VOL.69/2024.04

Time to Dive Into Korean History

Lawyer’s Pick

2024.01.02

Just thinking about Korea’s evolved reputation on the international scene makes me giddy. When I first went to the US over 30 years ago, and when I lived in the UK 20 years ago to study, one of the common phrases I heard was, “Where are you from, China or Japan?” Korea is no longer the country it used to be, when it didn’t have a distinct identity in the minds of Westerners. Kimchi, once unwelcome in dormitory communal kitchens because of its smell, has become a global favorite. Here are two books with unique perspectives on modern Korean history, explaining what happened inside Korean society that led to this major shift in perception outside of Korea.

The first book is My Modern Korean History 1959-2020 (Dolbegae) by Rhyu Si-Min. “I met the world in the summer of 1959 in an old tiled house in Gyeongju, Gyeongsangbuk-do.” As the first sentence of the prologue says, this book is an account of Korea’s modern history written from an individual’s perspective, appropriately blending “objective facts” with the “subjective experiences” of the writer, born in 1959. The writer was in politics during the democratization movements (he served as a member of parliament and Minister of Health and Welfare) and has been a full-time writer since 2013. He published the first edition of My Modern Korean History 1959-2014: The 55-Year Record in 2014, and as the book became a bestseller, he worked on revising it and released a revised and enlarged edition in 2021, which is this book. Here, the writer, who calls himself a “libertarian,” explores the many facets of Korea’s transformation from an “evenly poor” dictatorship to an “unevenly rich” democracy. He writes that he feels “limited pride” in Korea’s modern history. By blending his “subjective experiences” with “objective facts,” he stays true to the perspective of an individual, but also pinpoints the macro trends of the major agendas that have shaped Korea’s modern history.

The second book, The Constitutional Court Tells the Modern History of Korea (Kungree), published in 2009. As the title suggests, the book traces the modern history of Korea through the lens of the Constitutional Court’s major rulings. Established on September 1, 1988, the Constitutional Court itself was the result of a long struggle for democratization. To quote the writer, “The Constitutional Court was born from the power of resistance, and the democratic constitution punished evil laws.” The writer, Lee Beom-Jun, worked as a journalist specializing in legal issues and wanted to write a book that closely covered the judicial history of Korea, like The Brethren by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post and The Story of the Japanese Supreme Court (最高裁物語-日本司法50年) by Yuji Yamamoto in Japan. But, judicial history is not the only thing you can learn from this book. It also features conflicts and developments in key values that have shaped the country today, such as the freedom to watch movies without government censorship, the question of whether it is “beauty and decency” to not marry someone of the same family lineage, and the extent to which people are allowed to go out into the public square to speak out, gather, and debate. It was translated and published in Japanese in 2012.

It will be double the fun to compare the two as you read. You will be able to compare the perspective of an intellectual who devoted himself to the democratization movement with that of a journalist covering legal issues working hard on the ground. You will also be able to compare the narrative style of interweaving objective facts with personal stories and the narrative style of analyzing modern Korean history through rulings of the Constitutional Court. I recommend that you immerse yourself in the charm of Korea with K-History, following K-Pop, K-Drama, and K-Food.

Written by Jung Hye-Jin (Lawyer and writer)