Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I grew up in Africa surrounded by a lot of culture. It's made me aware that the world is a big place.
Japan, Germany, and India seem to me to have serious writers, readers, and book buyers, but the Netherlands has struck me as the most robust literary culture in the world.
My dad's quite a conservative person, and he brought me up to be very questioning of the commercial world. He looked down on pop culture. I definitely got the impression that pop was evil and that Britney Spears was evil.
If you ask me, I'd say what the world now considers K-Pop began with SM Entertainment. SM was the very first company to take musical influences from Western culture and incorporate Korean culture into that by rearranging and writing lyrics with our style.
I grew up in a cloistered, conservative culture that adhered to strict gender roles. So it's easy to understand why the 'girl dressed as a boy' trope resonated so much. In a world that didn't want to give people like me adventures or significance, books with cross-dressing girls were treasures.
When I went to Egypt right after 9/11 I was very upset. I used to live in Egypt. I had a lot of friends there. I spent two years teaching there. I had very fond feelings for that part of the world, and the fact that a culture I liked so much had attacked my own culture was really very upsetting to me.