About the Book

This book is about Korean leisure. With a history that spans nearly five thousand years, traditional festivals and holidays were times when leisure was enjoyed most. Being in close proximity with China, Korea was influenced by its larger neighbour in language, art, religion and architecture. The modernization process has transformed South Korea into a new economic power where workers have witnessed a continuous increase in income and expenditure. With more spending power and legislation enacted for shorter working weeks, the leisure domain has also been transformed. Popular leisure is now adopted into the lifestyles of many Koreans. The consciousness of people towards healthy and constructive leisure activities is evident in the way people conduct their lives. The electronic and communication revolutions have caused an exponential increase in the leisure repertoire of individuals across the lifespan. The world has witnessed how South Korea has been able to organise professional and international sports and cultural events in outstanding ways. Comparisons of leisure participation with advanced societies show that Korean levels are as good as any with the propensity to maintain local culture and to adapt to global influences.

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Contents

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About the Author / Editor

Erwei Dong is an Assistant Professor in Department of Health, Physical Education and Leisure Studies at University of South Alabama. He was a research fellow of Korea Foundation in 2008. He conducted extensive fieldwork related to leisure lifestyle in urban settings. Specifically, his research explores how urban leisure lifestyle influences people’s health, leisure satisfaction and quality of life. His current research projects deal with recreation sustainability in terms of sustainable leisure lifestyles that could evolve from minimizing constraints to leisure in various cities of China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan. He compared leisure activities and leisure constraints in a variety of cultural contexts with the goal of enhancing recreational facilities, making recreation resources sustainable, building health communities, enriching quality of life and creating more equitable leisure opportunities at local and global levels. He has a combination of more than 40 published peer-reviewed papers, book and book chapters, professional presentations and technical reports of his research.

Jouyeon Yi-Kook is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sport and Leisure at Ajou University in Korea. She obtained her PhD degree in Recreation, Sport and Tourism in 2005 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr Yi-Kook’s research focuses on leisure experiences with multicultural interface, such as immigrants’ leisure experiences in the host society and interaction between foreign tourists and local community people. Other subjects of her research include community development through local festivals and tourism development. She is an executive board member of Korean Society for Leisure and Culture Studies in Korea. She has published the results of her research in various reputed Korean journals.

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