Korea Outreach Education

www.ekoreajournal.net

**Understanding the K-pop Phenomenon and Hallyu**

Gil-Sung PARK / [On this topic] From Fragile Cosmopolitanism to Sustainable
Multicultural Vigor
Gil-Sung PARK / Manufacturing Creativity: Production, Performance, and
Dissemination of K-pop
Ingyu OH and Hyo-Jung LEE / Mass Media Technologies and Popular Music
Genres: K-pop and YouTube
Andrew Eungi KIM, Fitria MAYASARI, and Ingyu OH / When Tourist Audiences
Encounter Each Other: Diverging Learning Behaviors of K-pop Fans from Japan
and Indonesia
Wonho JANG and Youngsun KIM / Envisaging the Sociocultural Dynamics of
K-pop: Time/Space Hybridity, Red Queen?s Race, and Cosmopolitan Striving

ARTICLES
Chisung PARK, Mark WILDING, and Sung-Jun MYUNG / Online Learning Patterns
and the Social Construction of U.S. Beef Imports in Korea: A Comparison of
Three Online Communities
Don BAKER / Rhetoric, Ritual, and Political Legitimacy: Justifying Yi
Seong-gye?s Ascension to the Throne
LEE Kyou Jin and CHO Mi Sook / The Evolution of *Bulgogi *over the Past 100
Years

BOOK REVIEW
Aie-Rie LEE / *South Korean Social Movements: From Democracy* *to Civil
Society*, edited by Gi-Wook Shin and Paul Y. Chang

Friday, December 13, 2013

teaching Korean War (and other Asia conflicts) by novels

Ha Jin's War Trash? It's a novel, not a short story, but is a powerful fictional account of what it was like to be a Chinese POW during the Korean War. For the Vietnam War, another novel you might find useful is Hwang Suk-Young's The Shadow of Arms. You could also have them read Ahn Junghyo's White Badge on Koreans in the Vietnam War. And, for short stories, look at Bruce Fulton's translations in The Red Room: Stories of Trauma in Contemporary Korea. There are also the short stories of Hwang Sun won, Mountains (in Fulton's anthology Land of Exile) and Cranes, in Modern Korean Fiction: an Anthology.

--D.Baker

Regarding short stories set around the Korean War, the first that come to mind are: "Cranes," by Hwang Sunwon, "Kapitan Lee" by Chon Kwangyong, and "Aimless Bullet" (Obalt'an) (post-war) by Yi Pomson (Beomseon). All three of these stories can be found in Peter Lee's *Flowers of Fire: Twentieth Century Korean Stories.* I haven't read it yet, but I've heard good things about the novel "The Guest" by Hwang Sokyong (Seokyeong).

--D. Torrey, U. Utah

The short story "Cranes" by Hwang Sunwon. There is a translation and note on the story in Azalea Journal Vol. 1, 2007. The story creates a very interesting and compelling reading of the notion of "North" and "South" in the conflict.

--D. McCann

Pak Wanso's stories such as "In the Realm of the Buddha" in *The Red Room* quoted above; and those in *My Very Last Possession and Other Stories *work well in class*; *It might be interesting to compare Hwang Sok Young's works on the Korean and Vietnam Wars: *The Guest *with *The Shadow of Arms, *for example, although these are long novels. Other recommended works about the Vietnam War are Le Minh Khue's *The Stars, the Earth, the River* and Bao Ninh's *The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam*. How about films? Relating Korean, U.S. and Vietnamese filmic representations of the Vietnam War would be interesting. Korean films such as *White Badge*and *Sunny* come to mind... From Hollywood, there are so many, but *Apocalypse Now* and *Deer Hunter* are classics that still work well in class. You could do something similar with films and literature about the Korean war

--N.A.Kwon

There's also another very good full-length novel by Ahn Junghyo, Silver Stallion, set against the Korean War.

--M.Duffy

==original question: M. Robinson

I'm teaching a course in the spring term on "The Cross Cultural Experiences of War" which deals with US wars in Asia: WW II, Korean War, and Vietnam.

I'm using fiction in part to get students to think about how these wars have affected our attitudes and relations with East Asia. I am using Heinz Insu Fenkl's wonderful "Memories of My Ghost Bother" to cover Korean War aftermaths

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

online conversational Q and A source for things Korean

This service provides responses from native speakers of Korean language & life, not necessarily academically rooted:

http://askakorean.blogspot.com/

Monday, September 16, 2013

online "Encyclopedia of Korea" (1999)

The Encyclopaedia of Korea (1999) is now online as part of the Open Access Digital Collections of the Australian National University.

