BAKS: promoting the study and understanding of Korea in the United Kingdom

book reviews 2 (2006-)

(Authors and publishers wishing to have new books reviewed on this page are invited to contact Emeritus Professor KeithPratt at k_l_pratt[at]yahoo.co.uk. Members of BAKS interested in reviewing new books will be welcome.)

John Feffer (ed.), The Future of US-Korean Relations: The Imbalance of Power, New York: Routledge, 240 pp., 2006.

John Feffer edited this book, which includes an introduction followed by 9 chapters written by highly esteemed Korean scholars, and a 5 page bibliography.

The United States is an important player in the Korean Peninsula. More than 30,000 U.S. soldiers are stationed in South Korea and the military alliance between the U.S. and South Korea is one of the indicators why the United States is a significant state in the Korean Peninsula and in the region as a whole. The Korean Peninsula is the last reminder of the Cold War. The number of military forces stationed along the DMZ and the potential for conflict (conventional and nuclear) that exists in the region are some of the reasons why U.S.- Korean relations are an issue important enough to warrant the publishing of a book on this subject.

The dilemma that any editor faces is which topic should be included in a book that analyzes U.S.- Korean relations. The editor of this volume gives us an excellent "blend" of issues that concern the Korean Peninsula and the United States, which allows the reader to get an extensive and interesting depiction of one of the last remains of the Cold War and one of the remaining places in the world that has the potential for a nuclear war.

The book covers different issues related to Korean - United States relations. I will not comment on all the chapters due to length limitations. The book begins with a short historical survey of U.S.- Korean relations. In the second part of the first chapter, Prof. Charles Armstrong focuses on the current U.S.-North Korean nuclear conflict. The North Korean nuclear issue is not a dyadic problem as this book stresses. The North Korean nuclear and missile problem is a multi faceted issue. There are additional players in the region that should not be overlooked.

Nationalism, which is discussed in the third chapter, is another important factor in U.S.- Korean relations and in Korean politics. The battle over legitimacy between both Koreas and the rise of anti-Americanism in Korea especially prior to the last presidential elections are two examples that are dealt with in the chapter, and show how this issue is very relevant in current Korean political and foreign relations.

In the fifth chapter, Prof. Gavin McCormack and Prof. Wada Haruki analyze one of the delicate and emotional issues between Japan and North Korea. For many years the DPRK did not admit that its agents abducted more than 15 Japanese citizens. It took the Japanese government a number of years to convince Pyongyang to admit that it abducted the Japanese citizens. The two senior researchers analyze the complexity of the matter and demonstrate that this is not the only issue preventing normalization between these states. 

In the sixth chapter, Prof. Samuel Kim deals with China's important role in the Korean Peninsula. China has been mediating between the DPRK and the U.S. and has used its leverage numerous times to convince Pyongyang not to escalate tensions in the Korean Peninsula. China plays an important role in the Korean crisis. That is why this chapter is very important to understanding its position in the Korean Peninsula.

The eighth chapter analyzes one of the important political arenas that the Korean issues confront. In order to understand the American policy towards Korea, one should look at Capitol Hill and understand how the Korean crisis is being handled in the U.S. Congress. It would have been better if the editor had added another chapter analyzing the role and internal politics of other players influencing U.S. policy regarding the Korean Peninsula for example, the White House, the State Department, the Department of Defense, etc. But, as aforementioned, it is one of the editor's directives to decide what should be included in the book.

This book is important for B.A. students and even for decision makers attempting to understand the complexity of the Korean Peninsula and the role of the regional players. Korean researchers will find excellent chapters in this book, which can be used as supplemental literature for their courses on Korean and Asian security.

ALON LEVKOWITZ

Patrick Koellner (ed.), 2005. Korea 2005: Politik, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft. Hamburg: Institut fur Asienkunde.  ISSN 1432-0142.  ISBN 3-88910-318-9.

The 2005 edition of the IFA's yearbook, again covering Korean politics, economy and society, is the tenth since the inception of the series in 1996.  The Institut fur Asienkunde is to be congratulated for its contribution to Korean studies in Europe over the past decade.  In his foreword, the editor, Patrick Koellner, details the quantity of articles, bibliographies, monographs and special publications that IFA has issued in that period, not omitting the earlier North Korea Quarterly that ran from 1974 to 1995.  The present volume, is every bit as far-ranging and as stimulating as earlier editions.  Following the traditional pattern, it combines general surveys of events with analyses of specific issues and draws together contributions from academics, diplomats both past and serving, technocrats and business people.  A chronology for 2004 for the Korean peninsula (South Korea, and North Korea and inter-Korean relations) and a short bibliography of the literature in German and English since 2000 on the South Korean political system add to the usefulness of the volume.

The first, and longer, section on South Korea starts off with an assessment by John Polak of the state of the US-ROK alliance in the face of new challenges, particularly in the area of security.  He concludes that the alliance is likely to survive.  Patrick Koellner follows next with a round-up of the salient points of the South Korean economy in 2004-05.  The next two contributors write with direct experience of that economy: Claus Auer, from the position of head of the Economic Section in the German embassy in Seoul, contrasts the two faces of the ROK's economy: booming exports and a declining domestic sector; while Joegen Woler, president of the German-Korean Economic Group, reviews 120 years of German-Korean economic relations as they have moved from trade to technological partnership.

