No Caption Needed. 😉

For the second year the KLTI is running an essay contest (which seems to be limited to citizens of the UK?). The story is available over at London Korean Links, and submission details are available on the KLTI site.

My whining is predictable, “why is this only open to citizens of the UK?”  I’d like to put my own essay in the pot, but alas, I am from the US.

Also, unusually, this brings me to a rare point of disagreement with Philip Gowman over at LKL. He wrote an online essay questioning last year’s selection of literature, There a Petal Silently Falls. Gowman rooted for more “traditional” Korean literature (that is an oversimplification of his stance .. as he is quite thorough explaining his point) like Three Generations by Yom Sang-seop (1931) or Peace under Heaven by Chae Man-sik. I’ve read Three Generations, which I found interesting but stolid, and extremely long-winded. The latter two elements would militate against interesting essays, I think. 😉  I have not read Peace under Heaven, but what I have read of Chae Man-sik seems to fit one of Gowman’s complaints about Ch’oe’s work, that it is full of gloom and han.

I found ‘Petal’, to be quite evocative and written in a modern style, and I’m not that fond of explicitly colonial Korean literature (I’ll take Wings over Three Generations any day, in that arena).

I guess I’m just a sucker for the more “modern” in this kind of contest.

LOL.. but I’ll still be cruising LKL every day to see what’s up.