book reviews and summaries, comments, analysis
Breen, Michael The Koreans: Who they are, what they want, where their future lies.
This is a good book. Many books of this sort would be heavy with socio-political theories and analysis. Breen is much more content to just present the facts, and the Koreans, as he sees them. Thus you find yourself learning more and more about this amazing country and its people. Even Cartman on South Park has an attention span that can handle this text. But it is not dumbed down. Unlike the history texts used in today’s schools, it does not insult the reader.
Since I lived in Korea for many years, I will succumb to the temptation to make comments about Breen’s observations where I can verify or refute them.
- The Cruelty of Koreans: during the Korean and Vietnam wars Korean soldiers gained a reputation for great brutality. Perhaps a better way to describe this trait is to say it is a remarkably heavy-handed society. Almost all demonstrations end up with police and rioters cracking heads with reckless abandon. The degree to which the Koreans tolerate this treatment is remarkable. Their pets and farm animals fare no better; it is not unusual in midwinter to find their dogs tied outside 24 hours a day to a leash only a few feet long. If the dog is destined to be eaten (dog soup is pretty good, by the way) the animal is hung, beaten and strangled. This releases hormones which tenderize the meat and supposedly improve male sexual performance.
- Educational pressure to excel: visit a library in Korea on a Saturday morning at 6 AM. You’ll see kids already in line—if you show up later, there won’t be seats available for those who wish to study all day. The pressure to perform is so great that suicide is common among pupils who fail entrance examinations. Korean youngsters miss out on the most precious of gifts: their childhood. The demand for tutors—usually Americans—provides a cottage industry in Korea for westerners in need of under-the-table cash. Yet the quality of education is, in fact, quite poor. Students are taught-to-the-tests; there is little questioning and independent thinking. The western style classroom, with students engaging the professor in discussion and presentation of alternative points of view, is almost unheard of. On US Military bases, Korea discourages its Soldiers and Nationals from taking courses offered by US Universities (such as Maryland or Central Texas College) fearing that their exposure to western style education will disillusion them when compared to the Korean system. For an informative essay try Korea Walks a Tightrope elsewhere on this site.
- His rendition of Korean History is brief but informative. A better book to read would be Williams' book reviewed elsewhere on this site.
- One very useful fact. Koreans often ran the Japanese POW camps in WWII. It was this unpleasant experience that explains why Americans felt that Korea was ‘just an extension of Japan’ when they managed the country in the late 1940s. Breen’s coverage of the postwar partition leaves out a lot of details, but this book focuses more on ‘culture’ and less on ‘politics,’ anyway.
- In a brief but powerful foray Breen punctures the argument that ‘Confucian/Asian ethics’ are behind that region’s economic ascendancy. Officials in that area are as corrupt as any in the west. I might add the repeated crises in Asia (Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, etc) make it clear their neo-Mercantilist model has major flaws.
- The experience with German unification has discouraged many in South Korea from pursuit of unification with the North. This is unfortunate: the West Germans made many mistakes that the Koreans need not repeat. But it is now a mantra in the country that unification would impose costs of billions of dollars and be an economic disaster. For an alternative view, have a look at this short essay.
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