a man,
so I conform to patriarchy. So I guess that makes me even
less interesting. So all of these elements
(21:05):
combined, I think I'm pretty lucky to feel not threatened.
And everything else I just ignore.
I don't read reader comments or any kind of comment about my
protests or my writing or anything because I'm sick and
tired of it all and I quit my job, so I'm not afraid of
(21:28):
anything. And you know, going back to like
midnight timetable, comparing itto your Utopia and cursed Bunny,
what did you decide to do differently this time, like from
a stylistic perspective and alsoin the way that you were trying,
the way that you're trying to inform your readers through this
(21:51):
particular book? Your utopia is entirely science
fiction, so that book is very different in and of itself.
It Midnight Timetable and Curse Bunny are different in that when
I was writing Curse Bunny, I wasvery confused and very angry,
(22:12):
but I didn't know why I was angry.
And I strongly believe that I was angry because because there
was something wrong with me and and my proof was that I was
confused. I'm other people don't seem to
be confused as I was and I'm confused so there must be
(22:34):
something wrong with me. But I don't know what is wrong
with me and therefore I was angry.
But with midnight timetable, I through all those protests, I
realized that maybe there is something wrong with me because
everybody's crazy, but I'm not as weird as I thought.
(22:55):
And some of my anger and confusion were actually
justified or validated by thingsI learned through protest and
and pride and all the good people that I met and all the
angry people I, I marched with. So midnight timetable is less
(23:16):
confusing, I think. Or I as a writer was less
confused when I was writing it, but I I was probably angry at
her because I know what confusedme.
But none of the problems are solved.
And if anything, I I'm seeing more problems and I got angrier
(23:40):
and now I have, I have heard real horror stories from real
life people who really have to go through life with disability
or with a different orientation or identity than the minority
than the majority or who are cutoff from family and are
(24:05):
demonized, etcetera, etcetera. So I think I, I hope midnight
timetable is a little high definition in that respect and
less confused, but as scary I hope.
(24:27):
You have teamed up with Anton her again for this book.
What conversations have you talked about with him and what
makes his translation special toyou?
I didn't have any conversation. When Anton finished, he he
(24:49):
complained to me that the tunnelscene was so damn scared me.
And he told me that when he first read it in Korean, it
wasn't really that scary. I mean, it wasn't that it didn't
really leave a specific impression, but while he was
(25:10):
translating, he really freaked out.
So he complained to me and that was about it.
That was part of the message that he had finished the first
draft. So that's about it.
I don't, I completely trust Anton.
I don't tell him what to do or what not to do.
(25:34):
And with your utopia, I made some mistakes with the sources,
the the citations were wrong. So Anton told.
Anton asked me why he couldn't find that specific text from
this specific literature. And so I fixed the problem.
(25:56):
But with this one that I I didn't have any sources or
citations so I that was not a problem.
So he just did it. And he also translated Red
Sword. It was published in the UK by
Hunt for Star and I translated his Toward Eternity into Korean.
(26:17):
So this is my 4th collaboration if you count all of them with
Anton both ways. Wow, Yeah, I think this is such
a beautiful collaboration. Also because I am biased.
I mean, I love Anton, you know, I've known him for years now and
and I just I marvel at his dedication and his commitment to
(26:43):
to literature and especially in the world of translation and how
critical that is, especially during the time of AI.
So shout out to Anton on this one.
And also like the last time we spoke, you mentioned how you
were virtually almost unknown inKorea when you released Curse
Bunny. How have you interacted with
Korean readers and how have theyreceived your work?
(27:12):
I don't know because as I said, I don't read reader comments and
I avoid like listening to my readers about their opinions.
I'm really sorry, but. And when I go give lectures at
I, I give a lot of lectures at public libraries and schools and
(27:38):
school's a little bit different,but at these library talks, at
the audience are usually people who like my work or people who
actually approach me and want totalk to me are people who like
my work. So I've met a lot of people who
(27:59):
told me they like this story or that story.
So I just tried to believe, I just tried to brainwash myself
that everybody loves me. And also a lot of my protest
buddies read my books and then they come to my talk.
