(Part 3) Top products from r/korea

I did get a design-related degree, so I do consider myself an artsy person, but I never learned about textiles formally. I'm Korean-American and I've always loved traditional clothing, so it's just a hobby for me, haha. And wow, I'll be honest, I wasn't sure anybody would be willing to drop that kind of money on my recommendation XD ! I'm sure you'll love it.

Yes, that book is VERY expensive, and I have yet to get it myself, but it's high on my wishlist. I actually bought one of the author's first books on East Asian embroidery to get a taste of what her other books might offer, and I thought it was really good information for the price. It's from 1980 though, so the age does show.

http://www.amazon.com/Oriental-Embroidery-Young-Yang-Chung/dp/0684162482/ref=la_B001JXS6HQ_1_3s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419142855&sr=1-3

It's mostly black and white, and the unhappy reviewer in right in saying that many of the black and white photographs can be difficult to make out details. But the color pages in the middle are good, and the text had enough detailed information on the history, symbolism, and context of embroidery that it was easily worth the less than $10 with shipping. I loved that it had a visual appendix in the back of common groups of motifs used in embroidery and their meanings. The book uses specific famous examples from each culture to give the reader an idea of the culture's unique embroidery: Chinese dragon robe, the Japanese kimono, and the Korean bridal dress. They also have chapters on home accessories, clothing accessories, and screens and banners. The book does a lot of walking you through how the things were made and the techniques used, almost like step-by-step tutorials. It's not an exhaustive book, but it's a great start if you don't mind the unflattering black-and-white photographs and heavy reliance on the text.

http://www.amazon.com/Painting-Needle-Learning-Embroidery-Young/dp/0810945703/ref=asap_B001JXS6HQ?ie=UTF8

This is another, much more modern book from her (2003) that's also very affordable, but I believe this book is also more focused on the actual crafting of embroidery for embroiderers who wish to try it themselves. I have yet to get this book, but it's also on my list.

I'm glad to see other people who are interested in these topics like me =) . I'm hoping to go to Korea very soon with the EPIK program, and I'm looking forward to being able to see all these things in person at their museums and market. Good luck!

Koreans right now? I'd be hard pressed to find someone in my vicinity to openly profess a nostalgic desire for uh... Let's call it reintegration, but yes, during the colonial period ([1910-1945] and the decades immediately before) there were many who throughout the course of Colonization that either 1) professed loyalty to the empire or 2) believed in a (retrospectively Ill-conceived) pan-Asian unity. Since I'm no longer as familiar with outright collaborators I'll just deal with the latter.

As an example, the first modern novel '무정/Heartless' was written by Lee Kwangsu. In Korean historiography he is viewed in several ways. National history courses may just leave it at that but depending on who you speak with he's either a collaborator or, a 'cultural nationalist.' That is to say as a cultural nationalist, he and other like minded individuals fell short in demanding sovereignty or even autonomy for that matter and pushed for at least recognition for Koreans in partnership with the Japanese.

Lee however was caught up in the idea of a 'New Rome' in the East. This is important since ideas of pan-Asian solidarity (not to be confused with the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere) were in contention with aggregate nationalist waves of thought. Instead of Korean or Japanese state, the idea of 'Daito/Daedong' or The Great East was tinged with social Darwinist conceptions of human division. The New Rome Lee envisioned was a grand struggle among the races of the world, and using Japan as a vehicle, Koreans would survive.

This lineage of thought is further tracked back to Sin Chaeho and even further back to Liang Qichao in China.
And..even the famous (in Korea at least) assassin of one colonial governor-General Ito Hirobumi. Yes, Ahn Joongun was not a nationalist by any definition. He was claimed in nationalist historiography to be a one dimensional nationalist but acted as he did because of sense of betrayal of the pan-Asian dream by Japanese particularism. You can read or Google this from Ahn's 아지아 평화론/동맹설(I don't remember, it's been a while).

Can write more but getting tired. If you're interested read Andre Scmid's "Korea Between Empires" or articles by Tikhanov on Korean pan-asianists.

BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/Korea-Between-Empires-Andre-Schmid/dp/0231125399

REVIEW OF BOOK:
" A groundbreaking and border-crossing work in modern Korean intellectual history. A dazzling combination of rich textual analysis, sustained argument engaging the latest historiography and theoretical literature, and limpid, elegant prose, it lays bare the genealogy of twentieth-century Korean nationalist identity and consciousness and challenges the embedded colonizer/colonized binary of much previous scholarship by situating that genealogy in a universalizing discourse which simultaneously embraced both Korea and Japan.

(Cater Eckert, Harvard University) "

I took a trip to Korea, visited a museum and saw Admiral Yi Sun Shin's sword a long time ago. They talked about the Kobukson, the famous turtle ship, from this trip as well, that it was an armor-clad naval vessel fully 300 years before the Monitor and the Merrimac used in the American Civil War.

