preface to the Korean edition
- Details
- Category: Surviving Capitalism
- Published on Saturday, 09 April 2011 22:00
- Written by Erik
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A nice woman callled Wang Hye Suk got in touch and introduced herself as "the Korean translator" of my book Surviving Capitalism. No wonder I was taken aback. I didn't know there was a Korean translation in the pipelines. Of course that's great.
What she told me about the reason for translating the book I found totally fascinating:
The Korean society is much similar to the Chinese society as you well describe in your book. Koreans also haveguanxi relations which is called youn'go. Like China, after launching the industrialization and especially democratization, such interpersonal relations have blamed as hampering the economic and political development.
For the so-called modernists, logic of youn'go seems to be against market rationality and fairness. However, I think they fail to see the emotional and social foundation of such relations and only highlight or exaggerate its instrumentality. Unfortunately, in recent Korea, their claims seem to gain power and, especially after the 1997 financial crisis, such relations themselves start to be dismantled.
According to recent reports, families are under the harshest attack from so-called neoliberal globalization. (However, there are also found some eveidences on the resilence of Korean families.) In this situation, I decided to translate your book also "with a sense of urgency." Your book shows totally different view on such interpersonal relations. I believe your interpretation will cast an important implication on our society.
We have to find out how we can cherish such precious moral resources and sustain the development under their protection. There's still left much to talk, however I think you would have already caught the point.
I just wrote up a 2,000 preface to the Korean translation. You can download it here.