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How Korea Lives

J.K. YOUNG

인사이트케이주식회사 · 2026-11-11 출간 예정

ISBN 9791123127033 · 사회과학

정가 17,000원 · 전자책

출간 예정전자책국립중앙도서관 ISBN 서지정보 등록

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『How Korea Lives』는 2026-11-11 출간 예정입니다. 출간되면 서점 판매 링크와 함께 이메일로 한 번 알려드립니다.

책 소개

Most books about Korea begin with palaces, temples, and the war that divided the peninsula. This one begins with a plastic stool under an orange tent, a reclining chair in a twenty-four-hour bathhouse, and a box of fried chicken delivered to a riverside lawn that has no street address. None of these places appear on a heritage list. They are where ordinary Korean life happens on any weeknight.

Each of the customs in this book can look odd from outside. Office workers move through three venues after a company dinner. A country full of apartments rents out rooms by the hour for singing, gaming, and sleeping. Half a million students sit one exam on the same Thursday in November while planes wait on the ground. The reasons are rarely a matter of national character. They come from history, housing, work, schooling, technology, and law, and most of them can be traced to specific decisions and specific years.

Modern South Korea was built very quickly. In the early 1960s it was one of the poorest countries in the world. Within one working lifetime it became a high-income democracy with some of the fastest internet in the world and one of the lowest birth rates ever recorded. Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945, the Korean War from 1950 to 1953, the military governments of the 1960s to the 1980s, the democratic transition of 1987, and the Asian financial crisis of 1997 all left marks you can still see at a dinner table or a subway platform. Many of the habits in these chapters are adaptations to that speed.

The chapters are grouped into six parts. The first follows food and drink, because so much of Korean social life is organized around a shared table. The second visits the rooms Koreans rent for play and rest. The third looks at the habit of speed and the services built on it. The fourth is about crowds: fans, supporters, students, couples, and hikers. The fifth turns to the body, from skincare and surgery to medicine, fortune-telling, and the temple. The sixth describes the systems that shape almost every Korean life: the hierarchy of age, the college entrance exam, military service, and the housing market.

Every chapter tries to explain rather than judge. Several describe things Koreans themselves argue about, such as drinking at work, the pressure of looks and exams, and the cost of a home. Where the evidence is disputed, the text says so. The chapters can be read in order or one at a time, and each stands on its own.

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