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

The renowned Orientalist Andrei Lankov describes how the everyday life of Korea has changed over the last few centuries, a time of tumultuous events and huge transformations for this country.

The book consists of essays, each dedicated to a specific aspect of Korean daily life. Over these three centuries, the small kingdom on the far edge of Eurasia entered its first contacts with the West, became a colony of Japan, then regained its independence, and finally, after enduring the division between the South and the North and going through years of bloody civil strife, transformed into one of the richest and most unique countries in the world. The book tells how all these events influenced 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 relates to the North.