Aspiring to the Good Life in Seoul
Aspiring to the Good Life in Seoul

Author: Carolin Landgraf

Publisher: Universitätsverlag Göttingen

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 3863955064

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This dissertation explores the values and practices of young, middle-class South Koreans and what it means for them to live a good life. Based on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork, it attends to the pathways and life trajectories of young adults living, studying and working in Seoul, the country’s economic, political, cultural and educational centre. Due to changing economic conditions, it appears to be increasingly difficult for young people today to reproduce middle-class status. In public discourse, these difficulties are expressed in the terms ‘Spec’ or ‘Give-up Generation’. At the same time, young people are starting to question middle-class lifestyles and values and turn to practices which emphasise different standards. The author illustrates how young adults negotiate middle-class ideals by contextualising the values around four key themes – education, marriage, consumption, and work. In doing so, she explores her interlocutors’ thoughts and reflections about middle-class values through a theoretical and methodological framework centred on ordinary ethics and the everyday use of money. This ethnography sheds light on the complex and heterogenous ways young people in South Korea conceptualise and realise the good in their lives, and it focuses attention on the explicitness of ethics and the relationship between money and values in these young Seoulites’ everyday lives and social relations.

Aspirations of Young Adults in Urban Asia
Aspirations of Young Adults in Urban Asia

Author: Mariske Westendorp

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2020-10-06

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 1789208963

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Comparing first-person ethnographic accounts of young people living, working, and creating relationships in cities across Asia, this volume explores their contemporary lives, pressures, ideals, and aspirations. Delving into topical issues such as education, social inequality, family pressures, changing values, precarious employment, and political discontent, the book explores how young people are pushing boundaries and imagining their future. In this way, they explore and create the identities of their local and global surroundings.

Sonju
Sonju

Author: Wondra Chang

Publisher: Madville Publishing

Published: 2021-07-16

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 1948692597

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Through the period of rapidly evolving political strife in Korea following its liberation in 1945, Sonju's private struggle to seek her relevance in a male-dominated society parallels the struggles of Korea in becoming a force in the world.

Routledge Handbook of East Asian Popular Culture
Routledge Handbook of East Asian Popular Culture

Author: Koichi Iwabuchi

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2016-12-01

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 1317285018

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Since the 1990s there has been a dramatic increase in cultural flows and connections between the countries in the East Asian region. Nowhere is this more apparent than when looking at popular culture where uneven but multilateral exchanges of Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Hong Kong and Chinese products have led to the construction of an ‘East Asian Popular Culture’. This is both influenced by, and in turn influences, the national cultures, and generates transnational co-production and reinvention. As East Asian popular culture becomes a global force, it is increasingly important for us to understand the characteristics of contemporary East Asian popular culture, and in particular its transnational nature. In this handbook, the contributors theorize East Asian experiences and reconsider Western theories on cultural globalization to provide a cutting-edge overview of this global phenomenon. The Routledge Handbook of East Asian Popular Culture will be of great interest to students and scholars of a wide range of disciplines, including: Cultural Studies, Media Studies, Communication Studies, Anthropology, Sociology and Asian Studies in general.

Korea: The Past and the Present (2 vols)
Korea: The Past and the Present (2 vols)

Author:

Publisher: Global Oriental

Published: 2008-01-31

Total Pages: 723

ISBN-13: 9004217827

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Established in 1982, the British Association for Korean Studies has published nine sets of Papers in the period 1991–2005 – the outcome of conferences, study days and workshops. The themes of Korea past and Korea present were selected to give the editors and BAKS council the widest choice of options in terms of scholarship, subject matter and interest.

The Dawn of Modern Korea
The Dawn of Modern Korea

Author: Andreĭ Nikolaevich Lanʹkov

Publisher:

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13:

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"The 20th century was a time of great changes for any country, but in Korea these changes were especially dramatic. In 1960, it was one of the world's poorest countries. By 2000 it transformed itself into one of the world's largest economies. This astonishing transformation completely changed Koreans' daily life as well. This book describes how small but essential things have changes over the last century, and how new technology and ideas arrived in Korea for the first time. Within the last century photographs, newspapers, movies, restaurants, electric lights, cars (as well as accidents caused by them), subways, and so many other things appeared in Korea. In this book, the author details how these "modern things" changed the centuries-old ways of Korean life." -- BACK COVER.

