The Koreans: Passion and Grace

By Russell Warren Howe

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 015647185X
• ISBN13: 9780156471855
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: Harcourt
• Length: 275 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Old but still golden

I am an independent scholar who doesn't speak Korean but is very interested in ethical issues debated among Korean Christians. Given my understanding of Confucianism in Korea, and the very negative attitudes towards adoption as a result, it seems likely that Christian thinkers in Korea have unique wisdom to offer Christians elsewhere. They must have/still be wrestling with their society's worship of ancestors and the demand on many societal levels to produce biologically related sons. It can be no accident that South Korea is so persistent in cloning efforts. All of this is to explain what I wanted out of Howe's book - a deep look at all phases of Korean society by someone who knows what they are talking about. And I got it. As an outsider to Korean studies, I established the authority of Howe by using a resource available to me in library school - WorldCat. This is a catalog of millions of holdings in public and academic libraries - mainly American. I found this work is held in 460 libraries, including the US State Dept., the National Geographic Society Library, various Air Force Libraries, a couple in Hong Kong Universities, as well as in American universities that have strong Asian Studies programs - Harvard, Yale and UC-Berkeley. This gave me confidence that when this was published, it was regarded as accurate by experts. The fact that it is almost 20 years old concerned me that perhaps it has been superseded, but again WorldCat showed otherwise. Out of over 600 hits for works with the subject: South Korea - social life and customs, this came up at #4 in the list of most held books on the subject. And none of the top three were that much newer than Howe's, or as extensive. The tone of the book is opinionated - refreshingly so. It is a far easier read than so many scholarly works that appear to be toeing some ideological line but are doing it in code. There is clearly the potential to come away with misconceptions based on the author's biased views but the overall accuracy of his views must be high given the kind of libraries that carry it. An example of this is his explanation of the similarities between Korea and their former colonial masters, the Japanese. Given such horrific Japanese abuses such as "comfort women", it is a bold person who is brave enough or foolish enough to tell Koreans how much they are like the Japanese. I was particularly interested in anything that would touch on religion in the life of Koreans. His extensive section on shamanism was a revelation to me; this is not something I have seen addressed in any of the writings on/or by Christians in Korea. It is likely an area of embarrassment for those who want to advertise the explosion of Christianity in Korea - but its existence must be understood for a complete picture of what is going on in Korea. The author's view of fundamentalists' theology was painfully true - not big on Jesus but sure they do love the Old Testament. It was in this paragraph though,

Korean mind, yes. American mind, no.

This guy is remarkably insightful when it comes to the Korean mind. Having three names, it is pretty clear he is from the Old World. So we should not be surprised he doesn't have a clue when it comes to the New World. We quote from page 210, "...about a quarter of all adult men belong to the country's T'aekwondo Association. This is, in short, not a country in which to get into a brawl, for whatever reason, as many a drunken GI in Yongsan has learned." Let's not get carried away with the mystery of the Orient, Mr. Howe. As a "GI" in the 80s and 90s I had my share of encounters with T'aekwondo "Masters". Although I'm a little guy by American standards (5'6", 170), they always retreated in pain. There are disadvantages to being 5'4", 130 pounds. Having said that, I really enjoyed the country and the people. They are, as a rule, nice people. Mr. Howe is a pretty good psychologist and sociologist....just doesn't know a damn thing about bar room brawls.