(28:20):
So they, they told me that they,they, they actually told me that
they saw me at Pride or they sawme at this protest, or they
marched with me at that protest.I'm very, I am very, very proud
of them. I am proud of my readers who
protest with me. They're my comrades.
We're going to change the world.Oh, that is, that is awesome.
(28:41):
And I think what I also have been thinking about, especially
in this age of protest, there are while there are, you know,
plenty of writers worldwide, they're speaking out on the
current social injustices and genocide in Gaza, Congo and
(29:02):
Sudan. There are many that remain very
silent due to perhaps pressures from the publisher, losing
lucrative speaking deals and so forth.
What do you have to say to thosewriters who are still either
struggling to be vocal or that are choosing to stay on the
sidelines? I think being able to voice
(29:28):
one's opinion is a privilege. I can't really speak.
I mean, I, I don't know every single writer situation.
Some may, some may fear financial consequences and in
(29:52):
certain cases people may actually fear for their lives or
their safety. So I can't really say.
I mean, be choosing to stay silent is a a political act in
and of itself. Nobody can escape being
(30:13):
political in this day and age, whether by silence or by
speaking out or staying in the middle.
It would no matter what you do, you're going to be whatever you
do is going to be political because we are living in that
kind of world. But people do their best, and
(30:38):
only they know their own situation.
So I try not to condemn them. Yeah, that's all I can say.
I I do. I do me and they do them.
Yeah, because I think it's such an interesting climate right
now, especially for writers, that that there is this growing
(31:03):
pressure to speak out because writing is how we document our
history and how it's being how it will one day be received for
future generations. Do you feel a responsibility to
that as a writer? Do you feel this need to, to be
(31:24):
able to go against the grain andto you know, and to be able to
document even if it really does put your life in jeopardy,
whether it's financially or evenphysically, mentally?
I yeah, yes, of course. I, I was a teacher for 12 years.
(31:49):
I was a teacher for a lot longerthan I've been a full time
writer. So I, I still have the sense of
responsibility, especially when I think about the people who
used to be my students and who used to take my classes.
(32:12):
And back then I thought I didn'twant to feel ashamed in front of
my, my students. And now my students graduated
and some of them became teachersthemselves.
And I, like, I, I meet this one particular former student at
(32:35):
every protest, every single protest.
I see my student and I know thatI have grand students that I've
never met because my student is now a teacher.
I, I still have this vicarious sense of like responsibility
(32:57):
for, for the future generation. I and I have to make this world
a safer place. And I have to, I want to make
this world a more respectful space for everybody so that my
students and grand students can be free when they come out to
(33:22):
the world and try to live their lives.
That that is what I think. Well, we are surprisingly close
to being done with 2025. What, what are you currently
working on and what are you looking to do for the remainder
(33:42):
of this year going into next year?
I'm working on this story about migration.
This is supposed to be for youngadults.
I don't know how to write specifically for young adults,
so I just assume that they I'm going to suck and they're going
(34:04):
to hate me. Yeah.
And I have a lot of translationsto do and and a lot of protests
to do. That's that's the plan.
Yeah, I mean, I, I can only imagine like, especially in this
(34:25):
day and age that protesting is afull time job.
And it just seems to be, if it'snot one thing, it's another
thing. And I'm glad that you don't live
in America for that reason alonebecause I cannot imagine how
exhausting you would be. I mean, not to stay a career as
a walk in the park, but like, yeah, I think it's like, I guess
(34:47):
maybe put it this way. What are you observing about the
US in terms of their protest versus Korea?
I mean I have my opinions, but I'm very curious to know what do
you have you observed from from an outsider perspective of the
US and how they are responding? To fascism, people are I mean,
(35:12):
Americans are being creative, OK, they're surprisingly
creative. And once a a friend of mine, an
American friend who I I met in grad school and loved dearly
told me that she wants to go to these protests with her son, but
(35:33):
she is afraid that somebody might come to the protest with a
gun. And she lives in Texas.
So that, yeah, that was a revelation.
The gun control is very strict in Korea.
