Abstract

Huimang was a general magazine in the 1950s. Its monthly issues were published from 1951 to 1962, and its weekly issues were published from 1955 to 1958. This paper analyzes the adoration and alert points made in the magazine's monthly and weekly US-experience stories. The 1950s was the age of Americanization around the world. Countries that were in need of postwar reconstruction, such as Korea, received the aid of the United States (the US) and learned about the American experiences of their country's intellectuals. Huimang's editorial staff urged authors to submit subjective judgments, not just social presentations, of the US. The intention of the editorial team seems to have been to coordinate perceptions of the wider social spectrum of Americanization. It seems the magazine did this because it wanted to balance South Korea's desires for Americanization and distance from the US. This paper reconsiders the reality of Korea's differences and similarities to the US while revealing the ambivalent attitudes of Americans regarding the substance, the civilization and the admiration of community culture of South Korea. The most prominent difference was in the Korean discovery of physical space. Those who saw skyscrapers in the US were shocked; considering Korea's state after the Korean War, scenery was something that Koreans were not used to. Although there is praise for American morals and puritan traditions, this paper critically looks at the phenomenon of community destruction in the US, seen in the country's racial discrimination and family divisions. This paper also considers South Korea from the perspectives of others. It finds others are indifferent to and ignorant about Korea and questions how to raise awareness about the country. Moreover, this paper finds middle ground between the reality of democracy in the United States and the reality of South Korea; it criticizes Korea's undemocratic reality. In the context of the aforementioned American-experience narratives, the hodology of reconstruction was created, and in 1950s Korea, Huimang focused on finding the quickest route to reconstruction. Whether the magazine's American-experience writers were international students, aid-talk negotiators, architects who developed reconstruction housing designs, or single travelers, and whether its writers were sympathetic or unsympathetic with American culture, the extreme condition of South Korea's national reconstruction was the driving force of Huimang writers. Therefore, Huimang was a record of adoration and alert points regarding reconstruction hodology. This paper is significant because it shows how when the Americanization of South Korea's popular culture progressed, intellectuals of the 1950s concretely reflected on American experiences.