Aspiring to the Good Life in Seoul

Aspiring to the Good Life in Seoul
Author: Carolin Landgraf
Publisher: Universitätsverlag Göttingen
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2021
Genre: Young adults
ISBN: 3863955064

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
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2020-10-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1789208963

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
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2021-07-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1948692597

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
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2016-12-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317285018

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
Total Pages: 723
Release: 2008-01-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004217827

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.

When We Fell Apart

When We Fell Apart
Author: Soon Wiley
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2022-04-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0593185153

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

The Dawn of Modern Korea

The Dawn of Modern Korea
Author: Andreĭ Nikolaevich Lanʹkov
Publisher:
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2007
Genre: City and town life
ISBN:

"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.

Developmentalist Cities? Interrogating Urban Developmentalism in East Asia

Developmentalist Cities? Interrogating Urban Developmentalism in East Asia
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2018-11-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9004383603

Developmentalist Cities addresses the missing urban story in research on East Asian developmentalism and the missing developmentalist story in studies of East Asian urbanization. It does so by promoting inter-disciplinary research into the subject of urban developmentalism: a term that editors Jamie Doucette and Bae-Gyoon Park use to highlight the particular nature of the urban as a site of and for developmentalist intervention. The contributors to this volume deepen this concept by examining the legacy of how Cold War and post-Cold War geopolitical economy, spaces of exception (from special zones to industrial districts), and diverse forms of expertise have helped produce urban space in East Asia. Contributors: Carolyn Cartier, Christina Kim Chilcote, Young Jin Choi, Jamie Doucette, Eli Friedman, Jim Glassman, Heidi Gottfried, Laam Hae, Jinn-yuh Hsu, Iam Chong Ip, Jin-Bum Jang, Soo-Hyun Kim, Jana M. Kleibert, Kah Wee Lee, Seung-Ook Lee, Christina Moon, Bae-Gyoon Park, Hyun Bang Shin.