Madang Blues ("The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly")

We all keep very strong images from a few cherished books and animation movies of our childhood, and the most powerful ones are often the worlds we built in our heads as readers, sometimes fueled by a gem seeded by some talented illustrator along our paths.

For instance, I remember very well an apparently very simple illustration of a forest at the bottom of a page from a tale - I forgot which story, but that was very early in the narrative. It simply depicted a small grove's canopy from above, almost as a cute and round bouquet, and I wondered what marvels and threats could hide behind these innocent leaves. To me, this forest looked at the same time tiny and infinite, beautiful and scary, harmless and lethal, open to all possibilities and claustrophobically hermetic. Compared to that simple illustration, all others in the book felt dull, overly explicit, an insult to the story and its readers. For the first time, I realized the sheer power of illustration as a catalyst for imagination... and as a potential downer.

Much later, I realized that the animation movies that had left the strongest impression on me were all clay animations, and that their imperfections served as asperities for the viewer's imagination to take hold and to claim if not control, at least some room for manoeuvre. I didn't necessarily enjoy these movies, but I enjoyed that upsetting feeling, these unanswered questions, and I appreciated much more the artist's effort, as well as their respect for their young audience. I did enjoy Disney movies, but like you enjoy an industrial ice cream: yes that's what I wanted, but was it what I needed?

When the animation movie "Leafie, a hen into the wild" was released, three years ago, I learned that it was an adaptation from a very popular children's book boosted by a star-laden ro(o)ster (e.g. CHOI Min-sik). The film quickly became a hit, but I really didn't like its Marketing 101 / "what kids want" downer of a trailer. I found much more inviting the cover of the English translation of the book, published last year as "The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly" by Penguin Books (note that penguins can't fly either, but this one knows how to make books fly off shelves - particularly when the said book has already done it in several languages before).

I know you should never judge a book by its cover or a film by its poster, but check this contrast (speaking of forests...):

The Penguin's take at The Hen (get the book!)

The animated movie adaptation ("Leafie, a hen into the wild")

HWANG Sun-mi's bestseller "마당을 나온 암탉" could be translated as "The hen who came out of the yard", which conveys much fewer levels of universality than "The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly"... and much fewer levels of action than "Leafie, a hen into the wild" (NB: in Korean, the original title remains), but echoes the author's self-confessed, low-key approach: you can't reach for the universal without accepting the trivial*.

The title character, "잎싹", becomes "Leafie" in the film, "Sprout" in the book. I prefer the second translation: closer to the original in meaning, the word also sounds more like her, the frail but determined hen who refuses to remain a slave in a battery cage, and longs for a better life in what she believes to be the best and safest place on earth, the barnyard. Sprout will manage to escape her prison, but also struggle to adapt to a foreign environment, and fight to fulfill new responsibilities. Note that in French, the title is "La poule qui voulait vivre sa vie" ("The hen who wanted to live her life" - Chan Ok - Flammarion), and the hero Petite-Feuille (a trifle more poetic than Leafie).

Yesterday, thanks to Barry Welsh's 10 Magazine Book Club, we had the opportunity to buy the book, watch the movie adaptation, and meet the author. I did just that, regretting that, ever the lazy bird, I hadn't read the book before.

HwangSunmi and Barry Welsh about "The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly" at 10MagBookClub
twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/437094164891570176

As I flipped through the pages ahead of the screening, I noticed with satisfaction that the illustrator (Kazuko Nomoto a.k.a. Nomoco) didn't draw actual portraits of the protagonists, leaving that up to the author and her readers. I didn't expect much from the film, but I tried to forget my 46-year-old-cynic self, and to switch back to my six-year-old-candid mode, and I enjoyed it much more than a Disney movie because the story hasn't been disneyfied all the way. I bet the audience didn't need that Korean cartoon classic, the overly swimming eye artifice, to sob noisily**...