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/10445

Sunday, June 23, 2013

the flavor of typefaces - choices & challenges

The Korean Japanese artist Towa Tei (???) presents the cultural politics of typeface-culture (from the 1990s): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77rKwBUfzH8

Monday, June 10, 2013

The Power of a Temple Bell

[page 151-2 of Simon Winchester's 1984 book, Korea -A walk through the land of miracles]

...The sound was huge, a great roaring gong sound that cannoned across many octaves and twined itself into many harmonies. It filled the air with vibrations, it echoed around the hills, it cascaded from within the bellhouse itself, and then, just as it was beginning to fade away, the young monk struck at the metal lips again and another layer of perfect clean sound overtook the now dying notes, and the old echoes were supplanted by new ones, and new harmonies came and went with a strange and beautiful but slightly unsettling effect. The temple bell had been booming out its evening call here for centuries; it was almost as much a part of the mountains as the rocks and the streams themselves.

Monday, May 27, 2013

sifting Korean Studies discussion group online

about www.koreaweb.ws (excerpt from overview of purposes and principles circular)

...While the  KoreanStudies discussion list is similar to an academic seminar, open only to those with a serious academic commitment to Korean Studies,
its Mailing List Archives as well as the Korean Studies Review (an electronic review journal of works pertaining to Korean Studies) are
available to all. Postings from this forum may be quoted but, with the exception of job and conference announcements, are not to be reprinted
in full elsewhere without the express permission of the author...

Sunday, May 12, 2013

old photos DPRK and ROK

Rare Images of (Northern) Korea before the Kims, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/04/17/once_upon_a_time_in_pyongyang_north_korea?wp_login_redirect=0

Remarkable Images of South Korea, before Samsung & PSY, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/02/01/once_upon_a_time_in_seoul_south_korea

Saturday, May 4, 2013

photos - DPRK (D. Guttenfelder awarded)

David Guttenfelder, whose terrific images from North Korea have become a window into the Hermit Kingdom, was honored Wednesday at the 2013 Infinity
Awards <http://www.icp.org/support-icp/infinity-awards/david-guttenfelder> by the International Center for Photography.

North Korean Video starts at 2:20 mark, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/02/see-david-guttenfelders-award-winning-photos-from-inside-north-korea/

More images from inside North Korea by David Guttenfelder, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/inside-north-korea/2013/03/08/53000614-877c-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394_gallery.html#photo=1
and
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/inside-north-korea-2011/2011/12/19/gIQAwoHh3O_gallery.html#photo=1

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Koreanist expertise & news media

in connection to DPRK recent aggressive expressions, these instances are examples in which scholars have a voice on the public airwaves

www.npr.org/2013/04/04/176267971/north-korea-blocks-south-korean-workers-from-shared-facility

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22038370

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/29/could-north-korean-armageddon-happen

http://newnations.com/headlines/nk.php#new1 Also includes a background article on DPRK: http://www.newnations.com/headlines/nk.php#top

http://www.newnations.com/ is a site well worth checking out: much info on many countries.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/08/north-korea-nuclear-threat-unknown-quantity

17 February 2013 View from N Korea is of a nuclear world

We need to understand how things look as seen from Pyongyang, and why. A

mildly contrarian op-ed for the FT (subscription needed)

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2afe142a-776f-11e2-b95a-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2L8UtCVxz

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21426627

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/9866005/Analysis-How-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-Korea.html

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

PICTORI online photo database for Korean Studies

http://pictori.net Pictori enables users to upload, manage, share, and use all kinds of images related to Korean studies. Although many list members will already be using other image hosting websites such as Flickr, Photobucket, Instagram or Pinterest, Pictori offers better protection, and more metadata input tools as well as geographic information, allowing users to indicate on a map
exactly where a picture was taken. This feature is unique to image management sites, and it will hopefully provide a useful resource. Pictori also allows you to comment on pictures or ask for help in identifying them.

The About page carries more information about the site, and its use. http://www.pictori.net/about

NB: clicking on thumbnails will show the image and all known metadata (including a map where applicable). To see the full-size version of images,
users must be logged in.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

old Korea - texts to read

cross-posting from electronic list, KoreanStudies

lists and descriptions of older texts about Korea
1. Texts mentioning or describing Korea published in the 16th and 17th centuries. http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/EarliestMentionsKorea.html

2. Texts mentioning or describing Korea published in the 18th and early 19th centuries. http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/EarliestAccountsKorea18century.html

3. Texts of some later 19th- and early 20th-century accounts of Korea http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/Myearlytexts.html

All these links can be found at the top of Old Books about Korea http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/BooksKorea.htm together with a short listing of all the sections of text that have been copied, edited and included.

Included, also, are: an English translation of Henri Zuber's account of the French expedition to Ganghwa Island and of (so far) one section of Charles Varat's journey, for the benefit of any whose French is rusty.

Brother Anthony, President, RASKB, Seoul

Saturday, January 5, 2013

over 400 Korean films online (free)

cross-posted from KoreanStudies-Web:

The Korean Film Archive has released 70 classic Korean movies, free online and available to the public. All 70 movies are commercial free, with Korean captions and English subtitles.

