Sunday, February 13, 2011

book, A Year in Pyongyang

A Year in Pyongyang by the late  Andrew Holloway.

There's a link to buy the book at Tim's  website: http://sites.google.com/site/nihilistorguk/_ This offers other items of interest too,  including:
* a Kanji font of his devising; and
* his own travelogue of a visit to the DPRK in  2002.

Alternatively, you can order A Year in  Pyongyang directly at
_http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/a-year-in-pyongyang/14737249_

In the UK the price is just ?4.93, plus ?2.99  postage.
(I gather that US dollar and euro prices, also  modest, are applied if you order from outside the UK.) If you prefer a downoad, this will cost you the princely sum of ?0.66! That's barely a dollar, and less than a  euro.

The books are made to order, which takes 3-5  days.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

short fiction collection

via koreaweb.ws on Feb. 8:
 
...*Waxen Wings: The* Acta Koreana *Anthology of Short Fiction from Korea*, edited by
Bruce Fulton and published in the United States by Koryo Press.

[short extract from the editor's introduction]

The short story has been the genre of choice for writers of literary fiction
in modern Korea and it continues to thrive in the new millennium. *Waxen
Wings: The* Acta Koreana *Anthology of Short Fiction from Korea* offers a
diverse sampling from a century of modern Korean short fiction, beginning
with stories from two early masters (Yi Hyos?k and Ch'ae Manshik) and ending
with works by four of the most imaginative contemporary writers (Kim Y?ngha,
Ha S?ngnan, P'y?n Hyey?ng, and Kim Chunghy?k). In between are the two
writers who are primarily responsible for the visibility enjoyed by Korean
women fiction writers today (O Ch?ngh?i and Pak Wans?), and a writer, Kim
W?nil, who has made it his lifework to address the territorial and spiritual
division of the Korean peninsula. The title of the anthology, from Ha
S?ngnan's 1999 story, suggests the transcendental qualities of the finest
Korean short fiction.

The book can be purchased on-line from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Monday, January 3, 2011

official titles during Joseon times

 list of all official titles (via KoreanStudies e-list)

1. http://blog.daum.net/_blog/BlogTypeView.do?blogid=07zRU&articleno=13222003&categoryId=373242®dt=20090807211630#ajax_history_home


2. ????? without job description
http://people.aks.ac.kr:7080/front/tabCon/tabConGanadaList.aks?conType=POS&classCode=MN&choiceGanada=%EB%8B%A4&isEQ=true&kristalSearchArea=P

Thursday, December 30, 2010

e-Digital Asia projects at U. Oregon

cross-posting from e-list, KoreanStudies:
University of Oregon e-Asia Digital Library

...the University of Oregon Libraries are embarked on numerous digital projects, one of which is the e-Asia Digital Library located at http://e-asia.uoregon.edu/ ...The materials available for Korea (pre-1950 Korea is identified with South Korea in the indexing) are both ancient and modern, and in a variety of formats, pdf and Microsoft Reader mainly. Particularly valuable are the single articles from rare journals, including the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch, also a few from The Korean Repository. I have included a short list of about 60 of the titles available in PDF format in my list of Old Books About Korea   http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/BooksKorea.htm  because the U Oregon page does not seem to offer that kind of overview, you need to search by category etc.

Brother Anthony at Sogang University / Dankook University / RASKB

Monday, December 20, 2010

maps & koryo period (medieval times)


[reply on e-list for KoreaStudies]
Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010
Subject: Re: [KS] inquiry of Koryo period during the Yuan period

Mapmakers are not comfortable with ambiguity. Koryo was largely autonomous in its internal affairs, but had been incorporated into the Mongol empire and therefore was under the overall authority of the Yuan dynasty. The reason why Silla and Choson are shown as independent countries on maps and Koryo during the Mongol period is not is that the Mongols exercised much more control over Koryo than Tang ever did over Silla or Ming and Qing ever did over Choson. A careful mapmaker might try to draw the distinction between fully independent countries and countries that are autonomous within a larger empire by using dotted lines for the border between Koryo and the territory the Mongols ruled directly, and solid lines to distinguish the Yuan empire from countries it never drew into its orbit. Did that map do that?
---D Baker, Professor at the University of British Columbia

More details, 20 Dec 2010: G. Ledyard
...No doubt the Mongols probably had the general idea that Korea was theirs. From 1231 to 1259 they struggled without success to overthrow the Koryo state, which, with its governing institutions secure from assault on Kanghwa Island, maintained its weakened hold on the peninsula. In 1259 the Mongols succeeded in forcing the capitulation of King Kojong, and sending his eldest son and heir to Peking, where he was married to a Mongol princess and made to establish his household in Peking. Within two months Kojong had died, and the heir then returned to take the Koryo throne as King Wonjong (r. 1269-1274), while leaving his own son and heir in Peking in his own princely household with HIS brand new Mongol princess-wife.

