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Korea Bug: The Best of the Zine that Infected a Nation
- GenresNonfiction
Paperback
Published September 1, 2005
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September 9, 2022
I bought this book in May 2010 at Bandi and Luni's bookstore, at the COEX center in Gangnam. At the time, I had been in Korea for three months. As an early millennial in my mid-20s, eager for “authentic” experiences, I was on the lookout for any English-language material that could introduce me to the “real” Korea. My eyes were quickly drawn to the colorful, surreal illustration on the spine and front cover of this stout little volume. The inner sleeve blurb boasted: “This is neither uninformed, navel-gazing blogosphere chatter nor shallow, rah-rah propaganda for Korea, Inc., but rather rigorous cultural criticism with a bracing, adrenaline-charged punk spirit,” and, “If you thought you knew what Korea was all about, Korea Bug is guaranteed to make you think again.” The back cover featured praise for the Bug zine from a wide range of contemporary sources, such as Korean and Japanese newspapers, academics, other zinesters, Giant Robot, and DJ Spooky. After thumbing through and seeing an interview with a real mudang (shaman), I decided to hand over my money.
The first third or so of the book consists of Burgeson’s pioneering research into the history of self-published English-language periodicals in Korea, including zines such as his own, and his thoughts on the decline of print media culture and the rise of blogs and online social media; followed by the section “Strange,” a well-informed discussion on the political and cultural subject matter of books written about Korea by Westerners from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, as well as a discussion on a theory that Jesus Christ visited Korea during his travels. This all sets the stage for the meat of the book: a selection of candid interviews with Koreans—and foreigners living in Korea—representing a broad range of professions and interests: martial artists, filmmakers, tradesmen, musicians, religious and ethnic minorities, U.S. military personnel, unemployed literati, a shaman, and even the last classically trained gisaeng in South Korea. Each interview begins with a brief introduction to the person and his or her relationship with Burgeson.
Despite the author’s self-aware bohemian attitude, wry humor, and fascination with matters that some readers may find obscure or eccentric, Korea Bug is by no means light reading, nor sensationalist. The in-depth discussions of literature and history and the interviewees’ personal stories serve as edifying observations on a wide range of Korean cultural and historical miscellany, suitable for the open-minded and educable English-language reader curious about the country and its people. For example, as a newcomer to Korea reading this book I benefitted from reading the interviews in which culturally specific concepts such as han were discussed, and I learned a lot in a short time about the political and social structures of the Joseon era, its corruption and decline, by reading the interview with the man nicknamed “Baeksu” (unemployed). The interview with the mudang, Lee Sang-soon, is highly informative about gut (shamanic rites) to the layperson. It also has an intimate and hilarious moment in which she divines an aspect of Burgeson’s personality: “[S]ometimes you push things too much . . . you’re very good at it . . . [W]atch what you say—you should always stop and think first.” (She was already late to teach a class and he was still plying her with questions.)
Particularly noteworthy is the rare interview with Kim Ja-ya, possibly the most famous gisaeng of the twentieth century, lover of the famous poet Baek Seok, and custodian of a culture that, so she says, would disappear forever upon her passing. As she tells Burgeson in 1998, “There’s nothing left of it now. It can’t be revived.” She would pass away the following year. It is all the more fortunate that we have this English-language interview, which may be the only one of its kind.
Unavoidably, in this Year of Our Lord 2022, much of the book is dated in its references to contemporary cultural touchstones, locations, and personalities. Therefore, it is not recommended as a guide to the Korea you will meet if you step off the plane in Incheon or Busan today. Korea is a country where things change incredibly fast, in which the culture seems to try to take pride in its inheritance while at the same time brushing what it finds embarrassing under the rug and displaying gaudy imported baubles and styles that it thinks the outside world will find more respectable.