The movies date from 1949 to 1996 and most of them reflect the social issues of that time.
Categorical breakdown of these films are as follows:

1. Weekly Top Ten http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6C8998808EBF530E2. HD: 7
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL91CCF315750E00F53. 1949: 1
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5D6716D5774631C84. 1950s: 13
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB36747D4ABE492D05. 1960s: 24
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC403C945BEE631E77. 1970s: 6
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL45947BD7780317948. 1980s: 15
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC5EBBCD66FD252F89. 1990s: 10
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL923052D060E61EF210. Director Kim Ki-yong's Works: 7
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC9AB9E77C6A4213511. Director Shin Sang-ok's Works: 6
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL787B4B9F8A07125E12. Director ...Im Kwon-taek's Works: 4
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL869F027150CACBFE

The Korean Film Archive also has more than 400 pay-per-view films at http://www.kmdb.or.kr/vod/

Friday, December 21, 2012

Choson social world

The closing paragraph gives a glimpse of this world:

p.333 from Virtuous women : three classic Korean novels / translated by Richard Rutt and Kim Chong-un. Seoul : Published for the Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, by the Kwang Myong Printing Co., c1974.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Multimedia; Reference links (2012 workshop, NCKS)

from supplied PDF at the Nam Center for Korean Studies 2012 teacher workshop 25 Aug. in Ann Arbor
More links are at the NCKS website, Educational Resources k-14
A concise table for comparing both parts of the peninsula is available from NCKS in PDF, too. Its preamble reads, An independent Korean state or collection of states has existed almost continuously for several millennia. Between its initial unification in the 7th century - from three predecessor Korean states - until the 20th century, Korea existed as a single country. After World War II, a democratic-based government (Republic of Korea, ROK) was set up in the southern half of the Korean Peninsula while a Communist-style government was installed in the north (the DPRK). During the Korean War (1950-53), US troops and UN forces fought alongside soldiers from the ROK to defend South Korea from DPRK attacks supported by China and the Soviet Union. An armistice was signed in 1953, splitting the peninsula along a demilitarized zone at about the 38th parallel.

Web Resources

By Ann Marie Borders

Korean Culture Center, http://www.kccla.org/english_/home_.asp
KAFE Korean Academy, www.KoreaAcademy.org
International Korean Educators Network, http://ikeneducate.org/sample_e.html
Committee on Korean Materials Internet Resources Subject Guides
http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/arc/libraries/eastasian/korea/ckm/subjguides/subjguides.html
Korea for and with Kids, http://koreaweb.ws/8_kids.html
Korea Web, http://koreaweb.ws/
Education K-12 links, www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/arc/libraries/eastasian/korea/ckm/subjguides/education.html
New York Philharmonic Plays “Arirang”, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xpnS4s54hI&feature=related
Korea Society (Go to Korean Studies, then K-12 teachers), http://www.koreasociety.org/
Korea for Kids, http://www.rainbowkids.com/HTMLFiles.aspx?page=KoreaAct
Learning to Speak Korean (free with grade level resources and games), http://genkienglish.net/speakkorean/

Multimedia Resources

Video

Jibeuro (The Way Home). 2002. DVD. Directed by Jeong-hyang Lee
Available on Netflix. A seven-year-old boy from a big city is dropped off at his grandmother’s living in rural Korea while his mother looks for work in the city. Contrasts the life and attitudes of a child raised in modern urban Korea, with the life of the traditional rural grandmother.

KSCPP. Fifty Wonders of Korea., http://www.kscpp.net/Multimedia/tabid/136/Default.aspx
Short videos on aspects of historical and contemporary Korean culture is available for private viewing.

Lee, Helie. February 4, 2003. Guest on Oprah Winfrey Show. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gxukewt9iI
Author Helie Lee of Still Life with Rice talks about how her mother and grandmother are a source of inspiration to her. She also describes her family’s attempt to rescue her estranged uncle and his family from North Korea.

Obangsaek Project. http://vimeo.com/benzofilms
Theatre & documentary project telling the tale of Korea through the use of multimedia and performance art. The clips available here, juxtapose the traditional and contemporary and show how they relate to each other.

Internet

“Distance, homelessness, anonymity, and insignificance”: An interview with Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries. http://iowareview.uiowa.edu/TIRW/TIRW_Archive/tirweb/feature/younghae/interview.html

Education about Asia. http://www.asian-studies.org/EAA/samples.htm
Free articles from the journal available to browse; also mouse over the “Free Materials” pull-down menu at the top for supplemental materials and links to internet resources.

Korea Society. http://www.KoreaSociety.org
Abundant lesson plans for the K-12 educator (http://www.koreasociety.org/k-12_resources/) and other resources
for those interested in Korea.

Korean Spirit & Culture Promotion Project: http://kscpp.net/Default.aspx
This organization is a great resource for materials and information about traditional and contemporary Korean culture and society.

K-pop Music Playlist. http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL89571A6A5D86A832

Philagrafika2010 Interview with Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries. http://www.philagrafika2010.org/node/208

University of Kansas, Kansas Consortium for Teaching About Asia. http://www.kcta.ku.edu/
Lesson Plans specific to Korea can be selected by going to http://www.kcta.ku.edu/~kcta/cgi-bin/lessons/index.php and selecting “Korea” from the “All Countries” pull down menu.

Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries Website. http://www.yhchang.com/

ENEMIES of the INTERNET / 12 MARch 2012 / world day against Cyber censorship

http://12mars.rsf.org/2011/en/ [previous year's report] including watchlist countries

http://en.rsf.org/north-korea-north-korea-12-03-2012,42078.html D.P.R.K.
http://en.rsf.org/south-korea-south-korea-12-03-2012,42067.html R.O.K.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

collected works, Korean Buddhism (in translation)

The Collected Works of Korean Buddhism - August 10, 2012

Preface To the Series | Download Files (zip folder)

Table of Contents to all 14 volumes, http://www.acmuller.net/kor-bud/collected_works.html

[announced 13 Aug 2012 on www.h-net.org at H-Japan]

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

digital exhibit, Korean National Library

online exhibit of six collections from the National Library of Korea's digitized holdings.
The resulting website is called "Korean Wisdom,"
http://collection.nl.go.kr/english/e_main.html, where you'll also find
a link to the Korean version of the site.

Friday, June 8, 2012

language learning - Sogang Univ resource sets

Sogang University Korean Language Education Center has opened its Korean Language Teachers Community Website.
The Website address is http://www.koreanteachers.org/

This website has been developed with two main goals in mind:

1) To offer instructional material that can be used with Sogang Korean Textbooks. At present you can find

- Powerpoint slides of grammar explanations (for levels 1A/B, 2A/B, 3A/B).
- Flashcards of vocabulary and grammar patterns (for levels 1A/B).
- Images and other visual materials (for levels 1A/B, 2A/B, 3A/B).

Other materials, such as the following, will be uploaded as soon as possible:
- Instructional material individually developed by the teachers of Sogang Korean Language Education Center .
- Lessons plans | - Review material | - Grammar and vocabulary reference material.

2) To share teaching materials, experiences and opinions with language teachers in Korean and abroad.
In order to use the material offered and participate in the community, you will have to register to the website.
Once you submit your application, this needs to be approved by the site administrator and the process will
take one or two days.
Of course, comments and suggestions are welcome.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

conversion from Chinese characters to several E.Asian readings

http://www.cojak.org/ gives the Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Japanese, both onyomi and kunyumi, for nearly all characters according to today's electronic list for Korean Studies

Friday, March 30, 2012

new book - social uprisings

Volume 1 Asia's Unknown Uprisings: South Korean Social Movements in the 20th Century.

PM Press, Oakland, CA.

Using social movements as a prism to illuminate the oft-hidden history of
20th century Korea, this book provides detailed analysis of major
uprisings that have patterned that country?s politics and society. With a
central focus on the1980 Gwangju Uprising that ultimately proved decisive
in South Korea?s democratization, the author uses Korean experiences as a
baseboard to extrapolate into the possibilities of global social movements
in the 21st century. Ten years in the making, this book provides a unique
perspective on South Korea. It is the first volume in a two-part study
that concludes by analyzing in rich detail uprisings in nine other places:
the Philippines, Burma, Tibet, China, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Thailand
and Indonesia.

illustrated, with tables, charts, graphs, index and footnotes Approximately 420 pages with about 77 photographs and wood block prints by Hong Sung-dam

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Korean language... Wiki

Korean Wiki Project (KWP), http://www.koreanwikiproject.com/ (cover page)
Main content of the 'wiki', http://www.koreanwikiproject.com/wiki/

Self-introductions by the project's two initiators:

Matt Strum, http://www.koreanwikiproject.com/wiki/index.php?title=User:Mstrum
Chris, http://www.koreanwikiproject.com/wiki/index.php?title=User:DigitalSoju

Thursday, February 9, 2012

"street view" for Seoul & Pusan

Since late January 2012, you can wander the virtual streets online:

http://g.co/maps/8svq9 (Seoul)
http://g.co/maps/5vbjg (Pusan)

Friday, January 13, 2012

Korea Kontext - blog & podcasts

crossposting from Koreaweb.ws email list:

Korea Kontext : A behind-the-scenes conversation with the scholars, artists, and opinion-makers who bridge our two worlds.
http://keia.podbean.com/

The most recent blog post/podcast was on Thursday January 5, 2012 and "the latest edition of Korean Kontext focuses on the recent death of Kim Jong-il and the prospects for North Korea under the stewardship of his son, Kim Jong-un. In this special length episode recorded in the United Kingdom, host Chad O?Carroll spoke to four European experts and practitioners: Dr. Aidan Foster-Carter; 2) Mr. Andray Abrahamian (the Executive Director of Chosun Exchange - a not-for-profit focusing on educational issues in the DPRK); 3) Ms. Marie-laure Verdier (a specialist studying humanitarian NGOs active along the China-North Korea border; and 4) Mr. Gareth Johnson (a British entrepreneur who lives in China and does business in North Korea)."

Each blog post has a podcast/interviews associated with it.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

(colonial days) pre 1945 Korea photos at Library of Congress

View this rich collection of pre-1945 Korea photos now available at the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs room. The images seem to come from a Japanese photographer, judging by the hand writing on the back of the images. While the collection has been recently catalogued at http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2010645655 the images have not been fully processed for routine viewing or online reference. So to seem them in person you must follow the special procedure there.

