Book Reviews--Korea: Modern Korea and Its Others: Perceptions of the Neighbouring Countries and Korean Modernity

• Published in: The Journal of Asian Studies Vol. 76; no. 1; p. 244
• Main Author: Larsen, Kirk W
• Format: Book Review
• Language: English
• Published: Pittsburgh Duke University Press, NC & IL 01.02.2017
• Subjects: Asian studies; Korean language; Modernity; Multiculturalism & pluralism; Writers; Yi Kwang-su; New York; United States > US; China; Japan; Kazakhstan; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics > USSR; Russia
• ISSN: 0021-9118; 1752-0401
• DOI: 10.1017/S002191181600190X

Tikhonov's writing style is dense (paragraphs easily turn into pages) and relentless in its explication of author after author, and work after work. Whether it is the significantly diverging views of Tolstoy held by different Koreans or the image of a poor Russian girl trying to make ends meet by singing Arirang (in Korean) at a Harbin variety show; whether it is the desperation of some Koreans seeking hope in the reformist efforts of Liang Qichao and the revolutionary activities of Sun Yat-sen or the tragic plight of Korea's Chinese community who lost their lives and livelihoods in the aftermath of the 1931 Wanbaoshan (Manbosan) Incident; or whether it is the difficulties and inherent inequalities that characterized many Korean-Japanese marriages (in telling contrast to the well-known case of Pak YÅl and Fumiko Kaneko), Modern Korea and Its Others has much with which to engage the reader. [...]to the post-liberation period (covered briefly in the book's conclusion) in which both Koreas propagated totalizing nationalist discourses that left very little room for divergence or alternatives, the pre-1945 period was one in which there clearly was no single "Korea" but rather a myriad of individuals who longed and worked for an array of different possible identities and futures--modernity and Korean state- and nation-hood to be sure, but also pan-Asian ethnic consciousness, international class solidarity, alliance with one or more of Korea's neighbors (usually in the name of resisting the third), the embracing of some aspects of modernity while rejecting others, etc.