For better or worse, as a cultural critic and personality Burgeson is not the kind of guy who plays along with this, and was evidently willing to pay the consequences. The spirit of honest independent investigation is often taken as disrespect or callousness, for it seeks to expose and analyze—and is that not to honor?—the controversial, the vulnerable, and the unique. As I understand, his work has been alternately lauded and promoted for its freshness and originality, and resented and snubbed for its indiscretion, in some cases by the same official organs and societies. Bug Vol. 3 explored aspects of relations between Korea and Japan that are considered controversial or taboo in Korea, maybe even more so today than ever. Understandably, the historical Japanese presence is perhaps the most fraught subject on the peninsula, on which outsiders may suddenly and awkwardly find that their well-meaning inquiries and observations are not welcome. It seems the publication of that particular volume preceded a decline in the zine's positive reception by mainstream media outlets. In any case, one gets the impression that Korea Bug was widely celebrated for its countercultural flare and edgy intellectuality for a time, and then brushed aside when it proved uncompromising in its “irreverence” and less useful in producing the sorts of material the pundits wanted to promote. The more things change…
Meanwhile it seems Burgeson was always following his calling as he sees it, no more nor less. I have not read any of his other publications, so take my opinions with reserve. But to me, his approach combines the assiduous dedication and thoroughness of the professional researcher; a certain cultivated naivety, revelry, and Kerouacian questing that has its place in the American literary tradition; and bona fide, genuwine, incorruptible DIY ethics. If that doesn't sound like your cup of tea...well, you've been warned.
As a millennial who missed out on the golden age of zines and pre-internet independent media to a large extent, and didn’t get to experience quite the “Wild East” that the author did in the ‘90s and early ‘00s, to read Korea Bug today is to savor a vicarious nostalgia, with a little chaser of my own. In the introduction, Burgeson himself is coming to terms with the decline of the print-media era in which his zine flourished, and in which there was more intrepid vitality and a sense of communal warmth and shared adventure in expat communities. The early 2010s, when I first came to the country, retained vestiges of that era. It was still considered lame as f**k and actually creepy to stare at a phone for minutes at a time, and rude to answer calls or text when meeting with someone in person. It was before the weird hyperconformity of smartphone culture and the sub-sub-subcultural siloing of social media; before Korean Wave poptimism and the advent of the koreaboo. (Cups of tea, etc.)
So for me, there’s a melancholic flip side to the value of this book as an introduction to Korean culture and history from a Western perspective. My personal takeaway is that it is also a documentation, or even a song of praise, for bygone eras—both on the author's personal experiences in the ‘90s and ‘00s, and for the traditions of a culture that seems to be quickly vanishing as its people move collectively further toward globalization, Westernization, Americanization, or whatever you prefer to call it.
Korea Bug is highly recommended for readers interested in East Asian and Korean studies, travel writing, zines and the history of zines and DIY media, cultural studies and social commentary, Orientalism, investigative journalism, and/or any combination of the above.
The first third or so of the book consists of Burgeson’s pioneering research into the history of self-published English-language periodicals in Korea, including zines such as his own, and his thoughts on the decline of print media culture and the rise of blogs and online social media; followed by the section “Strange,” a well-informed discussion on the political and cultural subject matter of books written about Korea by Westerners from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, as well as a discussion on a theory that Jesus Christ visited Korea during his travels. This all sets the stage for the meat of the book: a selection of candid interviews with Koreans—and foreigners living in Korea—representing a broad range of professions and interests: martial artists, filmmakers, tradesmen, musicians, religious and ethnic minorities, U.S. military personnel, unemployed literati, a shaman, and even the last classically trained gisaeng in South Korea. Each interview begins with a brief introduction to the person and his or her relationship with Burgeson.
