• English & American cultural studies
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.53-92
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• 2018

This essay aims to examine chick lit written within the Asian American context. For the most part, the chick lit genre has been typically regarded as a site to study contemporary white women's experiences and to debate the genres' credentials as feminist literature. Though some may disagree, there is general consensus that chick lit has fallen out of vogue after reaching its peak in the first decade of the new millenium.; nevertheless, it is being revisited by readers and critics alike as it has recently re-emerged as a location upon which to examine how race and gender inform notions of national belonging and female subject formation in the twenty-first century. To this end, this essay reads Kim Wong Keltner's The Dim Sum of All Things (2004). Keltner's protagonist Lindsey Owyang is yet another twentysomething "chick" looking for love, self, independence, and success in the huge megalopolis of San Francisco. What sets Lindsey apart from the chick prototype is that she is a third-generation ABC (American-born Chinese) and issues relevant to Asian America frequently make their way into Lindsey's narrative. Though it is generally considered as standing a "few notches above the standard chick-lit fare" (Stover n. pag), I would argue that meaningful reflections on many of the major pillars of Asian American literature, history, and cultural politics are glossed over in favor of cursory musings about the daily vicissitudes of Lindsey's life. This essay thus takes to task Ferriss's claim that a "serious" consideration of chick lit "brings into focus many of the issues facing contemporary women and contemporary culture - issues of identity, of race and class, of femininity and feminism, of consumerism and self-image" (2). I contend that a close examination of Keltner's The Dim Sum of All Things discloses that the chick lit format undermines a "serious consideration" of Asian American issues by presenting in particular a highly problematic representation of race and of Asian American femininity.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.115-130
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• 2011

As Korean society was changed from the traditional into the modern and once again is transforming into high modern society, meanings of leisure also are changing. However there were not many researches on changes of the two and even those were rarely found that leisure studies are based on theories in Korean academic context. The study provides changes of meanings of leisure from the theory of civilizing process and a detailed and critical examination of crises of Korean national identities in globalising society. As such reminds us that at a time changing structure of psyche and society delivers a new approach to our evaluation and appreciation of leisure. During the modernizing of Korean society work was a top priority and leisure could not take any priority over all other social institutions. However in a globalising world leisure has been taking as a vital sources of Korean dynamics.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.259-292
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• 2009

When AIDS evolved into a narrative, there were lots of mythologies on AIDS. Among them, the one that AIDS is a gay plague was accepted without any special rejection. Now AIDS is no longer a gay-related disease. At the beginning of the epidemic, however, AIDS was said to be a gay plague and gays were blamed for their life styles. Although AIDS was new, it had been in the mind of people. That is, the truths about AIDS were distorted and misunderstood. The social aspects of AIDS were based not on real scientific facts but on the prejudice and the practices which heterosexual society had invented for homosexuals. Here the AIDS crisis is said to be politicized. The socio-political responses to AIDS were effected by the dominance of Reaganism. So this paper investigates the effects of AIDS on the gay community and the reactions of the Reagan administration through analyzing ten American AIDS plays. Four issues are discussed to develop the paper's main idea: the meaning of AIDS, the past to be remembered, the new family system, and the indifference of President Reagan and the silence of media. AIDS means death; the relation between homosexuality and AIDS cannot be separated. Under these social circumstances AIDS becomes a symbol for moral corruption and the person with AIDS is thought to be punished. But a gay person can overcome the fear of death through regaining promiscuous sex and confirming his identity as a gay. Also to survive in the heterosexual society a gay has to make a new family system. Finally the indifference of the Reagan administration and the virtual silence of the media make the crisis more serious. In the conclusion homosexuals are compared to the Jewish people and the responsibility of gay community is also discussed. The important thing is that facing the AIDS crisis, the gay community has spiritually grown up.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.65 no.2
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• pp.357-384
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• 2013

In this study I've analyzed the strategy and techniques of the welfare discourses of korean conservative newspapers based on the discourse theory. Emphasizing the political and social characteristics of the discourse, It is investigated the way that the conservative newspapers criticize against assertions for welfare increase and universal welfare and the way that produce social meaning on welfare. The study is focused on the discourse techniques like symmetrical contrasts, making new contexts, and formation of identity. The critical welfare discourses are structured according to symmetrical contrasts of welfare to the rationality, the morality, and the prospects for future. The elements of the discourses are reinforced by one another and were recontextualized to the new stories on welfare. The conservative newspapers had emphasized secession welfare from the politics, solving the problem of inefficiency of welfare administration. Regarding the technique of identification, the newspapers had treated people as owners and victims of welfare on the role of financing welfare expenditure. It is noteworthy the newspapers have began to call people separately according to generations and income class using finance.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.134-144
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• 2008