For almost a hundred years this process repeated itself. The uxorilocal matrimonial institution was a widely used strategy by the Mongols to keep control of conquered territories by keeping the heirs of their various rulers hostage in Peking, where they would grow up speaking both Mongolian and Korean and even assuming Mongol names. But in Korea, on the record, they kept the royal Koryo surname, Wang. As each king died or abdicated, his Mongolized heir and his Mongol queen would replace the preceeding royal couple. This situation continued until 1356, when King Kongmin militarily succeeded in expelling the Mongols from Korea. By that time they were a weak and dying regime.

So during all that time and through all those sucessions, the Koryo dynasty, through the suceeding male heirs to the throne, maintained its existence, and also the laws, institutions, and the Korean-staffed bureaucracy that governed Koryo. For a few decades in the late 1200s the northwestern area of the Korean peninsula had been formally annexed to the Yuan dynasty, but that was discontinued before the century ended. Cheju, earlier declared a direct Mongol holding, was also restored to Koryo around that time. Finally the Hamgyong coastal area was also Mongol territory throughout most the occupation, but those lands were recouped by King Kongmin in 1356. But from 1259 to 1356, the Koryo dynasty existed and governed, and retained the key populated areas of the nation, though with Mongols watching the situation.

Though the Mongols had the capability to seize the whole country, in fact they never did.Even if Khubilai Khan, who after all was Emperor of Yuan dynasty China, had resorted to the Chinese tributary system to maintain a controlled relationsip with the Korean kingdom, that institution would still not have dissolved the Koryo state. For all of its embarrasing elements of superior-to-inferior relationships, its general purpose was to recognize such outlying countries and to relate to them using its power and prestige rather than its military to run them as Chinese colonies, while offering them peaceful access to China's markets and culture. From China's point of view, this offered much more stability than if they had tried to rule the smaller states themselves. And it was certainly cheaper than having to support armies to conquer and repress unhappy neighbors.

Thus Korea, which for the Chinese dynasties of the last thousand years was considered the most important and highest ranking tributary in the system, actually had a practical interest in maintaining this relationship, with Korea remaining a Korean kingdom with a Korean king, governed by Korean laws and a Korean bureaucracy.The relationship of China to Korea was very different than its relationship to some other nearby ethnicities. During the Qing dynasty, for instance, administration of the Korea relationship, and the tributary system in general, was the responsibility of the Board of Rites, while its relationship with many of its ethnic minorities and/or neighbors, such as the Uighurs, Mongols, and Tibetans, was administered by the Lifanyuan, an entirely different institution with different goals.

When one talks with ordinary Chinese people, one finds that they often have the idea that because Korea was a tributary state of China it was also a part of China. The fact that Korea in the dynastic days was a paragon of Chinese culture, Confucian values, and a master of its classical language might explain such impressions. But one wonders if they have not unconsciously assumed that all near neighbors are in the same category. But today China recognizes two Koreas and deals with them in terms of international protocol, while the situation with the Uighurs, Inner Mongolians, and Tibetans is still pretty much a continuation of the Qing dynasty.

Friday, November 12, 2010

film collection (listings, UCLA)

The Korean Heritage Library of the University of Southen California has thousands of Korean films and dramas, thanks to the Korean Collections Consortium of North America grants from the Korea Foundation.  To see USC's extensive Korean film collections, please go to the following site, maintained by my colleague, Sun-Yoon Lee:

http://libguides.usc.edu/content.php?pid=19365&sid=143425
 
Recent acquisitions are listed at the top.  Collection listings include the categories:
> Korean American Videos
> North Korean Documentary
> North Korean Feature Films
> South Korean Documentary
> South Korean Feature Films
 
Joy Kim, Curator
Korean Heritage Library, East Asian Library
University of Southern California
Joy Kim, joykim@usc .dotedu
 
--cf. another e-list response to this subject,
http://sites.google.com/site/vsdjklsdbmasas/dhma4x

Friday, September 10, 2010

collection of images, mainly 1930s

Postcard Collection. The collection is part of our open-access digital archive called Lafayette College East Asia Image Collections. The Lin
Collection consists of 370 Japanese postcards, mostly depicting scenes from 1930s Japan and Taiwan, but with some images of from Korea and
Chinahttp://digital.lafayette.edu/collections/eastasia

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Koguryeo battle of 612 A.D.

