Premodern Korea, a Hermit Kingdom?
In this class, we will scrutinize Shultz’s article, while learning some basic theoretical terms useful to this sort of discussion. We will also exchange thoughts, examining knowledge, prejudice, and bias, as well as popular images attached to Korea. I will also provide a basic introduction to how Koreans think about their relationship with foreigners and with the trope of the Hermit Kingdom.
Read:
People
The Korean people, unlike Americans, are racially and linguistically homogeneous. Except for approximately 20,000 Chinese, no sizable indigenous minorities exist on the peninsula. While early cultural contacts with China and Japan were extensive, the Korean Peninsula’s native population remained conscious of ethnic differences and cultural distinctions. Assimilation did not occur. Half a million Koreans live in Central Asia, and two million more reside in the vast area of Manchuria. Koreans physically resemble the peoples of Manchuria and Mongolia. They have almond-shaped eyes, black hair, and relatively high cheekbones. Like other Mongolian peoples, Korean babies are born with blue spots on the lower part of the back. Koreans have maintained their distinctive cultural and ethnic identity.Connor, M. E., ed. The Koreas. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2009.
Geography
Situated in the northeastern corner of East Asia, the Korean Peninsula is bounded to the north by two giant neighbors, China and Russia. The peninsula was divided almost in half at the end of World War II in 1945, with the communist Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) occupying about 55 percent of the peninsula and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) occupying about 45 percent.The length of the Korean Peninsula is approximately 625 miles from the northern border to the southern tip and extends southward from eastern Siberia and Manchuria to within seventy miles of Japan at the peninsula’s southernmost point. While it may appear small (85,563 square miles) on a map of the Asian continent, the peninsula is half the size of California but smaller than the combined areas of England, Scotland, and Wales. It is considerably smaller than Japan (145,370 square miles). The combined population of North and South Korea is about seventy-two million, almost double that of California and more than half that of Japan. With its north-south elongation, the Korean Peninsula separates the Yellow Sea (which Koreans call the West Sea) from the Sea of Japan (which Koreans call the East Sea).
In spite of division, powerful neighbors, and periods of foreign occupation (China, the Mongols, Japan, and after World War II, the United States and Soviet Union), Korea remains essentially a homogeneous society. Koreans have an evident identity long preserved by geographic isolation and resistance, warfare, and negotiation. In spite of the turbulent events of the past century, including Japan’s thirty-five-year military occupation, one of history’s most brutal civil wars, and poverty levels ranking among the worst in the world, Koreans have not abandoned their traditional traits of warmth and generosity. Those who travel to South Korea (visitors to North Korea are severely restricted) often remark that the people are among the most responsive and friendly anywhere.
Considering the peninsula’s moderate size, the Koreas have a relatively large number of rivers and streams. These waterways played a significant role in shaping the way of life of the people and of economic development. Such cities as Seoul (South Korea’s capital) and P’yongyang (North Korea’s capital) developed along major rivers as ports. With the arrival of railroads and automobiles, the importance of rivers declined.
An important Korean river is the Imjin, which flows through both North and South Korea. The peninsula’s major rivers flow north to south or east to west and empty into the Yellow Sea or the Korean Strait. Most Korean rivers are used extensively for irrigation. Because of the seasonal variations in precipitation, rivers are shallow most of the year except for the summer rainy season. This causes a great deal of variation in hydroelectric generation as well as in water supply. Coastal and inland plains provide fertile farmland and excellent locations for cities. Over the centuries, the Korean people developed a passion for nature that was fostered by the sheer beauty of the country and four very distinct seasons.
Most of the peninsula is mountainous; the eastern range is rugged and meets the ocean suddenly, making the eastern coast a very scenic one. Few peaks on the peninsula exceed 4,000 feet; however, the highest and most sacred place on the entire peninsula is Mount Paektu (9,003 feet), which straddles the North Korean–Chinese border. For most of Korea’s history, the mountains and the sea made it more difficult for invading armies to occupy the peninsula. The mountain ranges of the Koreas run in two major directions, north to south and northeast to southwest. The ranges that stretch from north to south—the T’aebaek range in South Korea and the Nangnim range in North Korea—form the spine of the peninsula and create a watershed between the western and eastern mountain slopes.
The peninsula’s coastline is long compared to its total land area because there is so much indentation along the south and west coasts. However, the east coast has a relatively smooth coastline.
Such high peaks as Kumgangsan (North Korea) and Soraksan (South Korea) are located along the dividing ridge of the two mountain ranges and are famous for their scenic beauty. Hiking in these mountains has been a passion for the Korean people for many centuries, and both mountains remain popular tourist attractions. Kumgangsan (‘‘Diamond Mountain’’) is so named because its spectacular granite peaks glisten in the sunlight. Ancient sources reveal that this mountain has been considered a sacred place for thousands of years. Currently, Kumgangsan is one of the few places in North Korea where South Koreans can visit relatively freely. The area of Soraksan (‘‘Snowy Crags Mountain’’) is known for its magnificent high craggy peaks, lush forests, huge waterfalls, white-water rivers, and ancient temples, some of which date back to the Silla era.
The peninsula is a fairly stable land mass in spite of its proximity to Japan. The Koreas do not have active volcanoes or strong earthquakes. The volcanic Mount Paektu has been worshipped for centuries as the place of Korea’s ancestral origins. Lake Chonji (‘‘Heavenly Lake’’), one of the highest crater lakes in the world, is located at its summit.
Because the peninsula is adjacent to Japan by a short distance across the Korean Strait, its location has allowed Korean society to make contact with various civilizations throughout history. Thousands of years ago, Asian continental culture introduced Chinese characters, pottery, and Confucianism to Korea. These cultural influences were transformed and then transmitted to Japan. Today, Korea holds considerable economic and geopolitical importance in East Asia.
One cannot discuss the Korean Peninsula without mentioning the demilitarized zone (DMZ), which was created by the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement that ended the Korean War in a stalemate. The DMZ, used for border protection, extends roughly 150 miles between the Koreas and is two and a half miles wide (or six miles wide, if each country’s buffer zones are included). The two Koreas have more than one million troops who face each other across the DMZ, a territory that has seen virtually no other human activity for more than fifty years.
The DMZ has become home to many species of plants and animals. It is now an important rest stop for birds as they migrate. Rare Manchurian cranes and Siberian herons are two of the many birds that use it as a resting place. According to figures compiled by environmentalists, the DMZ is home to about 2,900 different plant species as well as about seventy different types of mammals and 320 types of birds. Visitors who come to the DMZ can see trees completely full of birds. This area crosses mountains, prairies, swamps, lakes, and tidal marshes, giving the area a wide range of biological diversity. In its role as wildlife sanctuary, the DMZ is protected as long as the conflict between the Koreas officially continues. Ironically, peace is the one thing that threatens its existence. The land’s incredible natural beauty and the fact that it is only twenty miles from Seoul could mean big profits for ambitious developers.
The Korean Peninsula sits at the vital center of East Asia, one of the world’s most strategically important and dynamic regions. The geographic outlines on the map of the Korean Peninsula will not change, but with reunification, the dividing line at the 38th parallel will be a memory and no longer a political demarcation.
Connor, M. E., ed. The Koreas. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2009.
Language
The Koreans today are one of the world’s most ethnically homogeneous peoples. In recent times there have been no significant ethnic or linguistic minorities. Ethnicity is a very difficult term to define, but language is simpler. All Koreans speak Korean as their native tongue, and all people who speak Korean as their first language identify themselves as ethnically Korean. No other language is known to have been spoken by any large group on the peninsula in recent centuries.Korean is not closely related to any other language. Most linguists classify it as related to Japanese and remotely related to the Altaic languages of Inner Asia, which include Mongolian, the Turkic languages, and the Tungusic languages such as Manchu. Korean shares a grammatical structure with Japanese and the Altaic languages. All are agglutinative, that is, one adds components to a root to form words that are often long. This linguistic relationship, if accurate, is often interpreted as meaning that the ancient ancestors of modern Koreans came from Central Asia and entered the peninsula through Manchuria, with some of them going on to occupy the Japanese archipelago. According to one current theory, the ancestral Koreans spoke Proto-Altaic, one branch of which evolved into the Tungusic languages and another into Proto-Korean-Japanese, which eventually became the modern Korean and Japanese languages. Korean shares many similarities in sentence structure with Japanese, and it is probable that the two languages are genetically related, but linguists differ on whether both languages are related to the Altaic languages. A recent linguistic theory places Korean and Japanese along with Ainu in its own language group and does not see a direct connection between this proposed Japanese-Korean-Ainu language family and those of any other. Genetic evidence lends some support for both theories. Analysis of Y-chromosome DNA suggests that at least some of the ancestors of Koreans entered from Manchuria and Northeast Asia, and that after a long period in the peninsula some of their descendants moved into Japan. The migration into Japan may have taken place 4,000 years ago. Koreans and Japanese share a cluster of genetic markers that is uncommon among other Asians. Whatever the origins of Koreans and their relations with their neighbors, in the 2,000 years of Korean history that can be supported with written records, no documented large-scale migrations of people into the peninsula took place.
Although most probably related to Japanese, the unusual sound system of Korean and most of its native vocabulary are very different. Korean consonants make a distinction between aspiration and nonaspiration, and between tense and lax sounds, but do not make phonemic distinctions between voiced and unvoiced consonants. This means that Korean has no initial b, d, hard g, or j sounds but has three p, three t, three ch, and three k sounds. This plus the complex system of sound changes makes it a difficult language for most nonnative speakers to pronounce. It is highly inflected and has no tones. Although modern Korean is filled with many Chinese loanwords, it does not resemble Chinese at all. The distinctiveness of Korean native vocabulary and phonology is a source of pride to some modern Korean nationalists who like to emphasize Korean uniqueness. For the historian it presents a linguistic puzzle, making it hard to trace Korean origins. It should be added that historians do not know much about how the language sounded before the invention of the Korean alphabet in the fifteenth century and can only guess at its structure in ancient times.
Seth, M. J. A History of Korea: From Antiquity to the Present. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2011.
Dialects
Although the Korean language is relatively homogeneous—there is mutual intelligibility among speakers from different areas—there are minor but distinct dialectal differences. The Korean Peninsula, both North and South Korea, may be divided into seven dialectal zones that correspond by and large to administrative districts:- Hamgyŏng Zone: North and South Hamgyŏng, extending to the north of Ch’ŏngp’yŏng, and Huch’ang in North P’yŏngan
- P’yŏngan Zone: North and South P’yŏngan (excluding Huch’ang)
- Central Zone: Kyŏnggi, Kangwŏn, Hwanghae, and South Hamgyŏng extending to Yŏnghŭng to the north
- Ch’ungch’ŏng Zone: North and South Ch’ungch’ŏng and Kŭmsan and Muju in North Chŏlla
- Kyŏngsang Zone: North and South Kyŏngsang
- Chŏlla Zone: North and South Chŏlla (other than Kŭmsan and Muju)
- Cheju Zone: Cheju
The dialect used by the Korean community in the Yanbian Autonomous Prefecture of China in Manchuria can be included in the Hamgyŏng Zone because it has evolved as part of the Hamgyŏng dialect due to the early immigration of Hamgyŏng people to that area and their subsequent linguistic contacts. The dialects spoken by Koreans in the other areas of China and other countries around the globe also reflect the seven dialectal zones, depending on where the speakers originally migrated from.
The major cause of the formation of the dialectal zones has been geographic, but historical and political factors have also played important roles. The characteristics of the Cheju dialect, for instance, have been shaped by its isolation from the mainland. Moreover, the two neighboring areas, Kyŏngsang and Chŏlla, manifest great differences since, in the past, there was no major transport network connecting the two zones. Historically, too, these two zones were under two different dynasties, Kyŏngsang under the Silla kingdom and Chŏlla under Paekche. Another historical factor explains the demarcation between the Hamgyŏng dialect and the Central dialect, where there is no natural barrier. During the Koryŏ and Chosŏn dynasties, the area between Chŏngp’yŏng in the Hamgyŏng Zone and Yŏnghŭng in the Central Zone was the site of constant battling between the Manchu tribes called Jurchens in the north and the Koreans in the south. After the Manchu tribes were driven north during the Chosŏn dynasty, P’yŏngan province was inhabited by people from neighboring Hwanghae, and Hamgyŏng was settled mainly by people from Kyŏngsang in the south. This explains the similarity between the P’yŏngan dialect and the Central dialect, on the one hand, and between the Hamgyŏng dialect and the Kyŏngsang dialect on the other. While influencing one another, the two northern dialects have also been affected by foreign languages such as Chinese, Tungus, Jurchen, and Russian, a fact responsible for the maturation of the P’yŏngan and Hamgyŏng dialects.
Many characteristics are unique either to each dialectal zone or to only a few zones. The general intonation patterns, utterance tempo, and sound qualities are quite different from one dialect to another. Vocabulary, word structure, sentence structure, and usage too are all slightly dissimilar.
Lee, P. H., ed. A History of Korean Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Hangeul
Hangeul (hangŭl), the Korean alphabet, was invented by the fourth king of the Joseon dynasty, King Sejong the Great (reign: 1418–1450).Confucianism in Korea
Confucianism had an especially profound impact on Korean society, forming the basis for ethical standards and for ideas about government, society, and family relationships. Confucianism was a tradition of thought in China, a dynamic tradition that evolved over the centuries. It taught that the world was a moral universe, that all humans were connected to the universe and to each other. For Koreans, it was important in that it made the family, and the roles and responsibilities of each member of the family, the foundation for morality. Each individual had the duty to adhere to his or her role as mother, father, son, daughter, elder brother, and so on. These relations were given cosmic significance. At a political level, Confucianism emphasized the importance of loyalty, hierarchy, and authority. It made obedience to a ruler a moral duty and correctly carrying out rulership a moral obligation. It also influenced the Korean concern for social rank. Koreans viewed the world as a hierarchical order in which everyone has a place. The young were subordinate to their elders, women to men, commoners to members of the upper class, and subjects to the ruler. Yet in each of these relations both were bound by moral obligations.
Seth, M. J. A History of Korea: From Antiquity to the Present. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2011.
Buddhism in Korea
Missionaries from China and Central Asia introduced Buddhism to Korea. For much of its history, Korea was a Buddhist land. Millions of Koreans are still adherents of Buddhism, which until recently has been the most influential religious tradition in Korea. Buddhism originated in India, from where it spread throughout most of Asia, coming to Korea via China. When it reached Korea it had absorbed a number of Chinese and other Asian traditions. Buddhism had a profound impact on Korean art, music, and literature. Buddhism inspired the earliest sculptures and the first monumental architecture other than tombs, and importantly, its missionaries brought literacy. It included the idea of reincarnation, that the suffering in life is inevitable, but escape from the cycle of births and rebirths is possible. For many Koreans, it meant a hope for a future life of bliss through faith in the Buddha. It also taught a respect for all forms of life. Buddhist practices of meditation and the escape from daily concerns that temples provided were an important outlet for those who found the obligations and pressures of everyday life too much.Seth, M. J. A History of Korea: From Antiquity to the Present. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2011.