The interplay of economic and social developments is the underlying theme of the following three essays.  Sunjong Choi and Elmar Lange compare the behaviour of young consumers in the 15 to 24 age range in both Germany and South Korea.  Thomas Kalinowski examines the impact of financial and economic crisis in South Korea since 1997-8 on the country's social institutions and labour relations.  Jong Hee Lee, in a discussion of women's paid employment in the ROK, points to lingering prejudice against women in the world of work.

South Korea's pre-eminence in educational attainment is the subject next of a paper by Max Pechmann on the origins and development of the country's educational system.  Thomas Kern and Sang-hui Nam then contribute two papers on health issues in Korea:  the historical development and capacity of the ROK's public health system and the challenges facing it; and the country's health policies on mental illness.  In the final paper in the section, Yeong Heui Lee writes on the problems of securing a sustainable water economy for South Korea.

The second section carries three articles on North Korea.  Patrick Koellner reviews political and economic developments in North Korea in the years 2004-05.  Hans Maretski, the last ambassador of the former German Democratic Republic to North Korea, from 1987 to 1990, gives his analysis of 'Kim Il Sungism under two leaders', a fascinating, if very critical, assessment of the leadership styles of the two Kims.  Doris Hertrampf, ambassador of the German Federal Republic to the DPRK from 2002 to 2005, contributes the final paper on relations between Germany and North Korea since the inception of diplomatic relations in 2001.

As valuable as the contents of the 2005 yearbook are, it is perhaps the foreword that is of most relevance to those engaged in Korean studies in the UK.  Here Patrick Koellner points up the uneven history of Korean studies in the German-speaking world over the past ten years.  His reports of centres and courses closed down, with new classes not wholly assured and professorial chairs in short supply, reflect closely the disappointments and anxieties experienced by Koreanists in Britain.  In Germany, only two centres of Korean studies now exist, at Bochum and Hamburg.  Dr Koellner does not suggest any causes for this retrenchment (which is a pity, since an analysis of this decline might have been instructive), but does highlight the concern of the German-Korea Forum, running since 2002, and of Korean enterprises active in Germany at the present weakness in Korean studies in the country.  He takes heart from the creation of two professorial chairs at the University of Vienna and looks to wider, Europe-based initiatives.

The Institut fur Asienkunde has been part of the Deutsche ?ersee-Institut (D«ª?German Overseas Institute), which has recently undergone restructuring to emerge in 2006 as the German Institute of Global and Area Studies, with a remit to support research forums that will look at questions of trans-regional significance.  Changes in the publishing schedules of the reformed D«ª and consequently of the IFA may yet occur and the future of the yearbook may become a subject of discussion.  In the meanwhile, we should express our thanks for ten years of instructive and constructive reporting.

SUSAN PARES

Hyun-Ok Park, Two Dreams in One Bed, Empire, Social Life, and the Origins of the North Korean Revolution in Manchuria, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2005; pp. 314.

Above all, what this book manages to do best is to illustrate what a complex place Manchuria was in the 1920s and 1930s, politically, socially, and economically. Its people - local and incoming Chinese (by no means the same either in background or political outlook during this chaotic period), nationalist, pro-Japanese, and completely non-political Koreans, Japanese military, agents of the colonial Government-General, and immigrant farmers and workers - all had different aspirations for themselves and whatever part of the region, northern, eastern or southern, they lived in. So strong and divergent were the forms of nationalism by which they were driven, so turbulent and intense the pressures felt even in this corner of the world in response to the global upheavals of these darkening decades, that neither regional authorities, local officials, nor especially the poor farmers or factory workers of whichever competing race, struggling to establish a livelihood in unfamiliar and difficult lands, or the merchants hoping to profit from them, enjoyed any peace and stability in which they could put down deep enough roots to feel that this was home. Sometimes ideology encouraged inter-racial cooperation; more often, nationalism or just plain social rivalries underlay disputes that ranged from minor disagreements to massacre.

I had anticipated that this would be a chiefly descriptive book to build on my basic knowledge of contemporary Chinese, Korean and Japanese history, but in this I was disappointed. This, I should stress, was not entirely Ms Park's fault: she had not set out to write such a book. Rather, hers is an analytical study of the forces acting on various ethnic and political groupings and inter-acting with each other, with the principal stated objective of illuminating the part played by capitalism in the development of Manchuria before and after the 1931 Incident and after the creation of Manchukuo. It is not an easy task, but one that requires immense skill at interpreting a wide variety of source materials. To what extent the expert may find that she succeeds I cannot say. From time to time she conveniently reviews the contributions of other Korean scholars on aspects of the subject, and draws attention to her own originality. This helps, but I must confess that I found much of the book's written style so opaque as to make me doubt my complete understanding of its lines of academic argument, and hence my ability to assess them fairly. What I found easiest to understand, and thus to appreciate, was its concluding theme, tracing the origins of communism in North Korea after 1945 back to the Manchurian experience of Kim Il Sung and his colleagues. Probably, then, a book to be welcomed by the specialist rather than the general reader, but one from which the student of Korean history will nonetheless be able to glean many nuggets of useful and interesting information if (s)he persists with it.

