[KS] KSR 2004-19: _Stone Mirror: Reflections on Contemporary Korea_, by David I. Steinberg

[Stephen Epstein]

_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 Stiftung
bjseliger at yahoo.de



	Stone 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://koreaweb.ws/ks/ksr/ksr04-19.htm
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://koreanstudies.com/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreanstudies.com/attachments/20041120/381aad7a/attachment.html>