Korean Quarterly

Giving Voice to the Korean American Community

Bill Drucker

80 years on, a history of the early years of South Korea comes to light

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Witness to Korea 1945 to 1947: The Unfolding of an Authoritarian Regime ~ Edited by Frank Hoffman and Mark E. Caprio

An analysis of two accounts by expert eyewitnesses of U.S. rule in the post-war years

(Academia Publishers LLC, Berkeley (CA), 2026, ISBN #978-1-9560-6791-0)

Review by Bill Drucker (Fall 2026)

In this collection of essays, writers analyze and review author Richard D. Robinson’s Betrayal of a Nation and journalist Mark Gayn’s Korea section of his Japan Diary. Both Robinson’s and Gayn’s books contain the authors’ own experiences and eyewitness accounts of how the post-Liberation U.S. occupation of South Korea was rolled out in the early years.

As the title suggests, these histories concentrate on the period between 1945 and 1947. They were turbulent years as South Korea and the U.S. struggled for control in the newly-divided nation.  Robinson and Gayn offer political analysis with personal eyewitness observations, and do so with brutal honesty.  Both concentrate on the early Cold War politics of the U.S. Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGK) and the U.S. authorities’ support of right-wing Korean politicians. 

Because of the anti-communist sentiment of the times, both authors were hindered by attempts at official censorship and suppression of their writings.  Later, both were publicly attacked as a part of a crackdown by Sen. Joseph McCarthy, and his anti-communist campaign in the U.S. Congres

The compilation of modern analyses in Witness to Korea is important because the essayists’ perspectives of the Robinson and Gayn histories are not revisionist history or a re-interpretation of the original histories. There was an environment of suppression of anything counter to official U.S. policy toward Korea at the time these two accounts were published. It is as if these two important histories were never seen by critics at the time of publication.  To readers today, the collection in Witness to Korea is like reading review of a history book that has just been published. 

That the Robinson and Gayn writings were quietly buried and ignored at the time of their publication, makes this revisitation revelatory.  Both authors recount on-the-ground eyewitness testimonies of important events.  Both were knowledgeable, seasoned, and reliable professionals: Robinson from within the U.S. Army while on the ground in Korea; and Gayn, an international news journalist who had already spent many years reporting from Asia.

Both Robinson and Gayn offer critical contributions on the turbulent years, mostly 1945 to 1947, including the official account of events, information on what was suppressed, and how the two writers were reprimanded and censored for telling their stories.

Just prior to writing his eyewitness accounts that would become Betrayal of a Nation, Robinson was a new U.S officer assigned to the administration of U.S. occupation forces in the newly-surrendered Japan.  In 1945, he was sent to Korea as an officer in the USAMGK, in the office of public opinion.  He and a handful of historians were assigned to write an official history of the U.S. occupation in South Korea. 

The conscience of a whistleblower

Robinson witnessed and wrote about the U.S. military supporting conservative and right-wing Korean politics.  He saw the suppression of democracy in the struggling little nation, and was cognizant of how his official history was censored. Morally, Robinson felt he was caught between a rock and a hard place.  As an officer, he was answerable to the U.S. Army.  He knew he could face arrest and court martial if he disobeyed. He was also a man of conscience.  He was eventually told by his superiors not to disclose his writings.  He felt threatened and his family was under military surveillance. 

Rather than continue in this predicament, he left the military in 1946.  He worked as a civilian historian, but still felt pressure not to disclose his official history of the South Korean occupation by the U.S.  He fled with his wife to Turkey in 1947.  In 1956, he returned to the U.S. as a lecturer and worked at both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1962 to 1986. He did not abandon his writings about Korea, and in 1960, he completed Betrayal of a Nation but the publication was not widely circulated.

Robinson characterized his observations of U.S. policy and management in Korea between 1945 -1947 as critical, but not unfair.  He described the U.S. ham-fisted intervention, the later failures of South Korea’s first president, Syngman Rhee, and the endless U.S. bickering with Russia that would only lead to a Cold War, and eventually to the Korean War.

Observations of a foreign correspondent

Gayn (1909-1981) was born in Manchuria, lived in Harbin, China, and eventually moved to Shanghai for reasons having to do with hunger, revolutions, and wars.  He joined the Washington Post as a journalist.  His liberal views and Asian sympathies got him and fellow journalists arrested. 

In 1945, Gayn was the Chicago Sun’s bureau chief for Japan and Korea. His Japan Diary, published in 1948, is critical of U.S. occupation politics. It was a successful publication, but it was attacked because of its viewpoint on the U.S. policies toward South Korea in the post-1945 era, particularly the U.S. government’s behavior during the occupation years.  His publication was also targeted by Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which held high-profile, televised hearings, ostensibly to investigate communism in the U.S. government, during 1953 and 1954. 

A naturalized U.S. citizen, Gayn relocated to Canada in 1952, and after that, worked for the Toronto Daily Star and other publications. During his career, he also wrote for Newsweek, Time and The New York Times, and was a member of the editorial board and the senior foreign affairs correspondent for The Toronto Star at the time of his death in 1980.

In Japan Diary: Korea, Gayn writes of how he personally witnessed and recorded firsthand accounts by others of U.S. actions in occupying Korea, the role of Korean right-wing groups, and the consequences to the Korean people.  Gayn argues that the U.S. never understood that South Korean leftists were nationalists seeking self-determination after longtime subjugation by Japan, and that they were not communists, subversives, or terrorists.

This fundamental misunderstanding of Koreans’ issues as a people and as a nation created a tense kind of governance by the U.S. in these early years, which comes out in Gayn’s writings.  Illegal raids and arrests of civilians were frequent by the police, U.S. military, national youth paramilitary groups, and (first President) Syngman Rhee’s terrorists.

Gayn was witness to U.S. terrorism against Korean youth.  In one of Gayn’s accounts, a young man was questioned by the local police in Gayn’s presence.  A translator was brought in, perhaps because Gayn was there.  Gayn perceived the denials, the stonewalling, the gaslighting by the police, and by the possibly-biased translator. 

After the interview, Gayn and his wife Charlotte were called in by Major Gen. Archer L. Lerch, then the American Military Governor of Korea.  Lerch was polite, subtly chastising them for not seeing him before arranging to see the youth, which Gayn took to mean “mind your business in Korea.” 

Getting the country up and running amid the devastation of post-war South Korea was a U.S. taxpayer’s black hole.  Even the inept and overwhelmed Gen. John Hodges Commander of U.S. Armed Forces in Korea (USAFIK) from 1945 to 1948, knew the problems of the little, unstable state and its issues in terms of basic economics and politics, and tried ineffectively to work on its ruined systems.

Hodges was known later for bringing in Japanese administrators of government departments, in effect, putting the Japanese back in the drivers’ seats of a country they had recently been forced to leave.  Koreans were outraged, and protested loudly.  Hodges had to backpedal.  As Gayn was quick to point out, the failures of U.S. are not so much in the “complexities of establishing stability in Korea, but in the failure to act constructively.”

On a plane leaving Korea, Gayn hears another passenger say, “Goodbye, Korea.  I am happy to be leaving!”  Gayn admitted he too was happy to leave, after an onerous assignment.  But he was also ashamed of America’s inept bungling.  His book was read by North Koreans, and a Russian version was also translated and published.  Gayn, who died in 1981, lived just long enough to see South Korea become a fledgling democratic state.

Eyewitness stories come into the light

The long-neglected Robinson and Gayn’s writings on Korea (1945-1947) came to light in unexpected ways. Three expert academic contributors narrate and analyze the history from the perspectives of the two eyewitnesses in the Witness to Korea collection.

In At Long Last, contributor John Merrill reveals how he became interested in Betrayal of a Nation.  As a graduate student, he was assigned by a professor to find Betrayal of a Nation and read it.  Merrill and Robinson were coincidentally living in the same Boston neighborhood at the time, Merrill at Harvard, and Robinson across the Charles River at MIT.

At that time, Robinson had returned from Turkey (in 1956) and was teaching Mid-Eastern Studies at MIT.  Merrill wrote to Robinson to ask if he would donate a copy of Betrayal of a Nation to the library at Harvard, and Robinson did so.  Robinson’s work has since become an important source of information for scholars and students of Korean studies.

In his academic career, Merrill was a visiting scholar of Korean Studies at George Washington University. He has taught at Georgetown and George Washington Universities, and published Korea: The Peninsular Origins of War and  Inside the White House: The Future of U.S.-DPRK Policy.  In his non-academic career, he is retired from the State Department as the chief of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research Northeast Asia Division. 

Notes on U.S. mismanagement and policy blunders

Essayist Mark E. Caprio, in his contribution, entitled Democracy, Authoritarianism, and Culpability in Southern Korea: Gayn and Robinson on the U.S. Military Government, examines the events as described by Gayn and Robinson.  Caprio notes that there are parallels between the mismanaged situation as described by the two authors in their respective books and the glaring shortcomings of the U.S. military management in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

This mismanagement, and the unfulfilled promise to deliver independence to Koreans in 1945 as promised, is a persistent source of resentment between the two countries.

Mark E. Caprio has written extensively on colonial Korean policies, Japanese assimilation policies, Korea’s attempts at post-war sovereignty, and similar topics of Japanese-Korean relations.

In Richard D. Robinson and Mark Gayn: A Whistleblower and a Journalist, essayist Frank Hoffman relates that he met Robinson at Harvard in 1979.  Hoffman didn’t get a chance to access Betrayal of a Nation from the Harvard Yenching Library, but a few years later, colleague Mark Caprio loaned Hoffman his own copy.  Hoffman took an interest in what Robinson chronicled, particularly the interventionist policies of U.S., the rise of Korean right-wing politics, anti-communism, the advent of the Cold War, and the forecast of another war.

