“Technical analysis.” – Ben Kim

Unfortunately, it is wrong. He was wrong. What does he have to do with the country that he never experienced/lived after middle school?

Before the Japanese colonization, Korea was living under Josun dynasty. There was a king and a number of noble families. They took control of everything. They didn’t want its citizens to learn, to become literate. They pushed the agenda over the whole country to block the Western influence (especially Japanese influence.)

In the mid 17th century, when the orders of the world were swiftly changing, Korean nobles were occupied with their aristocrat feeling-good supremacy. They pushed what’s called today a propaganda. They did not want citizens to know the Western culture. Because they were afraid that they’d be thrown down. It was always a love for the own country forced by the false patriotism, supported by the mass media.

Like… while we did not lose tradition, we lost an opportunity to become a global penetrator. The imperialist. The thugs of the world. The first rank of the world orders in the universe. And what did the Koreans do until being forcefully subjugated to become a colony of Japan? The king ruling the whole country and not caring if the peasants were dying of starvation. And the king telling his people that the West wears short haired style and a suit where the people of Josun used to believe that they were not supposed to cut their hair and just reserve everything that was inherited by their former generations. And their traditions to wear a hand crafted (not sure what the exact term is) traditional clothes.

Going Western was considered ‘going against’ the tradition and made people scared of losing their heritage which did not even care about them in reciprocal. It sounded ‘right.’ But in practice, just an agricultural society where nobles rule, tax the citizens and steal hard earned work (rice and other agricultural crops.) Whereas in the West, machination was introduced and pumping out massive distribution of food under commercialization. And it enriched the overall population.

And the Korean people just thought it sounded ‘right’ to keep the tradition. If Josun was not conquered, isn’t it pretty clear that in the modern society, we normal Koreans would be just subject to the caste system just like the current India? (If Josen, its sovereignty, had not been violently demolished by the Japanese and kept its tradition implemented in the modern society today.)