Customer Reviews

Home Was The Land Of Morning Calm: A Saga Of A Korean-american Family

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is my first book written about Korea. As an adopted Korean woman, searching for knowledge about my homeland has become central. Thus, from a friend's suggestion, I read Connie's book about her own life of displacement. Although she was born in Korea, she spent little time actually living within the boudaries of her own country. Her story begins several generations earlier from her own, chronicling the events that inevitably changed outside views of Korea, and also Korea herselve. More than just a lesson in history, it is a book so well written it sings.

I recommend this book for anyone, no matter your cultural heritage. It is important that her story be heard, as a record of the struggles new immigrants experience in this country. Besides inspiring me to learn and do more about Korea, she has given me a good starting point to work from. I no longer feel as ignorant about my own people.

This is a fascinating work--monumental in scope and content. I would recommend it to all readers who are interested in learning more about Asian Americans and Asia. It should be a required text in secondary and college social science and literature classes. Connie Kang writes with insight and knowledge that is extraordinary.

It took me months to track down a copy of Connie's book, but it was well worth it. Growing up as a second generation Korean American interested in becoming a journalist, I knew of very few Korean and Asian American journalists, especially women. I found Kang's memoir inspiring, detailed and well written. I read the book in one sitting because I couldn't put it down. There were so many moments in the story that I felt like she was talking directly to me. Even if you're not Asian American, the story is universal and explores the questions of identity, understanding, and growing up.

I received this book as a gift when it first came out. The author even signed it. I was riveted and could not put the book down. I was in high school at the time. I enjoyed this book and it spoke to me so much about my homeland. She writes well and effortlessly. She does a great job of painting pictures with her words and really carrying the reader along with her in each thing she saw, felt and experienced.

This book is about 5 generations of a Korean family and their struggles with invasion, war, poverty and trying to survive in different countries alien to their homeland. Although this book is full of historical information on the last 100 years of Korean history, it is never boring and hard to put down. The author paints a very vivid picture of her ancestors, their village, and their struggles through life and extreme oppression and abuse from the Japanese. It's difficult not to empathize with all the characters in this book and worth reading.

Americans know so little of the world, and I'm no exception. That's why I was willing to give this book plenty of time to draw me in. I had just read a National Geographic article about North Koreans and their escape routes to freedom today (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/02/north-korea/oneill-text), so I was ready to hear more.

This writer's style is a tough slog, though. It is so very dry. Ms. Kang is clearly passionate about her family's story and her country's story, yet it comes across as a history lesson on the page. Perhaps it's her naturally reticent nature, or perhaps the nature of the material itself. You do get bogged down in the politics and the players. She might have done better to give just an overview of Korean history. In mixing her family's story with that of her country, she often violates the cardinal rule of journalism, which is to show and not tell.

To preserve the emotional power of the story, I would suggest you skip her prologue. It is pretty much a chronological outline of her life. It hits the highlights of her family's tragic struggle for survival, so when you return to each individual episode in the course of the narrative, you've already been there and spent your emotional energy.

But by persevering to the end, I did get to the most rewarding part of the book. Because of her upbringing in three countries, Ms. Kang concludes that she never feels entirely at home anywhere. Her itinerant life and her broken relationships attest to her unsettledness. Because her intellect bloomed in the West, "I am more American than Korean in my mind," she says. But because she was brought up in the East, she realizes that "I am more Korean than American in my soul." It's a split she may never be able to reconcile.

This is basically an autobiography of Connie's life. Very well written and insightful at times. She can look at Korean culture from both within and without. Overall, I'd recommend it.

It was difficult to finish reading this book. It's very boring, mainly because the writer seems so reluctant to reveal herself and her feelings. For example, she falls madly in love with her husband and suddenly they are divorced. Why she would write a memoir is hard to figure out. Since she is interested in a particular period of Korean history, she should have written a journalistic history book.