In another essay by Hoffman entitled Chechen Sie Deutsch? Fascism in Korea, he examines the effects of military-backed authoritarian rule and the suppression of the democratic state.  He reviews the various authoritarian regimes in South Korea’s history, including President Syngman Rhee’s administration and the dictatorship two decades later of  President Chung-hee Park. 

Hoffman further compares the rise of Hitler’s fascism with post-war South Korea’s U.S. military interventionist policies and practices, supported by Korean right-wing groups, and vigilante Korean National Youth Groups, which were funded by right-wing groups to to bully, beat up, and kill citizens suspected of agitating for democratic rule and against authoritarianism.   These youth groups justified their overreaching tactics as acts of patriotism.

Hoffman’s background was in Korean studies and art history at the University of Tubingen in Germany, modern Korean studies at Harvard, and teaching history at other academic institutions.  He is currently at the University of California at Berkeley, and founder of Academia Publishers.

The topic of how voices of resistance struggle to be heard amid the rise of authoritarianism is a worthy one to study in today’s political climate. This is a profound and thoughtful book, profuse with rare war photographs and once-classified data. It celebrates two of the very few brave voices of the post-war era who would not stop speaking their truths about an important moment in history that was once long buried and nearly forgotten.

Myths and identity

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The Korean Myths: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes and Legends ~ By Heinz Insu Fenkl and Bella Myong-Wol Dalton-Fenkl

New review of ancient Korean stories show their tenacity through history and into the present

(Thames and Hudson Press, New York, 2026, ISBN #978-0-5000-2766-0)

Review by Bill Drucker (Summer 2026)

Myths and legends, with their heroes, gods, goddesses and supernatural creatures, are not only memorable stories, they can also be the foundation for a nation’s culture.

The Korean Myths: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes and Legends, by father-daughter team Heinz Insu Fenkl and Bella Myong-Wol Dalton-Fenkl, explores how Korea’s ancient stories and characters are not only fascinating on their own; they are the source of key beliefs among Koreans today about their origins as a people.

The interrelationships of divine and human consistently prevail in Korean myths, and its many stories explain concepts as simple as fire and as complex as poetry, art, spirituality, identity and destiny.  The authors demonstrate how the ancient stories of Korean culture are not simply relegated to the history books; on the contrary, they are seamlessly incorporated into the cultural fabric of modern South Korean life.  

What’s a myth, a legend, a folktale?

The authors unravel the complexities of myth, legend, and folklore in this joyful read, which is complemented by numerous illustrations.  They define myths as stories of divine and other supernatural beings, along with fictional human heroes of extraordinary virtue.  Many myths are so old that their origins are as oral stories, passed down through the generations long before they were ever written down.  

Legends are a subset of myths; they are stories based on real events and people.  Some examples of Korean legends include: stories of the ancient King Jumong and his son Yuri; King Sejong, credited for inventing the Korean writing system; Queen Seonduk, an astronomer and Korea’s only female national ruler; and the military leader Admiral Yi who defeated the Japanese incursion with his armored turtle ships. These and other unique and heroic people are referenced as a source national pride and identity among Korean people today.

Folklore refers to shared values, collective traditions and identity of a cultural group. It appears in visual arts and crafts, such as statues, demon posts and masks, in performing arts like sung stories, folk songs, and percussion, and in clothing such as ceremonial dress.

Folk culture has been communicated through the generations by monks, shamans and itinerant musicians and performers.  For example, the folk song Arirang is so beloved and embedded in the culture that many regions have their own version of the song, while both Korean states embrace the song today as part of their national heritage.

How earth came to be

The authors explain Korea’s myths and legends with illuminating detail. The first chapter describes creation myths. Most cultures, including Korea, have myths of how order was created from chaos, how light came into the world, and how heaven and earth came to be. Korea’s creation story was told orally, then at some point ritualized in song, and eventually written as the Changsega (or Song of Creation).  

The earliest Korean gods of creation were Mireuk and Seokga, derived from Buddhist beliefs. Other stories revolve around two female goddesses, Grandma Mago and Grandma Seolmundae.  In northern regions, the story goes that Mago dropped mud from her skirt.  Where the mud fell, mountains and islands formed, Her bodily functions became rivers and hills.  Popular in Jeju, Grandma Seolmundae or Seolmago birthed 500 sons, who searched for food and hunted for game to feed their enormous mother.  The crater at Mount Halla served as Mago’s cauldron for her soup.  Sadly she fell in.  When the sons returned to eat the soup, they found her bones at the bottom of the crater. 

The Jeju squat hareubang statues (the serious-faced stone “grandpas” seen in many locations on the island), also have various divine stories attached to them.

The divine touches all

Surnames, also known as clan names, are imbued with divine connections, told in story form. For example, the name Kim (meaning gold) was the clan founded by a rooster crowing at a divine golden box, from which a boy emerges and takes the name Kim. 

The Jeju haenyeo (sea women) or free drivers, who make their living by diving for seafood in deep water, training themselves to hold their breath for long periods, are rooted in myth.  The story goes that a grieving wife who lost her husband at sea so moved the Sea Goddess, that she gave the woman power to breathe underwater in search of her husband.  The haenyeo are a close-knit women’s community that has existed for perhaps 1,500 years, with mothers teaching the craft to daughters and granddaughters. Some haenyeo are also practicing shamans.  There are few haenyeo left since modern technology has taken the place of the more dangerous free-diving fishing method.

The authors also explore the myths and legends associated with religion. There is a marvelous syncretism in combining native spiritual beliefs with myths.  Shamans extol the local spirits as well as appealing to Buddha in song.  Buddhist temples integrate the local deities of the mountains and rivers.  Buddhism, Shamanism, local animism, ancestor worship, Christianity and Taoism overlap. 

Korean shamans – revered and reviled

Unique to Korea are shamans, gifted individuals with access to the spirit world.  Historically, the shaman culture has been persecuted by the state, and ostracized by the community, but shamans have persisted with their rituals through the ages, and those rituals are now recognized and celebrated.  People from across the economic and political spectrum may seek out a shaman. The shaman may be called by a grieving parent, or by the mayor or even the president to offer blessings. Often, shamans are sought to deal with bad spirits, but they are also invited to joyful occasions and holidays, or even to give a blessing to a whole community.

Spiritual rituals permeate the Korean culture.  From Buddhism, the Bodhisattva Gwan Yin has become the patron goddess of mercy and a saint of womanhood.  In early Buddhist myths, Gwan Yin appeared as a male.  As a female deity, Gwanseum resembles the Catholic Mary, mother of Jesus.  Both share the virtues of compassion, and are often depicted standing with open hands and a gentle demeanor.  This shows how Korean culture recognizes a syncretic harmony among religions, even those that seem very different, like Buddhism and Catholicism.

Roots of superstition

The authors also look into ghosts, spirits and superstition, the non-religious aspect of Korean spirituality.  Korea has a long, complex history with the supernatural, and superstitious practices persist today. For example, many Koreans avoid giving shoes as a gift, because superstition suggests that the recipient could put them on and then walk away forever. Money is given as a gift on the lunar new year, and often a clan will buy a pig’s head for the family party and put rolled-up money in the mouth, nose and ears; this is because money is lucky and a smiling pig is also a lucky sign.

Some of the famous supernatural beings have names and their own virtues.  The Sanshin (literally “mountain spirit”) is affectionately called the Old Man (or Woman) of the Mountain and is probably Korea’s most depicted spirit in the indigenous religion. A gwishin or ghost spirit is created when a human dies with unresolved issues.  The gumiho or nine-tailed fox can shape-shift to look like a human and can feed on souls.  The dokkaebi is a malicious (but not evil) goblin that tries to trick humans. 

Spirit animals and healing plants

Animal myths are also plentiful in Korean myths and folklore.  The dragon is considered a magical and benevolent guardian. The tiger is a powerful spirit, often seen in the presence of mountain deities. The wolf is seen as a link between the earthly realm and the divine, and noted for its intelligence. The cunning fox and fox goddess are symbols of trickery.  The rabbit is beloved and descended as a pet of the moon goddess. Instead of seeing “the Man in the Moon” face that Westerners are taught to look for, Koreans see a rabbit shape on the full moon.

Plants, such as the Korean hibiscus (mugunghwa or Rose of Sharon) and ginger have their own mythological meaning as gifts from the gods. In tradition these and other plants are revered. Today, they are known for their medicinal powers, are sold commercially for their healing powers.  The Korean mugunghwa is South Korea’s national flower, symbolizing eternity.  The ginseng root is known for looking like a headless human body, with its beige color, and usually two roots for arms and two for legs. It is known to have some strong medicinal effects in recovering from fatigue and boosting immunity. Ginger is used widely in Korea in health drinks, herbal medicines, and as a flavoring.

The traditions of storytelling are also explored as part of the book.  Oral storytelling of legends and myths is a part of Korean culture.  As stories were written down, literary devices were added.  In western folklore, a story begins with “Once upon a time.”  In old Korean folklore, the story begins with “When tigers smoked pipes” or just “When tigers smoked.”  In Korean folklore, nature is depicted as intelligent, alive and communicating with the divine. Animals and trees talk to humans.  Gods and goddesses lived in the oceans, mountains, rivers and streams, as well as in the heavens.  Stories are intended to amuse and demonstrate morals, courage, cleverness and generosity. Stories also extol moral virtues of intelligence, honor and sacrifice.   

