Reading Notes

I'm reading Michael Breen's The Koreans: Who They are, What They Want, Where Their Future Lies (Thomas Dunne Books, 1998. Revised, 2004.)

The book is sold as "[a] splendid work of explication and analysis" for and about Korea and Koreans. If I were Korean, I'd hate these books.

Maybe it's an easy critique to make, but Breen's writing is one moment fair and the next paternalistic, patronizing. He's aware of this and the book, so far, has several sentences sprinkling his intent not to be that way. When a writer has to tell his readers what he's not intending to do, then he needs to reconsider focus, direction, or genre. To be fair, much important work in writing represents an author's failure to accomplish his or her intent.

I don't mind anecdote and memoir, nor do I mind the critical analysis that often accompanies firsthand accounts of other cultures. Breen's observations are not trite. They are complex and careful, though often digressive.

As a reader, I do mind when interesting and anecdotal travel writing poses as vital cultural discourse and attempts to sell an author's illustration and caricaturization of an entire culture to his readers as authoritative vis-a-vis the author's own culture's view of the world and the subjects in his work. Breen is offered expert status on Korea and Koreans because he's an expat journalist who has extensively covered Korean business and politics. I'll write more about this in the coming days, but I can't shake this: when a foreign business and politics journalist claims he knows about the everyday lives of everyday Koreans, he's completely full of shit and gravitas.

It's not that foreigners shouldn't write Chapters on Korea, as Breen does, entitled "Korean Heart". Do share with your Western readers what you've decided is so complex about Korean passions and intellect: how, even though you admit you can't understand it, you have something valuable to say about it. Nothing at all wrong with the attempt. What's improper is the uncritical acceptance and implementation of a mindless binary about Western and Eastern consciousness that itself is based upon a complex series of mutual misrepresentations and generalizations about several cultures. It's as if the binary opposition is in itself an excuse for painting not one but all cultures with broad brush strokes for the purpose of making some rather simple points about other people appear poignant and complex.

Sounds like I am really having a go at Breen, doesn't it? I don't know about that. I'm dissatisfied with the state of intellectual discourse in books about Korea. I think he's a talented writer. It's clear he cares about Korea. I suppose I don't know what to do with his book. I guess I find it intellectually lazy. I'm reviewing it right now and yanking passages to illustrate my points. So, more to come shortly.

The latest stupid thing Kathleen Hannah has said about something she doesn't seem to care about

I grew up loving Kathleen Hannah and everything she did. Total fanboy for the riotgrrrls and zine stars of my generation. Then she retired from doing the things she did to being interviewed about the things she used to do and what she thinks about stuff happening now like politics and blogging and how diff everything thing is.

and boy she sucks at it. Please go back to doing what you did: you know, leading by example and kicking ass.

Here's the latest stupid thing Kathleen Hannah has said about something she doesn't seem to care about:

The thing that's different between blogging and zines is that zines were supposed to be historical ... [zines] existed in this one specific time period. And the thing I sometimes don't like about blogs is that they are can seem really ahistorical ... I like the objectness.

In other words, Kathleen Hannah likes things she can hold, like a book or a zine, because she can hold them. YAWN. All that shit about "ahistorical" this and "objectness" that, well that's nonsense, really.

But then she addresses something she cares about and goes right back to awesome again. On Post-Feminism, Hannah says:

I'm so sick of the post-feminism thing. It's ridiculous. I want more interesting leaders. I think it is really hard for feminist women who are also interested in challenging all kinds of oppression is that we're freaked out about leadership, so there's not more interesting leaders. A lot of times we kill off our leaders, I mean not just because we're women, but we're in a culture where we create products and we destroy those products

She's absolutely spot on. We kill our (potential) leaders. We grind them into nothing and waste them. Especially our leaders who happen to be women. We take them and with all our society's zeal for sexism, we drag them through the dirt. We create and destroy products.

Yet there is something not-awesome in this claim. A lingering implicature. I don't know if I think that there aren't interesting feminist leaders around. Hannah implies that there aren't. Let's hope she doesn't think the 90s were some boom for feminists that we all let bust. I suppose she could be fully embracing her ego ideal here. I dunno.

This goes to the point of my post. When icons get old, they lose touch. Hannah's 90s rhetoric doesn't apply right now. I mean, telling young women (and men) that there aren't any interesting feminist leaders is ridiculous. There are leaders out there: young leaders. And they keep blogs, not zines. And they are fierce activists. Well, actually, many of them do publish zines. Anyway, I read them and I admire them. The more I think about it (while revising this post several times,) the more I feel she's hopelessly out of touch and doesn't know IT (what she's talking about) anymore. Either that, or she is a shitty pundit. I want to believe the latter not the former. I wish she'd stop doing these appearances. The nostalgia tour sucks and smells like death.

Anyway, when she talks about the zine culture and its history and music in the 90s, she is in her element and very engrossing. A Total Icon. When she talks like a pundit, she becomes a pundit: a boring spectacle of worn out celebrity who, apparently, would rather be dancing in some underground scene somewhere in her hipper than you old lady fashion.

Watch and fear her glasses:

Sparkling Korea

I have always disliked the tourism logo for Korea--Sparkling Korea. I suppose it's better than something to do with kimchi; but I have seen it as a harnessing of Korea's obsession with all things cute. And as you can see from the image to the left, the government apparently thinks Russian models are better suited to sell the trademark than regular Koreans. There is a rank consumerism in urban Korea that I will write about some other time.

To the point: Sparkling Korea is actually not some cutie creation.

Now I find out that it comes from Koryo--where the modern term "Korea" originates--and Koryo comes from Wang Kon, who viewed himself as the successor to Koguryo. You can see that Koryo is a shortened form of Koguryo. Koryo means "high mountains and sparkling waters." Seoul is anything but sparkling, let me tell you. But there is undeniable beauty outside the city. And Koreans love their land and all of its nature. So, now I get It.

Short history lesson about Koryon and Wang Kon: this all happened in the late ninth century when Wang Kon helped Kyonhwon, the estranged founder of Later Paekche, take back Later Koguryo from his first son who had usurped power when Kyonhwon attempted to have his fourth son succeed him. This kind of made the first born angry.

Wang Kon was the son of Kungye who founded Later Koguryo at Kaesong, in central Korea. (Wan Kon believed that he was the proper successor to what was left of the Koguryo legacy, so he was more than happy to help estranged father take on estranged son while at the same time helping finish off the third, ailing kingdom, Silla.) I do believe it is Wang Kon who fought relentlessly against Later Paekche and who got Silla to surrender. To make a really long story too short: Wang Kon unified Korea. His Koryo dynasty ruled for almost half a millenium. He is viewed by Koreans as being one of the great, magnanimous rulers from the past.

SPARKLING.

dagText

Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History, Updated Edition by Bruce Cumings

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I am loving this book and I am only finishing the first chapter, Virtues.



So many books on Korea speak about the country and its culture as if the Koreans were Chinese or only known through their coping with the Korean war or struggles with Japan.



I have been looking for a book about Korea and about Koreans. And Bruce Cummings attempts to do this.



The first chapter handles the history prior to the modern era. Korea had its own history and culture, something quite unique: a history I have been interested in for some time.



So far so good.


View all my reviews.