Korean Studies Internet Discussion List KOREAN STUDIES REVIEW
Stone Mirror: Reflections on Contemporary Korea,by David I. Steinberg, 2002. Norwalk, CT: East Bridge. 298 pages. (ISBN 1-891936-12-3), US $14.95.
reviewed by Bernhard Seliger
Hanns Seidel StiftungStone Mirror contains a collection of over 100 short essays on a wide range of topics relating to Korea: current affairs, culture, society, and political relations. Drawn from David Steinberg's more than 230 columns for the Korea Times (and,
occasionally, other newspapers), the essays are grouped into such fields as "Korean Mores and Customs", "Ceremonies and Traditions", "Food and Hospitality", "Landscapes and Aesthetics" and so on, and appeared originally between 1995 and 2002. (Some bear the date of 1966, but this appears to be a printing error.)The author, of course, needs little introduction to the Korean Studies community. As a long time resident of Korea (1963-68 and 1994-98) and Director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, Steinberg has profound insight into Korean culture and society, and this insight makes his essays entertaining and often enlightening.
Steinberg's long interest and experience in Korean affairs also allows him to detach his reflections from the background noise that so often surrounds political and societal discussion in Korea. While South Korea's economy and political system have developed at breathtaking speed, lasting elements of its unique traditional culture and society remain. Rarely are these elements so clearly illuminated as in these small pieces of Steinberg. Understanding Korea's development, however, also requires recognition that these traditional remnants are crucial and Steinberg's perceptiveness is one of the reasons this volume is so valuable. His comparisons of then and now are therefore my favourite pieces in the collection, as
when he discusses "ritual retribution," and reflects on the "blame game" that followed the outbreak of the economic and financial crisis of 1997. While the last pieces collected in this book were written in early 2002, many of them equally apply to the current political situation: his comments on the confrontation of government and the media under Kim Dae-Jung in 2000 also fit the current confrontation between Roh Moo-Hyun and the media, and his 1998 remarks on elites and universities are at least as appropriate in the current dispute about the universities' autonomy to select students.While often reflecting on ongoing political discussion in Korea, most of Steinberg's pieces tend to focus on underlying aspects of Korea's culture and society. His advice, on topics as diverse as Anti-Americanism, gender equality or food culture, is always amiable, never bullying. This attitude reflects Steinberg's large experience, not only of Korean history and politics, culture and language, but also of Korean interaction with the outside world and Korean ways of incorporating foreign viewpoints.
Steinberg's experience of South Korea and its transformations is, however, paradoxically also a limitation. On some topics (most obviously, on North Korea and inter-Korean relations since the summit of June 2000, but also on trends towards political and economic integration in Northeast Asia and China's resurgent role in the region), Steinberg has few things to say. Evidently, as the back cover of the book suggests, with its rather modest talk of an "iconoclastic yet sympathetic series of vignettes on the cultural, socioeconomic, and political life of Korea," he did not intend to give a complete overview of contemporary Korea. This collection's vignettes fill a gap in bridging popular and academic writing on contemporary Korea, and will be a most welcome addition for readers interested in looking at Korean affairs not as a discrete series of events, but as embedded within and shaped by a unique culture and political economy.
Citation:
Seliger, Bernhard 2004
Stone Mirror: Reflections on Contemporary Korea, by David I. Steinberg, (2002)
Korean Studies Review 2004, no. 19
Electronic file: http://koreanstudies.com/ks/ksr/ksr04-19.htm