Korea’s Convenient Invasion Myths
The article I present below is rather critical of Koreans’ victim mentality, and while it may not portray Koreans negatively per se, it certainly doesn’t speak well for their critical-thinking skills. Coming on top of my last post that argued that Koreans’ upbringing leaves them very shy and almost child-like in their first dealings with the opposite sex in their twenties and even thirties, then newcomers to the blog can be forgiven for thinking I’m a bit of a Korea-basher, but before you comment to that effect, please spend a few more minutes perusing the rest of the blog. If you clearly haven’t, then your comments will promptly be deleted.
Maybe. As I’m still a blog adolescent as I write this, then I’m naturally feeling a little cocky and kind of welcome the challenge of my first trolls, and I’m all for a Korean-studies style pissing contest after spending my entire waking hours during the last 96 hours researching and writing about Northeast Asia for my exam.
But seriously though, I’m surprised that despite my last post’s provocative title, it hasn’t attracted a single negative comment yet; perhaps that just reflects how old the videos are? So I warn you in advance, today’s article is also about a year old, but even though it’s undoubtedly less well-known than the videos on dating, it should be much better known, and is surely much more controversial. For me personally it was a revelation when I first read it, and I would have posted it on the blog much earlier but for not being able to remembering the title or author, and I only come across an old printout by accident yesterday while turning my bedroom upside down looking for some notes for my exam!
Once I knew it, I was surprised to find that the article was only still available here (See? I told you TomCoyner’s site was good!). Personally I don’t think much of blogs that merely cut and paste articles from internet newspapers, and so I don’t always cut and past things myself if a link is available…no, really…but as I genuinely think that this article deserves to be much more widely read, then I can’t leave it to exist on just one webpage. After all, some links of mine on this site are already dead, and there’s always the possibility that a meteor will hit TomCoyner’s server in the near future, so without any further ado let me do my bit to make the world (and especially Korea) a better place by posting the full article here also, and even more importantly shutting up and letting you read it:
War of Details
Andrei Lankov, Korea Times, August 31 2006.
Every foreign resident of Korea is exposed to a number of habitual Korean statements, which reflect Korean ideas about themselves and their nation. Many of these beliefs are true, some are not so well founded, while others are strange — like, say, the well-known tendency of Koreans to boast that their country “has four distinct seasons” as if this is something unusual and unknown to most other countries of the globe.
One such oft-repeated statement is that Korea has always suffered invasions and wars. Koreans often say, “Our history has been tragic, for centuries we have been invaded by powerful enemies and suffered in their hands greatly.” Every visitor to Korea is bound to hear such a remark sooner or later, and most people tend to take it at face value. This statement might correctly describe Korean history of the last one hundred years, but it is hardly applicable to earlier eras.
Well, let’s have a look at the Choson Dynasty period, from 1392 to 1910. The last four decades of these five centuries were turbulent indeed, but what about earlier times? Even a cursory look demonstrates that it was hardly a “time of troubles.” Throughout 1392-1865, Korea fought three wars against foreign invaders, not including some minor border skirmishes with nomads in the north, and Japanese pirates on the coasts. In one case, the war with Japan from 1592-1598, known as “Hideyoshi’s invasion” in the West, and as the “Imjin War” in Korea, was disastrous and the entire country was devastated. As you know, the medieval armies, all those “knights in shining armor,” were not too nice when they encountered the civilian population. The two other conflicts, of 1627 and of 1636, were of much smaller scale — essentially, two blitzkriegs brilliantly executed by Manchu generals whose cavalry units broke through Korean defenses, approached Seoul, and forced the Korean government to agree to an unfavorable peace.
Let’s compare this with the fate of more or less every European country. Throughout the same period of 1392-1865, almost every country in Europe fought a much greater number of conflicts, and suffered much greater casualties. Let’s have a look at German history. The period under consideration is marked by at least four major military conflicts, each lasting for one or several decades, and resulting in mass death and destruction: the Reformation Wars, the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), the Prussian campaigns of the mid-18th century and the Napoleonic wars. And these are only large-scale wars, each being as significant and bloody as Korea’s war with Japan in 1592-1598 (in all probability, all these conflicts were more destructive than the “Hideyoshi invasion”). Apart from these, there were a number of smaller conflicts, many of which were not small at all– like the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), or the chain of conflicts that accompanied German unification in the 1850s and 1860s. And, of course, there were countless quarrels between the mini-states which formed the Germany of the era, each such quarrel being a military conflict on its own right, far exceeding Korea’s occasional skirmishes with Japanese raiders.
