Korea Unmasked: In Search of the Country, the Society and the People

by Won-bok Rhie

ABOUT THIS BOOK: Korea Unmasked is an illustrated book that presents a hilarious and often unflattering look at Korean society and its people. It brings the reader a fascinating exploration of the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 8934917717
• ISBN13: 9788934917717
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Gimm-Young International
• Length: 234 Pages
• Weight: 1.34 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Faulty to the roots

The only thing unmasked about this book is the author's own inability to see past his nationalistic and ethnocentric misconceptions. Almost the entire book is built upon generalizations, stereotypes, and faulty comparisons to contexts that simply cannot be historically nor culturally be compared together. I'm a Korean American who has been living in Korea for a year now and had to face the difficulty of culture shock, disappointments about my heritage, and simply trying to make sense of who I am in this context. I turned to this book to seek some explanation, but was left simply shaking my head. This book was originally written in Korean for the Korean audience. And as a Korean, I immediately detected this, simply by how the author (a Korean) portrays and talks about Korea and Koreans. It's quite ironic. The author attempts to take an objective view but fails to recognize how deep the Korean cultural mindset is imbedded in himself, and unknowingly integrates it throughout every page of the book. Take for example the phrase "no place else in the world". The author uses it in almost every other page and to describe the "uniqueness" of Korea. It's a way of thinking found in the everyday Korean society, and stems from nationalism and a pride in the homogeneity of the Korean ethnicity. Koreans tend to try to compensate and set themselves apart by making (often time faulty) comparisons to every other country. ("You won't find another country where one person belongs to so many groups" (p.83), "No place in the world would you find a more extreme people. Only in Korea!" (p.84), "There's no other people in the world who eat such hot and spicy food!" (p85)). The author's failure to recognize his own inherent bias is evident from the first 3 pages in the introduction. He gives a (ridiculously faulty) overview of modernization in which economics is the sole basis for defining development. This kind of "linear stages" of growth and development theory is archaic and faulty to begin with, but the author uses it as the foundation of this book, basically saying that while Korea may not be at the top of the "development race", Korea is still running strong and he will compare Korea to the leading countries instead of other countries that are lagging behind (he literally illustrates a "tribal African") because, "what's the point in comparing ourselves to countries that are way behind?" (p.12). As terrible as this kind of thinking is, it ironically accurately portrays how Korean people tend to think about themselves (example: in 2019, Korean UNICEF TV ads of starving "African" children are still rampant, embodying the idea that "while we may not be America, at least we're better off than those in Africa"). There are so many problems with the book and its message, but in short, it illustrates the Korea that Korean people see through their narcissistic eyes and also want the world to see. It's embellished, polished, and all of the junk are shoved under the bed. I don't know how the author is a university professor. No attempt at any actual deep inquiries into the roots of the culture and society. Should've studied more history and anthropology. Just don't read this book. Don't fill your mind with junk.