Not Only Kimchi: The History, Culture, and Everyday Life of Korea

Renowned orientalist Andrei Lankov describes how the everyday life of Korea has changed over the last few centuries, which have been a time of turbulent events and gigantic transformations for this country.The book consists of sketches, each dedicated to a... specific aspect of Korean daily life. Over these three centuries, the small kingdom on the far edge of Eurasia made its first contacts with the West, became a colony of Japan, then regained its independence and finally, after experiencing the division between the South and the North and going through years of bloody civil strife, transformed into one of the richest and most distinctive countries in the world. The book narrates how all these events affected the lives of ordinary Koreans: how food and clothing changed, how newspapers and trains appeared, how Korean oligarchs made their first millions, how Koreans developed a taste for beer and coffee, how, with the growth of prosperity in the Republic of Korea, birth rates changed, and how the South currently views the North.