Is Germany an exception? By no means. This is the fairly typical history of any European country, and against such a background Korean history appears rather quiet. Rather than being a country with a uniquely turbulent history, Korea actually was a country, which enjoyed stability undreamed of in most other parts of the world!
The same is true in regard to domestic policy. Of course, old Korea had its own share of court conspiracies, poisoned dignitaries, and scheming royal concubines. But throughout the same period of 470 years, only two Korean kings were actually overthrown (and in one case the life of the ex-sovereign was spared — an almost unthinkable leniency by the standard of medieval Europe or the Middle East!). There were two unsuccessful gentry revolts, each lasting for but a few weeks, one peasant uprising on moderate scale, some local disturbances, a bit of banditry — and that’s all! Once again, in comparison with France (at least a dozen major revolts, revolutions, and civil wars), Germany, or even relatively peaceful England demonstrates that Korea was indeed a very secure and stable place.
Suffice to say that the Korean army for most of the period had about ten thousand soldiers on active duty — a very small army for a country with population of some ten million. The armed forces were increased when the government faced a perceived security threat, but for most of this long period the Korean army was essentially a police force, sufficient to fight bandits, patrol borders, restore order in some villages, and ensure the personal security of the king. So much for the talk of the permanent invasions Korea allegedly faced: a country, which lives under threat, does not have such a small army.
But why did such a view develop? There might be few reasons, but I suspect that Korean intellectuals of the 1950s or 1960s were shocked by the turbulent nature of the last hundred years of Korea history (to be more precise, the period between 1865 and 1960). This came as a sharp contrast to the tranquility and predictability of earlier times. This shock made Koreans believe that their history has always been that difficult and hard. And, of course, Korean nationalists used these feelings for their own gains. But this is another story…
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An interesting article.
My comment deals with the lead in more than the article: Why would you want to delete comments that you don’t agree with? I’ll take any comment over at mine. Sometimes the jackasses spice it up a bit. Whatever the case, they’re just some words in cyberspace…
Tharp42, sorry if you notice the article has changed a little since you wrote your comment. As I wrote it at 3am, just after finishing my exam, I decided to edit it in the cold light of day, and was in the middle of it when your comment came in! But I think it still applies though.
This article reminds me of a joke about Scousers that would be apt when adapted to Koreans:
Q. What is the difference between a cow and a tragedy?
A. A Korean wouldn’t know how to milk a cow.
Has Lankov ever actually followed up on any of his “but that’s another story…” hooks? On the one hand, it’s impressive that he’s found some 500 or so stories, but dang, I wish he’d write a sequel now and then.
Interesting article. However the author may have missed a few details in his research. First of all, when Koreans talk about wars and powerful enemies along with conflict and strife this is not limited to say the Japanese invasion of the late 16th century.
If you read a few history books you will see that Korea was forced to participate in two invasion attempts of Japan by the Mongols. You will also see it was of course invaded by Japan.
It was also in a state of near constant war during the tree kingdoms era (Koguryo, Silla and Pakchea). It warred with China a few times as dynasties changed there.
Korea is just situated in a bad strategic spot. Much like Poland in Europe, Korea lies in the invasion path and between larger more powerful states (China, Japan).
You can also ad the Japanese invasion of the early 20th century, colonization (brutal in many respects), being split up at the end of WWII by the allies and then suffering a devastating civil war.
I would say this qualifies as strife, suffering and war.
Stevie, sorry, but I still don’t get the joke!
Patrick, I completely agree that Lankov’s focus is narrow, and that Korea’s geographical position has made it something to be fought over by its much more powerful neighbours for much of its history, although I think your Polish anlalogy is a little inaccurate. From what I remember of my European history the Polish Kingdoms were often rather large, and hence the analogy of the “Battlefield Europe” of pre-1871 German states might be more appropriate. But I may be wrong, and regardless your point is valid.
Personally I find Lankov’s article to be most valid in that he raises the issue AT ALL. I have in my own mind often found Korean defensiveness and mistrust of foreigners as natural in view of its history, but Lankov demonstrates that while Europe does still have problems with “foreigners” of course, these are nothing like the xenophobia and black-and-white world view that most Koreans still have.
Europe today demonstrates that such views are NOT the natural result of a history of being invaded, and so I think the reasons that Koreans are like this is much more because of the prominence of blood-based rather than civic notions of citiizenship becoming prominent in the early 20th Century (see the Ethnic Nationalism book in my Book list on the right), and then Park-Chung Hee’s military dictatorship legitimacy relying heavily on being able to provide that economic development and military security to deal with the perceived threat from NK and China in the 1960s (remember that the North Korean economy was better than the Southern one then). It is not unreasonable to suppose that academic notions of Korean’s victimhood would have been encouraged by the state then, and this is what Koreans today have grown up with.
