Associate Professor, Nethersole School of Nursing, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong KongAlthough resilience as a concept emerged from researchwhose focus was on successful individual development, therelevant theoretical concepts have recently been adapted andapplied to the study of family functioning. Thus while thelabel ‘family resilience’ is relatively new, the concept itself isnot. The suggestion being that families might be consideredresilient when they cope successfully with significant adver-sity (Luthar et al. 2000a). According to Walsh (1996, 1998),family resilience can be conceived in terms of ‘relationalresilience’ within the family as a functional unit. The study ofLee et al. highlights how coping in such adversity as thechronic illness of a child, Korean families can respond inways that can be characterized as resilient through formula-ting protective factors. The premise being that while familyresilience is culturally specific and may change over time dueto different challenges and life events resilience occurs onlywith exposure to risk and adversity (e.g. Cicchetti & Toth1998, Masten et al. 1999, Luthar et al. 2000b).The study of Lee et al. draws on earlier work by the sameauthor delineating a concept analysis of family functioning(Lee et al. 2002) from which parallels are drawn with familyresilience. This clarification of concepts is supported in theirinitial research question that seeks to determine whetherfamily reliance and family functioning are seen as similarconcepts. The aim of the study was to develop an instrumentto measure dimensions and attributes of resilience for use byhealth practitioners. Importantly, the study concurs withinternational findings that resilience at the family level canpromote a set of dynamic processes, changing with time andcircumstances (Cicchetti & Toth 1998). While the scope ofthe study of Lee et al. study is ambitious and addressed inpart, I am however, of the opinion that within the Asiancontext key family rituals and beliefs systems also needcontextualization. Little attempt has been made to decipherwhat is uniquely Korean about family resilience in thismanuscript.WhiletheattributesofKoreanfamilyresiliencearestatedtobe similar to those identified in Western studies, little attempthas been made to locate these in the contemporary socialstructure in urban Korea, for example, while the demise ofnuclear families is pointed out the trend of neolocality haslittle mention. Koreans, as do the Chinese, have at a rhetoricallevel notions of traditional Confucian principles of familyorganization. Confucius (6th century BC) and his followerstaught that only a country where family life was harmoniouscould be peaceful and prosperous. This conception of theuniverse links attachment and dependence generated withinthe family to all human relationships. Confucians celebratedthislinkwithasymbolofsmallercircleswithinlarger,theeverwidening sphere of human relationships from the self, to thefamily, to society, to the universe. Although Koreans thoughtblood relationships are natural and ideal starting points forgood relationshipsoutside the family, they neverassumed thathappy family life emerged spontaneously which may be agood starting point for a study of Korean family resilience.Given contemporary Korea is far removed from Confucianantecedents but the rhetoric remains the authors may havesupplied such a background for the modern interpretation ofrole clarification and dependency in times of chronic illnessand family interdependence within modernity . However, thisis counteracted in part by the inclusion of multiple sources ofdata and a range of family informants and in doing so thestudy makes an important contribution to the internationalliterature on ‘families at risk’. The authors do howeverhighlight the problematic debate on whether reliance is theforce of the process of transformation or the process oftransformation itself. The discussion while capturing therelevant international literature needs to be contrasted withtheir own local findings. Indeed, the authors stated limitationsof the inclusion of only families with a chronically ill child Ifeel is a particular strength of the study in adding to a new