Saturday, August 05, 2006

Book Review: Korea: The Land of Miracles

I recently wrote this review for the Hawaii drama board, and I wanted to post it here as well:

When I was getting ready for our trip to Korea last fall, I kept checking our bookstore for Lonely Planet Korea and Lonely Planet Seoul, but had no luck (ended up using amazon.com for them). However, in the travel section, they had stocked this book by Simon Winchester called Korea- A Walk Through the Land of Miracles. At the time, I was irritated by this because I was looking for practical information like a map of the subway system, but one day, while letting the kids browse the children’s books, I picked up the book and read the preface. I was so drawn in that I had to buy the book.

The book chronicles the journey of author Simon Winchester as he travels by foot in the late 1980s, just prior to the 1988 Olympics, from the very southern tip of Cheju Island to the DMZ. His journey of Korea was forced to stop at the DMZ because he could not get permission to travel into North Korea. He patterned his journey after the crew of the Sparrowhawk, a Dutch merchant ship, which crashed on Cheju Island in August of 1653. The crew was captured by the Koreans and sent by the Governor of Cheju to Seoul to go before the King and his court. They were brought by ship across the Strait of Cheju and then transported north “by horse and foot”. Ultimately, the crew was exiled to the southwest corner of Korea until they managed to escape to Japan via a stolen fishing boat ten years later. The ship’s secretary Hendrick Hamel recorded the crew’s journey, and as he mirrors the crew’s trek into Seoul, Winchester begins each chapter by quoting from Hamel’s book “the Kingdom of Corea.” On a side note, Hamel’s book, published in 1668 is thought to be the first European account of Korea.

I confess that when I started this book, I really knew very little about Korea’s post-war environment. To me, Korea was the Korea I saw on dramas like Kim Sam Soon- hip, modern and westernized. So, I was immediately taken back when he wrote in the author’s note: “In a while, with good luck and a fair wind, the people of South Korea will enjoy a high degree of human rights. But for now it is a sad reality that they do not.” Granted, this was written in the late 1980’s, but to me, Korea seemed to enjoy political freedoms similar to the US. This book made me appreciate the tense environment in Korea, living in a state of war with the North, always on the look out for invasion from the enemy. He gives a vivid overview of the Massacre of Kwangju from both sides of the issue (Massacre or Uprising?) and discusses in detail the political fallout from the event. He also spends time with “the Peacekeepers” on one of the US military bases. The disrespectful behavior towards Korea of some of the soldiers he spent time with will make you cringe for sure.

Apart from the political stuff, he gets into vivid descriptions of the beauty of the Korea, its people, and his admiration for the work ethic of the country. He gives great accounts of things like going to a bathhouse, playing cards Korean-style, and drinking soju…all things drama fans can appreciate. He also details the logistic difficulties of making the trip by foot. I must say, as a fitness junkie, part of the intrigue of the book for me was the fact that he made the journey by walking. I found myself immensely jealous of the ability to take on a month-long adventure like this both because of my love for Korea as well as the physical challenge of the trip. A caveat I will add is that the book is written by an Englishman, so it is a outsider’s view of Korea. That is the one thing I like about learning about Korea through the dramas- it is learning the culture first hand rather than through a westerner’s perspective, which can make it feel distant and unfamiliar. Overall, I recommend this book as a great way to get a feel for the post-war Korea and the challenges that it faces.

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