Finally, another important point in that book is that despite their vitriolic rhetoric North Korean citizens have NEVER been portrayed as evil and/or the enemy by South Korean governments…(or vice-versa) merely the communist leadership. Other factors certainly have a role in young Koreans’ present anti-Americanism of course, but this just goes to show how firmly blood-based nationalism took root in both Koreas before the wars and survived in both despite radically different state ideologies.
I am very sceptical with a comparison with Europe, cause of lack of empirical data about how live was in Europe and Korea back then. Historical records are almoust not about the majority but about the upper class and their politics. When do you see children playing as a theme in mediaval art? If one goes down to a single region in Europe history becomes very complicated even in Middle Europe during the 30 years war. Historians said it changed the German mind set.
But. I am from Osnabrück a quite big city during mediaval times. It became an independent city de facto inside the empire where hundreds of other cities reached the same level of self governance. Osnabrück had for hundred of years an own constitution until Napoleon times. Ones before 1500 Osnabrück was under “Reichsacht” that ment that any citizens of the city could be send to prison if he crossed the city wall. The 30 years war did not bring destruction of the city but a lot of emmigration cause of confessional reason. On the farmers land outside the city where the majority lived things were different. But records are rare. And so.
Friesian Farmers were mostly independent through all the centuries whereas other regions had a lot of servant classes and burden to give contribution to the noble. The Frisians should be the most satisfied people in the region, are they? So, how was live 1200, 1300… 1800? We do not know excactly, certainly more difficult cause of the wet and cold climate North of the Alps than Korea. In November in Korea you can still sit in the sun or work with light closes on. In Middle and Northern Europe you would catch a severe cold. How was the harvest ratio in Korea? In medieval times in Germany it was 1:3, later 1:5 or higher. This is very low, it makes you dependent on the seasonal weather( The result what you get from seeding). Very important data I guess. Did it change in Korea when and on which level? Then the religous feelings. Very often there was the expectation that the end of world has begun. In Europe. The Apocalypse scene was popular. But did it effect daily life that much?
Thanks for the thought provoking response to my comments!
I think you make a valid point with blood-based nationalism playing a big part. It does, to a point, dictate national outlook and may indeed fuel xenophobia to some extent.
The comparison I made with Poland was merely geographical, in the sense that Poland was trampled over by Germany and Russia on more than one occasion as it stood on the highway to invasion. There are no real basis for cultural comparisions however!
The “victimhood” you discuss and that is discussed in the article is a valid discussion point as well. The government used it and that is to be expected as governments use these things when they can. You can also ascribe the policy used by the government to the political and military context of Korea in its past and even in very recent history. The Korean war was a bitter civil war and governments on each side of the 38th parallel used propaganda to bolster their respective regimes. This is an age-old tactic used by governments from Ceasar to today (look at how the bush administration used 9/11 in the States!). This will indeed affect the citizens perception of things.
However, the history is still there and Koreans today carry that with them to some extent. They are in a country that had to fight for survival for most of its history by making alliances or other means due to its geo-strategical placement and size.
This does not mean Koreans have the monopoly on turbulant history, strife or hardship. But, when you consider their history and location you can understand that a feeling of pride may be there and that they victimhood factor will play a part (a justifiable part in some respects).
Anyway, good discussion!
Patrick said:
‘The “victimhood” you discuss and that is discussed in the article is a valid discussion point as well. The government used it and that is to be expected as governments use these things when they can.’
There are parallels in German history. For example the victimhood through the Romans. It became a big issue when the “”2. Reich” was founded 1870/71. For hundred of years this episode has beeen almoust forgotten until they discovered the Roman (!) historian Tacitus. Imagine, German natonalists viewed themself through a “foreign” historian who came from the enemy side.
Anyway to keep things short. Living in Onabrück over 500 (!) years the election of the city mayor was he most important day throughout the year beside the religious sacred days like Eastern. The election of the emperor hasd been to far away to have a similar important meaning. You could take any other of the hundreds of nearly independent states as example instaad. But this changed 1871 when the birthday of the emperor became important to everyone. That was something new! I guess the Koreans have through the konfuzian schools more continuity in history telling. I mean the comparable year of 1871, the building of a modern national state in Germany with the sense of beeing one nation has its beginning/roots in Korea much earlier. But I am not sure about the consequenzes.
The constructed victimhood (see also conquest through Napoleon) of Germans after 1871 gave them enough energy to start two world wars in the row where the Koreans felt victim.