Q. Studying for history of Korea I run into the battle between Koguryeo and Sui dinasty's China of 612 A.D.
 
A. Sources to consult (besides the Samguk Sagi)
Asmolov, Konstantin V. "The System of Military Activity of Kogury?." Korea Journal 32:2 (Summer 1992): 103-116.
Gabriel, Richard A. and Boose, Donald W. "The Korean Way of War: Salsu River." In Richard A. Gabriel and Donald W. Boose. The Great Battles of Antiquity: A Strategic and Tactical Guide to Great Battles that Shaped the Development of War. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1994.
 
Wikipedia (if you read Chinese or Korean compare those Wikipedia entries, too)
Search also under Battle of the Salsu River. Try also looking under Eulji Mundeok

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

DPRK and YouTube

via the morning radio program at NPR (cf. the youtube search string, DPRK)

North Korea Joins Twitter, YouTube

North's government-run website announced it has a Twitter account and a YouTube channel.
 
[searching "channels" maybe this one, http://www.youtube.com/user/supernorthkorea]

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

educator resources, supplementary list of links

Publications and Educational Articles

-          Korean Heritage (Quarterly from the Cultural Heritage Administration)

o        http://www.english.cha.go.kr

-          Koreana - Art and Culture (Quarterly magazine of the Korea Foundation)

o        http://www.koreana.or.kr

-          Korea (Monthly magazine of the Korean Culture and Information Service)

o        http://www.korea.net

 

Teaching Resources

-          Korean Spirit & Culture Promotion Project, http://www.kscpp.net

-          Asia Educational Media Service,  http://www.aems.illinois.edu/

-          Asia for Educators, http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/

-          The Korea Foundation, http://www.kf.or.kr/

-          The Korea Society, http://www.koreasociety.org/k-12_resources/

-          World Affairs Council Teacher Resource Packets Online

o        http://www.world-affairs.org/globalclassroom/resourcepackets.htm


Current News about Korea

-          The Korea Herald Online,  http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/

-          Korea.net,  http://www.korea.net/news.do

Current and Pop Culture

-          Korean Film,  http://www.koreanfilm.org

-          Korean Pop Culture,  http://www.seoulstyle.com/culture.php

-          Go Korea! http://www.asiaeducation.edu.au/sites/gokorea/index1.html

Friday, August 6, 2010

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

about British efforts in Korean War

via the KoreanStudies e-list today:

  Max Hastings The Korean War1987
  Mark Phythian, The Labour Party, War and International Relations 1945-2006
(Routledge, 2007),
  Clement Attlee (his memoirs), As it Happened, 1954.
  Kenneth O. Morgan, Labour in Power 1945?51, Oxford University Press, 1984;
  Alan Bullock, Life and Times of Ernest Bevin, Politicos Publising in 2002.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

book, Korea collections, Smithsonian Institution

Flagship of a Fleet, A Korean Gallery Guide
Dr. Paul Michael Taylor and Christopher Lotis
Asian Cultural History Program, Smithsonian Institute
ISBN 078-0-9724557-0-1

Flagship of a Fleet: A Korea Gallery Guide ...serves as a companion guide to the Korea Gallery, an on-going exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. The Korea Gallery presents a millennia of history and its distinctive culture through ceramics, paintings, textiles, and sculptures, ranging from the 6th century B.C.E.

