[KS] Fine review by John Feffer in The Nation of some recent Korean literary works
Afostercarter at aol.com
Afostercarter at aol.com
Sun Sep 3 03:48:02 EDT 2006
Dear friends and colleagues,
Sorry to pop up again so soon. But I wanted to draw attention to
a very fine review by John Feffer in The Nation of some recent
Korean literary works. See also his own notice, below.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060918/feffer
I find this excellent on many levels. Not only does he introduce
modern Korean writing to the wider Western reading public -
which, as he says, still remains woefully ignorant of these riches.
But he also conveys the issues, the agonies; why all this matters.
For those who don't know Feffer's work - even within the Korea field,
I fear there may still be Chinese walls between the academic and
policy studies milieux - may I recommend as well a richly textured and
substantial piece that he wrote, while a Pantech fellow at Stanford, on
Korea's food and agricultural history. Again, I append a taster.
http://iis-db.stanford.edu/pubs/20815/Globalization_and_Korean_Agriculture_Joh
n_Feffer.pdf
He is also the author and editor of books on Korea's politics and
international relations, which I think have been notified on this List:
http://www.sevenstories.com/Book/index.cfm?GCOI=58322100925650
http://www.routledge-ny.com/shopping_cart/products/product_detail.asp?sku=&
isbn=0415770378
http://www.johnfeffer.com/
Finally, a happy Labor Day to all in the US!
best wishes
Aidan
AIDAN FOSTER-CARTER
Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea, Leeds University
Home address: 17 Birklands Road, Shipley, West Yorkshire, BD18 3BY, UK
tel: +44(0) 1274 588586 (alt) +44(0) 1264 737634 mobile:
+44(0) 7970 741307
fax: +44(0) 1274 773663 ISDN: +44(0) 1274 589280
Email: afostercarter at aol.com (alt) afostercarter at yahoo.com website:
www.aidanfc.net
[Please use @aol; but if any problems, please try @yahoo too - and let me
know, so I can chide AOL]
________________
Subj: New article on Korean literature: The Nation
Date: 02/09/2006 18:50:06 GMT Standard Time
From: johnfeffer at gmail.com
To: johnfeffer at gmail.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)
Dear friends:
The Nation just published my review of recent Korean literature, including
books by Hwang Sok-Yong and Ko Un. You can read it online at
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060918/feffer .
Here is the beginning:
review | posted August 31, 2006 (September 18, 2006 issue)
Writers From the Other Asia
John Feffer
According to the official North Korean version, the Americans were the
culprits. In October 1950, the first year of the Korean War, American soldiers
massacred tens of thousands of innocent people in the North Korean city of Sinchon.
In perhaps the most horrifying incident, US soldiers led 900 residents,
including 300 women and children, into an air-raid shelter. After the victims
passed three days in thirst and fear, the GIs poured gasoline into the dark,
confined space and threw in a match. Today in Sinchon, the North Korean authorities
have memorialized this slaughter with burial mounds for the victims. The
nearby American Imperial Massacre Remembrance Museum holds tours for school groups
and the occasional foreign visitor. In September 1998 I visited the Sinchon
museum and listened to the guide itemize the many wartime cruelties committed by
American troops. She took our delegation to the burned-out shell of the
air-raid shelter and, on the basis of survivor accounts, reconstructed the
atrocities. It would be another year before the Associated Press published the first
revelations of the US killings of civilians in July 1950 under a railway bridge
near the South Korean hamlet of Nogun-ri. But based on what historian Bruce
Cumings and others had described of US conduct during the Korean War--the
saturation bombings, the threatened use of nuclear weapons--the museum guide's
well-rehearsed stories seemed plausible, even accounting for the embellishments of
North Korean propaganda.
In the 1980s South Korean novelist Hwang Sok-Yong visited the same museum. He
subsequently interviewed several survivors of the Sinchon massacre who had
immigrated to the United States. Their description of what transpired in the
fall of 1950 diverged so radically from the North Korean account that Hwang was
driven to write about the incident. His novel The Guest provoked fierce
controversy among readers in South Korea, where it was published in 2001. Read the
rest here
all the best,
John
--
John Feffer
Co-Director, Foreign Policy In Focus
Director, Global Affairs program
International Relations Center
www.fpif.org
_____________________________________
http://aparc.stanford.edu/publications/korean_food_korean_identity_the_impact_
of_globalization_on_korean_agriculture/
Korean Food, Korean Identity: The Impact of Globalization on Korean
Agriculture
Report
Author:
John Feffer
Published by
Shorenstein APARC, 2005
One of the few ways to get a taste of North Korea, short of leaping through
numerous hoops to get a visa to visit the country, is to eat cold noodles
(naengmyen). Most South Korean cities and even a few American ones offer several
types of North Korean-style noodle restaurants. The version often prepared in
Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, is mul naengmyen, or cold noodles in broth. It
is served in a large metal bowl and looks like a flowering mountain rising up
from the sea. Artfully balanced atop the mound of noodles made from buckwheat
flour are julienned cucumbers, several slices of beef, half a hardboiled egg,
and a few pieces of crisp Korean pear. When prepared Hamhung-style -- named
after the industrial city on North Korea's east coast -- noodles are made from s
weet potato flour and often topped with raw skate, which has a slightly
ammoniac flavor.
The signs in the South advertising Northern-style cold noodles are a reminder
of the Korean War and the division of the peninsula. After the Korean War,
refugees from the conflict set up stalls in the markets of Seoul to sell the
"taste of the north" to those who could no longer travel there. The recipes they
brought with them to the south were sometimes the only valuables they carried.
In the 1990s, a new wave of North Koreans came to the South and established
naengmyen restaurants. Hailing from the North lends a certain authenticity to
the preparation of the dish. Whether prepared by the refugees of the 1950s and
their descendents, the defectors of the 1990s, or North Koreans themselves in
Pyongyang or Hamhung, cold noodles are something that North Koreans are widely
credited with doing better than South Koreans.
But the way naengmyen is "consumed" in the South reveals the great disparity
between the two countries. There are many jokes in South Korea about the
number of North Korean defectors who have only this one marketable skill. Since
cooking in Korea is largely a woman's job, the close association of North Koreans
with the production and sale of cold noodles subtly feminizes and, according
to patriarchal Korean values, devalues them. North Koreans are thus
second-class citizens, both those who are unemployed (the majority) and those who are
employed only to provide service to the real "breadwinners" of the country.
Anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker relates how South Korean textbooks and popular
culture often depict North Korea as the younger brother of the more advanced
South Korean older brother. Given the cultural associations of naengmyen, wife
to husband might be the more appropriate analogy. A recent Joongang Ilbo
Photoshop cartoon reinforces this sexist gloss on inter-Korean relations by
depicting South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun dressed as a Choson-era husband with
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il as his bride.
In a divided country, cold noodles serve as an important reminder of a common
culture. They also represent a unique contribution that the economically
weaker North Korea can bring to the reunification process. But however tasty
Pyongyang-style mul naengmyen may be, cold noodles ensure neither a sustainable
livelihood for every North Korean defector nor an equal place at the
reunification table for North Korea.
Download
PDF: Globalization_and_Korean_Agriculture_John_Feffer.pdf (410Kb)
[ends]
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