Book Review: The other great game, The opening of Korea and the birth of modern east Asia by Sheila Miyoshi Jager

 I was born in Harbin of a Korean Chinese parents. I grew up with an identity confusion, I felt as a North Eastern Chinese, I have hard time relate to all adjectives applied to China in my geography and history classes: long history, diverse ethnicity, and grand vision. Northeastern China is backwater of the China we were introduced in our text books. The north eastern China we grew up with is a flat and fertile land with not much of history and only several ethnics, mainly Han Chinese (a lot of them migrants from inlands in search of food and security) and some Korean like myself and some Japanese descendants left behind after Sino Japanese war, and in the city where I grew up  occasional Russian descendants (LaoMaoZi). And we northeasterners are like by-standers, always standing on the sidelines envying all the exciting things happened in the Real China. Chinese living in Manchuria feels like they live on the edge of mainstream Chinese culture. And as a Korean ethnics, I don't feel related to either North Korean or South Korean either. Even food we Korean Chinese prefer are different to what South Koreans like. The staple Korean dish of cold noodle soup, we Korean Chinese like to eat with Wasabi plus chilli and South Korean like to eat with a slice of apple and sweet sour soup. Korean living in Manchuria feel like they live on the edge of mainstream Korean culture. 

People live in Manchuria and northeastern China look at the surrounding regions with a slight different perspective  and viewpoint than their peers living inside Shanhaiguan. 

This book is the first book I read that look at the world from Manchuria and Korean perspective. It framed the Korean Peninsula and Manchuria in the context of geopolitical tension between China, Japan, Russia and to the lesser extent USA. Sino Chinese war, Russia Japanese war and trans Siberia railroad were all covered from the perspective of Korean and Manchuria. It also framed the region in the context of Russian ambitions in gaining a seaport in Pacific, the Japanese dilemma of maritime strategy or continental strategy. 

Apple TV series Pachinko also share similar viewpoint, looking at the history from a Korean Japanese minority.