Warning - spoiler alert: this is not a Disney ending, and in this life, except maybe through that ephemeral yet eternal marvel called love, there is no such thing as a comfort zone. The author wrote her story when she was on her father's deathbed, and death was the only outcome for her main character. So yes, Sprout/Leafie is her father (NB: nothing to do with Anakin, Luke). And no, the book is not about motherhood; Hwang said that she just needed a female character. The actual mother happens to be the least suspected character: 족제비 the weasel. Overall, "The Hen" is more about growing mature, expanding horizons, accepting death, and/or whatever the reader/viewer sees and feels, because...

... this story is not wrapped up hermetically, and along with its darker sides, that's what makes it so powerful. 

The author enjoys the sometimes guilty pleasure of writing, and fully respects her readers. It may have something to do with how, for her, reading and writing have always been entwined. HWANG grew up in the rural Korea of the seventies, where and when children's books were not commodities. An elementary school teacher put her in charge of the library's key, a key that could open doors beyond cages, barnyards, and even the real wide world. Back home, the young Sun-mi would write to remember the stories. She logically started with children's book, a genre and a joy she rediscovered as she raised her own kids.

And today, even with her international success, HWANG Sun-mi keeps a refreshing frankness, a profound respect for fellow children's book authors***. Of course she's very happy to see her books take new forms (musical, film), and to be translated in so many languages, but she's also not totally comfortable with the idea that she can't tell what her stories have gained or lost in translation.

HWANG Sun-mi

She does know that the film adaptation is very different, but since I didn't read the book, I couldn't expect one of the movie's pivotal characters to have been created for the screen****.

Now that I have the book (and glasses**!), I really have no choice but to jump and spread my reading wings.

***

• See other posts related to 10 Magazine Book Club
• Join the new Seoul Film Society hosted by Barry Welsh on facebook.com/groups/seoulfilmsociety (first projection on March 1st: LEE Man-hee's "Black hair" - 1964) 
• ADDENDUM 20140225: watch Charles and Barry's first Korean Literature Vidcast.

***

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* KTLIT's Charles Montgomery made a parallel with Yi Mun-yol (whom, by the way, we also followed across wintery landscapes in a recent RASKB book club, about "Winter that year").
** Were my own eyes swimming? Naah... 'twas only old age, plus smartphone/laptop abuse: I just came to term with the idea that I needed glasses, and bought my first pair today.
*** she listed many Korean and international authors, and I bet this little red riding hood wolfed down all the classics (speaking of bird migrations, she answered yes when I asked if she read Selma Lagerlöf's adventures of Nils Holgersson).
**** The Falstaffian otter Dalsu (달수/수달) struck me as a modern oddity in an otherwise timeless cast, and I wondered how the real estate corporation reacted to the caricature.

Eerie Tales from Old Korea

"In the good old days, before the skirts of Joseon were defiled by contact with the outer world and before the bird-twittering voice of the foreigner was heard in the land"... these lines were not written in pre-Twitter-IPO 2013, but in pre-Japanese-Occupation 1903-1905.

The author? Homer Bezaleel Hulbert, a Missionary from Vermont who defended the cause of Korea and Emperor Gojong against Japanese colonialism, and a man with a weakness for ghost stories. A weakness he shared with his friend James Scarth Gale, a Missionary from Ontario who (on his Dr Jekyll side?) translated the Bible into Korean; the pair collected gems from a genre long considered as taboo in Korea, Gale publishing his own "Korean folk tales" in 1913.

100 years later, another man of faith / champion of Korean culture / Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch leader decided to compile a selection of their stories. If this time, Brother Anthony of Taize doesn't have to do by himself the translation from old or modern texts to help us fathom a side of the Korean psyche, he does mark an important chapter in the encounter of Korean culture through foreign eyes.