For example, the Korean classic love story, Tale of Chunhyang tells of a virtuous and steadfast woman who is true to the one she has promised her love. Chunhyang is so beloved for her unwavering heart that her story has been told and retold in books, songs, pansori, and even in K-dramas.

Myths that sustain the modern state

The authors also review how myths work in Korean society today, specifically the modern myths that have created and sustained North Korea.  The nation of North Korea was established in 1948, with its own ideology and legendary characters in the form of the three Kim rulers. In their legendary personas, the Kims are perfect, almost divine, uncontested.  Founder Il Sung Kim, knowing the power of ideas in the Korean tradition, developed an ideology, juche, the Korean word for self-reliance.

In its own mythology, North Koreans have used their independence and self-reliance to become a successful country in a competitive world.  In point of fact, the nation is poor and isolated, and needs to be more interdependent with other nations in order to thrive. Recently, its economy has faltered without the economic and political support of China and Russia.  Today, leader Jong Un Kim, grandson of the founder, is the figurehead of the government, and also the symbol of the central mythology of the nation.

In an inspired moment, the civilian South Korean President Dae Jung Kim crossed the Demilitarized Zone ( DMZ) between South and North on June 13, 2000 and entered North Korea for the Inter-Korean Summit, and the two Kims embraced.  This was the stuff of legends after many years of hostility and silence.   Koreans everywhere held their breath with high expectations that the two leaders could negotiate a path to reunification.  Sadly, hope was an elusive butterfly.  Detente remained, and dreams of unification faded.

Despite past pressures on North Korea to negotiate its nuclear status, and despite the imposition of sanctions by the U.S., and even threats of war under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, North Korea has pushed forward into the future. That, in itself, makes the little country legendary.

Myth meets hallyu

In the final chapter, the authors examine how Korea’s ancient stories and belief systems effect the modern country Korea has become. They show how, under a facade of modern technology and world class economics, South Korea is indeed steeped in its traditional roots of Buddhism and Confucianism, along with its indigenous shamanic belief systems of many characters – gods, goddesses, ghosts, demons, magical creatures and all the stories that give them life. The country itself is a constant reminder of the past, with its ancient structures, including many temples that are still functioning with its ancient texts with stories of everything from mythic creatures to actual kings and queens. Therefore, South Korean identity is complex, with many demands of the modern world and deep connections to the culture’s storied past.

In showing this connection, the authors reference South Korea’s most popular source of cultural information – K-dramas. Many ancient stories have come alive on our televisions because of the number of K-dramas that have adapted them. The Korean wave of popular culture (hallyu) sent K-dramas and K-pop across the globe, providing global visibility and an informal ambassador for Korean culture.

Since K-dramas were invented, writers have drawn on Korean myths as story lines, including: A series on the warrior king Jumong; a series on Queen Seonduk of the Shilla kingdom; one focused on the achievements of King Sejong; and a story about the mythical character Hong Kildong, known as Korea’s Robin Hood, among many others. Viewers have absorbed information about various (possibly fictional) versions of Korean history, geography, place names, traditional clothing, music, dance, and other cultural information through these stories.

This book is a small-size volume, and I wished when I was finished that it could be produced as a large coffee-table type format, to better show the beautiful photos and illustrations.  The authors have dug deep in research to produce this interesting and unique study; it is a lot of fun and provides some very informative reading in a small package. 

Korean American Heinz Insu Fenkl was born in Bupyeong, Korea, 1960. His interest in fiction began as a boy when he discovered serial graphic novels and comic books. He has become a familiar author, translator, and editor in America and in South Korea. He has also translated and produced several North Korean comic books as a series for Korean Quarterly.  Currently, he teaches creative writing and Asian studies courses at the State University of New York, New Paltz. 

Creative collaborator Bella Myong-wol Dalton Fenkl is an accomplished artist and photographer.  She is a translator of Korean literature and created the bi-lingual Korean/English comic series Space Bunny, for Korean Quarterly.

A memoir of resilience

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Rebuilding the Fallen Fence: A Korean American Family ~ By Suk-Chung Yu

One pastor reflects on a family torn by war, and reunited a century later

(Covenant Book, Murrell’s Inlet (SC), 2025, ISBN #979-8-8911-2481-3)

Review by Bill Drucker (Winter 2026)

There are always stories of human resilience, courage, and compassion in the midst of a national crisis.  This is one of them – a detailed memoir of the Yu clan, a history that begins in the Japanese colonial occupation, and extends to modern times.  Despite the trauma and devastation of war, with family members scattered across the globe, this family sticks together, despite separations of many years, and its reunification story is inspiring.

This year 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the division of Korea and the 75th anniversary of the Korean War.  Despite the internal advancements of the two Asian states, there is today still a truculent and unresolved political crisis on the Korean peninsula.  Unification and a lasting peace is more distant than ever before.  War looms as both states escalate their military resources.

The narrator, now-retired Rev. Suk-Chong Yu, recalls in the narrative how his family survived and thrived over the decades and generations. It is a legacy of family ties that were disrupted but never disengaged.  The expression in Korean, reflected in the title, about “fallen fences” suggest the many times the family was separated, stressed, and the time and effort required to rebuild it.  

Yu provides two narratives in the memoir.  Part One deals with his Yu clan, starting with the family’s peaceful life in Musan, near Paju, within commuting distance to Seoul.  The Yus were recognized in their community and church.  The family enjoyed high social standing and their children were educated.

The Yu clan witnessed the Japanese annexation of Korea, and the division of the country into two states. Although the family stayed together, the devastation of the Korean War  deeply affected their family, as it did nearly six million other Koreans.  The family began to splinter as the parents died and siblings were disconnected. Suk-Chong Yu’s eldest sister, Hee-jung, and second sister, Hee-sung, defected to North Korea.  Without parents to insist the clan remain cohesive, the siblings were persuaded to send the youngest brother, Suk-young, to America for adoption.  He would be known later as David.

In unwinding David/Suk-young’s narrative, the author reflects on Korean overseas adoption, including family, identity and citizenship.  Yu describes how important cultural and heritage are, and how adoptees deserve continued support. While adoption may have been the best course of action for the youngest brother at that time, the emotional cost and sense of loss to the family was high.  The brothers would meet again later in life, as would the older sisters still in North Korea. All created their own lives and formed their own families.

Yu’s other siblings went to Europe and America.  His fourth sister, Hee-young, migrated to Germany in the 1960s.  Hee-young worked as a nurse and her husband labored in the mines.  The pattern of their lives is very similar to other Koreans who became guest workers in Germany.   

Another sister, Hee-sook, and her husband pursued the American dream, initially facing language and culture barriers and racial discrimination.  With the help of the Korean American church, Hee-sook and other Korean immigrants slowly adjusted to and succeeded in a new society.

Part Two focuses on Yu’s personal journey. He was a good student from a good family, who eventually pursued theological studies. Yu never lost sight of his fractured family – the members in the North, the younger brother brought up by a white, American family, and other siblings in America and Europe. His wish was to reunite them, and he eventually achieves it.  

Yu describes how his education and training lead down a secular path.  War, personal injury, lost of family move him toward a new path, one of spirituality.  He entered a seminary, and   His early career included serving as editor at the Christian Literature Society of Korea.  He later took an academic position at Chung-Ang University.  He describes his successful career a pastor, publisher and editor, writer and translator. 

Yu met some of the influential thinkers of the day, as Dr. Sung-bum Yoon, a leader in Korean theology, and Dr. Dae-sun Park, a brave scholar who criticized South Korea’s military dictatorship.  Yu himself faced government censorship and witnessed student and civilian protests.

During Yu’s life, there were many influential movements for reunification. The high point for him was when President Dae Jung Kim walked cross the DMZ to embrace his northern counterpart, Jung Il Kim.  Koreans everywhere held their breath.  The moment didn’t last, but many took heart at the thawing of tensions between the two states. 

In 2004, the North Korean leadership consented to a program that would allow South Korean families to meet their North Korean family members in a supervised event.  After decades of separation, Yu and others reunited with their Northern family members.  Yu describes his initial fears, the awkwardness, searching the faces that had been changed by years, and the joy of renewing family ties.   Yu was allowed several trips. During one of the visits, with great caution, he performed a secret worship service for his sisters, reading from Jeremiah 29:4-7, a passage about thriving in exile.

Yu also describes his life partner, Yon Sil, who he met during university. They married, had children, and traveled for the ministry through Asia, Europe and America.  He describes his marriage that spanned decades.  In later years, Yu dealt with his wife’s dementia as a loving and devoted caregiver.

The memoir is an engaging narrative of that describes a time, geography, and the many players who enter and leave one’s life.  Yu is a detailed storyteller of events and people.  The photos of his family and kin greatly add to his storytelling.  This memoir is an engaging record of the history of one Korean family.  Despite Korea’s fractured history, and the years of hardship for the nation and the people, Yu is never accusatory or judgmental.  Despite the historical and social traumas that assaulted a nation and its people, Yu focuses on faith and family as the keys to surviving and thriving.

Yu, who was born during the Japanese colonial occupation, has lived through some of the most turbulent years of modern Korean history. He is a retired minister of the United Methodist Church, and holds several academic degrees in Korea and the U.S.  He has published his own works and translated others from English to Korean. During his career, he served in American, Canadian, and Korean congregations. His memoir is appropriate for any reader interested in Korean War history, the Korean diaspora and the resilience of family.