Introducing Korea to a broad audience, the guidebook highlights and identifies the objects on exhibit, many of them previously unpublished. The book includes an introduction to the Smithsonian's Asian Cultural History Program and its Korean Heritage Project, founded in 1985. It provides a historical context and background of how the Korea Gallery exhibition
developed within an integrated curatorial program. The authors consider this exhibition the flagship of a fleet of related activities in the field of Korean heritage, including research, education, outreach, public programs and the development and improvement of museum collections.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

links to Journals & Centers

from the LINKs page at http://actakoreana.kmu.ac.jp
 
Journals

The Review of Korean Studies
Academy of Korean Studies
Korea Journal Korean National Commission for UNESCO
Journal of Korean Studies Korean Studies Program at Stanford University
Journal of Korean Studies Korean Studies Program at University of Washington
International Journal of Korean History Korea University
Korean Studies Review Korean Studies Internet Discussion List
Korean Literature Today Korean Center, Int'l P.E.N. English tr. of modern Korean lit.
Korean Studies University of Hawaii
Sungkyun Journal of East Korean Studies Sungkyunkwan University
Seoul Journal of Korean Studies Kyujanggak Inst for Korean Sts at Seoul Nat'l U.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

colonial days - film versions

via the koreanstudies-web e-list [thanks to Todd Henry]
 
"2009 Lost Memories," "YMCA Baseball Club," "Once Upon a Time," "Radio Days," "Modern Boy," "The Korean Peninsula," "Epitaph," and "Asako in Ruby Shoes," to name a few.

documentaries,  "Annyong, Sayonara" and "Choi Sunghee: The Korean Dancer,"
both available on DVD.
 

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

content for eBook reading

extract from KoreaToday story: ...On April 20, KT fired up the e-book open market with the launch of QOOK Book Café (http://bookcafe.qook.co.kr), which provides diverse content such as books, comics and magazines on a range of terminals including computers, e-book readers and smart phones.

Friday, May 28, 2010

popular culture in Korea & E.Asia

(free online access) of Monash University Press's Complicated Currents: Media Flows, Soft Power
and East Asia
, a collection of studies on Korean and East Asian popular culture

book, http://www.epress.monash.edu/cc
abstract, http://www.epress.monash.edu/cc/about.html

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Korean War color photos

Sixty of Rich's photos are on display May-June, 2010 in Seoul. His book will be in two editions, (in Korean & in English) with the complete series of pictures.
Korean War in Color: A Correspondent's Retrospective on a Forgotten War By John Rich 170 color photos. 248 pages. Seoul Selection. 60,000 won.
A good sampling and article about them can be viewed at
http://www.seoulselection.com/index.php/article/single/korean-war-in-color/

The actual book is e-published (turnable pages) as well at
http://issuu.com/seoulselection/docs/koreanwarincolor_1

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

small North Korean atlas

small North Korean atlas, Joseon Jidocheob (Atlas of Korea), 
Pyongyang, 1997, http://www.scribd.com/doc/30485687/North-Korean-Atlas

Monday, April 12, 2010

online re: DPRK

http://38north.org and http://www.nk-news.net, which makes KCNA  searchable.

Friday, April 2, 2010

islanders between N & S Koreas

Islanders Aim For Normalcy In North Korea's Shadow

April 1, 2010 An island in the Yellow Sea is the base of operations to find 46 missing South Korean sailors from a navy ship that went down March 26 after a mysterious explosion. Baengnyeong Island is about 10 miles from North Korea's west coast. Its residents try to live ordinary lives — but are among the first to suffer when tensions rise. [Nat'l Public Radio 1 April 2010]

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

seeking statistics

Statistics available from the Korea website http://kosis.kr/
--Example:

The literacy rate in colonial Korea, according to statistics, was
geographically very uneven. In 1930, the national average was 49% for
men and 11% for women (age 12 and above). In Seoul, however, 80% of
men and 44% of women could read and write Korean, and in P'yongyang
83% of men and 40% of women. Plus, about 53% of men and 15% of women
in Seoul were bilingual.

The most comprehensive compilation of statistics for colonial Korea in
English, still, is Andrew Grajdanzev's Modern Korea. Here is a Google
Books link: http://books.google.com/books?id=5jp8-KKy6eAC&dq=modern+korea&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Sunday, March 14, 2010

all articles from Korean newspapers

The Korean Press Foundation (KPF) provides an index of all articles of Korean newspapers. Their KINDS service is well-known among Korean mass communication and journalism scholars. http://www.kpf.or.kr/index2.html [Korean Language website]

Friday, March 5, 2010

old photos 1950s-1970s Seoul

photographs of an impoverished Cheongyecheon in 1965 - and a wealth of other images of Seoul in the 1950s-70s, http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=611726&page=4

Friday, February 19, 2010

Korea and her neighbors [1897 pub.]

