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CEO & Publisher: Oh Young-jinDigital News Email: webmaster@koreatimes.co.krTel: 02-724-2114Online newspaper registration No: 서울,아52844Date of registration: 2020.02.05Masthead: The Korea TimesCopyright © koreatimes.co.kr. All rights reserved.

Strolling through pages of Jeong-dongs memory lane

By Chung Ah-young On a fine day, you can eat breakfast or sit down on a stone chair under an old pagoda tree and gather your thoughts in the Jeong-dong area — a main thoroughfare less than a kilometer in length spanning from the periphery of City Hall to Sinmun-ro. You can hear tales ranging from a heartbroken ruler of the Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910), earnest Christian missionaries from the West, Russian exiles escaping a revolution, and the fight for press freedom to a nation’s grief over the forlorn suicide of the former President Roh Moo-hyun. These can be heard only when you take time to slowly walk along the trail, says Michael Gibb, the author of “A Slow Walk Through Jeong-dong” (Hollym; 144 pp., 13,000 won). From the British Embassy, Deoksu Palace, Chongdong Theater, First Methodist Church, Ewha Girls’ High School and the Canadian Embassy to the former Russian Legation, he combs the site closely and talks about its historical details. “It’s an exceptional journey because even though its main thoroughfare is less than a kilometer in length, this one locale is

Mar 4, 2011

Recent Books

In Too Deep: BP and the Drilling Race That Took It Down Stanley Reed and Alison Fitzgerald; Wiley/Bloomberg Press: 248 pp., $24.95 The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico starting April 20 last year might be recorded as one of the worst man-made disasters in history. This book says, however, that the incident was predictable but inevitable. Written by investigative reporter Alison Fitzgerald and Stanley Reed, a journalist who has covered BP for over a decade, the book explores how the tragedy happened and the behind-the-scenes management of the company. The authors point out the important factors behind the incident such as BP’s corporate culture — risk-taking and cost-cutting — that made the accident almost inevitable. Last year’s disaster was only the latest of a series of BP accidents that should have been seen as warning signs to company executives and regulators. The book also says that former CEO John Browne whose father worked for BP’s predecessor and who himself worked for BP his entire career made the company a powerhouse through ventures of drilli

Feb 25, 2011

Korean picture book wins top prize of Bologna fair

By Chung Ah-young A picture is worth a thousand words. It is particularly true for children living in different places and cultures. A Korean picture book “A House of The Mind: Maum” (Changbi Publishers) by author Kim Hee-kyung and Polish illustrator Iwona Chmielewska, has won the Ragazzi Award in the non-fiction category for the Bologna Children’s Book Fair slated for Feb. 28 to March 31. It is the first time for a Korean book to win the grand prize in the fair. The Ragazzi Award is one of the most prestigious recognitions in the sector because publishers around the world submit their best productions with an extraordinary quality of candidates. The award consisting of four categories — fiction, non-fiction, new horizons and opera prima — is given to the works which excel in creativity, educational values and artistic editorial designs among the books published for the last two years around the world. Established in 1966, the award is growing in influence, and is equivalent to the Nobel Prize in Literature in children’s books. The winners will also give a present

Feb 25, 2011

Recent books

Gay Culture Holic Kim Do-hoon et al; Cine21 Books: 304 pp., 13,500 won Homosexuality has been slowly making headway into the heart of Korean popular culture in recent years. Onscreen, the portrayal of same-sex romance is no longer limited to indie arthouse flicks and even graces primetime TV soaps. Now for the first time a book offers a comprehensive guide to the world of gay men, from the history of queer cinema and festivals to the impact the group has had on the fashion world. Experts from a variety of fields ranging from music and film to sports and fine art offer interesting facts and trends. Also included is an introduction of hotspots in Seoul for gays — for example, public bathroom walls in bus terminals are often scribbled with messages and phone numbers looking for same-sex dates. But the book’s most interesting section is a transcription of a candid conversation about what it’s like to live in Korea as a gay man, FAQs about misconceptions and homophobia along with an explanation of human rights and legal issues concerning gays. The book seems like a

Feb 18, 2011

A harbinger of Korean literary modernism

Park Ji-won’s novels debut in English after 200 years By Chung Ah-young Novelist Park Ji-won (1737-1805), better known by his literary name Yeonam, was an unusual intellectual who went against the tide in a profoundly conservative and inflexible Confucian social system during the Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910). His literary works may have been considered sensational in the past but are still relevant and worthwhile reading today because of his reform-minded and visionary thoughts. Park’s complete short stories have been recently translated into English for the first time in a new book, “The Novels of Park Jiwon: Translation of Overlooked Worlds” (Seoul National University Press: 160 pp., 55,000 won or $55), by Emanuel Pastreich, director of the Asia Institute and associate professor at Woosong University in Daejeon. Previously, just two of his ten novels had been published in English. But Pastreich’s translations, sponsored by the Korea Literature Translation Institute, are more accurate through effective literary English, rife with annotations to help readers better un

