Reading

For anyone who finds this blog because they, too, are in the process of moving to Korea, I wanted to put up a list of books that I’ve read and have found helpful, as well as a few that I am planning on. As the sidebar is getting a little crowded, they’re getting their own page.

–Cat

Roadmap to Korean

By Richard Harris

Richard Harris’ Roadmap to Korean is a really essential companion to anyone’s study of the language. What’s different about this book is that Harris writes about learning Korean from the perspective of a native English speaker. So he covers some of the trickier issues that most Korean language courses ignore, like sentence order, the difference uses of punctuation in English and Korean, and the different ways that Korean uses verbs.

The book also features details about Korean history and culture that provide essential context. Learn why you might have difficulty gettng your hamburger “your way,” for example. Or why you should never refer to someone you like as a “bad girl.”

Eating Korean

By Cecelia Hae-Jin Lee

I love to cook (and eat) so buying a starter Korean cookbook was one of the first things I did when we moved here. Cecelia Hae-Jin Lee’s Eating Korean provides easy-to-follow recipes for a lot of “standard” Korean dishes. So it’s a good introduction to Korean cuisine and culture. The pictures and essays interspersed with the recipes, in which Lee shares detailed memories from her childhood, make this book interesting to read from cover to cover, even when you aren’t cooking. It’s an interesting introduction to the role food and the concept of hospitality plays in Korean culture.

Thunder from the East

by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

Both reporters for the New York Times, (and married to each other), Kristof and WuDunn each offer chapter vignettes of particular experiences they had while living in and reporting on Asia. The book focuses on the root causes of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, its effect on the lives of people in the different countries, and their predictions for the emergence of Asia as the dominant economic force in the 21st century.

Both writers focus mostly on the lives of everyday inhabitants of the countries they report on, not the movers and shakers. The chapters are short and easy to read, yet offer an in-depth look at a region that often gets short shrift in the West.

While it’s not totally focused on Korea, I found the chapters about South Korea’s role in and response to the financial crisis to be very informative.

The chapter on the status of women in Asia also highlights some of the more disturbing aspects of Korea’s “Confucian society.”

“I was married at twenty-eight and I’m fifty-two now,” says Lee Un Kee, a man who lives in Punsooilri in South Korea. “How could I have been married all these years and not beaten my wife?”

The chapter also deals with the issue of gender-specific abortions and the disparity in educational and other opportunities for women in Korea, particularly during the economic crisis.

Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History

by Bruce Cumings

I understand this book is somewhat controversial, especially in expat circles because of Cumings’ perceived leftist bent.

However, it is a detailed look at the country’s 5,000 years of history and its centuries-long struggle to retain independence despite its vulnerable position between China and Japan.

Cumings’ discourse on the intriciacies of Joseon Dynasty etiquette and palace intrigues can get a little long-winded in my opinion. And, I’m still reading this book, so I will update this review later. But, from what I’ve read so far, I recommend this book to anyone looking for a readable and (relatively) quick historical overview.

Korea: A Walk Through the Land of Miracles

by Simon Winchester

In the late 1980s, British author Simon Winchester decided to walk through Korea, starting at Jeju Island off the southern coast of the peninsula and traveling to the North Korean border.

Tracing the path of a group of 17th century shipwrecked Dutch sailors who were taken inland to the court of the Joseon king, Winchester offers a look at day-to-day life in modern Korea.

It’s an entertaining and graceful memoir about Korean culture and the people Winchester encounters. Because it takes place during the period Korea was governed by a military dictatorship, some of the information is dated.

Still Life with Rice

By Helie Lee

An American woman’s account of her grandmother’s life in Korea.

Born at the beginning of the Japanese occupation, Hongyong Baek lives a typical life of an upper-class Korean woman during the last days of the Joseon Dynasty. Hidden inside her family’s compound—only glimpsing the world outside through brief trips to the river to bathe or do laundry—she leaves there only to take up a similar life after an arranged marriage to the only son of another wealthy family.

Her world broadens considerably when her husband decides to move the family to China. Struggling to support her adored spouse (who, though attentive and charming, also has an expensive fondness for gambling and prostitutes) and four children, Baek invests their savings in the the most lucrative trade she can find—opium smuggling. She’s so successful that, by the time the family returns to live in Korea at the end of the Second World War, they are even more wealthy than when they left.

All of this changes with the division of the country and the Communist takeover of the area surrounding her hometown (now in North Korea). When the Korean War breaks out, she, her husband, and oldest son are separated, and she begins a life of unbelievable hardship—left homeless, with her remaining children, fleeing south on food during the worst of the fighting.

Writing in her grandmother’s voice, Lee weaves a suspenseful, artistic and touching story, providing a window into Korean culture—particularly into the intimate lives of women—at different pivotal points in the country’s history.

Many Lives Intertwined

A memoir by Hyun Sook Han

A Seoul fifth-grader at the start of the Korean war, Han witnessed thousands of children orphaned or abandoned when refugees fled the city in front of advancing North Korean troops.

“We couldn’t stop and mourn. We had to hurry. Snow bank to snow bank, thousands and thousands of us moved forward quickly and impatiently. More children were lost, left behind in the masses or confused in crowds. We walked all day and sometimes through the night. Snow bank to snow bank, I saw thousands and thousands of children, toddlers and babies, all of them crying, all of them left alone in the snow. They were abandoned at night or separated from their parents in the crowds during the day. … All those children crying, though, I could not look into their eyes and acknowledge such sorrow. Instead, I whispered to them: “I will come back and help you. Somehow, I will find a way to help you.”

The experience inspired her to become a social worker after the war and work to promote both in-country and international adoption of Korean orphans and children unable to be cared for by their birth parents.

Although definitely a one-sided perspective—it’s a memoir—the book deals honestly with many of the controversial aspects of international adoptions from Korea: the difficulty mixed-raced children had (and to some extent still have) in being accepted in Korean society; the impact of post-war U.N. military occupation of South Korea and the number of children conceived and left behind; the lack of acceptance of adoption as a way to build a family, etc.

Han admits to pressuring many unwed mothers in Korea to surrender children they wanted to raise, but also says that—at the time—many of those children would have faced significant discrimination if they had remained in Korea, and that she and her colleagues believed they had to “rescue” the children before they reached a certain age. Still, in working to reunite many Korean adoptees with birthparents, later, she does say she mixed feelings about the practice.

More fascinating, to me, was her account of in-country adoptions in the early 1970s in Korea. Parents often went to extraordinary lengths to conceal the fact that they’d adopted a child. Sometimes the deception extended into the immediate family. In one case, a father and mother-in-law convinced her agency to let them “adopt” a baby boy and pass it off as the secret “twin” of the daughter the wife had recently given birth to.

The book also touches on, but doesn’t directly confront, the bias in favor of male children and the extreme pressure placed on women to bear a son to carry on the family name—a factor that contributed to the abandonment (later abortion) of many female children.