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Category Archives: Book reviews: traditional culture

Words of inspiration

24-Feb-08

Words of inspiration

NO RIVER TO CROSS: Trusting the Enlightenment that's Always Right There Zen Master Daehaeng Wisdom Publications, Boston US$14.95 Stern(10,g) The title refers to the idea that you don't have to make a grand pilgrimage to find your Buddha nature, as it's already inside you, and this approachable book offers plenty of inspiring thoughts. It starts with a lovely biographical account of Daehaeng Kun Sunim, who rejected formal teaching and wandered alone for years in the wilderness to find out what life was all about. The book proceeds to offer an introduction to Buddhist ideas -- often profound and challenging, but arranged in short and stimulating pieces to meditate upon. Beautifully produced, it's not a book to read in one sitting, but to digest slowly ...
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J Scott Burgeson: Korea Bug

11-Aug-07
(Eunhaeng Namu, Seoul, 2005) Stern(10,g) A recent article in the JoongAng daily about a foreigner in Seoul who hasn't made himself popular with hypersensitive and volatile Korean netizens introduced me to a gem. Burgeson, a foreigner who has been in Seoul since 1996 is one of the more unusual expats out there in that he takes an interest in the local culture, to the extent of having set up his own 'zine -- a home-produced, street-vended amateur magazine covering, well, just about anything the author feels like. It's a sort of heavyweight, hard-copy blog. And in Burgeson's case it made a point of trying to engage with and explore Korean culture, particularly those elements which seem unusual to a foreigner. The zine was ...
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Lee O-young (tr John Holstein) - Things Korean

17-Apr-06
(Tuttle 1999) Stern(8,g) A lovely coffee table book with beautiful images with descriptions. Though I think that if I were a woman I would be bristling at times about the author's nostalgia for the times when a woman concerned herself with womanly things.
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Marshall R. Pihl: The Korean Singer of Tales

17-Apr-06
(Harvard 1994) Stern(5,g) Read this before watching Im Kwon-Taek's Sopyonje. It's a useful introduction to Pansori styles and rhythms, and contains a translation of the Shimchong-ga, the story of Blind Man Shim and his filial daughter. A number of excerpts from this story is performed in the film and it helps to know the story a bit.
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Jeon Jemin, ed Kevin O’Rourke: Korean Stories

17-Apr-06
(Eul & Al, 2004) Stern(3,g) A strange collection. Confucian stories, Buddhist stories, and some essays which though brief remind you of the disjointed ramblings of a genial but slightly senile grandfather. One of the essays does explain, though, why the bedwetting boy in one of the short films in the collection If you were me is made to go round his neighbours asking for salt. A good bedside book because everything's so short.
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