Those able to read the handwritten Japanese notes that appear on the back of many photos are particularly encouraged to give the meanings or reflect on the wider significance depicted.

There are three ways to engage these reference copy images:

A. Cursor rapidly through the 250 images (some duplicates; observe only; no Japanese) in this large file, http://bit.ly/loc-colonialkr-pdf [about 14mb, hosted on google docs]

B. View paired pages: obverse shows 4-6 pictures, reverse shows the Japanese writing penciled on
http://pre1945korea.blogspot.com (blog platform allows viewers to write identifying information)
Each entry gives the option to download the 2 page PDF set for easy printout, too.
[hosted on blogger.com]

C. Bundle of all 27 paired (obverse/reverse) PDF sets in one file
http://tinyurl.com/bundle27pre1945kr
[about 14mb, hosted on sites.google.com]

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Korea and Koreans as featured in literary works by non-Korean(ist) writers

collected responses by the readers of the e-list, KoreanStudies.ws in early October 2011:

There is "Kim of Korea" by Faith Norris and Peter Lumm ( a pseudonym that Bernard Malamud used when collaborating with another writer) New York: Julian Messner, Inc. 1955. It is a story about a Korean boy and an American soldier set during the Korean War.

Faith Norris was the daughter of Joan Grigsby ( http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/GrigsbyPreface.htm ) who lived in Seoul 1929-1930, and the story (meant for younger readers) includes mentions of the house Dilkusha where they lived. She imagined the war had left in ruined (not so it still stands, more or less). Faith Norris and Malamud taught together for a time at Oregon State College and Faith says that they sympathised as fellow Jews (she believed that her great-grandfather had been a Jew, a fantasy of her mother's invention).

Otherwise there is always the "Missionary Fiction" of the early 1900s by Lois Hawks Swineheart : "Jane in the Orient", "Sarange: A Child of Chosen" and "Korea Calls!" available to download at http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/BooksKorea.htm

Oddjob, the villain with the lethal bowler hat in Ian Fleming's Goldfinger, was Korean, though in the film, as I recall, he was portrayed as a generic inscrutable oriental.

The male protagonist of Han Suyin's A Many Splendored Thing, dispatched (fatally, as it turns out ) to report on the Korean War, makes the curious observation that "Korean women are not beautiful."

Incidentally, I seem to remember David Lodge confused Kyongju and Kongju (as then spelt) in Small World.

Chaim Potok's novel set in Korea and featuring Korean protagonists is I am the Clay, which was translated into Korean as ??? ? (hanjum-ui heuk--a
handful of earth). I found it stark and haunting. Potok was an army chaplain in Korea around the time of the war. A character who appears at the end of
the book is based loosely on him.

Potok?s book [is] as good a character study of Koreans as any written by Koreans. By the way, Potok was a rabbi, not the more likely
Christian or Catholic chaplains whose faiths had established missionary infrastructures in Korea and the USA Army. His cultural sensitivity is based
upon a very different understanding and affinity for social constructs of family / community, the value of education, etc.

Margaret Drabble's ambitious The Red Queen:
http://koreaweb.ws/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreaweb.ws/2005-July/004938.html

Eunice Park, in Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad Love Story.

...Someone is venturing into Inspector O territory. Adam Johnson's next novel, The Orphan Master's Son, is set in North Korea. An extract is available here
(part of which I fear qualifies as an entry for the Literary Review's annual Bad Sex award)
http://electricliterature.com/blog/2010/09/03/excerpt-%E2%80%9Cfor-the-love-of-juche%E2%80%9D-by-adam-johnson/

Pearl Buck's novel set in Korea was The Living Reed, published in 1963 or 64 and again in 2004.

Isabella L. Bird?s diary like account of her travels, Korea and Her Neighbors, contains many portraits, although the work is non-fiction.

Popular culture also includes the books and scripts that led up to several American films and TV programs about the MASH units. I would venture to say that more Americans have been exposed to something they think (if at all) about Korea from the still in reruns TV series which presented various Korean ?types? in complex stituations.

In 1953 Humphrey Bogart starred as a MASH surgeon, along with June Allison as an Army nurse, in the film Battle Circus set in a Korean War MASH. In 1968 the novel Mash: A Novel About Three Army Doctors by

Richard Hooker brought the drama of the MASH units fully into public view, and became the basis of Robert Altman's 1970 film , followed by the 1972-1983 smash hit TV series. MASH became a permanent fixture of American culture. (source: http://olive-drab.com/od_medical_treatment_mash.php).

This for sure is not literature -- but I thought I mention it anyway, given how important Chinoiserie and Japonism were for upper class arts and art collectors in Europe and North America, but that there was never anything like Koreanism -- this is as close as you get: "Die Braut von Korea" (The Bride from Korea) a ballet from 1897
Music: Joseph Bayer (1852-1913), choreography: Josef Hassreiter

http://www.book1950.co.kr/main.html?menu=view&uid=283 (click small image to magnify)http://www.bildindex.de/obj07053790.html costume sketch by Franz Gaul (click small image to magnify)

The ballet was performed 38 times between 1897 and 1901 at the Wiener Hofoper (Vienna Court Opera)--that was the time when Gustav Mahler was the director there.