Despite the author’s self-aware bohemian attitude, wry humor, and fascination with matters that some readers may find obscure or eccentric, Korea Bug is by no means light reading, nor sensationalist. The in-depth discussions of literature and history and the interviewees’ personal stories serve as edifying observations on a wide range of Korean cultural and historical miscellany, suitable for the open-minded and educable English-language reader curious about the country and its people. For example, as a newcomer to Korea reading this book I benefitted from reading the interviews in which culturally specific concepts such as han were discussed, and I learned a lot in a short time about the political and social structures of the Joseon era, its corruption and decline, by reading the interview with the man nicknamed “Baeksu” (unemployed). The interview with the mudang, Lee Sang-soon, is highly informative about gut (shamanic rites) to the layperson. It also has an intimate and hilarious moment in which she divines an aspect of Burgeson’s personality: “[S]ometimes you push things too much . . . you’re very good at it . . . [W]atch what you say—you should always stop and think first.” (She was already late to teach a class and he was still plying her with questions.)
Particularly noteworthy is the rare interview with Kim Ja-ya, possibly the most famous gisaeng of the twentieth century, lover of the famous poet Baek Seok, and custodian of a culture that, so she says, would disappear forever upon her passing. As she tells Burgeson in 1998, “There’s nothing left of it now. It can’t be revived.” She would pass away the following year. It is all the more fortunate that we have this English-language interview, which may be the only one of its kind.
Unavoidably, in this Year of Our Lord 2022, much of the book is dated in its references to contemporary cultural touchstones, locations, and personalities. Therefore, it is not recommended as a guide to the Korea you will meet if you step off the plane in Incheon or Busan today. Korea is a country where things change incredibly fast, in which the culture seems to try to take pride in its inheritance while at the same time brushing what it finds embarrassing under the rug and displaying gaudy imported baubles and styles that it thinks the outside world will find more respectable.
For better or worse, as a cultural critic and personality Burgeson is not the kind of guy who plays along with this, and was evidently willing to pay the consequences. The spirit of honest independent investigation is often taken as disrespect or callousness, for it seeks to expose and analyze—and is that not to honor?—the controversial, the vulnerable, and the unique. As I understand, his work has been alternately lauded and promoted for its freshness and originality, and resented and snubbed for its indiscretion, in some cases by the same official organs and societies. Bug Vol. 3 explored aspects of relations between Korea and Japan that are considered controversial or taboo in Korea, maybe even more so today than ever. Understandably, the historical Japanese presence is perhaps the most fraught subject on the peninsula, on which outsiders may suddenly and awkwardly find that their well-meaning inquiries and observations are not welcome. It seems the publication of that particular volume preceded a decline in the zine's positive reception by mainstream media outlets. In any case, one gets the impression that Korea Bug was widely celebrated for its countercultural flare and edgy intellectuality for a time, and then brushed aside when it proved uncompromising in its “irreverence” and less useful in producing the sorts of material the pundits wanted to promote. The more things change…
Meanwhile it seems Burgeson was always following his calling as he sees it, no more nor less. I have not read any of his other publications, so take my opinions with reserve. But to me, his approach combines the assiduous dedication and thoroughness of the professional researcher; a certain cultivated naivety, revelry, and Kerouacian questing that has its place in the American literary tradition; and bona fide, genuwine, incorruptible DIY ethics. If that doesn't sound like your cup of tea...well, you've been warned.
As a millennial who missed out on the golden age of zines and pre-internet independent media to a large extent, and didn’t get to experience quite the “Wild East” that the author did in the ‘90s and early ‘00s, to read Korea Bug today is to savor a vicarious nostalgia, with a little chaser of my own. In the introduction, Burgeson himself is coming to terms with the decline of the print-media era in which his zine flourished, and in which there was more intrepid vitality and a sense of communal warmth and shared adventure in expat communities. The early 2010s, when I first came to the country, retained vestiges of that era. It was still considered lame as f**k and actually creepy to stare at a phone for minutes at a time, and rude to answer calls or text when meeting with someone in person. It was before the weird hyperconformity of smartphone culture and the sub-sub-subcultural siloing of social media; before Korean Wave poptimism and the advent of the koreaboo. (Cups of tea, etc.)
