Explore the Miraculous Land of Korea with Simon Winchester

Jane B: I should have checked when this book was written. Sadly I found it reflects some rather outmoded views re women’s roles and their social standing. I guess this reflects the era in which it was written. Hopefully things have changed in S. Korea but more importantly in Mr Winchester’s views and interactions with women. JB

Australia on Nov 03, 2021

Peter Solstad: To paraphrase Historian John Lucas, there is a difference between motives and purposes; a difference regrettably confused because of the vocabulary and practices of twentieth-century psychology and thought, the attribution of motive having become a pestilential habit [my italics]. Add this: Motive is a push from the past while purpose is the pull from the future, so critics who tend to the negative are, with the rarest of exceptions, products of this American Academy mindset, whose curricular recommended reading tends to the parochial, contemporary, commercial, optimistic, juvenile, obsessed with suffering, and progressive, which is where these shallow criticisms of good books come from. Winchester has gotten it right, and throughout. There is no latent or blatant ‘sexism’ in his book; no ‘racism’, nothing of the sort or even remotely related to such. To say otherwise is mindless commentary. I served in South Korea commencing 12 February 1969 through late November 1974, visiting that wondrous country and people again on another official mission in 1994. Winchester captures it well. However, the Korea I served in is gone; even that described by Winchester is gone; lost in...

United States on Jun 28, 2014

DC Dave: As the writer of the online articles "No Source for Winchester's Hanging-Priests Calumny" and "Simon Winchester's Smooth Forked Tongue" and having been influenced by some of the negative customers' reviews, I was very much prepared not to like this book. I read it out of curiosity because of my previous acquaintance with Winchester's writing and because Korea is a subject that is very near to my heart. I instituted a monthly full-day orientation session for new arrivals into our command when I was the director of training for the U.S. Army's 20th General Support Group in Korea in 1967-68, I once taught a college May-term course on Korean culture, and my wife of almost 45 years is a native of Korea. Last October, I was the only non-native-Korean in a 3-week tour of Korea. It was my first time back in 38 years.

I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed Winchester's book, finding it entertaining, informative, and quite fair and balanced. He is very much a man of the world and a fine writer with the resultant ability to put things in their proper perspective. How anyone could read this book and come to the conclusion that he hates Korea or Koreans frankly amazes me. I recently read...

United States on Feb 22, 2014

Stefano: Se programmate un viaggio in Corea questo il (un) libro da leggere per farvi un'idea di come vivano e pensino i Coreani.

Italy on Dec 13, 2013

Michael: I was very relieved to read that Kwan Yon decided to travel through South Korea after reading this book. Actually, I thought the book wasn't anywhere near the qualities all the other books by S. Winchester had.
I'd warmly recommend as some of my all-time favourites Krakatoa, The Man Who Loved China (!) and The River at the Centre of the World to anybody interested in Asia. But this one book on Mr. Winchester's traveling around Korea is just superficial and drawing on stupid stereotypes. Not that it pretended to be as well-researched as all the other books I know, but even as a mere travel report it stands out very far and low from the high level I appreciate so much in his other books.
I really hope, nobody will be kept from reading his so much better books by having read this one.

Germany on Apr 22, 2012

Kindle Customer: This is a great book for several reasons: the author actually speaks some Korean, he engages people all the time, he fills the gaps with actual historical facts and, most of all, he is not politically correct !

This last point is the fact that irritates some of the reviewers here. Winchester says what he thinks, instead of trying to please people who are closed to any different opinion than their own. One reviewer complains that he tells if the women he meets are beautiful. Come on, the guy is a man ! What do you expect? He is also a foreigner, therefore, some of his views as an outsider will be in the book. If you want a book by Korea by a native, look for one. Or buy a book by Bill Bryson, where he only says good things about the places he goes.

In fact, Winchester is very balanced. The author meets and talks about intelligent and independent women, and is sympathetic to their problems in such a traditional society. He criticizes the ways of some redneck American soldiers, but also praises the sacrifices of the Americans and the sensitivity of the American commander. The only problem of the book is that it ends soon, when there is so much else to...

United States on Mar 07, 2011