Eerie Tales from Old Korea

"Eerie Tales from Old Korea" are a fun read. You'll meet spirits, ghosts, monsters, living dead, or shapeshifting beauties, but also - and above all else - humans with weak spots. No wonder these tales were not politically correct in Confucian, Joseon times: heroes can be shamelessly cunning and greedy, and references to Shamanism and Buddhism abound. Hell (!): even today, many Koreans refuse to recognize the existence of monsters in the closet of their national culture. Besides, the authors are having fun themselves: you're not reading academic translations of Yangban materials, but listening to good friends telling folk tales by the fireplace. And to ease your immersion into Korea's popular culture, Hulbert and Gale don't hesitate and summon when needed references to its Western counterparts.

Granted: the original tales were less fundamental for Korea than - say - "The Canterbury Tales" for England (before becoming the Korean citizen known as An Sonjae, Brother Anthony from Cornwall studied Geoffrey Chaucer up close), and literary-wise as well as plot-wise, this ain't no Nobel material, but that's what folk tales are all about, and if you've read such stories as the "Tale of Hong Gildong", you're used to the local dei ex machina. So just hop in, enjoy, and jog along in rhythm.

Speaking of rhythm and Hong Gildong: on November 30, Charles Montgomery will be 'moderating' (figure of speech - remember "Korean Literature Rocks"? ^^) the 10 Magazine Book Club featuring Brother Anthony. To join the event: facebook.com/events/640704215939993.

Brother Anthony of Taize, a.k.a. AN Sonjae: A Theologian? A Teaologist? A Taleologist? All of the above!

And speaking of RAS KB: on November 12, Robert J. Fouser will talk about - among others - Homer B. Hulbert and James S. Gale in his lecture "Early Western Learners of Korean: What Can They Teach Us?". 




"Eerie Tales from Old Korea"
Compiled by Brother Anthony of Taize
Seoul Selection 2013 - 176 pages
ASIN B00D71FV9Y
Paperback & Kindle Editions

Brother Anthony's website: hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony

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The Voices of Heaven (Maija Rhee Devine)

Unfair, absurd, overwhelming, and devastating, the war is about to break out. But for the personal tragedies we're witnessing here, we can only blame unfair, absurd, overwhelming, and devastating traditions.

Eum-chun's family should be the portrait of happiness, and the loving couple she forms with Gui-yong, her complicity with her mother in law, or her pure joy of having a girl like Mi-na, should set positive examples for the rest of a Korean society gangrened by archaic habits and customs... yet gangrene has already set its teeth in this model family.

If Mi-na happens to be an adopted child, she ignores that fact. What she does know - and what the whole neighborhood makes sure she knows - is that she's not a boy, and that her father is supposed to have one. Of course, the monstrous thing is not this absence, but the kind of "solutions" this society comes up with: an unofficial "little mommy" will move in to bear Gui-yong's male heir...

After meeting the author, I knew that reading "The Voices of Heaven" would be an emotional moment, and not in the 'fabricated drama' sense. The immersion is complete; impossible to put the book down as the personal tragedies unfold and the war looms; countless Korean expressions make me slow down to taste them and fully appreciate their freshness or bitterness, but that projects me even better in time; I'm not only feeling through the characters' senses, but also hearing their uncensored thoughts say the unsayable, expose the daily abomination of a choking society, beg for love, laugh at their own brazenness...

Don't get me wrong: it may sound like walking hip-high through pretty heavy and thick stuff, but by the grace of a poet, you're in for an uplifting experience.

Maija Rhee Devine grew up in Seoul during the Korean War, and writing such a delicate and strong, personal and universal first novel that stretches all the way to modern day Korea must have been really draining. Her next project promises to be another emotional Everest - I have no idea how long it will take her to see her "Journals of Comfort Women" through to the end, but I can't wait to read them.




"The Voices of Heaven"
Maija RHEE DEVINE
Seoul Selection USA 2013, 316 p

NB: Maija will be presenting her book this Sunday, October 27, at Barry Welsh's 10 Magazine Book Club in Myeong-dong (details on the Facebook event page: facebook.com/events/151128225080808). And while you're at it, join Barry's new radio program on TBS eFM (on Saturdays and Sundays), "The Bookend": facebook.com/thebookendefm.




