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