New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. xix, 314 pp. (Maps, B&W photos, coloured photos.) US$32.00, cloth. ISBN 9780197659656.
Shrimp to Whale is a celebratory history of South Korea written by Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a professor of international relations at King’s College London. This is a highly readable book aimed not at Korean specialists but at a general audience. Pacheco Pardo writes with passion, sharing his knowledge of South Korea, his affection for its people and culture, and some of his personal experiences. He writes in superlatives, portraying the country as a truly amazing place: his love, admiration, and enthusiasm appear on every page. The author guides the reader through South Korea’s rise from poverty to prosperity, from authoritarianism to becoming the most vibrant democracy in Asia, from obscurity to a global centre of technology and culture. The story is indeed dramatic, in fact without any parallel except perhaps for Taiwan, which also transformed itself from an impoverished, authoritarian state to a wealthy, democratic society in roughly the same short period. But even Taiwan, as remarkable as its modern trajectory has been, cannot match South Korea’s feat of also becoming a major exporter of international popular entertainment.
Pacheco Pardo begins his history with a brief survey of Korean history from earliest times to the creation of the Republic of Korea in 1948. He then gives the history of South Korea in six chronologically arranged chapters. Three deal with the first four decades of war, recovery, military dictatorship, economic takeoff, and the struggle for democracy; and the other three cover the country’s consolidation of democracy, its transition to a high-tech economy, and its emergence as a cultural superpower. His narrative includes the pain and suffering that took place along the way, such as the story of Jeon Tae-il, who set himself on fire to protest the conditions of working people (63) and Hong Seok-cheon, whose career effectively came to an end when he became the first actor to come out as gay (169). Most of these will not be new to those who know the country well but those less familiar with it will gain an appreciation for what South Koreans have accomplished and the hardship they went through in the process. He concludes with an emphatic note of optimism, declaring that “a bright future awaits the country” (222).
While some academic readers might be a little put off by the author’s unstrained enthusiasm for South Korea’s achievements, it is worth drawing attention to how remarkable the country’s transformation has been. A significant fact about its transformation that the author does not go into was that it was almost totally unforeseen. In the 1950s and even in the early 1960s, most outside experts were gloomy about its prospects: almost no one sixty years ago predicted its economic success, not many even forty years ago foresaw its successful democratic transition, and few if any thirty years ago imagined that South Korean movies, television, pop music, and fashion would be popular throughout most of the world. So, one more superlative that the author could have added to South Korea: the world’s most underestimated society.
A shortcoming of this otherwise commendable introduction to South Korea is that while Pacheco Pardo points out the challenges that the country had to overcome in the past, he does not give enough attention to the challenges it faces at present. For example, there is its extraordinarily low birthrate, the lowest in the world by a noticeable margin. Not only does this mean the country is on track to be the most rapidly aging society in the world, it is also a symptom of troubling issues involving gender, family expectations, and the extreme burden that the country’s obsession with rank, status, and education have placed on South Korean citizens. It is admirable—even astonishing—how much South Koreans have achieved but that has not brought about as much happiness and satisfaction to most of them as it has to the author. Suicide rates among the young and the elderly are high. And, in contrast to Japan and Singapore, other rich and successful Asian countries, many South Koreans still emigrate for a better life free from the pressures and burdens of their competitive society.
South Korea’s amazing transformation has come at a cost perhaps best analyzed by Korean scholar Chang Kyung-sup through his concept of “compressed modernity.” This explains the anomalies in South Korea—the domination of the economy by a handful of family-run business conglomerates, the national obsession with education, the unusually long work hours, high suicide rates, and the world’s lowest birth rate—as the consequence of older ideas of family loyalty, patriarchy, and hierarchy not having changed as fast as other aspects of society. The author chronicles the struggles and suffering the people experience on their way to creating a modern, prosperous society but does not fully show the problems generated by its success.
Another issue that gives some pause to the author’s optimism is geopolitical. South Korea is located in a region filled with threats: an increasingly assertive and expansive Chinese superpower and a menacing and potentially unstable North Korea, with which it remains at war. Its principal allies are Japan, with which it harbours deep historical hatreds and distrust, and an increasingly unreliable United States.
Despite these limitations, this is an excellent introduction to South Korea, both engaging and informative. Pacheco Pardo has written a book that is likely to further stimulate the growing interest in the country.
Michael J. Seth
James Madison University, Harrisonburg