A city is the center of all the economic activities, politics, administration and creation of cultures, and it is also a social community. It is also an environment in which human beings live and act, and thus, psychological and emotional pleasure are greatly demanded. Facilities of cities, buildings and harmonizing each and every structures with the environment sets up the image and the identity of a city because they are the most important visual structuring elements in cityscapes. Currently, most of the cities in Korea including Seoul, are in discordance with their natural environment because of all different sorts of buildings and signboards are jumbled up close together. The traditional, local colors have disappeared form those cities and all cities look the same. It is hard to find traditional beauty and identities of the cities in Korea, and the Korean cities are not even close to the threshold of other foreign cities. In order to solve these problems, there is a dire need of improving the modification of cityscapes in the long run. This research aims to understand the current abstruse situation Korean cities are in, analyze their problems and describe actual methods of improving those cities so that they can have a more ordered and organized structures. Also, this research should be used as a data of future researches based on citiscapes.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.71
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• pp.157-193
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to critically interpret generational trends in contemporary Korea through understanding the consumer experiences of luxury bag purchases of women in their late 20s and early 30s. Previous studies on luxury consumption tend to focus on an analysis of the value of luxury products as a sign and a symbol, the characteristics or class identity of luxury consumers, or expressive behavior in terms of ideal self-image. While including these factors, this study also expands the scope to a reflexive understanding of the social structural context behind the phenomenon of personal consumption. This was achieved by considering consumption in terms of the style and practice of everyday life, as well as its opportunities and limitations. In particular, we pay attention to how luxury bags are reproduced as media, which is a process that is circulated back to consumption, and through this process, this study reflects on capitalist life and subjects.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.295-314
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• 2010

The paper attempts to balance the discourses of transnational spaces that have focused on de-territorialization, by emphasizing that transnational spaces are maintained also through re-territorialization. Reviewing the literature of transnational social fields, translocality, multicultural spaces and transnational places, I aim to show the way the main issues from the literature help understand an actually existing transnational space, Little Mania in Daehangno, Seoul. I specifically address the dialectic relation between de-territorialization and re-territorialization, multi-scalar networks, and hybridity of multicultural spaces in interpreting the weekend enclave of Filipinos in Seoul. I argues that Little Manila is a grounded translocality operating through multi-scaled networks of various actors. Furthermore, it is not a unified space where one dominant Filipino identity stands out. Different Filipinos and Filipinas constitute the space imagining different homes. It is also a multicultural space open to other minorities, which suggests the possibility of alternative spatial politics based on co-presence of different 'Others'.

• Korea and Global Affairs
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.131-154
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• 2019

The state behavior has a strong consequence with the national strategic culture. However, different scholars hold different views on the classification of the national strategic culture. As one of the most significant land neighbors in West China, Pakistan is China's all-weather strategic cooperative partner. Understanding Pakistan's strategic culture will not only help understand Pakistan's national policies and state behavior, but also help deepen China-Pakistan cooperation. Cutting in from the perspectives of geography, social economy, culture, history and military, the author believes that the formation mechanism of Pakistan's strategic culture is mainly affected by the following four factors: geopolitical environment, production mode and lifestyle, cultural tradition, historical experience and diplomatic relations. The analysis has found that Pakistan's strategic culture has been shaped by Islam and can be classified as an outward-oriented strategic culture, the state behavior also shows a strong Islamic identity.

• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.435-450
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• 2019

There is ample research on the Korea-China-Japan trilateral relationship in various directions that includes geopolitical aspects. There still exist escalated tensions in politics and diplomacy despite the remarkable growth in the economic and cultural exchanges between these countries. This study presents a way of representing national identity based on survey results via principal component analysis, and investigates if these national identities can be related to conflict and cooperation among the three countries. The results show that the attachment to the nation does not affect the conflicts between the countries and that a more friendly awareness of other countries tends to give a positive effect to cooperation between countries.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.163-175
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• 2014

This study is to explain social capital characteristics of Filipino immigrant women at the level of neighborhood. This research targeted Filipino immigrant women in the metropolis, small town and rural area in Korea to find out the relevance of individual property and characteristics of the community and social capital of neighboring communities- school community, cathedral community, etc- through measurement of the participants' recognition. This study reveals that differences exist in the relationship between length of residence and social capital in the school community and the catholic church community. There is a significant positive relationship between length of residence and political factors in the catholic church community, thereby having a better relationship with longer period of stay, while length of residence and confidence show a negative trend in the school community, leading to less confidence. The catholic church community holds a dominant position in homogeneity, cohesion, and the amount of social capital. According to the findings, social capital 'relation' is more closely related to homogeneity of the community, 'norms' to cohesion. 'Relation and norms' and 'confidence and politics' factors are recognized similarly in both communities, thus resulting in the recognition that decision making within the community, the share of value, and observance of social norms approximate a friendly relationship among members, and satisfaction level, emotional support, and confidence among members approach politics that members can talk about their personal matters. It is noted in the research process that the symbolism of the cathedral community as a transnational circuit behavior occurs where collective culture and personal desires of Filipino immigrant women were combined with production of social capital. Filipino immigrant women's awareness of community and social capital appearing in the cathedral community show that not only residence, along with the cultural identity of Filipino immigrant women, but also collective social and cultural characteristics, such as 'family reunion' can not be overlooked. In particular, at this time when discussion and debate on the interculturalism over multiculturalism is heating up, communal spirit and social capital based on the ethnic identity are important in that they can be a crucial path to the cross-cultural interaction with our society, therefore, a study on the social capital of the ethnic community needs to be encouraged and extended to more diverse communities, to the space of the multilayered scale.