When We Fell Apart
When We Fell Apart

Author: Soon Wiley

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2022-04-26

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 0593185153

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ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022: Harper’s Bazaar • Vogue • Good Housekeeping • CrimeReads • BookBub • Veranda • Shondaland • Debutiful • PureWow • and more! A profoundly moving and suspenseful drama that untangles the complicated ties that bind families together—or break them apart—as a young Korean American man’s search for answers about his girlfriend’s mysterious death becomes a soul-searching journey into his own bi-cultural identity When the Seoul police inform Min that his girlfriend Yu-jin has committed suicide, he’s sure it can't be true. She was successful, ambitious, happy, just on the cusp of graduating from university and claiming the future she’d always dreamed of. Min, on the other hand, born to an American father and Korean mother, has never felt quite the same certainty as Yu-jin about his life’s path. After growing up in California, where he always felt “too Korean” to fit in, he’s moved to Seoul in the hope that exploring his Korean heritage will help him find a sense of purpose. And when he meets Yu-jin, little does he know that their carefree relationship will set off a chain of events with tragic consequences for them both. Devastated by Yu-jin’s death, Min throws himself into finding out why she could have secretly wanted to die. Or did she? With a controlling and powerful government official father, and a fraught friendship with her alluring and destructive roommate So-ra, Yu-jin’s life was much more complex than she chose to reveal to Min. And the more he learns about her, the more he begins to doubt he ever really knew her at all. As Yu-jin’s story—a fraught exploration of selfhood, coming-of-age, and family expectations—collides with Min’s, the result is an engrossing page-turner that poses powerful, urgent questions about cultural identity, family bonds, secrets, and what it truly means to belong. "Transportive and poignant." —Susie Yang "Spellbinding." —Jamie Ford "A young writer to watch." —Jess Walter "Unforgettable." —Abi Daré "The most compelling debut novel I've read in years." —Alexander Chee "Heart-stopping and exquisitely plotted." —Patricia Engel "Will stay with me for a long time."—Angie Kim "Gorgeous." —Julia Phillips

Soul of the South
Soul of the South

Author: Myrlen Britt

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2011-05-10

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1462863558

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My book, Soul of the South, includes thirty short stories ranging from general fiction; military, everyday drama, to children’s stories some of which use animal characters. My premier story ‘The Pecan Tree’ is a fictionalized account of a soldier in General Andrew “Old Hickory” Jackson’s army returning home from the Battle of New Orleans through west Tennessee in 1815. There has stood a huge pecan tree in Natchez Trace State Park for many years supposedly planted by a soldier of the returning army. It was reputed to be the largest and oldest pecan tree in America. Sadly, a few years ago one of our many tornadoes destroyed it. There is another story I read as a boy that stated a sixteen year old volunteer with the militia Jackson headed in his many Indian wars refused his sergeants order to pick up biscuit crumbs that he had thrown on the ground in front of his tent. Because of the soldier’s refusal Old Hickory had him shot for insubordination. Using these two events I have woven a story of a ghost that made his presence known at various times during the years following the army’s trek through the forest that became Henderson County, Tennessee. The story basically follows the Beacum family that settled the land where the boy was buried with a pecan in his pocket that grew into the large tree. The family settled there during the 1830’s and the last surviving member died in the 1930’s. The family farm is offered for back taxes and is purchased by a young teacher who has a wife and son. The ghost continues his visits and only after the teacher enlists in the army and survives a Japanese prison camp does the story come to an end when he returns home. There is a story of Billy the Kid who surfaces on a farm in west Tennessee when he is an old man and adds a fictional account of how his death and burial were staged by the man who, history says killed him; sheriff Pat Garrett. I try to include a moral in each of the children’s stories as well as making them interesting.