Korea and her neighbors; a narrative of travel, with an account of the recent vicissitudes and present position of the country, by Isabella Bird Bishop ... With a preface by Sir Walter C. Hillier ... With illustrations from photographs by the author ... Bird, Isabella L. (Isabella Lucy), 1831-1904.New York, Revell, 1897.
(Full text) on GoogleBooks

Monday, February 8, 2010

old photos from Korea

gathered by Henny (Lee Hae Kang)
-----------------------------
http://www.henny-savenije.pe.kr Portal to all my sites
http://www.cartography.henny-savenije.pe.kr (in English) Korea
through Western Cartographic eyes
http://www.hwasong.henny-savenije.pe.kr Hwasong the fortress in Suwon
http://www.oldKorea.henny-savenije.pe.kr Old Korea in pictures
http://www.british.henny-savenije.pe.kr A British encounter in Pusan (1797)

Thursday, January 21, 2010

old maps of Korea/chosen Kingdom

via koreaweb.ws on Jan. 20, 2010; announced by
Angie Cope, Senior Academic Librarian
American Geographical Society Library - UW Milwaukee Libraries
2311 E. Hartford Avenue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201 USA

AGS Library map: 1861 Territorial Map of the Great East online

view all 22 sheets, 1 index sheet and 1 composite map:
http://collections.lib.uwm.edu/u?/agdm,828

OTHER MAPS OF INTEREST

Haejwa Jondo or [A native map of Chosen] -
http://collections.lib.uwm.edu/u?/agdm,604

Whole map of Seoul, 2nd Book - http://collections.lib.uwm.edu/u?/agdm,605

Yeojido [atlas of Korea from between 1823-1869] - 
http://collections.lib.uwm.edu/u?/agdm,705

Shannon McCune and George C. Foulk Photographs of Korea -
http://www4.uwm.edu/libraries/digilib/agsphoto/index.cfm
cf. http://old-koreaphotos.wikispaces.com

see also, Nov 20, 2009 symposium "Korean maps of the 19th Century"
http://www4.uwm.edu/libraries/AGSL/korean_maps.cfm

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Academy for Korean Studies - online content

via the KoreanStudies e-list of January 12, 2010:

...the Academy of Korean Studies has started to distribute their wealth of premodern historical
data under a Creative Commons license. For one example, see: http://bit.ly/7OJHyu. Not all parts of the AKS website reflect this change yet...

Thursday, November 12, 2009

college entrance - one nation, one exam

In South Korea, Nation Stops For Mega Exam

More than 650,000 high school seniors in South Korea on Thursday took the only national college placement exam that many believe will determine the rest of their lives. The government takes it so seriously that even those infected with the H1N1 virus took the exam under medical supervision. [Nat'l Public Radio 12 Nov 2009 story]
South Korean parents pray for high scores at Jogyesa, the largest Buddhist temple in Seoul.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Korea books online - Internet Archive &c

...quite a number of early books about Korea are available through the Internet
...a list of some of the most obviously interesting titles [is] at
   http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/BooksKorea.htm   but a search for "Korea" in the "texts" section of the Internet Archive http://www.archive.org/index.php     will bring up many more.

[for Isabella Bird's 19c travels, see also] http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/Bird/KoreaandherNeighbors.htm  a few additional photos taken by her that were not used in her book. Those of Kwanghwa-mun and the west gate to Pusan-jin are especially interesting.

[via KoreanStudies.ws] Brother Anthony at Sogang University, Seoul

Sunday, September 13, 2009

why the diacritics on romanized Korean writing?

a concise explanation for the question:
 
>  WHY is there still, in 2009, no concerted move among the (very limited) number of people regularly using the McCune-Reischauer method of transciption to revise it and get rid of those impossible breves? What is the great advantage of retaining them? Do they have magic powers?

[R King writes] They do indeed have magical powers -- they render unambiguously and without resorting to clumsy digraphs vowels that the Korean sound system insists be distinguished and that otherwise would go undistinguished in roman script. They signal, through their unitary unigraphicity, that a single vowel is being represented -- something that Seong-su or Seung-mi from Incheon cannot do with the new system. ...there is a trade-off between the clumsiness of the special character and the clumsiness of a digraph...
 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= in short, those who no longer need the romanized aids to pronunciation do not have a stake in the system of diacritics any more. Those new to the language do not have a stake in one system of transcription over another. But those who are neither beginners or intermediate students of Korean language do very much benefit from the diacritic cues to distinguish sounds.

