from the book

Michael Breen. The Koreans: who they are, what they want, where their future lies. St. Martin's Press, NY, NY. 1998.

p. 3-4
The local media can be extremely misleading as a source of information. They generally do not see their role as a check on government and business, with the result that government intensions are frequently reported as facts a huge proportion of news stories, when you follow them up, turns out to be speculation, trial balloons, rumour, and deliberate distortion.

"you need a high-level bullshit indicator to figure out what's going on."

p. 29
Rushing parallel to this stupidity was a gushing torrent of bonhommie characteristic of Koreans in which accuracy is a distant second to feeling."

labelling without significant purpose, be cool people, be cool. don't be hot-heads, there are plenty of rednecks out there, you don't have to be another.

p.32
Most Koreans would crawl a million miles over broken glass for their mothers, but not for their fathers.

Most Korean mothers would do far... far more than that for their Kids... Steelers' WR Hines Ward surely agree with this.

p. 33
They approach the world with a personal confidence, but with clenched fists.

The ghost that haunts us will continuously do so if we don't break the chain.

Labelling without proper purpose

I picked up a book and started reading this afternoon at a library. "The Koreans," its title just captured my eyes and I began to flip through few pages. I thought it would be just another book about Korea & her people, how they suffer how they wrestled through the economy growth from sixties to nineties, etc. Sure the book talks about this, but in very honest way; not some foreigner living in the country for a while blabbing about what he saw. Rather, Michael Breen, the author, tells me about Koreans that I thought I knew by heart with a major bitch-slap.

He talks about the Koreans in depth, not Korea as his book title says and unlike many books I read talks about the Korea in somewhat superficial way. I almost felt that he knows Koreans far better than me and his stories just reminds me things that I ignored or put away very deeply for a long time.

I like the book very much so far. At some pages I had good laughs, specially when he wrote something that only Koreans (or people lived in Korea and understand its culture pretty well) would take it... more like inside joke... and some other pages made me almost tearing when he describes poor Koreans I know and I live with (no pity here) and some heart moving stories. He also points at some problems that I sometimes encounter with other Koreans and non-Koreans secondary to cultural differences - some I'm proud of though. Many times when he makes points and advises for Koreans, I also thought "this guy is absolutely right, I need to change."

Mr. Breen also criticize Korean news media, which I have so much fudge with, very honestly. My favorite definitely is "you need a high-level bullshit indicator to figure out what's going on." Within this one single sentence he explains everything that goes wrong with the media in Korea. I also noticed that he rather makes honest take-on Japanese, which many non-East Asians would not risk to speak of....

Anyhow, I only read about 1/4th of the book, but so far I'm very surprised at how much I'm enjoying this book. I hope by the time I close this book I learned some valuable lesson from this blue eyed (ha ha I'm not even sure if his eyes are blue) koh-jang-yi British gentleman.

BOOKS

Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work:
If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls
and has no one to help him up!
Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.