Many years later, I tried to find out as much as I could about Admiral Yi, his life and death and accomplishments during the Japanese invasion of Korea in the late 1500s. I've read through his diaries, as much as I could get through, and several books by Steven Turnbull.

Absolutely fascinating.

His life could easily become a Hollywood movie. There are some parallels in his life to that of the popular recent k-drama, 도깨 비, Goblin's main character, Kim Shin - specifically around how the King would listen to his court sycophants and the subsequent treatment of his loyal military leader. The recent movie, The Admiral, only focuses on one battle, but from 1592 - 1598, there were some amazing tactics that he developed and employed, winning 33 naval battles while severely outnumbered.

I'll leave you with 2 quotes from his Wikipedia page and a link to a humorous and NSFW recounting of his accomplishments:

Admiral George Alexander Ballard of the Royal Navy considered Yi a great naval commander, and compared him to Lord Nelson of England:

"It is always difficult for Englishmen to admit that Nelson ever had an equal in his profession, but if any man is entitled to be so regarded, it should be this great naval commander of Asiatic race who never knew defeat and died in the presence of the enemy; of whose movements a track-chart might be compiled from the wrecks of hundreds of Japanese ships lying with their valiant crews at the bottom of the sea, off the coasts of the Korean peninsula... and it seems, in truth, no exaggeration to assert that from first to last he never made a mistake, for his work was so complete under each variety of circumstances as to defy criticism... His whole career might be summarized by saying that, although he had no lessons from past history to serve as a guide, he waged war on the sea as it should be waged if it is to produce definite results, and ended by making the supreme sacrifice of a defender of his country."

Admiral Togo regarded Admiral Yi as his superior. At a party held in his honor, Togo took exception to a speech comparing him to Lord Nelson and Yi Sun-sin.

"It may be proper to compare me with Nelson, but not with Korea’s Yi Sun-sin, for he has no equal."

Bad Ass of the Week NSFW

Krys Lee's Drifting House is highly regarded -- although is more about Koreans in America and North Koreans. Also, it is a bit depressing (good, but rather serious).

Giacomo Lee apparently has a new book coming out about modern Korea, called Funereal. Naomi Foyle's Seoul Survivors is a science-fiction novel set in Korea that I've seen some good reviews for (but haven't read myself).

I totally second EatYourNut's recommendation of that Korean Modern Literature series.

For something older, Katsuei Yuasa's Kannani is really excellent. It's about the March 1 Movement, in 1919, but from the eyes of a Japanese child living in Korea. The history that goes with the short story (in the book I linked to) is also fascinating.

Hey I have quite a few books from that period that could help you!
The first is Elites and Political Power in South Korea.
If you want a book about the Park Chung-Hee period and the elites at this time maybe read Korea's development under Park Chung-Hee.
If you want to read about the elites and political climate during the democratisation period perhaps read From transition to power alternation..
Finally if you want a book that discusses the general climate and to see how elites are viewed give Democracy and authority in South Korea a read.

Hope this was helpful :) Sorry if the books are a bit expensive...I got them free from my library so I didn't realise how much most of them cost. You said you wanted detailed analysis and these are very detailed.

Edit: Just wanted to add it is a very interesting period and topic, I read alot about it myself if you couldn't tell ;)

• A Review of Korean History Vol.1, Ancient/Goryeo Era (Woo, Han Young)
  
• A Review of Korean History Vol.2, Joseon Era (Woo, Han Young)
  
• A Review of Korean History Vol.3, Modern/Contemporary Era (Woo, Han Young)
  
• Women of Korea: A History from Ancient Times to 1945 (Ed. Kim, Yung-Chung)
  
• Sources of Korean Tradition: Volume One: From Early Times Through the Sixteenth Century (Lee, Peter H.)
  
• The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong: The Autobiographical Writings of a Crown Princess of Eighteenth-Century Korea (Ed., Trans. JaHyun Kim Haboush)
  
• The Dawn of Modern Korea: the transformation in life and cityscape (Lankov, Andrei)
  
  A Review of Korean History is good for a quick overview of the political, cultural, and social changes that took place in the different polities of the Korean peninsula. It doesn't go into too much detail on any particular point but you do get information about things like the impact of corvée labour, the sarim faction, etc.
  
  Sources of Korean Tradition can be rather dry but includes translated quotes from the original source material. The book introduces differences in Buddhist schools and Confucian thought in Korea's past, which is not something that I've seen discussed in many other works.
  
  The Dawn of Modern Korea is a series of essays that each deal with the introduction of a new product or piece of technology: automobiles, the electric light bulb, photography, and so on. Not landmark history, but a fun easy read.