Path to the past

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Paths of Grass and Stone: Journeys Through the Korean Countryside of the 1970s ~ By Robert Kowalczyk/photography and Lou Spaventa/poetry

Image and verse evoke Korea in simpler times

(Pacific Century Institute, Chatsworth/CA, 2024, ISBN #978-2-6696-2366-0)

Review by Bill Drucker (Winter 2026)

Black-and-white images of Korea in the 1970s are sensitively captured in this collaboration by a photographer and a poet who both served as Peace Corps volunteers then. It focuses on ordinary people at work, rest, and play, and the photos are accompanied by appropriate descriptions in poetic verse.

The elderly sit and chat, perhaps reflecting on their lives.  The young look impatient, wanting more than what the countryside can give.  The images show the smiles of children, the rough working hands of farmers and fishermen, the weathered faces of men and women.  All of the photos are deceptively simple, like snapshots in time. Collectively, the frozen moments ascend to a new level of deeply-felt emotions.   

After the brutal Korean War displaced some six million lives, the country was in ruins.  The post-war years were characterized by poverty, disease, and psychological and physical trauma.  The country struggled as an agrarian state, with 80/20 ratio of rural population to urban.  Under the authoritarian President Chung Hee Park, a national modernization policy would reverse the ratio to an astounding 20/80 ratio. 

In the ‘70s, there were few large cities. The country was populated by farmers, fishermen, and laborers living in remote villages.

In that era, there were few dictates by the national government that extended to the countryside. People made a living much as their predecessors had, following the rhythms of the four seasons, working from dawn to dusk.  

One photo shows a lean, strong man wearing a jige or versatile wooden backpack frame, an image that sums up the kind of physical endurance needed to make a living in rural Korea at that time. American soldiers stationed in Korea starting in 1950 at the time of the Korean War, dubbed the structure an “A-frame” because of its simple yet sturdy shape.  The soldiers were amazed at the quantity and weight of supplies that Korean laborers could carry with a jige.

Many of the images remind us how drastically times have changed. The jige was an ordinary sight in Korea for many centuries, but is rarely seen today.

Some images possess an additional evocative power.  For example, there is one of an elderly woman in Gwangju tossing water from a bucket into the street.  The photo shot at the optimum time, with water suspended in mid-air.  The accompanying verse is haunting.  Gwangju was the site of the 1980 pro-democracy movement, variously called the “uprising” or the “massacre,” depending on one’s politics. The elderly woman throwing out her wash water could very well have witnessed the 1980 Gwangju protests, when Koreans demonstrated for democracy.  Many ordinary people were harshly dealt with by the authoritarian government and many lives were lost in the quest for democratic rule.  

As if I could wash away
the day before and before that
As if I knew how to
cleanse village, home, heart… heavy with years
Blood ran in these streets
we scrub… water does not last

It should be noted that as the South Korea government was attempting to suppress the events of 1980 in Gwangju, American Peace Corps workers and other foreign organized religious and non-profit organizations were ordered to pack up and leave.  South Korea ended the longstanding Peace Corps national volunteer program soon thereafter. News of what happened in Gwangju – the brief pro-democracy takeover followed by a harsh takedown by the government’s military – was controlled for years, so international reaction was muted.   

Other black-and-white photos show the elderly in repose, with men drinking soju, and playing the traditional board game changgi.  Boys in fields of tall grass try to catch grasshoppers.  An old woman is shown drying wild ginseng (insam), a medicinal root that has been a vital part of Korean culture for thousands of years.

What ails you brother?  Your wife
has whispered to me
“My husband, he..”
then blushing cannot finish the thought
Perhaps this simple root… in your tea
is all you need.

One detailed headshot shows an elderly man with long, wispy strands of beard, and a quiet gaze, looking askance.  He looks like he has lived through a lot, and although he cannot or won’t speak of it, his deeply-lined face and pensive look tell a story. The somber poem that accompanies the photo resonates with remorse.

What I have seen may no one
See
What I have done may no one
Do
As I close my eyes this is what I
Pray

The careful curation of photos with poetry are nostalgic, quiet and stirring, with a sense of loss and longing. It is a beautifully-produced book, appropriate as a gift to a younger Korean who has no experience of that time of Korean history.

Kudos to the two authors who lived and worked at that time in the Korean countryside, and engaged with many rural local people. Additional contributors also helped make Paths of Grass and Stone a wonderful book.

Poet Lou Spaventa served in the Peace Corps in the Gwangju region.  Originally from Brooklyn, New York, Spaventa has lived and worked in Korea, Saudi Arabia, England, Columbia, Mexico, and other places.  He has been both a college professor and a foreign service officer, while always engaged in music and writing.

Photographer Robert Kowalczyck is now a retired professor at Kindai University of Osaka Japan.  He once worked as a Peace Corps coordinator in East Asia.  He has shot photos of people and landscapes in Korea, Japan, China, Russia, and Cambodia.  More of his photos can be viewed at: https://robertkowalczyk.zenfolio.com/blog

After her tour of duty with the Peace Corps (1975-1977), Kathleen Stephens rose to become an American career diplomat, serving in China, Europe, and Washington, DC.  She returned to South Korea as the first woman U.S. ambassador (2000-2011).  She has served on the board of the Korea Society and the Asia Foundation.

Michael E. Robinson, a graduate of the University of Michigan, served in the Peace Corps in Korea (1968-1970).  He continued his studies in East Asian History, and taught history at the University of California – Los Angeles and at Indiana University.  He has published extensively on topics of Asian and Korean culture and history.

Translator Brother Anthony (known as Sonjae An in Korea) has been a member of the ecumenical Community of Taize since 1969. He located in South Korea in 1980 at the invitation of the Archbishop of Seoul, Sou-hwan Kim.  An Oxford-educated scholar, Brother Anthony has taught at Sogang University, a private Jesuit-founded college, and published some 60 volumes of translated Korean poetry, and novels.

John Einarsen is the founding editor of Kyoto Journal (1987). He is a practitioner of Miksang contemplative photography, and has published numerous photoessays.  The images of calm, solitude and contemplation in Paths of Grass and Stone clearly show Einarsen’s influence.

The court of public opinion

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The Sense of Wonder ~ By Matthew Salesses

Matthew Salesses pens a new novel of a game where the rules are different for some players

(Little, Brown and Company, New York, 2023, ISBN #978-0-3164-2571-1)

Review by Bill Drucker (Fall 2025)

Not that long ago, in the world of American professional basketball, two outstanding Asian players came on the scene, the Chinese superstar Yao Ming and Harvard-educated Chinese American Jeremy Lin. Despite their popularity and winning performances on the court, the media didn’t know how to deal with them.  Fans loved them, but there persisted a strong undercurrent of anti-Asian prejudice.

One story about Lin was that when he was at Harvard, he walked across the gym floor, and heard a coach or other staff member snarl, “The science building is across the commons.”  Lin felt pressure to constantly prove himself on the court, as a college player and as a professional. 

As a player, Lin had outstanding seasons in 2011-2012 as point guard for the New York Knicks.  Fans loved him and the enthusiasm was called “Linsanity.” Nonetheless, he was passed over (or snubbed) for the National Basketball Association (NBA) All Stars team.  He played other American basketball franchises, and then decided to play in Asia.  A six-foot-two-inch, 200 pound player in his prime, known for passing and shooting, Lin was cheered by fans, but razzed by the reporters, opposing fans, and even other players. 

Shaquille O’Neal was pressured to make a public apology for one anti-Asian crack.  Lin and Tiger Woods, another professional athlete who is also Asian, took the high road and accepted the apology without further fanfare.  During the pandemic’s Asian-hate era, his Asian identity was often insultingly thrown back in his face. However, looking back, Lin’s career had many highs and few controversies. His biggest fault seems to have been playing pro basketball while Asian.

Fast forward to 2023.  Inspired by the Lin narrative, seasoned novelist (and Korean adoptee) Matthew Salesses has produced a bristling satire of a fictional Asian player (Won Lee, of Korean heritage), and of the NBA franchise with all its bureaucracy and many faults.  Salesses throws in for good measure the issues of masculinity, sports role models, fandom, racism, and the the very flawed international K-drama industry.

The author portrays women working in or adjacent to the world of men’s professional sports as (refreshingly) unique individuals. Wives are hardly sports wives (whatever that is).  There are no bench warmers or cheerleaders to be found.  

The author puts the character of Won as the first person narrator in the first part of the story, as he struggles to position himself in the sports world. Despite his obvious talent and drive, the stubborn team coach browbeats Won and keeps him benched, trying to maintain control over him. However, Won knows the drill.  As a newbie NBA player, he needs to take on the role of the token Asian while also being a team player.  He is also the coach’s whipping boy.  The coach can hold the player’s contract over his head.  If Won doesn’t play, his season is over. 

The author introduces some other interesting characters to the mix. Won’s significant other Carrie Kang, a TV producer, is smart, sexy, and brutally honest.  With Won waffling, Carrie is inclined to knock some sense into him, rather than hold his hand. 

There is also a (Korean adoptee) reporter Robert Sung, who is a basketball washout, never having risen through the ranks as a player. He brags to Won early on that he and superstar Paul Burton, the Knicks captain (dubbed Powerball or PB) were teammates in high school. Sung takes Won under his wing, but Won smartly stays on the defensive, perceiving quickly that Sung is an opportunist and known to be vindictive in his writing to those who get on his bad side.

When Won leads the team in a seven-game winning streak (which was also a Jeremy Lin accomplishment), the media and fans go wild.  They dubbed him “the Wonder.”  It should be his moment, but the coach continues to invest more in the talents of the superstar PB.  PB likes the Asian point guard but also holds back; he is aloof as team captain. The rest of the team aren’t acting like Won’s friends either. 

Sung writes about Won as a rising star.  Sung, in his vindictiveness, both loves and envies PB.  He praises fellow Korean Won at first but uses him as a wedge against PB.  Sung’s jealousies about the success of his one-time high school teammate undermine Won and eventually destroy PB’s personal life.