I, I never had that kind of worry in Korea ever at any
(35:55):
protest in Korea. But you're such, I mean, the
American, the US situation is very different.
And it depends on the region andthe state and the city.
So, you know, you, you have to be alive to to have an opinion.
So yeah, that, yeah, it just breaks my heart.
(36:23):
I know that, I know that it's been such a very difficult
conversation that we're having today.
But one last question that I have in mind is what gives you
joy? How do you take care of yourself
as a writer and also just tryingto survive in the society?
What are things that you have done to give yourself a level of
(36:44):
self-care and self preservation?I sleep a lot.
I sleep a lot and I drink a lot of oranges, orange juice and
love orange juice and eat a lot of pasta That that's pretty much
what I do. I I clean and I do the dishes
(37:06):
when I can't write. And today I just came back from
a protest. It was not a protest.
It was a celebration. One of the workers who was fired
by So there was this Japanese company and their factory caught
(37:31):
fire and then they dismissed everybody after the the factory
burned down. And then they got the insurance
money to, I mean big enough insurance money to rebuild the
entire factory. But they dismissed all the
workers and they refused to rehire anybody even though they
have another factory at a different city.
(37:54):
So 7 workers have been protesting to get their jobs
back and also protesting the special treatment of foreign
companies by the the Korean government.
It's like foreign companies can legally do this to Korean
(38:14):
workers, while Korean companies are not allowed to do the same
thing. Or they do the same thing.
But it sucks when a foreign company does it because they can
just pack up and go back home and and you're left jobless,
penniless, and nobody's going totake care of you.
So, and one of those workers went up to the roof of the
(38:37):
Burntown factory because the themother company in Japan wanted
to bulldoze the dismantle the entire factory and sell it to
somebody else. So she and two women went up the
roof and that was January 8th, 2024.
(38:59):
And one of them had had to come down because she got really
sick. And the other one stayed on the
roof for 600 days. She lived on the roof for one
year and eight months to tell the world that had the dismissal
was unfair. And this foreign companies,
(39:21):
these foreign companies, including the Japanese company,
are having special treatment from the Korean government.
And that is unfair. And she finally had a
conversation with the secretary of Labor today.
And the, she, one of the staff from the president's office came
(39:50):
to talk to her and a lot of members of the National Assembly
and she came down, she left the roof and she came down to earth
to us after 600 days. And I was so worried that she
(40:11):
might just pass out because of the heat on the roof.
I was, I was really, really worried.
And I was getting more and more worried because the heat is just
not going away. It's.
It's the end of August, so it should be like the beginning of
autumn, but that didn't happen. It's still really hot, like it's
(40:34):
100° hot in Korea and it's about130° on the rooftop.
And she's been living there for a year and eight months.
So I was really worried that shecame down today.
She's now in the hospital and getting checked up and being
taken care of. And that was a great victory for
all of us because she, I finallytalked to the Ministry of Labor,
(40:58):
the President's office, NationalAssembly.
And they all, they, they all promise to make changes.
And we have to see, we have to wait and see if that's really
going to happen. And if it doesn't happen, then
we are going to protest the hellout of them.
But we're now for today. It's a good day.
(41:25):
I just want to say like, you know, I'm very excited about how
people are going to receive midnight timetable and I hope
that for my audience that you can pick up a copy from your
local bookstore online or at your library, or at least talk
to your library to to make sure that they have a copy.
(41:47):
I was wondering if there's any last things that you would like
to say about midnight timetable,Anything that we might have
missed in the conversation, Anything that audiences should
really think about? You and me books are trying to
(42:07):
get more pre-orders so they theyasked me to make a little video
promoting the night timetable and you and me books and I love
you and me books. I love you and me books.
Me too. So yeah, please pre-order you
and me books. Thank you.
Thank you so much and Laura, it's been great, you know,
(42:29):
talking with you and you know, this has been such a great
conversation. I love your humor.
I love the irony that you have in your story, so I really hope
that if you haven't read Midnight Timetable, I hope that
you get a chance to recurse Bunny and your utopia as well.
So, yeah, thank you so much for,you know, being on my show,
(42:50):
Bora. Thank you for having me.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.