Review: People From My Neighbourhood

People From My Neighbourhood by Hiromi Kawakami
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A fun collection of short stories. Kawakami never disappoints. I must say they started getting a bit too surreal for me around halfway through the book, but I appreciate how it all ended in world peace.

View all my reviews

Review: Korean Works & Days

Korean Works & Days by Richard Rutt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Richard Rutt was a Catholic (and Anglican: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Rutt) priest who lived in Anjung, Korea, and in this book he recorded the village life he witnessed and which, unbeknownst to him (or maybe he had an inkling), would pretty much disappear within a few decades. 

This book, written in 1964, is choc full of many little tidbits about old Korean traditions and ways of life. Like how the older men would grow their pinky fingernails out, witnessing the exchange of poetry and wordplay (using Chinese characters). 

It also seems pretty critical of the "kye" rotating credit system, which is interesting since the last book I read about it (Yogong: Factory Girl) seemed to be in favor of it. 

Some other interesting points:

Hearing how Suwon was back then

"This is the kind of village where they understand all twelve flavours in an ox's head"

"On the 7th day of the 7th moon they celebrate the star Vega under the name of the Spinning Maiden" (this must be the Qixi festival)

"Chuseok's Korean name is Han-gawi" (I Never knew this)

"Like most Korean villages, ours has a chop-house run by a family of Shantung Chinese"

The festivals were fascinating, and probably don't exist anymore ("dance and wrestling festival")

No mentions of Taekwondo, but it mentions traditional Korean wrestling, which reminded me of Sumo wrestling (or more like Schwingen, as we had back in Switzerland)

He mentions a memorial for Sin Suk-chu, who I had never heard of before (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Suk-ju)

"Korea knows no tea" - Interesting statement (p. 144)

The naming conventions are fascinating, and I don't remember encountering nearly this many issues in the 1990s (then again, I was in Seoul)

"I know a high school boy who did not even know his mother's surname until I told him" (p. 149)

One man refused to pronounce a certain character correctly because it was the personal name of the first King of the Joseon dynasty. 

Some books he mentions that I would like to read in the future:

J.R. Moose: "Village life in Korea" (1909)

J.S. Gale: "Korean sketches" (1899)

View all my reviews

Review: The Taipei Chinese PEN—A Quarterly Journal of Contemporary Chinese Literature from Taiwan《中華民國筆會英文季刊─台灣文譯》 Winter/2022 - No. 203

The Taipei Chinese PEN—A Quarterly Journal of Contemporary Chinese Literature from Taiwan《中華民國筆會英文季刊─台灣文譯》 Winter/2022 - No. 203 by Taipei Chinese PEN
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Once again, this edition of the Chinese Taipei Pen is an interesting collection of Taiwanese poetry, short stories and artists.

"Preface to Temperature from a Bachelor", by Wang Ting-chun (王鼎鈞) had some interesting insight into how/why the names of publications can change, and the overall effects. 

"Tea from Hong Kong", by Hung Ai-zhu, was a sort of memoir. It felt like an outsider's glimpse into the memories and childhood of a Taiwanese girl running a tea shop with ties to Hong Kong. It was excellent. She has a collection of essays out, which I'd be interested in reading. 

Living Apart, by Chen Shu-Yao, seemed to jump around between characters and was very hard to follow for not much reward. It's too bad because I thinks he's the only author I know from Penghu.

The Fates, by Claire Pei, was an interesting, if troublesome, story about a Chinese in Alaska, why she was there and her situation while living there, as well as why she doesn't want to leave. This was my favorite short story of the book. The story also has an interesting addendum, although I admit I felt like she added it so the story would seem less autobiographical(?)

This edition's featured artist was Sun Ta-chuan (Paelabang Danapan) and indigenous writer of Chinese calligraphy and sayings, as well as a sketch artist.

View all my reviews

Review: El enigma de la habitación 622

El enigma de la habitación 622 by Joël Dicker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you're looking forward to reading a book by a Swiss author about Geneva (and Verbier), then this is great. However, I'm not sure you can expect much more. 

The story kept jumping around in time, which started confusing me. I did like how the author placed himself writing the book as part of the book (although this sort of confused me as well), and how apparently the tribute to his recently deceased publisher and mentor was for a real person (I figured it had to be, since otherwise it was just the main character droning on and on about how he admired some random publisher who had nothing to do with the story, and in fact broke up the pace considerably). 

However, some of these characters were incredibly one-sided. For example, one of the main stars is "Strikingly handsome", a banking genius who managed, without a background in banking, to rise to the top of the banking world quickly, speaks 10 languages, is super nice, is coveted by the main female character, etc. etc. Later, things do get a bit more complicated, but thanks to the deus-ex-machina way in which things turn out, I can't really say I appreciated it very much. 

I get the feeling the author doesn't have a good idea as to how banking works. Just a thought. 

But, I did stick through it all and wanted to know how it ended (I can't say I was satisfied, but it did keep me entertained). I also liked how we find out many aspects of the book had to do with the author's personal life. 

I'm giving it a generous 3 stars. 

View all my reviews

Review: Yogong: Factory Girl

Yogong: Factory Girl by Robert F. Spencer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I knew this book was out of date when I started reading it. In fact, I guess it was out of date when it was published, since the study was conducted from 1972-1978 and the book only came out in 1988. Still, I thought it would be interesting to look at it from a historical point of view. And I was surprised at how different Korea seemed as compared to when I first went there (in the late 90s). It was very much still a developing, factory-based country, while in the 90s it was already becoming knowledge-based and technology-oriented. 

I thought I would end up skimming or skipping a great deal of this, but I ended up reading the entire thing (typos and all, of which there are plenty, unfortunately). I'm guessing this might be the first study done on Korean women during this time. In fact it may be the only one. Either way, the Korea from this book is a far cry from the technologically advanced K-pop country of today, but it shows how it was transitioning from the Korean war to get where it is. And, more than that, it shows the plight women were going through working in the factories during this time. 

View all my reviews