Won himself is fan of PB on the court, but his personal drive and competitive nature get the better of him. Instead of treating him as a valuable asset and team member, Won sees PB as a rival.  As Salesses portrays it, the game gets to all of them; players, coaches, the sportswriter, and the wives. 

After close contact on court with PB, Won injures his leg.  Everything he has lived for stops cold in its tracks.  Won’s coach and team drop their investment of time and energy in him. Only PB shows some remorse.

Sung uses the incident to go after PB in his writing, and all the years of pent-up aggression against him surface.  When Sung can’t get enough satisfaction from blaming the team’s misfortunes on PB, he begins to blame Won for the bad luck.  It is an extreme, high-visibility example of how when you win, everybody loves you; but the moment you drop the ball, you are the team’s scapegoat.

Only Carrie Kang continues to support Won.  After the Won character is the lead protagonist and first-person narrator, Carrie’s well-developed character takes over as narrator.  From her vantage point,  Carrie recognizes Won’s many talents on and off the court, his sheer talent, and his maturity in dealing with direct and indirect racial assaults and the many personalities of the world Won inhabits.  She also sees his many faults.

Carrie has her own separate issues.  Her beloved sister is dying of cancer.  Carrie has very different views about confronting the disease compared with her sister’s acquiescing husband and their confused Korean family. 

She is also an ambitious K-drama producer, working on both sides of the Pacific. After hooking up with Won, she gets the idea for a new K-drama about the life of an NBA star.  In Korea, she deals with the Korean-ness of K-drama production politics and practices.  Interestingly, her struggles mirror those of Won, except they are on a different playing field. Carrie sees that she has to play the game, which for her is fraught with extra complications because she is a woman and a Korean American.  Won and Carrie are both enduring their own industry’s big egos who attempt to hold them back, frustrating their success and inflicting many irksome microaggressions.  

The Sense of Wonder is a briskly-paced, razor sharp, and entertaining read. Salesses is on fire in this story, pulling in diverse topics that create a cohesive narrative that is also wildly funny and insightful. Every page has something to say.  He takes sharp jabs at the NBA, American sports fandom, and anti-Asian racism.  He throws in a terrific sub-narrative that is like a K-drama 101 lesson chapter. He treats us to his criticism of the Asian American experience, including his observation of the skewed views of Asian masculinity

This author skillfully barrels down the court, treating us to some creative moves in his unwinding of this tale.  Original, confident and deftly written, the story is totally readable in just a few sittings.

Matthew Salesses is an award-nominated author of seven books.  As a Korean adoptee, he often integrates in his writings the issues of inter-racial adoption, identity, race and racism.  Salesses lives in New York City and teaches writing at Columbia University.

A refuge for the homeless diaspora

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Oxford Soju Club ~ By Jinwoo Park

Jinwoo Park’s first novel tells of spies who find one another, but have run out of mission

(Dundurn Press, Toronto, 2025, ISBN #978-1-4597-5501-9)

Review by Bill Drucker (Fall 2025)

This is a clever tale of a Korean American CIA agent, North Korean spies, and a South Korean restaurateur, all descending on the Oxford Soju Club, the only Korean restaurant near the famed university campus.

Author Jinwoo Park tells what seems like a throwback narrative, but it is set in the present, with biting wit and a critical address to the Korean diaspora and its resistance to integration into a new country. The diverse group of ethnic Koreans in the story – Northern spies, Southern restaurant owners, Korean American counterspies – are all smart people, but they have no life, only outmoded missions. They have no real country of allegiance, and no citizenship, and have lost the thread of why they are doing what they are doing.

All are immigrants – some are serial immigrants – but have in common that none can get beyond feeling like transplants in a foreign land. The Oxford Soju Club is the new Casablanca, a temporary port for immigrants and refugees, spies and curious tourists.

Each character ostensibly has a national security agenda, and the mostly ethnic Korean agents appear to take their roles and responsibilities of national security oh so seriously. These operatives act as if the Cold War is still on. The wartime cause may have lost its relevance in the broader society, but it gives them all a purpose in a changing world.

The story starts with the ignominious stabbing death of Doha, a North Korean spymaster, the mentor of Yohan Kim, a young and resourceful spy. With his dying breath, Doha tells Yohan “Soju Club, Dr. Ryu.”

Yohan Kim is smart but not always savvy. From the young agent’s perspective, his mission is to be loyal to the homeland, follow orders, go where they tell you, and make the assignment a success. His ideological vision is shortsighted. But because of his mentor’s untimely death, finding the significance of the words “Soju Club” and “Dr. Ryu” is no longer just another order, it’s an assignment.

A Korean American CIA agent, Yunah Choi, has placed a watch on the Club. She has been to the Club as a customer under a fake name, posing as a Korean medical school dropout who is working locally as a bartender. She talks casually to owner Jihoon Lim, and decides he is not a security risk. However, Choi’s counterpart American agents view the situation with more ingrained national security paranoia, perceiving a Cold War yellow peril, and distrust of Asians and immigrants.

Choi is modern, ambitious in her career, but not taken seriously because she is a woman and a Korean. Her traditional Korean family does not understand her, so Yunah keeps her distance from them rather than getting into futile arguments.

She knows who Doha is, and who Yohan Kim is. Choi attempts to talk to Yohan soju style. When she tries to convince him to jump ship and switch sides, he is unmoved. She perceives that the situation is what it is. It is not about sides, or security, or patriotism.

Kim, for his part, wonders whether lending his talents to Choi and CIA would be appreciably different than working for the homeland. He also has a more important mission of loyalty to find out why his mentor Doha was killed. Was it a planned assassination, or an impulsive kill? Yohan’s conscience works on him; such a man didn’t deserve that cheap death.

Jihoon Lim, owner of the Soju Club, is an affable South Korean, portrayed as a typical industrious immigrant, trying to build a life in a new country. He lives in a kind of exile, a person who left Korea but for whom Korea has never left him. His creation of a Korean drinking and dining establishment has made the Soju Club a gathering place for other Korean exiles, as well as a unique experience for British tourists and regulars.

Spies are watching the Soju Club because they believe that the infamous Dr. Ryu will appear there. No one from the CIA knows what Dr. Ryu looks like, but they are ready to do anything to catch the high-ranking spy. One evening, when all the players are at the Soju Club, there is a misguided incident, guns are drawn, and people get shot, but Dr. Ryu and Yohan Kim escape.

It’s all a game, with a kind of practical fatalism for justification, and no one taking responsibility for the consequences. Yohan, taken from a North Korean orphanage, trained and sent on various foreign assignments, is molded into a member of the lost diaspora. He asks before he leaves the homeland, “Will I ever come back?” Each place he goes, he assumes a new identity. Then he sheds it to move to the next assignment, a new location, a new name and identity. He can speak Chinese, Russia and English. In the Oxford job, he is supposed to be an ethnically Japanese student. He is the ideal tool, taking orders with few questions.

In being Korean, the characters wrestle with personal identity and belonging. They are outsiders, whether they compartmentalize their heritage or, like typical immigrant exiles, maintain their Korean-ness only for family obligations, language and traditions. When Yohan is offered a black stout, he looks at it suspiciously. For him, the drink is soju. At least he has his drinking tradition to believe in.

To one degree or another, all the characters have similar issues with a mishmash of backgrounds and belonging to an estranged diaspora that lacks any strong allegiances or loyalties. That this psycho-social narrative comes to us as a fast-moving spy novel is unique and keeps the reader’s attention.

Park has a confident writing style. He can take diverse elements and merge them into an engaging tale in narratives that are always briskly paced. He builds clever stories around characters who take things too seriously, with outcomes that are more ironic than heroic.

The novel is a fun read, with Park taking a few snarky and entertaining jabs at the post-Cold War espionage game which, for the characters, is an exercise that spans a range from paranoia to inflated self-importance. The author also explores in his characters some persistent, often socially-destructive Asian immigrant mindsets.

Author Jinwoo Park is a Korean Canadian who attended Oxford University for his Master’s studies. His memories of Oxford streets and many local spots are reflected in his descriptions. Oxford Soju Club is Park’s debut novel, and the reader is left hoping it will not be his last. 

Korean Americans emerge from the fires

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Sa-I-Gu: Writings of journalists on the streets of the LA riots, 30 years on ~ edited by Russell C. Leong, Karen Umemoto, and Soo Mee Kim; with Vince Leus

Korean and Asian American Journalists Writing Truth to Power

(UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press, Los Angeles, 2023, ISBN #9-780-9340-5256-6)

Review by Bill Drucker (Summer 2025)

(left) Journalist K. W. Lee and (right) the cover of Sa I Gu.

This informative collection of essays and images presents the events of the Los Angeles civil unrest that began April 29, 1992 (in Korean, known as Sa I Gu or 4 -2 -9).  Many of the contributing writers were also journalists at the time, reporting and photographing the horrific events that extended for six days of burning, looting, and killings.  The contributing articles include retrospective writings, reflections on Sa-I-Gu after 30 years, and thoughts of social and political reforms that arose from the turmoil. This collection is an excellent reference, with many images and selected reprints of newspaper articles from the time.

The contributing 21 editors, journalists, activists, photographers, artists, filmmakers, historians, and other scholars also reevaluate the causes and consequences of the events.  The retellings are vivid and the reflections offered are heartfelt and thoughtful.  The photographs capture many disturbing, violent, and tragic moments. 