Feb 18, 2011

Korean-American author bridges cultural gaps

By Chung Ah-young From “Seesaw Girl,” “The Kite Fighters” to “A Single Shard,” Korean-American author Linda Sue Park, 51, has imbued her literary works with traditional Korean culture, which have been widely published in the global market. Park, winner of the Newbery Medal in 2002 for “A Single Shard,” started writing stories about Korea as she wanted to tell her children about her mother country. When she was a child, her family was the only Korean family in her town in the United States, until she was more than 8-years-old. Her parents raised her without speaking Korean at home to make English her first language. She didn’t have many opportunities to learn about her native land. But after she married an Irishman and had two children, she began wondering how well she knew her mother country to tell their children about it. “I began to read as many things about Korea as I could, because I wanted to prepare myself to answer my children’s questions and talk to them about Korea. I learned many wonderful things. That was the beginning,” Park said in an interview with The Korea

Feb 16, 2011

Recent Books

The 33 Jonathan Franklin; Translated by Lee Won-kyung from English to Korean: Gimmyoung Publisher: 324 pp., 12,000 won When 33 men became trapped in a remote copper mine in the Atacama Desert in Chile on Aug. 5 last year, all eyes were on their lives hanging in the balance. The heroic rescue that brought them back to the surface 69 days later will be remembered as a great moment in human history. The event that turned a dark catastrophe into bright hope is vividly recounted in this book through interviews with some 120 miners, their families, the rescuers and governmental officials. The book provides a detailed record of how the accident happened and reveals how those trapped overcame fear and despair, until they were finally freed from their underground prison. Jonathan Franklin, the only print journalist that had front-row access to the scene, tells the story of the miraculous survival and the dramatic rescue of the Chilean miners and it was published simultaneously in Korea, the U.K., the U.S. and France. The uplifting stories of the 33 miners are presented

Feb 11, 2011

US leadership key in Asian historical disputes

By Chung Ah-young Northeast Asia is a region with historical issues deeply entangled while keeping close relations both geographically and economically. History often haunts the relations between the countries and sometimes poses a threat to regional stability. Recently, reinterpretations of history particularly in Japan, China and South Korea have alarmed neighboring countries and posed a challenge to U.S. leadership in the region. “U.S. Leadership, History, and Bilateral Relations in Northeast Asia” edited by Gilbert Rozman with support by the Northeast Asian History Foundation in Korea approaches the issue from the U.S. position in the process of historical conflicts. The book is a rare academic outcome written in English to shed light on the historical issues deeply rooted in the region seen from the U.S. stance through various discussions by prestigious experts for readers in Western countries. Experts such as Gilbert Rozman, a professor of sociology at Princeton University; Scott Snyder, a senior associate at the Asia Foundation and Pacific Forum Center for Strate

Feb 11, 2011

Confucian classics available online

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will launch an on-line service that allows visitors to read and download Confucian scriptures in conjunction with Sungkyunkwan University from Feb. 1. The service (http://ygc.skku.edu/) was created by the university’s Institute of Confucian Philosophy and Cultural Academy of East Asian Studies by setting up a database of the original Confucian works with the support of the ministry. The service will provide the database of 86 Confucian classics such as “Saseoeonhae” and “Seonghaksipdo” and the institute will digitalize 800 more books related to Confucianism by 2015.

Jan 31, 2011

Recent Books

Copenhagen's Bicycle Choi Yearn-hong; PublishAmerica: 110 pp., $19.95 This is the third book of poetry in English written by Korean-American poet Choi Yearn-hong after “Autumn Vocabularies (1990)” and “Moon of New York (2008).” The new book is in line with his previous books that reflect his nostalgic view of his mother country and his love of the U.S. and solitude in an immigrant’s life. Such poems as “My Country,” “Mountains,” ”Immigrant Dream,” “Yosemite National Party,” and “American Tragedy” well depict his feelings and emotions as a Korean-American poet. This book also features his poems on travels to Scandinavian countries, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, China, Peru, and Alaska. “Copenhagen's Bicycle,” the title poem, portrays his admiration of Danish politicians who commute to their workplaces by bicycle and observations of the wind power turbines along the seashore that show their care for the environment. From his Scandinavian trip, he produced environmental poems for nature conservation as Choi is an environmentalist himself. The prolific writer has won a

Jan 28, 2011
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