My Korea

Kevin O’Rourke, professor emeritus (Kyunghee University), is an Irish priest (Columban Fathers), who has lived in Korea since 1964. He has published many translations of classical and contemporary fiction and poetry including Tilting the Jar, Spilling the Moon (Dedalus 1993), Poems of a Wanderer: Selected Poems of So Chongju (Dedalus 1995), Looking for the Cow (Dedalus 1999), the Yi Munyol novella Our Twisted Hero (Hyperion 2001); The Book of Korean Shijo (Harvard 2002); A Hundred Love Poems from Old Korea (Global Oriental 2005), and The Book of Korean Poetry: Songs of Shilla and Koryo (Iowa University Press 2006).

• AcknowledgementsINTRODUCTION1. KOREA IN THE 1960s2. THE COLUMBANS3. LEARNING THE ROPES4. CULTURAL ADAPTATION5. IN AT THE DEEP END6. THE CULTURAL EXPERIENCE: WHERE TO BEGIN7. THE CONFUCIAN MONOLITH8. THE CHOS? N BUREAUCRACY9. THE BUDDHIST INGREDIENT10. EXCLUSIVITY MYTHS11. CHILMAJAE SONGS – S? Ch?ngju12. KOREA’S GREATEST ASSET13. TALES OF THE IMMORTALS14. AT THE CULTURAL COALFACE: IMMERSION, SUBMERSION? – TAKE YOUR PICK15. NINE PRIEST IMMORTALS16. SEEKING THE WAY17. FOR THOSE OF US WITH LESS THAN IMMORTAL STATUS18. LEARNING KOREANAFTERWORDBibliographyIndex