People in the middle

A few famous incidents arising from racial tensions at this time in Los Angeles history became well known – Rodney King, Chol Soo Lee, Eddie Lee, Latasha Harlins and Soon Ja Du – and represented the societal conflict, racial inequality, media bias and injustice of that moment.

Rodney King, a Black Los Angeles man, was perhaps the most famous survivor of racialized violence. He was captured on video being beaten by the police after a traffic stop. The King incident pre-dated the ‘92 Riots, but the acquittal of five police officers who beat him was a catalyst of the April 29 riots that spread across the Koreatown area of Los Angeles.  King had his day in court, was awarded millions and for a time became a spokesman for the movement against police violence.  

Korean American Chol Soo Lee was not directly involved in the LA Riots, but he was a victim of racialized injustice.  He was falsely accused of the murder of a notorious gang member, convicted, and put one death row in 1972.  During his incarceration, Lee killed an inmate in self-defense. 

The Korean and greater Asian American communities rallied in support of his exoneration, and with added effort from  the Free Chol Soo Lee movement and due to the writings about the appeal process by journalist K. W. Lee, supporters raised the funds needed for his legal fees.  Lee was acquitted and released after 10 years of incarceration.  He received no apology or compensation from the state. 

K. W. Lee’s role was indirect, but the Chol Soo Lee movement to support him galvanized Asian Americans in a quest for justice that was a wake-up call that LA Koreans needed to stand up for their community in the wake of Sa-I-Gu.

The Latasha Harlins and Soon Ja Du incident sparked anger among Blacks in South LA.  The shooting of 15-year-old  Harlins, who was Black, by Du, a Korean merchant, over a minor shoplifting incident, shocked the community and the nation, but was symptomatic of the strained relationship of the Korean and Black communities.  

Du was convicted of manslaughter, and got a light sentence hat angered the Black community.  Du’s liquor store was targeted during the ‘92 riots.  Afterwards, the store was not reopened, and the family moved out of the LA area. 

The story of Eddie Lee, a 19-year-old Korean American, is equally tragic.  He was shot in crossfire while  trying to defend a pizza parlor from looters during the riots. In the hectic confusion of the riots, the shot that killed Lee may have been from an armed local merchant, not by looters and not by the police.

Stories from the streets

The book has four sections that describe political and social environment of the times, look at what was reported in the heat of the moment, describe the notable contributions of journalist K.W. Lee, and add a broad swath of recent reflections, 30 years on, by journalists and other commentators on Korean America, on what came about as a result of the upheaval.

Journalist Kay Hwangbo makes some key arguments about the dual injustices suffered by Black Americans coupled with the scapegoating of Korean Americans in 1990s Los Angeles. She argues that racism was visited upon both groups and that the political and economic systems were racist and that those systems turned racial groups against one another.

Journalist K. W. Lee, who was editor of Koreatown Weekly (1979 -1984) and Korea Times English Edition (1990 – 1993), notes that the events that began April 29, 1992 did not erupt overnight.  The racial tensions, the economic struggles of the Asians and Blacks, the dislike of the Blacks and Asians of each other, and the endless robberies, murder, assaults, auto thefts and burglaries created a fearful and resentful atmosphere. The mood was exacerbated by lack of city response and police insensitivity. 

Observing the fires of rage fueled by the police acquittals and biased media that lasted six horrific days, K.W. Lee questions not why the violence happens but when the next one will flare up.

Edward T. Chang, a professor at University of California who, in an activist role, worked on racial reconciliation in the immediate aftermath of Sa-I-Gu, examines Korean American identity. He looks at how Korean and other Asian immigrants moved to poorer sections of LA, never losing their cultural identity, and nearly isolating themselves from the greater American culture and language.  Chang criticizes the mainstream media at that time for its racial bias and cultural ignorance.  The Asian community would suffer many unnecessary hardships of their self-isolation before demanding equal rights in their new and necessary identity as Korean Americans.

In a section on American Toxicity, Darnell Hunt explores American racial intolerance by describing how police and vigilantes racially profiled immigrants. Hate crimes toward Asians soared during COVID-19 pandemic. Hunt suggests that there has been systematic exploitation of white political and economic anxieties, and that immigrants have been blamed.   

In the section on Roots, Riots and Reflections, civil rights attorney and longtime Koreatown resident Do Kim examines the common roots of Blacks and Asians in their racial profiling and their common need for representation in the greater society. As Do Kim remarks, it took three decades to heal the damage. The city, the communities of color, and solidarity movements of immigrants for rights and representation have all contributed to the ongoing healing. The city’s past is also a shared event, not to be forgotten or repeated.

In the section on Journalists Writing “Truth to Power,” Dexter H. Kim, journalist, filmmaker and website editor, comments how the events of April 29, 1992 still “elicit pain, anger, and sadness” among the people who remember and witnessed it.  He brings up May 2, 1992, a day of commemoration when some 30,000 people assembled at Ardmore Park (currently Seoul International Park in K-Town) to call for peace among the people of Koreatown.  It was a symbolic act for Asian Americans to gather and call for a new solidarity in order to be wiser, more aware, and ready to rebuild their community.

Kim points out that Korean immigrants were known for buying cheap property and doing business without understanding the class structures and economics of the community at large, which led to resentment and misunderstanding among non-Koreans in the community.  Staying in a Korean cultural/language environment in the U.S. and crying foul when the American Dream is still unattainable is not the system’s fault, he argues.  A key role for younger Korean Americans is to understand cultural disparities and racial disenfranchisement better, both for their own ethnic communities, and for other marginalized communities.

In A Daughter of Koreatown, writer Sophia K. Kim recalls the past and present of LA, from the perspective of Korean immigrants. Los Angeles Koreatown was once a poor neighborhood of Blacks and recent Asian immigrants.  She discusses social disenfranchisement as a shared experience of Blacks and Asians. She also points out that tightness of a group creates an exclusive, closed attitude. In general, Asians and Blacks held negative, stereotypical images of the other, creating not mutuality but mistrust and caution.

How one journalist brought out the voice of Koreatown

The work of K.W. Lee, known as the “godfather of Korean American journalism” because of his leadership during Sa I Gu and his mentorship of young Asian American journalists for many years, is honored in this collection.  His writings during the events of those times show how he witnessed the violence and then became a catalyst in the work of racial reconciliation.  He had a reputation for taking firm stands on civil rights, having an unwavering belief in justice, and for making blunt remarks in his writings (and in person) about racism, inequities, and media bias.

Reporter Soojin Kim profiles K.W. Lee’s life. She tells the story of how he grew up in Japanese-occupied Korea, and was a soldier in the Japanese army. After immigrating to the U.S., ostensibly for a college education, he stayed on and had several reporting jobs in the “Jim Crow South” during the years before the civil rights era of the 1960s. He pursued many stories of about Blacks in the rural south. 

After moving to California, he spent decades pounding the streets as an enterprising beat reporter in Sacramento and Los Angeles.  Lee started a second career as an editor, founding two English language newspapers covering the Koreatown beat.  This new direction started with his coverage of  the Chol Soo Lee false conviction story, which he followed with fierce conviction as a reporter for the Sacramento Union.

After retirement, Lee became a spokesman and activist, and continued to plead with the culturally-competent and bi-lingual second generation to speak up for the rights and representation of their first-generation elders. 

Moving on, with caution

Since the 1992 LA Riots, the racial, economic and cultural issues have subsided, along with a new generation of more aware Blacks, Koreans, and Latins.  The city operates with political caution, though an undercurrent of resistance and mistrust are still there. 

In recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated new anti-Asian hate when rumors that the disease originated from China ran wild in the media.  Random shootings of Blacks by whites and/or by police have escalated new fears.  The 2020 George Floyd murder in Minneapolis became the new poster of racism and police brutality for the nation, arguably for the world, harkening back to the Rodney King incident in 1991.

This book is excellent as a reexamination of a key time and place. The writings, retrospective and reflective, seem sensitive after 30 years.  Not all writers are forgiving of those racially-tense days.  The blame game and depiction of Koreans and Blacks as victims of white brutality is an over-simplification of the complex social milieu that is Los Angeles.  The sentiments of racial tensions are still there, as are the economic and political issues at the root of those tensions. 

Each of the writers reflect on the lessons of those times, and what can be done for future civil stability.  Civil unrest in any city or country occurs as a reaction to the insensitivity of the state or people. People’s movements and attention by media counter lack of progress by police and other government bureaucracy.  

A section on Reflections and Resources includes a detailed timeline of events before, during and after the April 1992 riots.  There are final comments, including how, in the 30 years since the events, the Koreatown of that time has been rebuilt. New generations of Korean and Asian Americans, African Americans and others live in a multiracial environment. 

However, the transnational city of Los Angeles struggles to deal with many issues of justice and social welfare, among them continuing rampant gentrification and escalating residential prices, related homelessness and economic disparities.

A new kind of misery has been recently visited upon Los Angeles and other big cities in the form of the rounding up and kidnapping people of color, assumed unjustly to be undocumented immigrants. Los Angeles residents are unlikely to put up with this kind of disruption and injustice long term before more widespread resistance breaks out.

We Americans have long experience with and recognize the causes of social tension and the actions needed to resolve them.  Many of the writings point out how the LA civil unrest and the healing afterwards exemplify how reform must come from the very people that need it, through the solidarity of protests, legal channels, the sway of the media, and persistent efforts towards social change.  

This unique collection is a description of a time and place, but includes many reflective articles on how the LA civil unrest can inform ongoing struggles of marginalized communities. The fact that it happened 30 years ago means that the reader can reflect on the long-term impact of this seminal event on the Korean American community and other ethnic communities today.  