Perhaps this one is too well known to mention, but Jack London, who visited Korea when he was covering the Russo-Japanese War as a correspondent forHearst Newspapers, included a chapter set in Korea (Chapter 15, very loosely based around Hendrik Hamel's experiences) in his work *The Jacket *(*The StarRover* in the US), which was published in 1915 by Mills & Boon. See http://www.archive.org/details/jacketthestarrov00londuoft

Thursday, September 29, 2011

new book - Buddhist temple history of Okcheon-am

Through the power of the Internet, the Venerable Woon Saan discovered the old Korea photos selected from Library of Congress' Prints and Photographs collection and displayed online at http://old-koreaphotos.wikispaces.com and included these in the (Korean language) book about his temple history and traditions. He will donate a copy to the LoC by way of thanks, too.

[photo shows book jacket; contact Woon Saan-sunim at Woonsaan Seok, woonsaan [at]empas DOTcom]

Thursday, September 8, 2011

old photos by A. Mattice - naval photographer USS Juanita

Asa Mattice, a naval engineer and photographer attached to the *USS Juanita*.
Related is the *Syracuse University Magazine* article about an exhibition of the photos and more on how they were acquired.

Mattice Photos, http://jdstockphoto.zenfolio.com/p77737632
*Syracuse University Magazine* article, http://sumagazine.syr.edu/archive/winter03-04/viewfromhill/index.html

Monday, September 5, 2011

Korea in 1925 - one hour archival footage

... fascinating hour-long film made by a German Catholic priest/missionary (Father Norbert Weber (sp?), a Benedictine monk or priest) in 1925

...also contains still photos Weber shot on an earlier trip to Korea in 1911. It shows a lot of things that none of us, and almost no living Korean, has ever seen. I think it should be shared widely

...put together as a KBS Special but somehow comes to us through Chinese hands.

click http://static.youku.com/v1.0.0103/v/swf/qplayer.swf?VideoIDS=XMTUzNzE0NjQw&e

or paste the URL it into your browser

--more background:

Norbert Weber, the former arch abbot of St. Ottilien and the author of the documentary from 1925, passed away in 1956 (his dates are 1870-1956). The missionary you interviewed, I would think, was probably Corbinian Schr?fl (???, 1901-1990). Schr?fl had been a missionary in Yanji /Y?n?gil (in former Pukkando), and then later in the South, after the communists cosed down the abbeys in NE China and North Korea.

see also, http://tinyurl.com/3w82cdd [old images, but from a separate person's documentary sources]

Friday, August 19, 2011

glimpse of (Leprosy) Hansen's Disease

August 2011 presenter for the Korean-American Educational Commission
168-15 Yomni-dong, Mapo-gu |Seoul 121-874 http://www.fulbright.or.kr

Hansen's disease in Korea historically existed at endemic levels until effective drugs became available in the 1930s to 1950s. It has been
referenced in Korean literature for centuries even including some Chosun era mask dances. In the 20th century, Hansen's disease patients became
what professor Jeong Keun-Shik of Seoul National University refers to as "the most significant social other" in ethnically homogeneous Korean
society. They have alternately been used as symbols of national shame, Christian salvation, Japanese imperial benevolence, and finally Korea's
national "han," or sorrow.
Joji Kohjima's research deals with the efforts of Hansens's disease patients to tell their own story, and to seek restitution for their
treatment under Japanese colonialism and post-colonial Korean governments. He has been researching the social and medical conditions
of Hansen's disease in modern Korea in conjunction with several institutions including the Catholic University Medical School's Leprosy
Center in Seoul, the 518 Memorial Hall at Jeonnam National University, Aeyangwon hospital in Yeosu, and Sorokdo National Leprosy Hospital in
Sorok Island, Jeollanamdo. This forum will explore leprosy in Korean society as a phenomenon originating at the microscopic level of bacteria
but extending to the level of social constructs in the discrimination, otherization and isolation faced by leprosy patients. Largely
originating in Japanese colonial policy, patients have historically faced quarantine, forced labor, and forced sterilization as they were
caught in the triangle of Japanese colonial government, missionaries, and an often hostile Korean population.