So for me, there’s a melancholic flip side to the value of this book as an introduction to Korean culture and history from a Western perspective. My personal takeaway is that it is also a documentation, or even a song of praise, for bygone eras—both on the author's personal experiences in the ‘90s and ‘00s, and for the traditions of a culture that seems to be quickly vanishing as its people move collectively further toward globalization, Westernization, Americanization, or whatever you prefer to call it.
Korea Bug is highly recommended for readers interested in East Asian and Korean studies, travel writing, zines and the history of zines and DIY media, cultural studies and social commentary, Orientalism, investigative journalism, and/or any combination of the above.
May 7, 2012
Too much hype and not enough substance. The curiously titled compilation of the best articles from the author's self-published zine that supposedly infected a nation largely lets down despite claims of being representative of the underground expatriate community. What the almost four hundred page long book amounts to is being mainly a collection of translated interviews with albeit interesting people in Korea though it lacks a certain credible charm.
Granted, the source material for the book is rather dated, much clocking in at over ten years since originally published, yet the interviews still hold some insight into admittingly rarely untouched realms of published content. Burgeson should also be held in high regard for being a good writer, which he most certainly is despite the bulk of the book being essentially a transcription of taped interviews. Also worth prasing is the book's meaty introduction most of all for its fascinating and amazingly detailed look into the history of zines in Korea. Lots of good history to be found which he admirably and thoroughly covers with careful attention.
However, the occasional personal references to drug use and the like are off-putting and distracting. Burgeson also comes off as surprisingly old hat in his discontent for the internet and its new wave of expats who self publish effortlessly on blogs and forums. A trailblazer like himself would seemingly welcome the new addition of expat writers to the scene if not it threatened by his own niche on writing about Korea, it seems.
Bug is a decent read worthy of a quick glance at best. For those who care, his best form is found in his ability to research, dissect and write about obscure topics in a delightfully deadpan manner. However, having had read the best of his old zine, I don't feel like I've missed much of the rest. Taken with a grain of salt, it's an alright read at best. Frankly, I've seen better on blogs.
Granted, the source material for the book is rather dated, much clocking in at over ten years since originally published, yet the interviews still hold some insight into admittingly rarely untouched realms of published content. Burgeson should also be held in high regard for being a good writer, which he most certainly is despite the bulk of the book being essentially a transcription of taped interviews. Also worth prasing is the book's meaty introduction most of all for its fascinating and amazingly detailed look into the history of zines in Korea. Lots of good history to be found which he admirably and thoroughly covers with careful attention.
However, the occasional personal references to drug use and the like are off-putting and distracting. Burgeson also comes off as surprisingly old hat in his discontent for the internet and its new wave of expats who self publish effortlessly on blogs and forums. A trailblazer like himself would seemingly welcome the new addition of expat writers to the scene if not it threatened by his own niche on writing about Korea, it seems.
Bug is a decent read worthy of a quick glance at best. For those who care, his best form is found in his ability to research, dissect and write about obscure topics in a delightfully deadpan manner. However, having had read the best of his old zine, I don't feel like I've missed much of the rest. Taken with a grain of salt, it's an alright read at best. Frankly, I've seen better on blogs.
August 20, 2014
I'm really glad that I stumbled upon this anthology. While I wasn't always fully on board with Burgeson's personal perspective, the breadth of his curiosity is impressive. The interviews and the history inside have a lot to say about Korean culture and the expatriate experience, in a way that typical guidebooks might not offer.
Sometimes I feel like Burgeson is too invested in presenting himself as a sophisticated, "hip" persona, and sometimes I'm not impressed with his interviewing style. But by and large, he's chosen some fascinating subjects and their voices reveal a lot.
Sometimes I feel like Burgeson is too invested in presenting himself as a sophisticated, "hip" persona, and sometimes I'm not impressed with his interviewing style. But by and large, he's chosen some fascinating subjects and their voices reveal a lot.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews