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Korea

South Korea North Korea


Hankuk Chosun


The land of the morning calm
Geopolitical Location

Manchuria

Appendage to China
Dagger pointed at the heart of Japan
Geography
Overall Shape?
What do you see?
Size:
Roughly equal to Utah
Population: in 06
South Korea: 48,846,823
North Korea: 23,113,019
Climate:
Temperate:
Cold winters
Hot, wet summers
Topography:
Mountainous
Divided Nation
Japanese Occupation 1910
Divided in 1945
Carrot used by US to lure USSR into the Pacific
phase of WWII
38th Parallel
North: Soviet realm ergo Communist
South: US realm ergo Capitalist
Korean War: 1950-53
Enemies
Divided Families
No mail, no trade, no visits, no phone calls
Ethnic Homogeneity
Racially pure, Unique Race

East Asian or Mongoloid


racial group
Strong sense of racial
identity
Self-identification as
distinct from other Asian
nations
Korean Language

Altaic Language Group
Structurally identical to Japanese
60% of vocabulary borrowed from Chinese
Distinct from both

Not a tonal language


Regional dialects Just like U.S.
Korean Language

Early Literacy: Chinese
Early Writing: Chinese Characters

1400s Hangul commissioned by King Sejong


Phonetic system
Simple enough for women & servants
Writing System
Mixed Writing system
Chinese root words written in Chinese
characters
900 characters to pass middle school
1800 characters to pass high school
Korean Native words written in Hangul
Typical until 1945
North Korea dropped Chinese about 1950
Hangul only newspapers in South Korea first
published in 1988
National Creation Myth:
Tangun 2333 BC
Hwan-ung (god figure)
Tiger and Bear want to be
human
Live in cave 100 days eating
mugwort and garlic
Bear endures and becomes a woman
She prays for a husband
Hwan-ung takes her as wife and they bear a
son, Tangun who governs over the people of
Korea
See http://www.lifeinkorea.com/information/tangun.cfm
for a simple but solid version of this story on the web.
Native Religious Traditions
Animistic religious beliefs
Shamanism
Mudang:
Korean Shaman
Always Female
Kut:
Korean exorcism
Ecstatic dance
Native Spiritual /
Cultural Concepts
Han
Collective burden of historic pain
Centuries of oppression
Eons of suffering

Creates a sorrow, sense of blues that is


unique to Koreans and pervades their art,
music and culture
Native
Spiritual
Concepts
Nature of the
Human Soul

Similar to China spirit resides in the environment of


its life/death.
Burial practices similar to China
Native Spiritual Concepts
Ancestor Veneration:
Chesa
Enhanced & formalized by Confucianism
Major part of civil responsibility in later
Korean history
Borrowed Religious Concepts
Daoism
Focus on nature
Fengshui
Confucianism
Buddhism

Christianity arrives late


Daoist ideas:
Symbolism of the
South Korean Flag
Center is the Korean version of the Yin-Yang
symbol
The four trigrams are:
; geon (; ) = heaven
; gon (; ) = earth
; ri (; ) = sun
; gam (; ) = moon
Fengshui (Chinese)
Pungsu (Korean)
Geomancy
Wind and Water
Used in:
Interior decorating
Architecture
City planning, etc.
5 Frog Brothers Folk tale
Confucianism
Borrowed from China
Dominant Governing Ideology
in later dynasties
Major impact on Korean Culture
Hierarchy
Ritualism and formality
Male dominance
Buddhism
Borrowed from
China
About 50 CE
Becomes
important
about 500 CE

Adopted by early dynasties


Political dominance early on
Coexists with Confucianism, Daoism and native
traditions -- usually
Christianity
Catholics enter 1774
Protestants enter 1884

Myongdong
Cathedral: Seoul

Both become politically and socially very


important
Protestants 1900 to the present
Catholics briefly about 1800 and again since 1970
(much more to come in later history discussion)

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