Broken rules and broken trust

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Broken Summer ~ By J.M. Lee

Shared guilt and blame centers plot of crime novel

(Amazon Crossing Press, 2022, ISBN #9-781-6625-0504-1)

Review by Bill Drucker (Spring 2025)

J.M. Lee’s previous novel, The Boy Who Escaped Paradise, of a young, North Korean defector genius was a fanciful, entertaining read.  His new psychological drama, Broken Summer is a disturbing tale of the death, possibly a murder, of a girl in a small town.  The tale uses the Rashomon Effect narrative.  In the famous Japanese movie, a rape-murder of a couple is retold by four witnesses.  Each provides a different perspective of the same incident.  The complexity of the actual events are made worse due to the trauma experienced by the victims and witnesses.

In Broken Summer, the death of a local high school girl instills a sense of fear and anxiety.  The event is told by various witnesses and participants from their own points of view, making it harder for police to discern the truth as the story unfolds. Each person who has a role in telling the story wants to protect themselves.  Social class differences and individual desires are exposed.  The police are under pressure to close the case as quickly as possible.  All these factors cloud the pursuit of truth.

The story begins with celebrated artist Hanjo Lee who, after decades of strivings at the peak of his success. However, his revenge-seeking wife leaves him on his forty-third birthday, and someone has written an fictionalized account of his life, describing a sordid past.  Hanjo fears that certain veiled truths within the novel will destroy him.

Hanjo is forced to reckon with his shallow life, his unhappy marriage, and his reputation as an artist.  There is a past incident that haunts him.

The story rewinds 18 years, to the small town of Isan City.  Its most important landmark at that time was the western-style Howard House, originally built for missionaries.  The house stands on a hill, and below it is the much-smaller Malcolm House, which served as a guesthouse for visiting missionaries, and then as the servants residence.  Other significant buildings in town include the Hamil middle and high schools, and the Hamil Hospital.

Jinman Lee, his wife, young Hanjo, and older brother Suin lived in the Malcolm House, as caretakers of the unoccupied Howard House property. At one point, Hanjo build a small studio in the Howard House annex, but then had to remove everything to make way for the new owner Heejae Jang, his wife, Seonwoo Kim and daughters Jisoo and Haeri to move in.

The new arrivals quickly assert the social boundaries between themselves and the Malcom House occupants.  Jang hires his own people for renovations, but keeps Jinman Lee and family as caretakers.  There is the implicit structure of employer and employee, and also the structure in Korean society puts them in radically different social classes that are between rich and poor, masters and servants.

The ambitious Jang is showy with his wealth and influence and his wife and daughters followed suit. Caretaker Lee stresses to his sons not to overstep their social position.  He reminds them to be grateful of any favors the Howard House offers.  Finding out that Hanjo is an artist, Jang allows him to reestablish his studio in the annex.

The rich Jang family, so dignified and distant, seem like a different race.  Hanjo is vulnerable to wanting all the things the Jang family enjoys.  Disdainful Suin keeps his distance and is keenly aware of his socio-economic identity and class whenever he has to be at the Howard House.  The feeling was worse when the brothers knocked at the Howard House door, and their servant mother opened it.

Jang’s wife Seonwoo Kim finds out that Suin is the brightest student in town, with aspirations to  Suin become a lawyer.  She asks if he would tutor her two daughters Jinsoo and Haeri.  Waiting in the huge library, Suin picks up an American classic, and Seonwoo invites him to take it. Suin hesitates, but once he accepts, he knows a social boundary is breached.  Other social boundaries start to blur: Jisoo is smitten by distant Suin, while Hanjo has a crush on Jinsoo.  Haeri follows Hanjo like an infatuated puppy. 

New feelings, if only in their hearts and minds, soon surface in all the players in frustration, jealousy and anger.  When Jinsoo goes missing, Jang is reluctant to call the police, but they are  finally called in. Eventually her body is found, face down in the local stream. There are questions of whether she died by accident or suicide.

The town is on edge, the police are pressured to move quickly on this incident.  Three days after Jisoo’s disappearance, the missing persons case is reclassified as a violent crime.  The police officers in charge, Bora Nam and San Yun begin the awkward and painful process of interrogating all the prime players around Jisoo.  The father is defensive about how little he knows of his daughter’s habits, and he becomes agitated when the police mention suicide.  A family suicide would destroy his reputation and make any political ambitions impossible to realize.

When police question the brothers, Suin is cool, and Hanjo is nervous. Suin had told him earlier, “You were with me all night.  Got that brother?  Don’t ever change from that story.”  When police discover that their father once served prison time, Jinman Lee is quickly hauled into the police station.  Lee had served time for an act of violence. Lee makes a confession, possibly sacrificial, to take on the blame and divert attention from his sons. Again Suin tells Hanjo to keep his mouth shut.  The case is closed.

The years pass and Suin, who never becomes a full-fledged lawyer, works in legal firms as a manager.  Hanjo’s haunting paintings of Jisoo and the Howard House gets him some initial notice.  When Hanjo sells a four-panel painting series of Jisoo, and an artist publication praises Hanjo’s talents, he is elated.  Hanjo finally realizes his lifelong desire for fame and fortune.

The story shifts and becomes a tale of retribution.  Hanjo is drawn back to Howard House.  Now dilapidated and in ruins, the townspeople say it is haunted.  Hanjo encounters a young woman, who looks vaguely familiar. She is Haeri, now called Soojin who has returned after 18 years to uncover the truth about her sister. 

Bora Nam, who is still a police officer recognizes Haeri/Soojin. While she expresses doubt about the case, Nam makes only defensive excuses.  Haeri encounters other witnesses.  Her focus soon narrows to Hanjo, the catalyst for the tragedy and its aftermath.  Haeri wants revenge, and manipulates Hanjo in a devious manner.  She reveals that she has been his unknown benefactor, and has brought him his fame and fortune.  She makes him want her before revealing her real identity.  She then writes a blistering novel to destroy Hanjo.

In terms of crimes and sins, all parties share guilt, and this novel visits that reality in painful detail.  Desire, jealousy, betrayal, self-serving lies, and misguided acts of sacrifice come back to haunt them.

In the genre of crime dramas, Broken Summer is a quite a good read.  Score another win for the author J. M. Lee, a popular South Korean novelist.  His books have been translated into many languages.  Broken Summer was an immediate publication success and was quickly adapted into a TV series.

The English translation of Broken Summer is by An Seonjae (aka Brother Anthony).  Scholar, writer and translator, An lives in Seoul and has been a member of the Community of Taize of France since 1969.

Photographic images in modern Korean history

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Shooting for Change: Korean Photography After the War ~ By Jung Joon Lee

(Duke University Press, Durham/NC, 2024, ISBN #978-1-4780-5920-2)

Review by Bill Drucker (Spring 2025)

Author Joon Jung Lee ,in this interesting analysis of photographic images in modern history examines how post-war-era photos reflect, contradict, and influence the political landscape and social psyche of Korean culture. Shooting for Change also describes how, in the social media age, images created with cellphone and internet technology became powerful tools for state criticism and social protest.

The author analyzes collective memories captured with images, particularly those attached to the post-war period. The images reflect a post-war state trying to define its own nationality.  Through many hundreds of years, Korea had been ruled by or dominated by China, Japan, Russia and later the U.S.  The Korean people’s liberation and hopes for self-determination after World War II were short-lived, because Korea was divided and again under authoritarian dictatorship only a few years after the 1945 liberation from Japanese rule.

Lee discusses how perception of images change. When first recorded, an image may have a certain meaning, and with the passing of time, that meaning may be replaced or revised as historical events are re-addressed. Cultural influences, memory, and subsequent events all play into the perspective and interpretation of a captured image as a moment in history.

The author also analyzes how the family is portrayed through photographic images at different times in Korean history, particularly images in which the family portrait showing a conventional family seems out-of-sync or conflicted.  Like a Norman Rockwell family portrait is a mismatch with most American families, no idealized image of a Korean family truly matches reality.

Lee discusses how post-war Korea was fragmented – the people and their nation were in an orphan state.  There are iconic images of U.S./UN soldiers with Korean children, suggesting the roles of savior and saved, like a father protecting a lost child.  From today’s perspective, the same image can suggest neocolonialism, the patriarchal power dominating the helpless child state.

Viewed from an even darker lens, such an image can also be viewed as the war perpetrator deceitfully using an image to portray the salvation of the war victim who would never have been a victim if not for the perpetrator.  The author notes that the use of orphans as the face of war, once seen as good Christian intent and good military propaganda, is now obsolete.  The state of Korean post-war orphanhood is an image stuck in time.  Today, there are no orphans, and Korea is no longer an orphan nation.  Yet, the perception of the U.S. as paternal savior, big brother, and military protector remains.

Women’s roles in family images, traditional and modern, have undergone a major shift.  As South Korea has risen to the world stage, images of women have also been modernized, though not without a mighty struggle by its women to achieve change.  Korean women have chafed against traditional female gender roles for many years.

Iconic images of the past show a mother, either alone or with family, posing in a hanbok (or traditional two-piece dress), with hair in a bun, looking serious and maternal.  Today, married women are also pursuing jobs or careers to support their families, and may be college-educated professionals. Like Korea going from orphanhood to statehood as a nation, Korean women have gone from traditional and suppressed to modern, and probably more liberated. They are, however, saddled with the many financial and societal responsibilities that have come with more choices and more education and earning capacity.

The author also analyzes images of social (minjung) movements.  She focuses on the term kwangjang, the Korean word for public square.  The term also refers to the larger idea of the public forum of ideas.  Photography has been a powerful tool for capturing civilian protests from many moments of the 1960s, 1980s and 2000s. 