KEITH PRATT

Pratt, Keith,  Everlasting Flower: a History of Korea, London: Reaktion Books, 2006; 320 pp., 35 illustrations.

Drawing on the author's forty years of study, appreciation and scholarship, Keith Pratt's book provides a fresh and insightful overview of Korea's long and complex history. As such, the text will prove to be an asset to all those searching for a deeper understanding of that country; scholars and students of Korea and East Asia, and anyone with an enquiring mind will find Everlasting Flower to be an invaluable source of knowledge and a cogent interpretation of Korean history and culture.

Rather than an in-depth study, as is pointed out in the preface, the book is a 'personal view' made up of the aspects of Korea's history and culture deemed essential by the author for an understanding of the country and its people.

The book's theoretical basis is provided by a description and examination of three types of Korean nationalism: political, minjung and cultural. The last of which is illustrated throughout the text by the inclusion of 32 'picture essays', describing subjects, artistic and cultural trends and artefacts referred to in the text and providing more detailed information and description, thus giving a cultural chronological catalogue of Korean artistic, scientific and literary achievements through the ages. Key themes are also pursued, as the titles of the book's main sections suggest: the creation and development of a Korean identity; the interminable struggle between tradition and the desire to change once an identity had been formed; and the essential insecurity resulting from Korea's geo-strategic position and, latterly, its division. Those approaching the text with some knowledge of the country and region will, no doubt, recognise these themes as the essential determinants of Korea's past, present and future development. The author's primary sources include the Korean and Chinese dynastic histories and the earliest historical compendia.

This thoughtful and innovative approach provides an effective lens through which to view and make sense of such a difficult and daunting subject as Korea's long and rich history, in one relatively short text, and, in simple terms, makes for an excellent read.

The main body of the text is divided into three sections: 'the creation of state identity'; 'a century of insecurity'; and 'a century of suffering'. The first, in four chapters, traces Korean history, or 'Koreanness' from earliest times through to the establishment and consolidation of the Choson State (1392-1910), Korea's last dynasty. The second, in two chapters, looks at the last hundred years of Choson, the struggle between tradition and the urge to modernise, and Korea's fateful clash with imperialism. The third section, in three chapters, examines the traumas of the colonial era; liberation, partition and war; and the post-war aftermath of Korea's disunity.

The text is supplemented with a concise but excellent chronology, maps, a comprehensive list of sources and suggestions for further reading and a discography.

Any single text, of greater or lesser length, whose aim is to encapsulate such a complex subject will contain some weaknesses if one searches hard enough to find them. Such perceived 'shortcomings' will most likely be revealed in the areas with which the reader is most familiar. For this reviewer, whose interests lie more in Korea's modern history, 'a century of suffering' as it is termed in the book, the author's description of the aftermath of Korea's harsh experience of colonialism at the hands of Imperial Japan, rather than the actual colonial period (1910-45) itself, was not addressed in sufficient detail. However, clearly, no single text can address every aspect of such a complex history; furthermore, other texts, many of which are listed in the bibliography, do provide exhaustive studies of this aspect of modern Korean history; such criticisms then, given the inherent difficulty of trying to write a 'history in one volume', fall under the heading of disagreements over the relative importance of particular aspects of Korea's past rather than shortcomings in the text, and in no way detracted from the reviewer's enjoyment of the book, nor from the book's intrinsic value.

The value and great strength of Everlasting Flower is that it successfully and eloquently accomplishes what its author intended - to provide a 'series of snapshots' of important elements in the development of the modern Korean state and its national psyche. Keith Pratt's admirable achievement has been to weave these elements into an eminently readable and valuable book which will, no doubt, stand the test of time as a work of reference, one that sets itself apart from other texts because of its innovative approach, and one that will prove a worthy addition to any student or scholar's bookshelf.

JAMES FOLEY

Francis Mullany. Symbolism in Korean Ink Brush Painting. Global Oriental, Folkestone, 2006. 414 pages. Generously illustrated in colour and in black-and-white. ISBN 1-901903-89-3, 978-1-901903-89-8

Francis Mullany is a retired Columban Father, an Irishman who spent some forty years as a Catholic missionary in Cholla Province. This bubbling cornucopia of a book is a record of his devotion to Korean drawings and the fruit of devoted search for his material. It is not a conventional book of pictures, nor is it strictly speaking a work of Art History, and it has little of the apparatus of the academic: charts, diagrams, chronological ordering, and the like. This leads to general rejection of dates for living artists, which has a surprisingly liberating effect on the appearance of the pages. Many brackets and Arabic numbers do not add elegance to typography.

The most striking feature of the book is its vigorous amalgamation of so much that is usually treated separately: as genre drawings, Christmas cards, book illustrations, political cartoons, richly coloured patterns and pictures, Buddhist icons and Catholic madonnas are all here, as well as classic literati paintings, the occasional woodblock and, if I am not mistaken, lino-cut (page 290).

The text begins with a brief description of technique, tying in drawing with calligraphy. Then comes an essay on the 'four gentlemen' - giving an unusual slant to the sa gunja ­- at the beginning of the main section of the book, which is arranged according to the subject-matter of the drawings: various birds and trees, flowers, birds, landscape types, zodiacal animals, genre paintings, immortals.

