From the beginning of Wang Lung’s marriage to O-lan, she saved him time, money, and effort without complaint. She offered wisdom when asked and was smart in the ways of the world. During the famine, when the family went south in search of food, O-lan taught her children how to beg for food, “dug the small green weeds, dandelions, and shepherds purse that thrust up feeble new leaves”(p. 128). She raised her children prudently. She knew how to bind her daughter’s feet, and she gave them a better childhood than she had had. O-lan knew that the land was the only consistent thing in her life, so she willingly helped Wang Lung as he bought more and more land. O-lan knew her place in the family was as a wife and mother. As a wife, she fe...
Blaine Harden, former national correspondent and writer for the New York Times, delivers an agonizing and heartbreaking story of one man’s extremely conflicted life in a labor camp and an endeavor of escaping this place he grew up in. This man’s name is Shin Dong-hyuk. Together, Blaine Harden and Shin Dong-hyuk tell us the story of this man’s imprisonment and escape into South Korea and eventually, the United States, from North Korea. This biography that takes place from 1982-2011, reports to its readers on what is really going on in “one of the world’s darkest nations” (back cover of the book), that is run under a communist state and totalitarian dictatorship that was lead by Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and currently lead by Kim-Jong un. In Escape from Camp 14, Shin shows us the adaptation of his life and how one man can truly evolve from an animal, into a real human being.
Yoo, Theodore Jun. The Politics of Gender in Colonial Korea: Education, Labor, and Health, 1910-1945. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.
In the book, the author goes from a Korean education to a Japanese schooling style. The Japanese required all students, no matter their nationality, to wear the same uniforms and speak only Japanese. This is even despite the fact that Japanese students and Korean students are taught separately. Speaking Korean would surely result in punishment; the author of the book learned that lesson the hard way. The overall education style of the Japanese was used, which aimed to assimilate Koreans into Japanese culture and strip them of all things Korean. No Korean history was taught during this period of time. In the book, the author was lucky enough to learn about Korean history from his father.
Henry was ten years old when she died, yet there is very little detail of her, especially compared to his father. Standing next to his mother’s deathbed, Park describes a faint memory of his mother. He says, “I don't remember what I saw in her room, maybe I never looked at her, though I can see so clearly the image of my father standing in the hall…” (Lee 63). This lack of intimacy and interaction is common in traditional Korean culture. This is also evident in his mother’s and father’s relationship since in their culture, women are subordinate to
Person Plural, Bontoc Eulogy, and History and Memory." Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Korean Adoption Studies. By Nelson Kim. Park, Tobias Hu%u0308binette, Eleana Kim, and Petersen Lene. Myong. S.l.: S.n., 2010. 129-45. Print.
Korea was “an ocean of tears.” Most of the families kept crying for hours while they were embracing each other. Even though they were not saying a word but weeping, they were still communicating with each other the pain that they went through while they were apart. They got old during fifty years of separation but they recognized one another and told each other that they still have the same look. They were overwhelmed with joy while they were talking about their lives. They were also mourning to hear some of their families had passed away while they were separated. They were in great relief and exceeding joy at the same time. Keller says “this same dynamic is at work when you lose some possession you take for granted,” he continues, “when you find it again (having thought it was gone forever) you cherish and appreciate it in a far deeper way” (Keller
Martin Luther King Jr. once stated, “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope” (Brainy Quotes). Even though a nation agonizes over its collapse, it must never lose its optimistic views for the future. Korea was a nation that was annexed, however the determination for liberation was never diminished. Korea became a colony of Japan in 1910 for its natural resources and also for its territory which had an advantageous position, geographically. Thousands of Koreans who resisted annexation were killed by the Japanese military. During these years under the Japanese rule, the Koreans suffered greatly as the men were forced into extreme labor while the women were bounded into prostitution. Although the majority of Koreans detested the Japanese occupation, they were impotent against the Japanese harsh reign. Developments in industrial activities also took place, partially encouraged by the Japanese government, overall however the country’s citizens were living in destitution. Only the Japanese government was gaining resources and wealth, while Koreans were forced into harsh labor. In 1945, Korea was liberated from this sadistic rule partially due to its continuous efforts for freedom.