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Beyond Containment: Andrei Lankov On Stage (10 Magazine Book Club)

Over the past few months, Andrei Nikolaevich LANKOV has been everywhere, on every network. The Russian expert of North Korea even had to join Twitter under media pressure (yes, the voluble LANKOV restricted to 140 characters, that's possible, and that's on @AndreiLankov).

Granted, for the release of his latest book, "The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia"*, he did receive the hell of a boost from KIM Jong-un, but LANKOV doesn't need anybody's help to become a media darling: this man doesn't even use kid gloves to handle the most fissile materials, and nuclear countdowns have never been that fun watching ever since Peter Sellers brought the house down in Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove".

Yesterday, the showman was on stage in Myeong-dong for Barry Welsh's 10 Magazine Book Club, and he tirelessly explored every square inch of it with mickjaggeresque energy - barely pausing for a sip of tea now and then to fuel his own reactor.

Does Andrei Lankov rock & roll? You bet!
twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/358831263123111936

A pundit of the "pound it" variety, LANKOV can not only dance like a butterfly and sting like a bee, but also crack the audience up with outrageous wit ("Human Rights did improve under KIM Jong-un: from unbelievingly bad to exceptionally bad" / "Most defectors from North Korea are 40-50 year-old ajumma - in the Soviet Union, it used to be young and smart Jewish chess players").

Kim Il-sung trying to stop Andrei Lankov, in vain. Great show at @10MagBookClub todaytwitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/358883923025092608

Impossible to sum up a show that covered a remarquable scope considering the limited time (one hour presentation, one hour Q and A). Just a few insights:

• It was easier to reduce the military's economic influence than to tame private entrepreneurship. The rising class of private entrepreneurs is seen as a threat by the party nomenklatura, less apt to survive in case of change. At this stage, neither sees their shared interest. LANKOV doesn't believe in a coup. The only underground he sees is the not very impressive Christian one. (NB: beyond the scenario of an organized coup, many things can happen, from an individual going rogue to KJU choking tomorrow on a pretzel.)
• (About what I called the "Hanschluss scenario") LANKOV does consider the scenario of a puppet regime controled by Beijing, but only a "open" one that would happen after the collapse of the regime and a military intervention of China. Needless to say, that would not be well perceived by North Koreans, who would then blame Beijing for anything going wrong.
• North Korea remains very rational. LANKOV doesn't think KJU marked a disruption (NB: I agree in substance but not in style - if he does keep both the "Juche Line" and "Beijing Line" parties sweet following his dad's guidelines, he ruined everything with his lack of patience, alienating key supporters in China**)
• The very existence of a successful South Korea can become a hindrance for evolution. A country like China could carry out significant reforms, but "where is South China?" (NB: AL logically considers Taiwan's impact as limited at the economic level, the difference in wealth being 3 times compared to up to 40 between both Koreas - furthermore Taiwan is relatively tiny. A question from the audience stressed the political importance of even tiny Taiwan as a democratic model)
• Internet: LANKOV wouldn't be surprised to see the world wide web partially accessible in a near future. The risks are obvious, but control technologies have considerably improved, and the risk of lagging too far behind is even greater.
• Reunification: many North Koreans see it through rose-colored glasses, thinking South Koreans are eagerly looking forward to it, and that economic problems would be solved within a couple of years.
• ...

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* "The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia"
Oxford University Press - April 2013
** "This Time Is Different - Six Decades of North Korean Follies (The Umpteenth Final Countdown)"
*** "Game over for the 'Hanschluss' scenario?"

Time travel: "Letters from Joseon"

Robert Neff is sick.