The second part of the volume is a 'symbolism dictionary', with entries running from 'Yellow Sparrow' and 'Zodiac', the content of which appears to rely heavily on Tongyang-hwa ingnun pop ('method of reading oriental pictures') by Cho Yongjin. Most books on Korean or Chinese art have described symbolism in the terms of literary reference where the reader can look up images and learn their significance in what is essentially a lexicographical guide to historical interpretation. Fr Mullany describes this as an exposition of the literati-painter's tradition. In his 'dictionary' here he is concerned about the spontaneous and naturally symbolic approach of the Korean painter to his subject matter. He finds the Neo-Confucian world-view revealed, sometimes in genre paintings, at a deeper level.  This may stimulate the identification of the common Korean heritage of, say, an early Choseon scroll painting and a modern book-jacket.

Fr Mullany is not specially interested in botany and zoology. He does not shrink from repetition. Nor does he mind calling a crane 'a stork' and he speaks of 'Buddha's Hand Orange Citrus medica' where most writers would speak of 'bergamot' or 'Buddha's Fingers' (said to be the secret of the flavour of Earl Grey's tea. He normally refers to it as 'persimmon', by direct translation from the Korean pulsugam). He also includes some interesting categories, such as Eight Episodic Pictures, and Three Classic Quotations (from Tang sources).

Altogether demanding, sometimes surprising, but enjoyable and rewarding.

RICHARD RUTT

Patrick Koellner (ed.), 2006. Korea 2006: Politik, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft. Hamburg: Institut fur Asienkunde.  ISSN 1432-0142.  ISBN 3-88910-331-6.

This is the eleventh, and last, edition of the Institut fur Asienkunde's series on Korea. It is planned that its place will be taken in 2007 by an English-language yearbook that will continue and build on the German series' structure of overview articles on the two Koreas, accompanied by contributions on aspects of Korean politics, economy and society. The Academy for Korean Studies has expressed support for this venture. Editors of the proposed yearbook are Ruediger Frank, James Hoare, Patrick Koellner and Susan Pares.  A call for papers for the new publication has already gone out. 

This final issue of the IFA's German-language review of developments in the Korean peninsula, published to provide continuity with the proposed English-language yearbook, is as informative and stimulating as its predecessors.  Overviews of the year 2005-2006 in South Korean politics (by Manfred Pohl), the Republic of Korea's foreign policy (by Ulrike Wolf) and the South Korean economy (by Patrick Koellner) provide useful summaries of the main trends in the South.  A paper by Thomas Kern on education and innovation in the ROK traces the emergence of an infrastructure for research and development from the 1980s and studies the expansion of the educational system in South Korea. He notes that the formerly large school classes have shrunk over the past half-century to more manageable ratios of students to teachers and emphasises again the high proportion of high school students - 81 per cent in 2004 - who go on to higher education.  At the same time, he points to weaknesses in the research and education sectors, such as the high costs to individuals, the lack of co-operation between enterprises and the academic sector and the low appeal of universities for foreign researchers and students.

His paper is followed by an illuminating study by Hyekyung Cho and Thomas Kalinowski of the outcome of liberalisation in the financial market and of the programme of bank privatisation in the ROK since the financial crisis of 1997-8.  Their account of that crisis and the circumstances that brought it about in South Korea is the most intelligible that this reviewer has seen.  The authors argue that liberalisation itself did not cause the crisis; rather, it was the half-hearted approach towards liberalisation evident in the 1990s that permitted short-term foreign credit, but denied long-term arrangements that might have threatened the chaebol.  They maintain further that liberalisation and foreign investment did not effect stabilisation of the financial markets but followed, and benefited from, government measures, sometimes harsh, to restore stability to these markets.  The state had hoped for an infusion of skills and knowledge from foreign banks and had welcomed the takeover of a number of Korean banks by foreign banks, but had not reckoned with the latter's preference for short-term maximisation of profits and willingness to sell on their shares in Korean banks for high returns.

Professor Yeong Heui Lee concludes the section with an account of recent measures in the ROK to deal with the pressing need to protect the land, specifically the soil, from misuse and contamination.  In particular, she examines the 1995 law on land conservation.  Her study might have benefited from a review of the actual working of the law and of its effectiveness, or not, in achieving the intended goals.

The second section, dealing with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, opens with a short overview by Patrick Koellner of political and economic developments during the period in question.  A good harvest in 2005 and an upsurge in inter-Korean trade in the same year are offset by the estimate that industry may be working at only 20-30 per cent of capacity.  A short piece by Claus Auer, presently attached to the German embassy in Seoul but writing in a personal capacity, on the Kaesong industrial park assesses its present functioning, but refuses to expand beyond that.  Auer points to the need for the park's planners and management, Hyundai Asan, to draw in foreign investment, but is doubtful how far this might be achieved, given the North Korean regime's capacity for unpredictable behaviour, the difficulty, against a background of international sanctions, of finding foreign markets for the goods produced at Kaesong, and, for him, at least, the ethical dilemma of employing North Korean workers who receive a fraction of their stated salary and whose activities benefit a repressive regime.

These two contributions are separated by an essay by Johannes Gerschewski on the 'regime-legitimising' functions for North Korea of juche ideology.  He examines these functions comprehensively, without, perhaps, adding much of an original nature, drawing, instead, on a range of concepts and models.  His paper provides nonetheless a very useful review of the literature and current thinking on this essential element in North Korean political theory and statecraft.  The list of references accompanying his article is likewise comprehensive. 