I'm going to get downvoted for this, but there is a translation issue here. The video never mentions "Comfort Women" (위안부/慰安婦), but instead talks about Teishintai (정신대/挺身隊), or volunteer corps. These were mostly girls, mostly Japanese, who "volunteered" (and in 1944 were recruited) to help out with the war effort in factories and military support roles, in some ways similar to women in wartime in the US and the UK.

Now, I'm almost 99% percent sure there were women who were duped into prostitution via the volunteer corps, but there's a lot of confusion and debate between Korea and Japan between 정신대 and 위안부, the former being generally innocuous, although it does raise some major issues about gendered mobilization in wartime in general. You can read about it in Japanese here and C. Sarah Soh's book on the comfort women, one of the best sources on the issue in my opinion, problematizes this confusion.

My point is, yeah this JAV is in super bad taste, playing off some weird kind of historical nostalgia, but translation and subjectivity are important to consider and from the producers' viewpoint, it's probably not specifically targeting the Comfort Women.

Edit: A word

I recommend you read Camp 14 (https://www.amazon.com/Escape-Camp-14-Remarkable-Odyssey/dp/0143122916) if you haven't already. You will realize how little you actually saw, compared to harsh realities many people face.

Do you have a picture of the slaves? I'd like to see that..sounds fascinating.

Also, in South Korea, there is nothing stopping anyone from visiting the some of the poor rural areas, some of which can be viewed from public trains. I got drunk one night in Seoul and wandered into some pretty nasty areas north of the river...that was pretty eye-opening.
That is a major difference between a free country and a fascist (or whatever word you want to use) one.

Just sayin'...anyways I'm glad you got a lot out of your trip and appreciate you sharing with the reddit community.

Please Look After Mom (엄마를 부탁해) by Kyung-sook Shin (신경숙). Quite interesting contemporary literature, which I enjoyed a lot.

http://www.amazon.com/Please-Look-After-Vintage-Contemporaries/dp/0307739511

or support your local bookstore!

This is awesome, you would really like the book by Charles Jenkins. He was housemates and later, neighbors with Dresnok for 30+ years in North Korea. He is the one of the 4 known defectors that actually made it out of NK, the other two died and Dresnok I believe is still there.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Reluctant-Communist-Court-Martial-Imprisonment/dp/0520259998/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335149060&sr=8-1

Great find, I appreciate it!

Agreed, you brave soul. Currently reading the book below and it similarly recounts what you're saying. (Waiting for part 2 of this book though)

https://www.amazon.com/Park-Chung-Hee-Modern-Korea/dp/0674659864

Spirit of the Mountain, by David Mason. It's about the mountain spirit, Sanshin, who just has all this cool mythology around him as part of traditional Korean 무속. His website is here.

I'd also recommed Korea: A religious History, and Myths and Legends from Korea, both of which are written by James Grayson, who I promise is unparalleled by anyone when it comes to this subject.

I recommend this one if you're looking for a broad perspective: http://www.amazon.com/History-Greenwood-Histories-Modern-Nations/dp/0313332967/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1377734467&sr=8-9&keywords=korean+history

For reference, if you go online in America and check the price of a S10 5G, they start at $1300 USD.

You can get a factory unlocked Samsung Galaxy S10 with 512GBs and U.S. warranty for $745.49 on Amazon, but it's color is Flamingo Pink. Other colors cost more.

Here's another book of questions. It might be floating around out there somewhere on the internets in pdf form.

Just a little taste of the huge amount of literature about this subject.

"As time went on, the labor needs of the land holders continued to grow, and desperate to cultivate the land, they were loathe to let go of their bond servants and the bondsmen and bondswomen’s children (whom they kept in bondage for a legally defined time as well). In the mean time, a growing American peasantry was proving as difficult to govern as the European peasantry back home, periodically rising up in riot and rebellion, light skinned and dark skinned together. The political leaders of the Virginia colony struck upon an answer to all these problems, an answer which plagues us to this day.
The Virginians legislated a new class of people into existence: the whites. They gave the whites certain rights, and took other rights from blacks. White, as a language of race, appears in Virginia around the 1680s, and seems to first appear in Virginia law in 1691. And thus whiteness, and to a degree as well blackness, was born in the mind of America.

As of the 18th century whites could not be permanently enslaved as they sometimes had been before, and black slaves could never work their way to freedom.

This has resulted in a system where centuries later race is still how class is lived in America."

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/5/6/1382872/-Matters-of-Race-and-Class-How-Whiteness-is-One-of-the-Greatest-Scams-in-Modern-History

https://www.amazon.com/Invention-White-Race-Oppression-Control/dp/1844677699

https://www.amazon.com/Working-Toward-Whiteness-Americas-Immigrants/dp/0465070744