Consuming Korean Tradition in Early and Late Modernity

Consuming Korean Tradition in Early and Late Modernity

Commodification, Tourism, and Performance

Edited by: Laurel Kendall

University of Hawaii Press | 2010

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824860813

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About this book

Contributors to this volume explore the irony of modern things made in the image of a traditional "us." They describe the multifaceted ways "tradition" is produced and consumed within the frame of contemporary Korean life and how these processes are enabled by different apparatuses of modernity that Koreans first encountered in the early twentieth century. Commoditized goods and services first appeared in the colonial period in such spectacular and spectacularly foreign forms as department stores, restaurants, exhibitions, and staged performances. Today, these same forms have become the media through which many Koreans consume "tradition" in multiple forms.

In the colonial period, commercial representations of Korea—tourist sites, postcard images, souvenir miniatures, and staged performances—were produced primarily for foreign consumption, often by non-Koreans. In late modernity, efficiencies of production, communication, and transportation combine with material wealth and new patterns of leisure activity and tourism to enable the localized consumption of Korean tradition in theme parks, at sites of alternative tourism, at cultural festivals and performances, as handicrafts, art, and cuisine, and in coffee table books, broadcast music, and works of popular folklore. Consuming Korean Tradition offers a unique insight into how and why different signifiers of "Korea" have come to be valued as tradition in the present tense, the distinctive histories and contemporary anxieties that undergird this process, and how Koreans today experience their sense of a common Korean past. It offers new insights into issues of national identity, heritage preservation, tourism, performance, the commodification of contemporary life, and the nature of "tradition" and "modernity" more generally.

Consuming Korean Tradition will prove invaluable to Koreanists and those interested in various aspects of contemporary Korean society, including anthropology, film/cultural studies, and contemporary history.

Contributors: Katarzyna J. Cwiertka, Kyung-Koo Han, Keith Howard, Hyung Il Pai, Laurel Kendall, Okpyo Moon, Robert Oppenheim, Timothy R. Tangherlini, Judy Van Zile.

Author information

KendallLaurel:

Laurel Kendall is Curator in Charge of Asian Ethnographic Collections in the Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, and also teaches at Columbia University.

Frontmatter Free access PDF PDF	i
Contents Free access PDF PDF	v
Preface and Acknowledgments Free access PDF PDF	vii
Introduction: Material Modernity, Consumable Tradition Laurel Kendall Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	1
Part I. Modernity as Spectacle / Spectacular Korea
1. Dining Out in the Land of Desire: Colonial Seoul and the Korean Culture of Consumption Katarzyna J. Cwiertka Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	19
2. Shrinking Culture: Lotte World and the Logic of Miniaturization Timothy R. Tangherlini Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	39
Part II. Korea as Itinerary
3. Travel Guides to the Empire. The Production of Tourist Images in Colonial Korea Hyung Pai Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	65
4. Guests of Lineage Houses: Tourist Commoditization of Confucian Cultural Heritage in Korea Okpyo Moon Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	88
5. Crafting the Consumability of Place: Tapsa and Paenang Yŏhaeng as Travel Goods Robert Oppenheim Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	105
Part III. Korean Things
6. The Changsŭng Defanged: The Curious Recent History of a Korean Cultural Symbol Laurel Kendall Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	127
7. The “Kimchi Wars” in Globalizing East Asia: Consuming Class, Gender, Health, and National Identity Kyung-Koo Han Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	149
Part IV. Korea Performed
8. Blurring Tradition and Modernity: The Impact of Japanese Colonization and Ch’oe Sŭng-hŭi on Dance in South Korea Today Judy Van Zile Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	167
9. Kugak Fusion and the Politics of Korean Musical Consumption Keith Howard Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	195
Bibliography Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	217
Contributors Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	245
Index Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	247

Consuming Korean Tradition in Early and Late Modernity

Commodification, Tourism, and Performance

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