A chronology for 2005 for both Koreas and a select bibliography of writings on China and the Korean peninsula are included in Korea 2006.

SUSAN PARES

David Prendergast. From Elder to Ancestor. Old Age, Death and Inheritance in Modern Korea, Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2005

This engaging book examines continuities and changes in intergenerational relations in contemporary Korea.  Primarily drawing on ethnographic data collected in the rural county of Puan in North Cholla Province in 1999 and 2000, David Prendergast seeks 'to describe and analyse how perceptions of family responsibilities are constructed, negotiated, contested in Korea' (p. 9).  His focus on 'kin networks' allows him to study the 'ties, interactions, and relations between the often spatially distant and economically diverse households of kin members' (p. 4) which a more conventional focus on households would have obscured.

His process- and practice-oriented approach is inspired by recent anthropological and sociological scholarship which stresses the importance of 'practical kinship' (Pierre Bourdieu 1990) and the 'social malleability' of connections between kin (Charles Stafford 2000). 

One of the main strengths of this book is the detailed ethnography which the author skilfully draws on to challenge simplistic portrayals of the development of family relations in East Asia which all too often uncritically invoke concepts such as 'tradition' and 'modernity', 'community' and 'individual' and give short shrift to the complexities of kin relations.

While chapter 1 introduces the main concepts of the study, chapter 2 discusses the author¡¯s methodological approach and introduces the field site.  Chapter 3 provides an outline of the development of concepts and structures pertinent to kin responsibilities over time. Drawing on the work of Martina Deuchler and Clark Sorensen, Prendergast traces how rotating ancestor worship and equality between sons gradually gave way to primogeniture. The mass exodus from the countryside and the introduction of the new legal code in 1962, he suggests, have contributed to the evolution of shared responsibility for parental care among siblings. Over the last decade the Korean state has adopted a number of measures to adjust to demographic changes, such as the gradual widening of welfare provisions for older people and the introduction of self-help programmes and legal provisions aimed at enabling older people to remain in work for longer. In Puan some governmental funding is made available for older people's clubs, which are set up and run by the elderly themselves, and a building for the elderly (noin hoekwan) which provides free meals most days of the week.  Prendergast notes, however, that no comprehensive retirement and nursing home programme exists in Korea. While policy-makers have begun to improve access to pensions, the state insists that the family and patrilineal descendents in particular, are to remain the primary providers for the elderly. In fact, children have a legal duty to care for their aged parents in times of need (p. 45). To promote this message the government created Old Age Day (2 October), an occasion used to highlight the 'respect your parents' (kyong no-hyo chin)- philosophy, gives filial piety awards to devoted children and offers housing loans, and tax  breaks to children who co-reside with their parents.

As Prendergast argues in chapter 4, which examines older people's expectations of where to live, co-residence with children, ideally with the eldest son and his family, is one of several options, and not necessarily the most desirable one.  While both generations stress the importance of filial piety, putting this virtue into practice involves a great deal of negotiation.  Prendergast observes that 'as this diffusion [of obligation from the eldest son to the other agnates in the sibling group] occurs, it is becoming clear that the nature of the relationship [between parents and children] is changing from a question of rights and predetermined expectations to one of gifts, reciprocity, and the ongoing development of commitments]' (p. 64). To achieve the most desirable residential outcome for themselves, older people invest different resources, such as time spent on childcare for grandchildren or money to purchase attractive housing for their children. The younger generation, notably daughters-in-law, use a number of strategies to reduce the negative outcomes of co-residence, notably by not seriously considering eldest sons as potential husbands.

As Prendergast shows in chapter 5, the consequences of the ideology of out-marriage of daughters (ch'ulga oein) can be considerable for women. Their weaker structural position makes it much harder for them to demand equality in the relationship or to file for divorce.  While a married couple is still expected to have stronger ties with the husband's family, women are able to draw on their natal families in times of need. They maintain these relationships through gift-giving and by offering their labour, thus compensating at least in part for not residing with their parents.

Prendergast argues, in chapter 6, that the continued son preference and the elevated position of the eldest brother stem from his role in the organisation of the parents' funerals and in the transformation of a deceased person into an ancestor. The most engaging ethnography of the book can be found in this and the next chapter which focus on funerals. Sensitive to the rural-urban divide, socio-economic and religious differences, Prendergast offers a rare glimpse at the complexities of death and the disposal of the body in Korea and unravels the logic of recent reforms in the organisation of funerals.

The last chapter deals with inheritance and discusses the 1990 reform of Korean family law which stipulates that property be equally shared between brothers and sisters. While this revision might point to an improvement of the socio-economic position of daughters, Prendergast shows that not only the insertion of additional legal clauses but also the widespread practice of passing on wealth before death undermines the possible gains for married daughters with brothers.

The author's attention to detail and his ability to convey the complex links between the ideology and practice of kinship in lucid prose make this book a compelling read. It would have benefited from a wider application of Prendergast's analytical skills to an issue which he touches upon in the first and last chapters: demographic changes. It is a shame that he uncritically reproduces phrases like 'Korea's looming ageing population crisis' (p. 164) or 'the explosion in the numbers of Korean elderly' (p. 166). These concepts are as culturally constructed as ideologies of kinship and should thus also be subjected to the same rigorous analysis which he displays throughout the book. 

ANNA BOERMEL, Cambridge University

Keith Howard (Editor), Korean Pop Music: Riding the Wave (Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2006), 219 pages.

Editor and contributor Keith Howard offers an overview of the evolution of Korean popular music from the advent of the modern era to the present day.  Howard has assembled an impeccable cadre of scholars to examine the roots and branches of this aspect of Korean popular culture in an in-depth and informative anthology.  Without exception each of the seventeen articles is well researched, presented and heavily referenced.  Space does not permit a complete examination of all the articles, though every one of them merits reading.

A wide range of topics is covered, including the influence of Japanese and Western influences and how Korean popular music is being received outside of the ROK, even beyond Asia.  Music television is well covered, and Korean Rap and Punk are intricately explored.  Additionally the telling effects of censorship as well how government utilized popular music in propaganda are also given a good examination.  Little can be levelled as criticism but if something negative can be said it would be directed at the lack of mention of Los Angeles and the profound effect of the expatriate community there and the leg-up it gave Korean music videos and Korean popular music in general.

Two articles have been selected for further review.  Chapter 7 (Highway Songs) was a welcome treatment of the innocuous background music that accompanies every trip in a taxi or walk through an open-air market.  Min-Jung Son delves deep into what amounts to a cottage industry but which is responsible for only 5% of music sales in Korea. A staggering 64 of the 100 most popular songs in Korea are of this genre, yet the artists that produce it remain largely unknown to the public.  This attitude is of the Korean tradition of artists remaining largely out of the public eye.  'Trot' music, as it is known, is a curiously Korean phenomenon.  The nearest thing to compare it to in the West is known as 'elevator' music in America.  It is delightful that the subject was addressed and Dr. Son treats it with a loving respect that makes the reading all the more enjoyable.

Punk Rock is a personal passion and a decidedly guilty pleasure.  Steve Epstein's 'We are the Punx in Korea' (Chapter 16), accordingly, was of particular interest.  Having been absent from the peninsula during the development period of Punk there, one has been left with a sense of loss from missing the opportunity to see it happen all over again.  Steve shares this passion for Punk and he treats the subject with a thoroughness born of a dedicated aficionado.  This approach permits a welcome, yet vicarious participation.  Upon reflection, considering what drove Punk in the 70's in Britain and the similar political situation in the ROK at the same time it is a wonder that it took twenty years for it to take root in Korea.  However, recalling the quality of the average rock and roll band in Seoul in the late 70's and early 80's it can be argued that Korea had Punk all along.  It's just that the attitude took twenty years to catch up.

Written by scholars for scholars, Korean Pop Music is nevertheless accessible to anyone interested in the topic.  It makes a good addition to one's cultural library.

STEVE WHITTLE

Hazel Smith, forward by Richard H. Solomon. Hungry for Peace: International Security, Humanitarian Assistance, and Social Change in North Korea. United States Institute for Peace Press, Washington DC, 2005. pp. xxii, 341. Map. notes, bibliog. Hb. ISBN 1 929223 59 5. US$45; Pb. ISBN 1 929223 58 7

At the outset I should record a personal vote of thanks to Hazel Smith. Not only did she rescue me from a particularly drab solitary night in Pyongyang in February 2001, when I arrived to take up my post as Britain's first representative in North Korea, but she also provided constant support during the early months of that task. Now I find myself once more in her debt, for in Hungry for Peace, she articulates many of my own views about North Korea. She draws on her experience and knowledge of North Korea over many years. She first visited in 1990, made a number of return visits, and worked there on a regular basis from 1998 to 2002. She has also returned since 2002. Much of her work from 1998 was either for the United Nations' Development Programme or for the World Food Programme, and she has also carried out some work for Caritas, one of the Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) that have operated in North Korea since the mid-1990s. To all of these, she brought qualifications as a political scientist, most recently at the University of Warwick, where she is currently Professor of International Relations.

In her role as a UN consultant, she was able to travel extensively in North Korea, and to see at first hand the deterioration its political and economic infrastructure. As she makes clear, North Korea was not always the poverty-stricken country that it has become in recent years. She notes the solid achievements in health and education for example, which have no been entirely eroded. But she also chronicles the marked decline even in these areas; like most of us who travelled about the country, she found the decline of the health service particularly striking. Drips based on beer bottles and rubber tubing, non-existent x-ray facilities, and the lack of even the simplest drugs, have turned what was once a level of health provision comparable to Eastern Europe into a nightmare world that kills its patients and is avoided wherever possible. She accepts that some of the economic decline that has led to this state of affairs came from the series of natural disasters that struck from 1995 onwards, but she also has no illusions about the contribution of the country's rulers to the process. She is perhaps a bit starry-eyed about Kim Il Sung's North Korea given the major problems already present before he died in 1994, but she has no illusions about the country's present leader, Kim Jong Il.

She argues that despite the regular claims that North Korea is a hermetically sealed monolith, it is possible to know quite a lot about the country, its problems and how its leadership behaves.  She is scathing of those who only see the country through the distorting lens of 'security', and of those who, because they have made no effort to know what is going on in North Korea, always assume the worst. Much of the book covers the work of the UN and other bodies in North Korea since the country made an unprecedented appeal for international aid in the 1990s. She describes the wariness on both sides as the humanitarian effort got under way, and notes that some NGOs, including OXFAM and Medecins sans Frontieres, pulled out when faced with the North Korean refusal to allow them to operate as they normally do. But she argues that out of the initial misunderstandings and tensions both sides learnt how to get on with each other. The process of understanding was never straightforward. Suspicions about North Korean diversification of food aid - she, like me, things that there was and is relatively little of this - were matched by North Korean concerns that some of the NGOs had motives beyond pure humanitarian aid. (A scathing footnote on p. 288 demolishes the claims of the publicity-seeking German doctor, Norbert Vollerstein, more effectively than anything else I have seen in print.)

She believes that on the basis of the humanitarian work, and the desire of the North Korean ruling group to solve the country's economic crisis, it is possible to change and reform North Korea. It is not surprising therefore, that she believes that former US President Clinton was on the right lines in treating North Korea in a less confrontational manner, after briefly considering a military attack, and that the South Korean government's engagement policy is sensible and effective. Unsurprisingly, she has little time for the present US administration's policy of insults and isolation. She argues that since the mid-1990s, North Korea has shown that it will trade its military security for diplomatic recognition and food security. It is President George W. Bush who has declined to engage, not the North Koreans.

The book is full of useful insights on many other subjects. She explains, for example, what the 'Army First' policy really means, and how the European Union missed out on opportunities to do something positive about North Korean human rights in favour of grandstanding. I only would query a couple of minor points. She notes that although the North Koreans asked Britain for 'thousands of scholarships', only two were offered. It was a bit more complicated than that. Early requests for British help led to annual short-term intensive training in English, first for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and later for other groups. We also sent English-language teachers to work in North Korean universities, a programme that has so far survived. When I arrived in February 2001, the North Koreans asked for many scholarships, but when asked to prioritise, placed architectural training first, perhaps reflecting Kim Jong Il's own interests. Having gently explained that this was not on, I then received a request for agricultural training for six scholars. Alas! All six failed the English test without which no British university would take them, and they never reapplied. The two scholarships offered in 2002 again failed to materialise because only one of the candidates passed the English test. The British did, however, provide one benefit to the foreign community, including the UN organisations. We pressed for and eventually got secure communications, and once we had that, others were able to follow. This experience of course reinforces one of Hazel Smith's main themes. You can change North Korean attitudes, and you can get agreements that stick. But you have to want to do it.

J E HOARE

Review originally appeared in Asian Affairs.

Philippe Chancel. North Korea. Texts by Michel Poivert and Jonathan Fenby, with 129 photographs. Thames & Hudson Ltd, London, 2006. pp. 208. Hb. ISBN 0 500 54329 1/978 0 500 54329 0.

Charlie Crane. Welcome to Pyongyang. Introduction by Nicholas Bonner. Chris Boot, London, 2007. ISBN 1 905712 04 9/978 1 905712 04 5.

It is not easy to review these two books: not because they are so full of defects, but because they throw up a multitude of questions and doubts.  Both are collections of photographs by professional photographers, and as photographs expose themselves to a variety of interpretations.  Philippe Chancel, a French photographer, visited the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in 2005.  He has approached his subject with a fastidious, if selective eye.  The accompanying texts, one by Michel Poivert, professor in the history of contemporary art and of photography at the Sorbonne, the other by Jonathan Fenby, a journalist who has written widely on East Asia, offer a critical, at times hostile analysis.  Charlie Crane, a British photographer, is here working with the Koryo Group, which has long run tours into North Korea.  His photographs were taken in the course of three visits to the DPRK between 2005 and 2006.  Apart from the introduction, the text takes the form of comments drawn from interviews with North Korean tour guides, who present the sites visited in their own words.  Thus two very different ¡®stories¡¯ emerge from basically the same material: the cityscape, monuments and people of Pyongyang (with excursions to Panmunjom and Mt Myohyang for Chancel, trips that justify, barely, the title 'North Korea' for his book).

Poivert's essay, 'Appearances', translated from the French by David H. Wilson, is highly theoretical, in both its themes and its language, yet suggests useful ways of ordering and understanding the conflicting reactions a foreigner may have on visiting the DPRK.  Poivert's and, one must suppose, Chancel's underlying assumptions appear to be, firstly, that the regime is monstrous, and, secondly, that it will be swept away.  (Just how monstrous it is makes the subject of Fenby's essay, 'A country apart'.)  Poivert uses such phrases as the 'visible forms of totalitarianism', the 'aestheticisation of horror', 'a silent pain' to illuminate Chancel's photographs; and he describes the DPRK as the 'only country in which it is still possible to conduct a kind of archaeological, aesthetic inquiry into the facade of normality' (p.5).  (This impression of having a backwards glimpse into the nature and forms of life under communism in its heyday is not unfamiliar to visitors to North Korea.)  Within the frames both of the photographs and of the backdrop, Poivert insists, people insert themselves 'like allegories of liberty', and 'humanity ris[es] visibly to the surface through the softness of bodies and attitudes' (p. 8).  Indeed, family groups, youngsters busy at the Children's Palace and one or two interiors do counterbalance the overwhelming scenes of shutterboard backgrounds to the Arirang festival.