However, the free association of ideas has not been the norm in modern Korean history. State censorship is one of the issues that has marred South Korea’s history as a democracy. During the regimes of (first president) Syngman Rhee and (third president) Chung-Hee Park, a branch of state security handled media censorship, however many powerful images of those times were published nonetheless.  

Hanyol Yi being held by a friend after being hit with a teargas canister at a protest at Yonsei University in 1987 and (right) a banner of the photo of Yi displayed at a commemorative event at Yonsei in 1989.

During the 1987 democratic movement, photographers captured many images students and activists being beaten and abused for the cause.  In one famous photo, student Hanyol Yi is held up by another student after being hit by a tear gas canister; the image speaks volumes of the violence and oppression of those times.

As South Korea turned into a modern, industrial state, communications technology evolved and important documentary videos and photos were disseminated through the internet via cellphones. These tools created a wider kwangjang, or public forum, creating an empowered and networked community. 

Candlelight vigils from the time of the protest of the Geun Hye Park administration were captured the demonstrations in many iconic still photos and videos, which drew global audiences.  The months of persistent protests led to her impeachment and removal from office in 2017.

The author also points out how images have shaped the public criticism of the division of Korea, particularly through photos of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), and the military-supported camptowns that still exist near U.S. bases in South Korea. Both subjects present a troubling sense of transnational militarism. 

The DMZ was once patrolled by the U.S. troops, but it is now guarded by South Korean troops, although border policy is still influenced by the U.S.  Photos depict the DMZ as a strange contrast of military border tensions and “must see” tourist attractions.  Many tours, including family tours and adoptee tours, may include a trip to the DMZ. 

The author criticizes the persistence of the DMZ as a theater of repetition.  Rather than being a place where anything progresses or is resolved, the DMZ is an unresolved place where images of war, the failures of militarism and diplomacy are revamped into tourist attractions with a rewritten history.  Similarly in Vietnam, the enemy tunnels U.S. troops had to crawl through are now guided pay tours.  The real issues are muted, often promoted through the same images once used to condemn.

Starkly contrasting the U.S. commitment to protecting South Korea and maintaining regional peacekeeping are the persistent camptowns catering largely to U.S. servicemen, providing soldiers with the local comforts of alcohol, food, and sex workers. It is a netherworld that is neither confirmed nor denied by the U.S. military or South Korea military.  

These camptowns have been gentrified and Americanized, but there is a darker agenda of social stigma, violence, and official denial of U.S. military culpability.  The sexual workers are referred to as mikun wianbu (comfort women).  The phrase smacks of hypocrisy against and disrespect for the Korean and other Asian women during the World War II era who were forcibly conscripted into military sexual slavery by Japan, and often referred to as “comfort women.”  

Older images of camptowns show soldiers in uniform fraternizing with young women in American-style dresses and heels.  Images from recent years show young women in jeans and more casual clothing, but the repeating image of Korean women and male U.S. soldiers is symbolic of militarized colonialism, unequal power and sexual exploitation of women.   

The emergence of camptowns occurred due to economic exigency, but when the persistence of such places in the next generation is tragic, and hints of a subgroup of society doomed to be living on the fringes. They are not happy Polaroid moments; rather, they project an unsympathetic ugliness, devoid of any aesthetics.

Photojournalism has matured with each war in which Korea was involved. Photographers capture military activity intended to stay in the shadows, such as documenting mass graves of civilians, exposing the brutality of weapons like napalm which indiscriminately maimed children and other civilians in Vietnam, witnessing Korean students raising their blinking cellphones in silent uprising.  Such images have immediacy, and can question the integrity, and challenge the legitimacy of continued military presence in one picture. Images have a temporal quality that the often author refers to.  They are records of a place and time, but can evolve with age into social and political criticism.

While there is enough fuel in this analysis for some fiery rhetoric, Lee avoids it, and instead asks leading questions for the reader to ponder. Overall, this contemporary discourse digs into enduring questions of how images affect our social consciousness.  

One critique might be that the photos are too few, and that the reader might wish for a large selection of images on a certain topic.  However, the author’s analysis is thorough in addressing key social and political themes, and giving critical context on how photos have shaped the way we look at moments of modern history.

Author Jung Joon Lee is an associate professor of the theory and history of art and design at the Rhode Island School of Design.  She is currently co-editing a book entitled Queer Feminist Elsewhere; Decolonial Making in Transpacific Art, which will feature works by scholars and artists in Korea and in the Korean diaspora.

She has published in such journals as History of Photography, photographies, Trans Asia Photography, Journal of Korean Studies and PhotoResearcher. Lee’s recent publications include essays on grieving as artistic collaboration, and on the Cold War and images of transnational adoption.  

Curses of modern times

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Cursed Bunny ~ By Bora Chung

(Algonquin Books, Chapel Hill, 2021, ISBN #978-1-6437-5360-7)

Review by Bill Drucker (Winter 2025)

There is a morbid nonchalance that runs through the stories by Bora Chung.  Disturbingly strange, oddly humorous, and even gross, this is an amazing collection of 10 surreal, fantastic, and inventive short stories.  With sardonic wit, the author jumps the traditional literary norms and explores the outer boundaries of storytelling.

Chung is such a seductive writer.  She pulls the reader in with a “Once upon a time” hook and assaults with wildly imaginative twist and turns.  While there are stories based in Korea, none are folksy.  Her stories carry a mood more like a modern Grimm Brothers tale.  Drawing on her Korean background and East European education in Russian and Slavic languages and literature, Chung creates dark, moody settings and sets a tone of anxiety. The stories range from horrific to absurdist.

In Reunion, a young Korean student meets an old acquaintance on a return visit to Poland to do post-grad studies.  Polish language is written into the dialogue between the two former students and lovers.  The Korean student has a grant to do post-grad studies in Poland.  Though the funding barely covers her cost of living, she goes anyway.  There are some personal issues, chiefly that her mother as been forging her name on loans. 

Old feelings surface between the two former friends.  They connect as two damaged individuals.  His emotional baggage extends back to the ghosts of World War II, a cruel childhood, and an unfocused adulthood.  When she first chose to be intimate with him, she discovers his sexual need to be tied up.  A small fetish, just a game really. 

After they are reunited, she finds that it has become more of a self-destructive obsession.  Little else has changed for him.  He still lives in the same apartment.  One morning she finds him hanged in the bathroom.  He isn’t dead, but she feels that he may repeat the same act in the future.  She stands in the bathroom, as if waiting to be released from her own ties.

The title story, Cursed Bunny deals with revenge fetish.  A grandfather narrates the tale to his grandson.  A Korean artisan creates a special curse fetish  to take revenge on an unscrupulous businessman. It is a cursed bunny lamp.  By accident the lamp is stored away.  Revenge seems to have missed its intended target. 

The curse is re-deployed when the CEO’s grandson finds and begins to use the bunny lamp.  Ghost rabbits appear and chew up valuable documents, eventually destroying the lives of the CEO, his business and his family.  Retribution comes with a heavy cost.  The curse unfortunately does not just affect the victim; it spreads like a virus to everyone who has been in contact with the curse.

While Cursed Bunny deals with retribution, the story, Embodiment addresses gender issues, health and medical practices.  In this misogynistic tale, a young woman’s monthly cycle won’t stop.  She sees a male gynecologist, who finds nothing wrong and asks if she is experiencing undue stress.  He prescribes birth control pills.  With no relief after a month, she gets tested and is told she’s pregnant.  She loses control of her life as her doctors and family take over.  She is forced to go on blind dates, as the family tries to avoid social humiliation and get her married off before the baby comes.  She meets a kind but shy ambulance driver, an extortionist, and a sympathetic old man.  In chaos and stress, she goes into labor.

The Head (winner the 1998 Yonsei Literary Prize) is a truly bizarre and darkly humorous tale.  A blob from the toilet calls out “Mother, mother”  to the woman of the house. A yellow, gray blob with a slit for a mouth appears and talks to the woman.  She quickly flushes the toilet.  The head keeps reappearing after the housewife uses the toilet. With each visit, it manages to keep the woman’s attention a little longer.  The head seems a little larger and more articulate every time.

Soon the head is talking to her daughter.  The woman finds it all so strange and stressful, she moves the family to a new place.  There is a period of respite.  Then the head appears at the new home.  One night, the woman goes to the toilet.  She flushes and puts the lid down.  There is a clack from the toilet as a wet hand pushed the lid up.  Another limb appears as the woman looks from the mirror.  The full, naked body stands before the woman, a younger version of herself. It asks for the woman’s clothes.  The housewife realizes its not just the clothes the creation of her bodily waste is demanding.

In Scar, a nameless boy is kidnapped and chained to a rock in a cave.  He is the sacrificial offering to a monster.  The monster doesn’t devour the boy, but it siphons his vitality for years.  When the boy escapes, his freedom is cut short.  He is captured by ruthless people who exploit him in a kind of human slavery as a bare-knuckle fighter.  Somehow he survives this imprisonment and wanders into a village.  The whole town is dead, as if its vitality has been sapped.

Chung tells tales of animal cruelty, human exploitation, corporate greed, and other destructive forces with motives of exploitation and revenge.  There is no normal carriage of justice in this writer’s surreal world.

Author Bora Chung has written three novels and three short story collections.  She teams up with award-winning translator Anton Hur for this collection. Hur is from Stockholm, and currently lives in Seoul.  Chung was educated in the U.S., earned an M.A. in Russian studies at Yale, and a Ph.D. in Slavic literature at Indiana University.  She once taught Russian at Yonsei University.  Aside from writing creative stories, Chung also translates Slavic literature into Korean.

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