The Curse of February 29th

• A murder has occurred every February 29th at this tollgate ticket booth. Fact or myth? The ticket girls working this evening's shift discuss this mystery. After all, tonight is February 29th. There is dark vehicle approaching. The driver is holding a bloody ticket in his hands. Soon, one of these girls will die. The other will have a nervous breakdown. She will find herself locked up in a mental a

In 1959 South Korea was mired in poverty. By 1979 it had a powerful industrial economy and a vibrant civil society in the making, which would lead to a democratic breakthrough eight years later. The transformation took place during the years of Park Chung Hee’s presidency. Park seized power in a coup in 1961 and ruled as a virtual dictator until his assassination in October 1979. He is credited with modernizing South Korea, but at a huge political and social cost.

South Korea’s politic! al landscape under Park defies easy categorization. The state was predatory yet technocratic, reform-minded yet quick to crack down on dissidents in the name of political order. The nation was balanced uneasily between opposition forces calling for democratic reforms and the Park government’s obsession with economic growth. The chaebol (a powerful conglomerate of multinationals based in South Korea) received massive government support to pioneer new growth industries, even as a nationwide campaign of economic shock therapyâ€"interest hikes, devaluation, and wage cutsâ€"met strong public resistance and caused considerable hardship.

This landmark volume examines South Korea’s era of development as a study in the complex politics of modernization. Drawing on an extraordinary range of sources in both English and Korean, these essays recover and contextualize many of the ambiguities in South Korea’s trajectory from poverty to a sustainable high rate of economic growt! h.

CURSE OF FEBRUARY 29TH - DVD Movie

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