There is a widespread impression in the U.S. that South Korea's experiment with democratic government has gone poorly mainly because of the autocratic personality of President Syngman Rhee. Published this week is a vigorous dissent from this view: The Korea Story (Henry Regnery; $3), by John C. Caldwell, a China missionary's son and a veteran of the U.S. foreign service in the Far East. His conclusion: the U.S. State Department, possessed by "some of the same naive notions that . . . lost us China," messed up the chance to promote democracy in Korea.

In the winter of 1948, he was assigned to Korea. Caldwell and his Korean-speaking wife, a missionary's daughter, were stationed at Chunchon just below the 38th parallel. They set up a library, prepared films, staged puppet shows with messages that got across to illiterate Koreans. Caldwell is sure the 1948 election was "an enormous success," was shocked to find that in the U.S. it was widely criticized as undemocratic.

some of his criticisms:
--Too many U.S. diplomats "lived in isolation" from the people among whom they were posted; "thereby we cut ourselves off from the essential knowledge . . ."

--"Far from being representative of American democracy in action, the [State] Department is a honeycomb of bureaucratic regimentation and protocol."

One thing was my English, but at the same time I wasn’t really trained to express my feelings or thoughts on art. I was not trained to do that at all. So it took me an entire semester to just say, "I like this work" or "I don’t like this work." And then, gradually, I started to learn how to talk about my art. And ironically, I had never talked about my art in Korean before. Even though my English is not good, I think I feel more comfortable actually talking about my work in English than in Korean. That’s something that I find interesting. So when I give a lecture in Korea, for example, I realize myself actually translating my thoughts in English into Korean. So yeah, it’s a funny thing.

I was going to add 오줌버캐 to the list, but decided that most of us can probably go through our entire lives without the topic of "urine incrustations" coming up in conversation with our Korean friends.

Maybe I can explain my attraction to writing by telling you about a wonderful Japanese movie I saw called After Life. The premise is that a group of people have died and they're in a sort of purgatory. The staff come in and bow and say, "Weíre so sorry for your loss." Then they tell these people that they have three days to pick out the one most important memory of their entire lives. Once they have chosen, it will be re-enacted and put it on videotape so they can take it with them to their next world. And that's all they can take. All their other memories will be erased. I think there's something of that impulse in a lot of writers. You want to be able to say here is a memory, not necessarily from my own life, but a certain feeling, an insight or mood, a moment so beautiful or meaningful that I want to capture it forever. - Mary Yukari Waters, Kyoto Journal interview.