Crane's book takes human intervention as its point of departure, not just in the written observations on each scene, but also in the central positioning of the human form, living or in artistic representation, in so many of the photographs.  Indeed, the confident pose of many of the subjects of Crane's pictures reminds the reader of Kim Il Sung's insistence that man is the master of his destiny.  By following Koryo Tours' policy of winning people's trust, of coaxing them into co-operation rather than confronting them, Crane has produced a surprisingly warm and entertaining collection of photographs that relate their subjects to their background, even to the wide streets, housing blocks, schools, hotels and museums.

Yet, in this reviewer's estimation, both of these collections of photographs and even more the words accompanying them overstate or understate the situation.  The 'horror' and 'pain' that Chancel finds in his views of North Korea are not defined in Poivert's text, as if the photographer's revulsion as an outsider is sufficient explanation.  Life in the DPRK offers security and its own kind of normality to its citizens.  Yet enormous pressures are placed on the North Korean population.  Suspicion of the outside world is codified into a prohibition on casual engagement with foreigners?hence the many averted eyes in Chancel's studies and the distaste for foreign hairstyles in Crane's.  And some of those interviewed in Crane's book do not give the full story: the student at Kim Il Sung University has no choice in whether he joins the army, and ordering a taxi is not as easy as it sounds!

The work displayed in these two books was taken at much the same time and sometimes had as subjects the same or similar scenes, yet two very different messages emerge.  The reason, one supposes, must lie in the differing philosophical 'view-finders' of the two photographers.  Chancel imposes his interpretation on the visual material he is handling; Crane has largely allowed Koreans to present their own.  Yet neither book gives an entirely satisfactory explanation of the city and country that forms its subject.

SUSAN PARES  

  

James Church, A corpse in the Koryo: A mystery, Thomas Dunn Books, New York, 2006. pp. 280. ISBN 0 312 35208 5.

BAKS newsletter has perhaps never had a review of a mystery story before. But then, there are few novels or mystery stories set in North Korea, and even fewer than come with praise from Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the United States' House of Representatives, Don Oberdorfer, the doyen of American journalists on Korea, and Professor Ezra Vogel of Harvard University. And the fact that we are told that James Church is the pseudonym of a former Western intelligence officer with over thirty years' experience in Asia, might increase its appeal. Although books on North Korea are being published at a rapid rate, we still know very little of how North Koreans think or of what really motivates them. A corpse in the Koryo helps on both counts. Read this book, enjoy its clever plots and you will learn much about North Korea.

The story, as befits a mystery tale, is one of great complexity, with numerous competing strands. The corpse and how it came to be in a guest room in Pyongyang's Koryo Hotel is by no means the most important of these, and in any case, does not make an appearance until well into the book. What is really fascinating is the relationship between the various Koreans, from Inspector O and his boss, Pak, both ordinary police officers - yes, they do exist - in Pyongyang, to the more sinister figures from the many powerful investigative bureaux that exist in North Korea. O and Pak appear to trust each other, from long years working together, but the trust does not extend beyond their small circle. Like all in Pyongyang, they owe their positions to having a 'good' family background; O's grandfather was a guerrilla fighter against the Japanese. But even having a good background and living in Pyongyang does not guarantee luxury or safety. O's apartment in crumbling, lacking running water and with paper thin walls. Petty officialdom strikes even police officers. O, cycling to work, tries to cross a junction only to be confronted by a traffic lady, who insists that he dismounts and carries his bike through an underpass; only cars can cross the junction, even if there are no cars in sight. Simple consumer goods such as kettles are unavailable. O's attempt to take a crucial photograph right at the beginning of the tale fails because the official camera's battery is flat. Decrepit trains take days to reach their destination. To show O that he is vulnerable, his flat is raided not once but several times. As the story unfolds, it is clear that nobody is secure, and the shadow of denunciation, followed by banishment from the city and its privileges, or worse,  hangs over all, high and low together. Among these North Koreans, the ideals of the revolution have long since dissipated in the struggle for survival. Ideology matters little except as a means of wrong-footing your opponents. Energies are directed at crooked schemes and for personal power. When these contesting forces interact, the violence is spectacular.

For me, one of the pleasures of this book was periodic flashes of recognition. Like the Inspector, I had a similar confrontation with a traffic lady over crossing an empty road, which I also lost. I met many like he innkeeper on the border who rants about the quality of Chinese goods, yet is still keen to have them. I know the beerhall in the Koryo Hotel where O meets various contacts and I have seen Korean officials gathered there - few would have drunk Pyongyang Beer, however, as the Inspector does. Like us, they preferred the home brewed draft beer. Indeed, having spent six months in the Koryo, I know it all too well, down to the very room in which the corpse is found! I did not see anything like the casual shootings that Church describes, but I have seen sufficient violence in North Korea not to be too surprised. Newt Gingrich argues that the story shows how precarious North Korea is. I am not so sure. The story has echoes of 1920s Chicago or even 2006 Naples, rather than the end of an era, and Inspector O survives. Let us hope that James Church will tell us more about his world.

J E HOARE

* This is a slightly modified version of a review that will appear in Asian Affairs in due course.