Friday, September 4, 2009

online level 1-2 Korean textbooks

Monash Korean language textbooks 'My Korean 1 and 2' (by Young-A Cho, In-Jung Cho and Douglas Ling) are now available free of charge at
http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/korean/klec/ .

supported by the Korea Foundation with a 2008 grant
(Support for Instructional Materials Development).
-- Young-A Cho & In-Jung Cho, Korean Studies at Monash

Thursday, September 3, 2009

all about Isabella Bird's 1800s Korea visit

[online] ...devoted to Isabella Bishop and her book "Korea and Her Neighbors," http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/Bird/KoreaandherNeighbors.htm 

Brother Anthony of Sogang University, Seoul, http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

sijo in North America

For those interested in the sijo form itself, or a story about Korean literature
making its way into English language circles, please do check the Boston Globe
story about it... [English submissions welcome]
--via D. McCann [koreanstudies.ws]

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/gallery/sijocontest/

Friday, August 7, 2009

reviews online - Korean Studies

Eventually Korean Studies Review  (KSR) will migrate to a new server, but for the time being reviews from 1998-2007 will continue to be available at http://koreaweb.ws/ks/ksr/ ;  reviews from 2008 will be at the new KSR website, http://hangul.snu.ac.kr/ksr/

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Indonesian tribe picks Korean alphabet as official writing system


via Korean Studies Discussion List <http://us.mc580.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws>

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2009/08/06/56/0302000000AEN20090806001200315F.HTML

[compare to] ...other instances in the past where other cultures attempted to adopt Han'gu(l / Choso(n'gu(l as their written language only to have it be rejected, no?
I don't recall as it has been a long time since I read Kim-Renaud, Y-K.
(ed) 1997. The Korean Alphabet: Its History and Structure.

Anyway, this is a very interesting language development that *gasp* for
once doesn't involve romanizations.


=-=-=-= follow up:
The case of using hangeul by one of Indonesian tribes as a practical systemof writing is funny. It is one more ?success? of local nationalists in theera of globalization, when the state sponsors such "experiments"! Koreanalphabet is excellent only for the Korean language, but is almost unsuitablefor the transmission of sounds, which are absent in the Korean language. Inthe Soviet Union in 1920-30?s attempts were made to create scripts fornationalities, which had no their own script on the basis of the Latinalphabet. This letter alphabet, as well as Cyrillic, is much more suitablethan Korean letter-syllabic alphabet, for transcription of all kinds ofsounds through a combination of letters or diacritics. But the grandioseexperiment failed. It is difficult to believe that the Korean experimentwill last for long.
---Lev Kontsevich [Moscow]

=-=-=-= more [Sept. 12, 2009]
reporting by Choe Sang-Hun in this morning's NY Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/world/asia/12script.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Korean%20alphabet%20/%20Indonesia&st=cse

Saturday, July 18, 2009

RESOURCE e-Asia Digital Library

"e-Asia [est. 2001 - ed.] is a library of downloadable full text
(currently over 4000 items -- primarily books -- are available.) Focus
is on China, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea (South and North). While most
items are in Western languages, there are many items in Chinese,
Japanese, and Korean. e-Asia also offers audio, video, and special
collections.

The e-Asia project is funded by the University of Oregon Library
through the generosity of Nissho Iwai.

While the e-Asia project is based largely on resources held at the University of Oregon Library, its purpose is neither to duplicate nor displace printed traditonal materials. Rather, by providing searchable full text, the digitalization efforts
of e-Asia represent a new tool aimed at facilitating the information-gathering process.

Friday, June 26, 2009

which romanization logic to use in Korea?

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/06/113_47389.html

[thanks to Brother Anthony at Sogang University, Seoul
http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/]

Sunday, June 21, 2009

mythology for Korea

from e-list of KoreanStudies, 21 June 2009.

sources to read about myths besides Tangun, Chumong and Hyokkose:

<> Dr Grayson's "Myths and Legends from Korea: An Annotated Compendium of Ancient and Modern Materials"
http://www.amazon.com/Myths-Legends-Korea-Annotated-Compendium/dp/0700712410/ref=sr_1_1
is a classic standard-setter;
<> limited preview of this book, including table of contents, is available on http://books.google.com/books?id=HZO49KfGLiMC&pg=PP1&dq=Myths+and+Legends+from+Korea
<> This book by Grayson has been reissued by Routledge.

<> source also by Dr. Kim Hwa-kyong, (Yeungnam Univ), www.jisik.co.kr

<>
Zong In-sob, Folk tales from Korea, Elizabeth NJ and Seoul: Hollym 1970, often reprinted
<> Korean National Commission for UNESCO, Korean Folklore,? Seoul: Si-sa yong-o-sa and Arch Cape Oregon: Pace, 1983
<> Choi Won-oh, An Illustrated Guide to Korean Mythology, Folkestone Kent UK: Global Oriental 2008


Thursday, September 18, 2008

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Korean Traditional Music sampler

PDF file with liner notes for 21 selected tracks; click the play button to hear the excerpts - permission received to use for educational, non-commercial purposes
http://koreanstudies08.googlepages.com/kr-trad-music.zip (about 4 megabytes)

Friday, April 4, 2008

Koreans brought to Japan during the Pacific War

English translation of Kangsangjung's Memories of a Zainichi Korean Childhood,

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

audio links

April 29, 2006 Poets House New York City - Readings and conversation with two of the leading Korean writers of the postwar period, novelist Hwang Sok-Yong and poet Ko Un; moderated by Janet Poole. http://www.pen.org/audio_archive/2006_world_voices/Hwang_Ko.mp3

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

experience of Confucianism at home

from Lee, Chang-Rae (1995, Riverhead Books) Native Speaker, page 6.

...My father, a Confucian of high order... For him, all of life was a rigid matter of family. I know all about that fine and terrible ordering, how it variously casts you as the golden child, the slave-son or daughter, the venerable father, the long-dead god. But I know, too, of the basic comfort in this familial precision, where the relation abides no argument, no questions or quarrels. The truth, finally, is who can tell it.

page 137... it was clearly Kwang's Confucian training at work, his secular religion of pure hierarchy, his belief that everyone is at once a noble and a servant and then just a man. Its adherents know no hubris. Instead this: you simply bow down before those who would honor you. You honor them back. For you are but ash to their fire. All spent of light.

page 277... [folksong] it's the same register my mother used to hum while doing the housework, a languourous baritone, the most Korean range, low enough for our gut of sadness, high for the wonder of chance, good luck.

page 278... I say to him, "Korean stories always work like that. Everbody dies but one. And the one has little to live for."
"But somehow he lives," John says. "The one goes one. We're too stubbborn."
"I think we're too brave and too blind," I answer... "I read that Korean nationals are the most rescued people from the world's mountaintops."

Monday, January 28, 2008

blog about learning Korean

discovered when searching ["cultural literacy" Korean]
http://koreanlanguagenotes.blogspot.com (gerry bevers@gmail)

Saturday, December 15, 2007

photo essay, PoongSoo (feng shui)

from PRI, "The World" program for Friday, 14 Dec. 2007.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pritheworld/sets/72157603460042115/

South Korea’s presidential campaign (6:00)
The World's Matthew Bell reports from South Korea about the country's upcoming Presidential elections. Some Korean politicians are turning to an ancient Korean tradition in an effort to win the election.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Korean Memories of the Vietnam and Korean Wars: A Counter-History

by Theodore Hughes [www.japanfocus.org for 16 April 2007]

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. provides a privileged site for Americans to "remember" the Vietnam War. The monument, however, produces meaning, and constructs a national narrative, precisely in its performance of differentiation, its exclusion of the deaths of the "other" (the Vietnamese).
The monument also elides those who fought on the side of the U.S. during the war: the "more flags" program that brought Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand into the war in the mid-1960s does not appear on the screen of the U.S. national imaginary. Americans do not learn in their high school history textbooks that over 300,000 South Korean troops fought in Vietnam, and that over 4,000 of them were killed.
This article considers the meaning of the Vietnam War for Korean soldiers through analysis of Hwang Suk-Young's novel, The Shadow of Arms.
Theodore Hughes is an assistant professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, at Columbia University. This article was written for Japan Focus. Posted on April 12, 2007.
Read more . . . [see also several other Korea articles carried by the weekly JapanFocus journal]