Korean women were not allowed to be engaged in any sort of jobs. Their job was to be either a daughter, a wife or a mother. Majority of married women had to rely on the support provided by men in their family (Gelb & Palley, 1994). The only way for women to be able to prosper independently is the ability of their own access to economic resources. However, the Confucian ideal of strict sexes made it extremely unlikely for women to be independent regardless of their social statuses. The reading “Mother stake 1” perfectly explain women struggle to be independent in the traditional society, without relying on the men of their family. However, it also explains how women can gain independence as time progresses. For example, Omma abandoning her traditional lifestyle to becoming a manual labor, for the sake of her own independency. Until the late 20th century, women’s position in employment changed significantly due to the movement that seeked for gender equality. Since 1960, Korea rapidly boosted their economic growth from the transformation of an agricultural society to a industrializing nation. Because of this extraordinary economic industrialization of the country, such condition provided women with increased on opportunities of employment (Gelb & Palley, 1994). According to Kim Ae-sil (1990), there were no more than 50,000 womens that were employed in 1963, but by 1989 there’s been an increase over 800,000
Including recounts and anecdotes from around 2600 BC to 85 BC (McMillin), Ssuma Ch’ien’s completed Records of the Grand Historian or Shiji (McMillin), should cover all the aspects needed to qualify a good government official. One of Ssuma Ch’ien’s intentions in writing these records was to emphasize the role of individual men in affecting Chinese government. The biography of magistrate Pu-shih in particular, holds several attributes concerning the emphasis on the roles of individual men in affecting Chinese government, or more specifically, the question of what qualities make a person a good government official. A summary, contextualization, inference, monitorship, and corroboration will aid in the answering of this question.
A father during the pre-cultural revolution has the same feeling as Spring Moon’s grandmother. Bette Bao Lord writes:
(1800)Topic 2: A Literary Analysis of the Historical Differentiation of Patriarchal Culture and Female Gender Identity in the Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong and the Tale of Genji
... itself, represented by the Paternal Uncle and the Maternal Uncle. Through the death of both uncles, the conflict and revenge died and reconciliation was possible. The discord among the clans and families in both novels resemble divided Korea by displaying the shifts in ideology and beliefs of the separate groups.
1945 marked the end of World War II and the end of Japan’s reign in Korea. Korea had been under Japanese rule since the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty in 1910. During this time, Korea had been brutally treated by Japan. The Korean language was suppressed as well as traditional Korean culture. Japan forced Korean people to take Japanese surnames and took many “comfort women” otherwise known as sex slaves for the Japanese military. As a result, the diplomatic relations between Korea and Japan were strained. Japan was determined to forget the past and deny many of the things that happened while Korea was determined to not move past it. There have been disputes between the two countries about acknowledging comfort women and territories, many sprouting up from World War II and before. While there has been improvement, the relationship between Japan and Korea is strained, mainly due to Japan’s unwillingness to remember and apologize for the past and Korea’s stubbornness to not move on from the past.
The book I chose for this book review assignment is titled Korea Old and New: A History by author Carter J. Eckert along with other contributing authors Ki-baik Lee, Young Ick Lew, Michael Robinson and Edward W. Wagner. The book is published at Korea Institute, Harvard University in 1990. The book consists of 418 pages and it is more of a survey of Korean history and reference type of book, rather than selected readings on modern Korean politics. I chose this book because it is a complete survey of Korean history from the ancient Choson period up to the economic boom of the 1990's, a span of over 2000 years. Each chapter covers a different period, but they all share the same organization of describing the social, cultural, political, philosophical and scholarly aspects of the period in respective subsections. This made it easier to later refer to previous chapters and compare different periods in order to learn the comprehensive history of Korea.