Don't get me wrong: he truly seems a good and decent man. I simply mean that he was feverish today. But this historian is so enthusiastic about his subject that he managed, in spite of that, to deliver a powerful and very entertaining lecture for the 10 Magazine Book Club. That's about his latest book: "Letters from Joseon - 19th Century Korea through the Eyes of an American Ambassador's Wife".




"Letters from Joseon" - Seoul Selection 2013
Robert Neff's previously wrote "Korea Through Western Eyes" and "Westerner's life in Joseon"

Robert Neff is sick.

Of reading about recurrent seasicknesses, rashes, or digestion troubles in John Mahelm Berry Sill's small family. Of decyphering this woman's scrawl. Of following John along pages and pages of dull descriptions of spiders and plants. But that's part of the job when you do your research on this kind of material: unfortunately, not all letters are written by Mark Twain or Jane Austen, and someone has to skim off the relevant bits, the hidden gems, and what is left unsaid to make it a pleasant journey for the readers. Mercifully, that's only part of the job, which certainly involves other painstaking processes, but also other rewarding moments. Also, that's a good alibi to look for and into more pictures of the past, and Robert Neff is a great collector of photos from late XIXth- early XXth Century Korea.

Robert Neff is sick.

Come to think of it, this man may have a twisted mind, after all: he does have a weakness for wicked characters. But no, that's totally normal. Put yourself into his shoes: you don't want to stay all the time with a tranquil constipated arachnophiliac stuck in his garden when there's a naughty gossiper, an incestuous felon, or a chain-beheader in the neighborhood! Not to mention "devils" at large (learn that Korean ponies are not as cute as they look). Beyond the story of an American Minister to Korea (1894-1897), there are tens of stories and portraits, hillarious anecdotes, new insights about Jeong-dong*, Seoul, Incheon-Chemulpo, Korea, King Gojong and Empress Myeongseong, the flight to the Russian Legation, and a dynasty on the verge of collapse.

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* reminded me of the recent expo Jeongdong 1900 at the Seoul Museum of History (see "A thousand villages, a thousand memories - Seoul Photo Festival 2012").

Korean Literature Rocks

Let's make a test: if I tell you "lecture about Korean literature", what do you see?
. if you see a yangban scholar watching his pupils silently read in a Andong seowon, you know your classics
. if you see a cheering crowd and a Californian guy bringing the house down, you were at last Sunday's 10 Magazine Book Club meeting with Charles Montgomery




Charles Montgomery and the "Explorers Guide to Korean Literature" he prepared for the lecture.

Montgomery, who teaches at Dongguk University's English Interpretation and Translation Division, proves that you can do a lot to promote modern Korean literature without being fluent in Korean. Yes, he relies on translations, and yes, he's very much aware of the gaps they induce with the original works, but precisely: translation being the main channel trough which literature reaches new shores, you want to make sure that foreign readers enjoy to the fullest this wide array of tastes and flavors.

And nowadays, modern Korean literature is reaching new shores and levels of popularity. The literature originating from the peninsula as well as the one originating from the Korean diaspora: long before SHIN Kyung-sook won the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize for "Please look after mom"* (2009), Chang-rae LEE claimed the 1996 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for "Native speaker" (1995), a book written in English.

Let's hope Korean publishers won't feel tempted to follow the suicidal path of a national movie industry that relies almost exclusively on blockbusters, and completely forgets to nurture its diversity**. As long as it respects and feeds the rest of the ecosystem, "commercial" literature shouldn't be despised. Just like with Korean cinema, Korean literature managed to bloom in France without the help of airport novels or bestsellers, but in general, such driving forces do make a difference: Montgomery monitors the sales of a panel of Korean authors on Amazon, and he noticed how, each time a new hit came out, the whole community received a boost beyond the individual who wrote it.

