Recent Books

Music Education for Children

Oh Jeong-sook; Changjisa: 416 pp., 20,000 won

This book offers a new paradigm for music education by giving advanced, interactive teaching material to both children and teachers allowing them to create music together instead of the one-way education from teachers to children.

The music activities introduced in this book encourage children to develop creative expressions while listening to music. The teaching method actively engages learners and teachers, and at the same time strengthens the bond between the two.

The book provides an emotionally stable environment for teachers with rich musical experience and more interaction with students. It consists of diverse musical activities connected with one big theme and deals with various content such as nature and the universe. The author carefully selected not only her own songs but also other classic music that can provoke the emotion and imagination for children.

The book is the outcome of the author’s multi-year efforts as a teacher with accumulated know-how based on musical and physical therapy. Through the book, the writer offers guidelines to music teachers on how to educate children and what activities can induce interest from children, focusing on how to make them happy during music classes.

― Chung Ah-young

Chinnovation: How Chinese Innovators are Changing the World

Tan Yinglan; John Wiley & Sons: 312 pp., $29.95

What can change the image of “Made in China?” Innovation in China has been discussed on the mainland and in the international business circle alike. The book sheds light on successful cases through what China’s top innovative business leaders have in common.

This book explores people from high-profile young executives to established entrepreneurs who are reshaping the rules of business and focuses on the humble beginnings of entrepreneurial innovators and the behind-the-scenes stories of some big-name consumer brands firms from Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution through the Internet era.

“Chinnovation takes readers into this world of translating ideas into globally competitive companies,” said the author. This book offers important tips from innovation experiences, special strategies, the implementation of mechanisms and the detailed methods and takes some of the best and worst examples.

The book also probes the path of innovative Chinese enterprises; the capabilities of these innovative companies; experiments with innovative approaches and also management of the risk of innovation; and blue-chip innovators of business models in China.

Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage and Intellectual Property Rights: Trends and Challenges

Park Seong-yong et al; Intangible Cultural Heritage Center for Asia and the Pacific; 351 pp.,

The importance of intangible cultural heritages is becoming important as they face the challenges of urbanization, industrialization and globalization. Exploitation and misuse of these heritages are threatening the value of cultural identity and violating the rights of the heritage bearers. Among others, legal protection of intangible cultural heritages has been a major concern.

To develop possible solutions, the Intangible Cultural Center for Asia and the Pacific based in Korea invited experts from the world and published this book.

The differences between safeguarding practices and relevant legal approaches, granting legal rights to communities, and intellectual property rights of digital archives on intangible cultural heritages are discussed.

The book consists of three sections ― discourse and trends on intellectual property rights in the field of safeguarding intangible cultural heritages at local and international levels; issues and tasks of intellectual property rights in the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritages; and intellectual property rights and dissemination of intangible cultural heritages information.

It is available both in Korean and English.

Perfect Rest in Provence

Cheong Soo-bok; Munhak Dongnae: 412pp., 15,000 won

Cheong Soo-bok, a sociologist, writer and “expert” stroller living in Paris, has published a new book, “Perfect Rest in Provence.”

The book is based on the diary of Cheong wrote in summer 2005, when he stayed in Provence. The sociologist moved to France in 2002 and mainly stayed in Paris, writing books on artistic places and alleys of the metropolitan city. He has visited Provence some 10 times since the 1980s and this book is an excerpt of his experience in the sunny, fragrant region.

This time, he focuses on life in southern France, where Alphonse Daudet wrote novels and Vincent van Gogh spent his last years. He writes about the nature and people of Provence. His broad knowledge of sociology as well as other fields of study such as art, literature, philosophy, history and geography are portrayed throughout the book.

― Kwon Mee-yoo