One thing that really gets my goat in Korea is their hatred of Japan. I jokingly told one student that an island in the distance was Japan. Her reply was "NO!!! Not Japan! I hate Japan!!" She was maybe 10 years old.
In 1910 Japan annexed Korea and while not being very kind, they did modernize the Hermit Kingdom and much of Korean modern life is loosely based on Japan's influence. Korea was finally freed after the Allies forced Japan to surrender.
South Korea recently published a book(s) on those who collaborated with the Japanese during the occupation and are now trying to punish those or their next of kin for what they did. Japan Probe (whose writing is better and more thought out than mine) has some interesting things to say about it. My big question is if they are going to punish the chaebols like Samsung whose founder has also been named.
Here are some school sponsored drawing by children showing their hatred of Japan.
2 comments:
Japan did not "modernize" Korea. It actually destroyed a lot of the natural environment as documented in photographs in Japanese Shinto monks driving stakes in the mountains. A lot of the modernization came as a result of Park Chung Hee and his leadership. Are there Japanese influences in Korea? Sure, but not because Japan developed it. Korea looked to Japan and studied how it industrialized, so I guess you can say that Korea tried to copy Japan. It's so easy to criticize when you really don't know much about what you're talking about. You really can't speak about Korean history as it is OBVIOUS that you have not done your research.
I have done my research and what I have found is that a lot of experts can't agree weather Japan was good or bad for Korea, so I doubt you and I will see eye to eye either.
I'm curious about these stakes that you're talking about. Do you have any information on them?
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