Guests communicate at a roundtable discussion during the Global Times "Reading Through the Seasons" China-South Korea Literature Salon in Beijing on October 29, 2025. Photo: Chen Tao/GT

Chinese and South Korean guests communicated on reading and literary exchanges between the two countries during a roundtable session at the event.

Reading begins with our neighbors, said Dong Xi. Many of our literature courses today take a long detour before paying attention to East Asian authors. Yet when we read South Korean works, there's a sense of familiarity: We share the same roots, our cultures are similar, and the issues we face are often alike. The most important aspect of universality lies in humanity: If a work embodies genuine human emotions, it will move readers all over the world.

Yin Hanchao said that, from a translator's perspective, Chinese translators were already thinking about how to better translate Chinese works for the world more than a century ago. For a nation to have the vision and confidence to present its own works to the world for others to appreciate, judge, or even critique, that in itself is a true expression of cultural confidence.

In Kim Tae-sung's view, language is the vessel of culture, and the only means to digest it is through reading. He said Chinese author Liu Zhenyun's novels possess a kind of narrative humor, while Dong Xi's works are remarkable for their skillful use of metaphor. Both are distinctive qualities of Chinese writers. South Korean literature should engage in deeper exchanges with Chinese literature, he said. 

As a novelist, Lee Jee said we should foster closer literary exchanges through fiction. Only works written with tears and blood can evoke true empathy among people around the world - that's how they travel beyond borders. 

According to Cui Youxue, for translators, all literary history is essentially a history of translation. He believes translators have made great contributions to the development of national literatures, languages, and even to the formation of nations themselves. Reading, in turn, is a form of spiritual communication: A good novel can profoundly move the heart, and those who read feel spiritually fulfilled every day.