What's So Good About Korea, Maarten?

By Maarten Meijer

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• ISBN: 8932313288
• ISBN13: 9788932313283
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Hyeonamsa Publishing Co.
• Length: 327 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.

Customer Reviews

I wish this guy would go live in other interesting places and write about it

While Dr. Meijer appears to have credentials in Theology, he's a wonderful sociologist in the school of Alexis de Tocqueville or Herodotus. It's not the professional kind of sociology that uses regression models or Frankfurt school theoretical drivel; it's the type of sociology which actually teaches you something about the culture of interest. There is a series of books called "culture shock" which are supposed to explain the folkways and culture of a given society, but they're nowhere near as good or complete as this. Family, culture, history, philosophy, education, race; all distilled into a clear picture of what it is like to be there, and why it is the way it is in Korea. The anecdotes he chooses are charming and illustrative too, conveying much of the marvelous Korean spirit. Dr. Meijer has also been an expat in America and Russia; I'd love to read a book on his adventures and observations in these places. I can understand, though, why he wrote about the Land of Morning Calm; South Korea is a really great place which doesn't get the positive attention it deserves. Absolutely the warmest, happiest place I've ever spent time in. Koreans are what people should be like; they've got giant hearts and a sort of guilelessness and pure innocence that is tremendously appealing to this jaded westerner. Five stars for Dr. Meijer's book about a six star country. I've read a few sourpuss reviews of this book on other websites: essentially their complaint boils down to the fact that the book is also written for Koreans -so it's written with lots of broad brush stereotypes in it. News flash to the smug: that's how most people think. If you're a bitter Gen-X-er who thinks the greatest sin in the world is making sweeping generalizations about people, or that Confucianism is evil and should be immediately replaced with ... whatever counterculture lifestyle du jour you adhere to... you won't like this style. Personally, it works for me. Refusing to generalize may make you feel morally superior, but it conveys 0 bits of information.