:::Biography:::
Joji Wilson Kohjima is originally from Tacoma, Washington. He is the great grandson of Robert Manton Wilson, an American missionary who
worked as a doctor on Hansen's disease in Korea from 1907 to 1941. Joji graduated in International Studies from the University of Washington
where he also studied pre-medicine with a focus on biochemistry. He will apply for medical school to begin in 2012. He hopes to continue
studies in medical anthropology in conjunction with medical school.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

funeral, Lee Han-yeol photos from 1987

...pictures during the funeral and march for Lee Han-yeol on July 9, 1987, a watershed event for democracy in South Korea, in which over one million people participated.
After many years, I finally put the pictures up on the web at http://chwe.net/hanyeol/

From: MichaelChwe, michael@chwe dotnet

Friday, July 29, 2011

late July 2011 landslides, Seoul

about 500mm of rain led to the flooding and landslides,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dGfMhmD13E&feature=related

Thursday, July 28, 2011

bronze age - so many dolmens on the SW Korean peninsula

www.dolmen.com has an option for English and Japanese, too. The site dates to 2001, so there is not a lot of video, blog feedback or panoramic views and maps, but it does introduce this wealth of ancient society, quoting that 19,000 of the world's known 55,000 dolmens are located in the Jeollanam-do (sw province) of South Korea.

Monday, July 25, 2011

film list - possibly some formerly banned ones

www.koreanfilm.org (including articles in English)

=====titles that are available on DVD with English Subtitles:

"The Last Witness" http://www.koreafilm.org/feature/100_63.asp
"Holiday" http://www.koreafilm.org/feature/100_46.asp
"Night of the Strike" http://www.koreafilm.org/feature/50_26.asp
"Oh! Land of Dreams" http://www.koreafilm.org/feature/50_22.asp

"Guro Arirang" (no English subtitled DVD)

=====Or a little more recently:
"Yellow Hair" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Hair
"Timeless, Bottomless Bad Movie" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Movie

Thursday, July 14, 2011

border crossing people smugglers to Korea

SYNOPSIS http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/images/episode/p00hm8z3_640_360.jpg

Defecting from North Korea is a dangerous business.
It comes at a high price and there's no guarantee of success.
Many make the journey to South Korea with the help of brokers - individuals and organisations who smuggle people along the illegal overland route
known as the "Underground Railroad". For Assignment, Lucy Williamson meets some of the brokers in Seoul who make a living helping people escape North Korea.
RELATED LINKS
Download this episode (mp3) http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/docarchive

SHADOWY WORLD OF KOREA'S PEOPLE SMUGGLERS
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14044794)
"I'm not a drug-dealer. I'm not bad, I'm just bringing people out. I'm
doing something the South Korean government can't do."

Monday, July 11, 2011

famous image discussion

[KoreanStudies e-list member F.Hoffman reponds to request to identify an iconic image]

Sin Yun-bok and "Miin-do" are good keywords.
The most famous one by Sin Yun-bok is this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hyewon-Miindo.jpg
The one you find in every tourist booklet, on umbrellas, as ball pen designs, etc. The term "miin-do" seems to be a generic term, not an actual title. You also find miin-do
paintings in China and Japan, also in later periods (e.g. during the Taisho period in Japan). That is a genre that traveled and changed throughout the centuries, was kind of "back-introduced" in a modern version to Korea in the 1920s.

The one you have there, the one the stage image is based on, looks to me like a 19th century work based on Sin Yun-bok. Especially the way the face is done would to me indicate that it is later than Sin Yun-bok's period. The Japanese National Museum in Tokyo in whose collection it is gives the painter as "anonymous."

Painter: anonymous, 114.2 cm x 56.5 cm, colors on paper, Collection: Tokyo National Museum (in Ueno Park), http://www.tnm.jp/?lang=en

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Seoul stream restoration of the Cheonggye- Article

Flowing Back to the Future: The Cheongye Stream Restoration and the Remaking of Seoul

by Hong KAL

Abstract: This article concerns how the urban life in Seoul under the Lee Myung-bak government, which pursues neoliberal political economy, has come to present an immense accumulation of spectacles. It examines the Cheonggye stream restoration promoted as upgrading Seoul to become a cleaner, greener and competitive global city. The Cheonggye stream project points to a new form of governance in which the display of national progress through conventional museums or monumental structures, as previous regimes once did, is no longer effective. Instead, the representation of progress of the city and the nation is increasingly being portrayed through the popular use of urban space.

Key words: the Cheonggye stream restoration, Seoul, spectacle, urban redevelopment, public space, national identity, neoliberalism

Introduction: Public space has gained new centrality in the life of Seoul in contemporary Korea. Noticing the political potential as well as the threat of public space, in 2005 the government formally designated the area in front of the City Hall as the Seoul plaza and opened it with an official spectacle, "Hi Seoul Festival". With the construction of the Kwanghwa square in 2009 in front of the Kyǒngbok palace of the Chosǒn dynasty and the new city hall building expected to be completed in 2012 in a design more transparent and open to the public, downtown Seoul is becoming a city of "public spaces." In the remaking of the city through a display of people and participation, the most prestigious and controversial site is probably the new Cheonggye stream. While the Cheonggye stream restoration was aimed at making Seoul a cleaner, greener and competitive global city, it actively employs discourses of restoration, history and people. It is a site that stages images of the collective national body rooted in shared ancestry and historical experience. It makes the current urban transformation historically necessary and even natural and frames collective national subjectivity within the mutually constituting narratives of nationalism and globalization.