Even if he remains a "paper book" lover, Montgomery knows the importance of ebooks (his wife already owns hundreds of them), and the power of online media. His blog-portal Korea Modern Literature in Translation (ktlit.com***) reviews countless pieces of fictions, sharing bios and links to online resources and texts in the public domain. But that's never a tedious journey for the readers, who are regularly entertained with jokes and anecdotes, and routinely OMGed, LOLed or ^^ed. Montgomery also shares knowledge through Wikipedia, a preferred source that optimizes the chances for web surfers to become acquainted with Korean literature.

When you think that even Korean "airport novels" can't be found in Korean airports! The most obvious entry points for Korean culture are too often overlooked, as is the case with Korean cuisine (e.g. in Seoul, only 2 international 5 star hotels have a Korean restaurant****).

Hopefully, Koreans are reconsidering and reviving their literary heritage, and as we've seen before (in "Seochon's Dead Poets Society (YI Sang, YUN Dong-gu)"), nowhere as strongly as in Seochon area, where it all began. Note that on the Friday preceding this book club meeting, there was a party for a photo expo at YI Sang's former home along Baekundongcheon (now Jahamun-ro 7-gil), and that many came dressed and hair-styled according to the theme: 1930s Seoul. Saved by Arumjigi and renamed "제비다방" / "Jebi Dabang" / "Swallow Teahouse", after the two places the author opened in Seoul, the tiny house was soon completely packed. A perfect alibi to retreat to Aux Petits Verres across the street, and to enjoy nice coffee and cakes while comfortably observing a parade that really looked like 1930s Seoul... except maybe for the fact that rickshaws that probably never set a wheel in the peninsula, and that I rather felt on the "Roaring Myeongdong" than on the "Cultural Resistance Seochon" side of the city.

Anyway, on Sunday, when Roaring Charles encompassed at a fox trot pace centuries of Korean literature, everybody danced along. Of course that didn't leave us much time to discuss the selection of short stories he recommended ahead of the meeting*****, but we came back home with stimulating reading suggestions. Feel free to add your own suggestions to his "All modern Korean literature in translation online" list, and of course to join Barry Welsh's 10 Magazine Book Club (on Facebook: facebook.com/#!/groups/208460045872355).

If you're LOL (Literary Object Lover), that is.


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* not to be confused with LTI Korea, formerly KLIT (Literature Translation Institute of Korea - http://eng.klti.or.kr/). KTLIT on Twitter: @ktlit.
** see "Saving Korean cinema... and even Chaebolplex". BTW if you're more into movies than into books, the Korean Film Archive uploaded a collection of movies dating from the 1940s to the 1990s on its YouTube channel (youtube.com/user/KoreanFilm), where you can watch them for free and with subtitles.
*** not to be confused with "Please look after dad's mummy", by KIM Jong-un
**** see "Korean Cuisine Aiming At World's Top Five. China is watching." And the Korean education system is also a problem for literature readership, but at least Seoul is creating new libraries (beyond the old City Hall, see "Seoul village libraries").
***** From the "colonial era" (1905-1945): "A society that drives you to drink" (HYON Chin-gon). From the "separation era" (1945-1965): "The crane" (HWANG Sung-won). From the "miracle on the Han River era": "The city of machines" (CHO Se-hui). From the "post-modern era": "Whatever happened to the guy in the elevator" (KIM Young-ha). NB: I also second Charles's motion when he recommends "The Road to Sampo" HWANG Sok-yong

Welcome to Korea

You simply can't sum up a country in a book.

Yes, the CIA pretends to do just that in a couple of pages, every year, with its World Factbook, but look at the mess...

Daniel Tudor clearly doesn't pretend to sum up Korea in his first book.

To start with, "Korea: the impossible country" is not a guide. And "pretentious" is the last word that comes to mind when you meet such a nice guy. How could you not like someone with a contagious smile, and a true love for Korea (it goes without saying that Tudor's not a great fan of K-pop)? And if you believe his background looks too serious, think twice: here's an Oxonian (like Oscar Wilde or Aldous Huxley) who works for the only satirist magazine that tackles business (The Economist).

