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Opinion

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Thank you, LTI Korea

I have two reasons to offer gratitude to the LTI - the Korean Literature Translation Institute. The first reason for appreciation for what the LTI does - and I would like to inform my readers of this organization and its work - is that the Institute fosters the translation of Korean literature into foreign languages. They have several programs: they host translation seminars, they give grants to young translators to encourage the development of the translation skills of young translators in multiple languages, and they give awards to translators of novels into various foreign languages. They...

2021-01-17 16:48

Property ownership in traditional Korea

Since I have been writing recently of changes in Confucianism involving changes in property inheritance, I have been thinking that most readers have no idea about how complicated property ownership was in traditional Korea. It was surprisingly complicated and unlike anything you would expect

2021-01-03 17:02

It was not the wars

I need to follow up from last week's article about Korea's penchant for stability in spite of wars and the social change that takes place, not as a result of the wars, but afterward unrelated to the war. I think it's true of the Japanese invasion of the 1590s and the Korean war of the 1950s.

2020-12-20 16:31

Changes after two wars

I suppose most who see the reference to two wars would assume I'm going to write about the Korean War and World War II, but no, - put on your history hat - I'm writing about the Japanese Invasion of 1592, and the Manchu Invasion of 1636.

2020-12-06 17:05

Korean-Americans

My attitude about Korean-Americans has changed over the years. When I first encountered Korea, living there, I met people who wanted to go to America “by hook or by crook.” And indeed, many were able to cobble together reasons to get a visa to visit America, and then they disappeared or overstayed their visas, but eventually ended up gaining American citizenship. I thought the whole enterprise was corrupt and I wanted to have nothing to do with it.

2020-11-08 16:49

Deep 'han'

My previous article, “End of han,” generated one of the largest responses of any of my articles. “Han” is something everyone knows something about. The responses fell into four categories: 1. the expression of “han” in psychiatry, 2. the origin of “han” was not ancient but rather was in the Japanese period, 3. that “han” is overplayed, exaggerated and even trite as an explanation of Koreanness, and indeed, 4. “han” is dead, or close to a well-deserved death.

2020-10-25 18:50

End of 'han'

One of the hallmarks of Korean culture has been “han,” the supposedly untranslatable concept encompassing the feeling of resentment, angst, victimization, anger, frustration - all rolled into one. The term often comes up in describing Korean culture and the essence of the Korean personality. “Han” is often mentioned with its untranslatable partner, “jeong” - love, affection, rapport, camaraderie, friendship - all rolled into one. I'm happy to report “jeong” is alive and well, in my opinion. But “han” might be on the way out.

2020-10-11 17:21

Congratulations on COVID-19 handling

Korea has done a marvelous job in handling the coronavirus. There has been a recent spike, but like previous spikes, they have controlled it well, with just under 400 deaths at this point. My state of Utah, in the United States, has over 400. Korea's population is around 50 million; Utah's is under 3 million - about 1/16 the size of Korea. If Utah had Korea's record, we would have had 25 deaths. The United States is about six times bigger than Korea. If the United States had Korea's record, rather than losing 200,000 people, at this point, we would have only lost 2,400. The United States' ha...

2020-09-27 16:41

Jokbo adventure

I was recently contacted by a young man, a third-generation Korean American who had some questions about research on his own Korean jokbo - family genealogy. I was pleased to receive the email and happy to answer his questions. But more importantly, I was thoroughly taken with his ability to figure out how to read a genealogy.

2020-09-13 19:19

Japanese influence on Korea

Japan's influence on Korea is still visible in some ways. And invisible in other ways. The Japanese colonial occupation of Korea was a failure in all regards, politically, morally, ethically. But the evil results of the occupation remain in many ways.

2020-08-30 17:15

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