Virtuous Transcendence Holistic Self-Cultivation and Self-Healing in Elderly Korean Immigrants Paperback - 2000

From the publisher

Understand why elderly Korean immigrants behave in the ways that they do, holistically!Virtuous Transcendence: Holistic Self-Cultivation and Self-Healing in Elderly Korean Immigrants richly and vividly relates elderly Korean immigrants'personal stories of day-to-day life, illness, and self-care. It encourages a better, more complete understanding of the cross-cultural issues involved with health problems in relation to everyday life, in American and Korean contexts. Here is a book that enables laypersons, researchers, scholars and health providers to work more closely together through an understanding of cultural differences and harmony.The prologue speaks of a second generation Korean-American young man who questioned, "Why are all Korean things [art, movies, songs] sad?"Koreans seem to appreciate the melancholy of a sentimental nature. In the last century they faced tragedies like human cruelty, hunger from poverty, lack of educational opportunity, separation from loved ones by wars, rejection, betrayal, mistrust, and even death. Virtuous Transcendence illuminates the concept that Koreans have developed ways of turning depression into 'sweet sorrow'to be able to live with it as a transcending experience instead of abhorring it. Professor Pang's in-depth research broadly and deeply discusses the origins and holistic aspects of illness in the elderly. Virtuous Transcendence clearly expresses her enlightened, original, and revolutionary idea of somatization as a means of interpreting and coping with personal distress and social stress.Virtuous Transcendence will enlighten you with intimate accounts of the experiences of elderly Korean immigrants, with emphasis on:

• health issues including common illnesses such as hwabyung
• somatization as a healing process
• depression
• their methods of self-care
• their ethos
• their personal, spiritual, and family relationshipsElderly Korean immigrants have a unique way of looking at life, and Virtuous Transcendence clarifies Korean mind-body relationships that have been unclear until now despite decades of study. Here is an opportunity to truly appreciate the subtlety and delicacy of Korean cultural dynamics!Here you will find first-person accounts of elderly Korean immigrants'past and present experiences in Korea and America--their life patterns, values, beliefs, attitudes, and personalities, and their reasons for behaving as they do, holistically.