Speaking of tackling: the man even likes football! I mean real football, the sport known as 'soccer' in the parts of the world where 'football' apparently refers to a computer game for geeks with a short attention span and featuring cyborgs making the most of subliminal breaks during TV commercials. Did I mention the fact that Tudor was born with the name of a King? Daniel, a Mancunian of the Red variety, changed his family name from Cantona.

Well. I'm not sure about that last one but hey, I'm not a journalist, fact checking's not my forte, and I didn't even read the book ahead of this 10 Magazine Book Club event! Sue me. In my defense, "Korea: the impossible country" was only released a couple of weeks ago. I must say that because you must think I never read anything: this week, it's the second time I attend a book meeting without reading the said book in advance*.

When asked by a large and friendly book-loving audience about his own reading habits, Daniel Tudor answered that he didn't read as much as he'd like to (something to do with him being a journalist, upcoming elections, and upflying rockets, I guess). But he does read. And yesterday, he repeatedly praised a book that inspired him and helped many people better understand Korea. If you can't sum up a country in a book, you can give outsiders precious keys, and Michael Breen opened the way in 1998 with "The Koreans"**.

In his own impossible portrait of the impossible country, Tudor decided to start with the foundations, and to combine his brush strokes with other voices, that of Korean personalities he interviewed. Could he keep all the material he had in the book? Of course not, just like the lively discussion at the Book Club could have continued for hours. Does that leave room for the unexpected? Of course, just like this activist with a megaphone down the street, who chimed in at the very moment Daniel was talking about the presidential campaign!

For all of the nation's political, economic, and social divisions, Daniel Tudor remains confident in Korea's ability to come together, to bounce back, to be fun, and to surprise us again. Maybe because, even when it has nothing else, Korea always has the Koreans.

The author introduced "Korea: the impossible country" as a "welcome to Korea" book, but it also seems to be a love letter to this impossible country, to its wonderful people. A love potion for those who have yet to discover both?

* Get the book: "Korea: the impossible country"
* Join The 10 Magazine Book Club on Facebook: facebook.com/10magazinebookclub



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* in my defense - continued -, the other book was a Korean edition (see "Hell is other Democratic People's Republic of Korea")
** BTW - Michael (also the author of "Kim Jong-il") is the guest of the next 10 Magazine Book Club meeting, in January

FC Seoul Expats Day

A perfect weather, a friendly atmosphere, a lively game with five goals... total success for this second edition of the FC Seoul's Expats Day !

Thousands of expats were invited by the club, Seoul Global Center, and 10 Magazine for an afternoon of animation and a K-League clash between FC Seoul and Daejeon Citizens at the Seoul World Cup Stadium (a very special place for me : I attended its inaugural game, the 2002 FIFA World Cup opener - a stunning but well deserved victory of Senegal over France -, or the last confrontation between ROK and PRK) :

Gathering all communities for a festive moment, there's no better way of promoting the club, the league, and the game. The club hosted the event wonderfully, from the organizers backstage to the fans in the tribunes to the players on the field.

Beyond Seoul's own trio of Expats Dejan Damjanovic (three goals for the Montenegrin), Adilson (impressive coverage by the Brazilian), and Mauricio Molina (even in a mediocre day, the Columbian managed to score the final goal), the whole team delivered a very convincing game, leveraging on a strong defense, a swift midfield, and diversified attacks. Daejeon players too felt in a giving mood, offering a few gifts, starting only a few minutes after the kick off with an assist to Damjanovic for his first goal. Park Sung-ho could have played a bit faster to bring more danger, but the Citizens never gave up. Even a little tension at the end of the game didn't spoil the mood : the referee promptly exposed a few cards matching his yellow jersey, and after all, the game itself was not supposed to be friendly.

4-1. This glorious day brings FC Seoul closer to the play-offs (preferably with a ticket for next AFC Champions League - and another K-League title ?), and to a more than ever international audience.

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PS : thanks to Korea4Expats for the tickets !