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Title: The Koreans : Who They Are, What They Want, Where Their Future Lies by Michael Breen ISBN: 0-312-24211-5 Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books Pub. Date: 28 December, 1999 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.71 (21 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: one of terrible books about Korea
Comment: Before reading this book titled something about Korea, I was misinformed by the authority of its publisher as a well-known and good publishing company. And it is regretfully true that I was attracted to the bookcover's information of the book and the author as a reporter or a correspondent for several authoritative newspapers like the Guardian and the Times in addition to the Washington Times(?).
As some reviewers already wrote here before, however, this book is colored with severe ethnocentrism and cultural prejudice. When I found the critical reviews after reading this book, I could not help agreeing with the reviews too.
The author has several assumptions probably coming from his cultural prejudice. For example, "Corruption is a fact of life in Asia"(p. 238). This is just one example of his troublesome convictions framing his mind. Some non-Asian readers may enjoy hearing this kind of culturally distingushig but dubious remarks again and again from a seemingly regional 'expert'(?). The author also may enjoy being convinced of his own cultural supremacy, in which he has been grown up, by repeatedly suggesting this kind of [thing] as matters of facts.
This book is full of such ungrounded and mystifying assumptions the author believes as facts and truths about an "oriental" entity called "Korea" accroding to the author. I don't buy it as a Korean citizen who has lived in Korea for more than 30 years and now study in a US grad school.
In addition to such problems in the author's cultural essentialism or prejudice, the author seems to play some tricks in his book. Even though at the beginning part he pretends to show more or better points than the naively negative desctiptions of Korea suggested especally in the early 20th century travel records by Western authors while ignoring more significant materials showing the opposite descriptions except for Bishop's, he just repeats and reinforces such negative coloring of Korea searching for as many and new weird things as he can in an exaggerating way.
Of course, there are some fragmented facts in his descriptions. But biased facts and exaggerations based on his severe cultural prejudice transform his facts into half-truths, which are in many cases worse than non-truths or even ignorance as wise people already know. Thus, in the concluding part of each chapter, you can find his disgust at the object of his description while he pretends to be a neutral (or even positive) observer. I take the problem of such pretension in this book seriously. And his negative coloring can be just a habit of his cynicism coming from his backgrounds(?) as some reviewer underestimates this. But his description goes further than just this.
And this book seems to be a refined version of the story of "Koreans as dog-eating people. In this way, you can describe some people as "cat-eating###", "horse-eating @@@", "snail-eating &&&" and "hooligan-like %%%" in more refined versions without hesitation. But it seems that behind the problem of severe prejudice, the author's cultural or even racial arrogance exists, which he himself is not be concious of.
I think that this kind of terrible description comes in part from his job as a journalist. There are more critical or even exceptionally negative topics than the opposite cases in newspapers, such as killing, violence, bribery, accidents etc, and he just picks them up and easily combines and generalizes from them. Thus comes the conclusion. This is "Korea"! This is the "Koreans"! Trust me!
He probably fails in balancing his picking-up processes, and he seems to lack some self-reflection of his own backgrownds, cultural or historical.
I hope somebody writes more up-dated and balanced introduction because Korea is a society changing so fast, which makes this book's some descriptions of people's specific attitutes or behaviors during the 80s or even the 90s seem to be already archaic if not misinformed, which he considers as unchanging over time.
I rather would like to recommend Cumings' book Korea's Place in the Sun, or Don Oberdorfer's Two Koreas because both escape culturally shallow essentialism. About the history, I think that Lee Ki-baik's book is better than Eckert et al.'s because the latter does not reveal its bibliographies and original cources it actually used and cited even though both are recommendable.
I think that some Korean (American?) reviewers who rated this book good below just show their ignorance of things in Korea or naivete believing too much a British journalist's expert authority without thinking with their own brain.
I hope that the author has enough self-reflection and less arrogance and prejudice before writing something of others in an introducing way.
Rating: 5
Summary: Breen's on target - ignore the naysayers!
Comment: Am somewhat surprised at the negative tones of some of the reviews below, which appear to be predicated on opinions that the book is is in some way insulting to Koreans, is too British, or is non-academic.
As regards the first point, it is worth noting that the positive reviews appear to be from people currently in Korea, or, indeed from Koreans themselves. It is worth further noting that the book became a bestseller in its Korean translation ("Hankukin-ul Mal Handa"- literally, "Talking about Koreans" - which may actually be a more accurate title for the book than the English version). This reviewer personally taught this book at Seoul's Ewha Women's University as part of a course on Western writings on Korea, and the students were very pro.
Too British? Perhaps - but the British compararisons and frame of reference are familiar to most English-speaking readers, and Breen's writing style and sense of humor are - to me anyway - pluses.
Indeed, it is not an academic work - but nor does it claim to be. As a commentary it is far more readable than most tomes sitting on dusty universtiy library shelves.
Finally, to the reviewer who states that Breen's referencing of driving habits to the national psyche are fatuous, I would suggest that his analogy is right on target. When driving, Koreans fall outside the essential social circles (family, school, home-town, etc) that govern and, indeed, make up Korean society - so the resultant chaotic, competitive and often ugly conditions offer an up-close look at how Koreans operate when they are supposedly regulated by law - rather than customary social obligations.
But enough about previous reviews. For anyone seeking an general, engaged, personalized but insightful and enjoyable look at the Koreans - this book fits the bill.