Full Article, http://japanfocus.org/site/view/3556

Monday, June 27, 2011

East Asia in the Middle School (lesson plans)

Teaching East Asian in the Middle School Web site at http://www.iu.edu/~easc/outreach/educators/teams/index.shtml .
These lesson plans were originally published in 1996-98, but most of them still have relevance today.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Watch KR television dramas on Hulu.com

Korean dramas are available on Hulu.com, one of the most popular American TV internet sites. Over 50 Korean dramas are available to view for free.
Visit www.hulu.com and search for "Korean Dramas". They are all subtitled (not dubbed).

Saturday, April 16, 2011

old Korea (and Japan) photos

late 19c. and early 20c old photos of Korea by three very prominent Americans, housed in the American Geographical Society Library at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,
http://collections.lib.uwm.edu/cdm4/results.php?CISOOP1=any&CISOBOX1=korea&CISOFIELD1=CISOSEARCHALL&CISOROOT=all&CISOSTART=1,41

1. George Clayton Foulk Collection (1883 -1887): 59-64, 150-178, 182-185, 188, 190-194

2. Shanon Boyd-Bailey McCune Collection(1938-1939): 65-148, 180, 182-185, 188-194

3. Mary Jo Read Collection(1935): 179-181, 186-187, 189 (duplicate)

:::Notes
1. George Clayton Foulk was Acting U.S. Minister to Korean Court, 1884-1887
2. Shannon Boyd-Bailey McCunem was director of the American Geographical
Society of New York from 1967 to 1969. Won Medal of Freedom.
His Father, George Shannon McCune was Dean(1929-1936) of Sungsil Christian
Collage, Pyonggyang, center of anti Japanese activity.
His brother George McAfee "Mac" McCunne born in Pyongyang, developed with
Edwin O. Reischauer, McCune-Reischauer romanization of Korean in 1937.
His extensive collection of Old Korean Maps is now at the Library of
Congress, Washington, D.C.
3. Mary Jo Reed was a Geography Professor at University of Wisconsin -Milwaukee

See also: early photos from the Prints and Photograph collection at Library of Congress,
http://old-koreaphotos.wikispaces.com

See also, -post this item below from the H-Japan e-list of www.h-net.org (April 6, 2011).

> The East Asia Image Collections, an open-access digital repository hosted at Lafayette College, has recently added 259 postcards and 300 negatives. The website now contains over 3700 records of imagery from East Asia, mostly from the period 1905-1945, with one subcollection of images from 1950s Japan.

http://digital.lafayette.edu/collections/eastasia

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

series - Korean Food flavors

[weekly story in the Amazon.com Food Blog; click headline for full text] Korean Cuisine: Gimbap More and more these days, I see sushi and sashimi showing up at Korean restaurants. You'll find the traditional Japanese raw fish versions, but "Korean sushi" or gimbap is gaining popularity too. As we have the past few Sundays, we're talking Korean food. Today we're talking gimbap... Korean Cuisine: Roasted Corn and Barley "Teas" You may eat corn and barley in a variety of ways, but you ever tried them roasted and made into tea? Today I'm talking Korean cuisine, like I have these past few Sundays. Not long ago, Al Dente reader Phyllis mentioned corn tea, and I couldn't wait to discuss oksusu cha and boricha, roasted corn and barley tea, respectively... Korean Cuisine: Dukbokki Dukbokki is one of my sister's favorite Korean dishes. It's made with noodles. People expect Korean cuisine to include rice, but most people are surprised to learn how popular rice noodles are. (My sister always keeps a package in the freezer.) Dukbokki is a spicy hot stew made with rice noodles (duk) that are long and tubular and really, really chewy. It's a very common dish in Korean homes, though I don't see it on a lot of restaurant menus. (Of course that just could be the case because my Korean is not yet up to snuff.) Korean Cuisine: Red Beans and Rice On Sundays I talk Korean food here at Al Dente, a cuisine that I love and that I love to share with others. Have you already discovered Korean cuisine? If so, I'd like to hear from you. If not, I'm discussing Korean food, dish by dish, so you can become familiar with the wonders of rice and spice. Korean Cuisine: Soft Tofu Soup I've long been a fan of Korean cuisine and instrumental in introducing the fascinating foods of this country to my friends. When Korean cuisine turned up on the 2011 trend list compiled by Epicurious, I couldn't have been more pleased. Finally, Korean food would be known to the masses. At least I hope... Korean Cuisine: Dumplings for Beginners by Tracy Schneider on February 27, 2011 If you're new to Korean food, then one of the best places to begin is with mandoo (or mandu), Korean dumplings. Dumplings are popular all around the world. Japan has its gyozas. China has its potstickers. Russia has its pelmeni, Poland has its pierogi. I love them all... Korean Cuisine: A Feast at Every Meal on February 20, 2011 I have a penchant for Korean food. Given an opportunity to eat out, I'll look for the best Korean restaurant in the area. How about you? Are you acquainted with cuisine of Korea? For years, prognosticators have been saying that Korean food would soon come into its own in the U.S, the way Japanese and then Thai food did over the last twenty years...

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Monday, February 10, 2014

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Sunday, December 22, 2013