Rating: 4
Summary: Witness North Korea
Comment: Breen's book is a brilliant insight into an incredibly complex and confused culture. I would recommend it highly. The only drawback (and it is minor because it can be gleaned from other books) is a lack of discussion of how two thousand years of despotism resulted in a country completely destroyed from within. And what affect that had on the daily behavior of Koreans towards each other. Combine Breen's book with Wandering in Northern China by Harry A. Franck if you can find it, and you will see how far the Koreans have come since 1905 when occupied by the Japanese. The first five chapters of Franck's book describe his experience in Korea. You will be amazed by how far they have come in such a short time. Then again, considering the massive importation of Western ideas and funds, it would be a surprise if they didnt, given their Confucian imperative for education. And that explains a lot about what is happening today. Korea is a confused culture because just as the Kuwaiti's are straddling the 8th century culturally while using the wealth and technology of the 21st handed to them by the west, so the Koreans are steeped in Shamanism (equivalent to an African "Witch Doctor" tradition) while incorporating and overlaying 21st Century business, technological and philosophical concepts. It is a pool of swirling contradictions that plague the Korean psyche. The Koreans did not experience the thousand years of a gradual increase in freedom and technological advancement experienced by the West since the Magna Carta. They do not have the historical underpinnings of the ancient greek and roman civilizations. Their philosophical underpinnings are Confucian and Buddhist vs. Aristotelian in the West. They were freed from Japanese domination in 1945. Half of them were again freed from a threatened communist domination in 1952. They never knew any form of freedom until after 1945. They have experienced a very limited form since then having only had democratic elections for a few decades. And they have gradually and begrudgingly come into the 20th Century of western thought but just barely and only as much as needed to copy and run western-style businesses and acquire western technology. And billions in foreign aid has been pumped into Korea by the West and only because they were at a demarcation point, a line in the sand drawn by the west that the North was told not to cross, did they get this money.
The critical passage on page 75 (hardcover) in the Breen book is where he describes the basic personal and political interaction patterns followed by Koreans: they have learned to interact "through warfare, strategic subservience and sullen resistance". They know no other way of social intercourse. These are all characteristics of manipulation which are the only way to deal with thugs who have absolute and total control over your life. These methods of personal interaction were developed over thousands of years to protect themselves from the thug-like, gang-like despots who ruled over them. Might makes right. And that is exactly what North Korea is doing to the west today. Instead of taking responsibility for their behavior and changing their ways, they continue to embrace a destructive economic system (communism - which is simply despotism propped up in another ideological guise. just as buddhism was brought into korea to mollify the common man suffering under the yoke of despots, so the ideology of communism is used to justify the living conditions in the north). They are simply using the traditional methods of korean manipulation to get free money from the west. they threaten warfare or else. sometimes they are sullen, sometimes they are sweetly, aquiesingly subservient. it is all part of the same game. Breen's real insight is in recognizing this. And that is why Koreans have such a difficult time when they leave Korea and try to integrate into western cultures and why they stick together so much. They simple do not have the cultural tools to communicate with westerners on their level. And Breen points this out when he says that his friends who are fluent in both Korean and English, argue in English because Korean is not a language predominantly of logic but predominantly of emotion, status, and subservience. The Korean and the westerner are not even on the same page. westerners typically do not respond well to such childish manipulation, we prefer a more logical method (or a more subtle form of manipulation). and that is the great dilemma for most Koreans who come west. the two cultures, one of ancient shamanism and one of the enlightenment (aristotelianism), are fundamentally incompatible and if we attempt to reconcile them both within the same personality, it simply leads to massive confusion and contradiction. Either one or the other has to go - sorry to all those multiculturalists out there.
Therefore it will take a long time for Korea to truly enter the modern world. It also explains their economic collapse. When modern technology meets primitive superstition and the country in which both are trying to co-exist no longer gets the cash handouts that enables the contradiction to continue, it collapses like a ponzy scheme. It is the ideas of the west that enable it to create and sustain modern civilization, technology, etc., not the other way around. One cannot maintain an advanced culture and technology on a foundation of irrationality. something has to give. and as long as Koreans cling to their ancient ways of superstition and manipulation, they will continue to struggle. And Breen's book exposes much of this.
I can also understand why it angers so many. It isn't something on which a lot of pride can be based. But all these issues will eventually go away without all that much effort. As western ideas, music, technology, McDonald's, Harley's, BMWs, Mercedes, Gucci handbags, bluejeans, etc, take over Korean culture, and all the old Koreans die out, it will be pretty tough for a Korean, riding a Harley, wearing jeans, smoking a camel and listening to Bruce Springsteen, with a kid who plays the violin and attends Yale, to say how much they dislike the west and everything it stands for. Just as good money drives out bad, so good ideas drive out the bad. Shamanism will fall before Christianity and the irrational manipulation of the Korean method will be supplanted by the logic of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. And Breen's book, by exposing much of what makes Korean's tick, will hasten that process.
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Title: The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History (Revised and Updated Edition) by Don Oberdorfer ISBN: 0465051626 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 05 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $21.00 |
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Title: Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History by Bruce Cumings ISBN: 0393316815 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: February, 1998 List Price(USD): $20.60 |
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Title: Lonely Planet Korean Phrasebook (Korean Phrasebook, 3rd Ed) by Minkyoung Kim, J. D. Hilts ISBN: 1740591666 Publisher: Lonely Planet Pub. Date: May, 2002 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Korea Old and New: A History by Carter J. Eckert, Ki-Baik Lee, Michael Robinson ISBN: 0962771309 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: August, 1991 List Price(USD): $28.50 |
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Title: Korea (Culture Shock!) by Sonja Vegdahl Hur, Ben Seunghwa Hur, Ben Seunghua Hur, Sonja Bernice Vegdahl ISBN: 1558686215 Publisher: Graphic Arts Center Publishing Co. Pub. Date: March, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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