And here I have to correct myself, cause we are victim by our own constructed history.
After 1871 not everyone celebrated the birthday of the German emperor, the heart of the old “Reich”, Vienna, Austria, was cut off of the “German” history line, that never really existed as one line.
This is the thing. Lots of older Quebecois have a strong sense of victimhood that is to some degree understandable — after all, according to my mother, my French-Canadian grandpa had to deal with some bloody non-bilingual anglo government employee if he wanted to pay a parking ticket — but at the same time, I didn’t see so much of this sense of victimhood in younger Montrealers.
I don’t know if there was a change in the curriculum, or what, but younger Quebecois are angry about laws that keep their kids from English-immersion schools, as they figure bilingual kids have more opportunities in the future; English education out there is more about benefits, but the laws and older generation’s conception of it is about cultural erosion, deracination, assimilation, and victimhood. To be sure, some people cling to an identity based on victimhood, but the dream of sovereignty is already rusty and falling apart in favor of more rational views of how to approach Quebec’s problems. I imagine a generation from now, the identity of victimhood might be very archaic.
Whereas I get the impression in Korea that this is one of those things kids are taught by rote in school, at an age where they’re neither equipped nor likely to critically analyze it. (Sort of like how it’s a point of pride that Korea has 4 seasons, which is a “fact” as oft-repeated as Korea’s historical victimhood.)
All of which I reply to with the fact that most humans in most societies have been victims of their elites, a situation that continues to this day in most societies, and most certainly exists to some degree here. Elites love to distract us with the feeling the bad guys are on the other side of the invisible line on the ground. The more we buy into that, the more was tacitly support the elites who are f*cking us.
All of this reminds me of the fact that you’d probably get some good mileage out of John Ralston Saul’s Reflections of a Siamese Twin, which, while it’s about Canadian political and cultural history, has a long discussion of negative nationalism in Canadian (especially contemporary, consciously “postcolonial” French-Canadian) politics that is absolutely applicable to elements of Korean nationalism. If you’re interested, let me know. The book’s sitting on my office shelf, and I could loan it to you.
Why are people so attracted to the idea that life is beyond their control? Look at the popularity of conspiracy theories, belief in fate and destiny, and of course victim-based nationalism. In the US conservatives bleat on about how overpowered they are by liberalism, never mind that they’ve had the presidency for 6 years and both houses of Congress for most of the last 7. What really accounts for this tendency?
I came across this site while looking up info about foreign invaders of Korea. I will say this, (disclosure notice: I am Korean-Am) as far as I know, Korea was never the initiator of invasions. At various times, Korea was invaded by Japan trying to get to China, China trying to get to Japan, and I believe possibly Russia as well. But never did Korea mobilize its own forces with plans on conquering Japan, or China or Russia. I think that is the main difference when you compare it to countries in Europe. In Europe there appeared to be more of a balance of power — at times certain times, some countries were up while others were down, but at various times throughout Europe’s history, everyone at some point had an empire, including the Spanish, the British, the French, the Germans and the apparently the Poles too. The only country you could sort of make a comparison of Korea to in Europe is Ireland because it is a smaller country and was constantly being invaded and occupied by the English. Now imagine Ireland, instead of being adjacent to Britain, located smack dab in the the middle of the English, the Germans and the Ottomans, and bam, you have Korea.
Jimmy,
thanks for your comment. Without rereading the post and all the other comments again (sorry, it’s a little old, and there’s a lot of them), I’d have to admit that you have a point, although the main message I was trying to get across was that the number of invasions of Korea has been grossly exaggerated by Koreans. But I still think Germany is a better European equivalent than Ireland. Certainly it did invade other countries after it unified in the 1860s, but before that it was definitely the “battlefield of Europe” which other European powers fought over and in for millennia. And it’s difficult to describe it’s minimal and short-lived colonies after unification as an “empire” too.
If I wanted to be even pickier, I’d count the Three Kingdoms Period and earlier as evidence of invasions by Koreans, as despite what most Koreans think I regard Gaya, Baekje, Silla and Goguryeo and so on as quite separate kingdoms and cultures, united by little more than language, and that’s certainly how the subjects of each considered themselves too.
I would like to mention that Korea as a country or nation is much different than many nations in Europe. As a country on a peninsula it makes it hard to invade, unless you invade by sea like the Japanese or have access to the country from the top of the peninsula like China or Russia. Since both China and Korea for the most part shunned contact with other cultures, then any conversation about this subject makes it completely different from Europe.
You see unlike Germany, England, and France, Korea was not trying to conguer a lot of other countries. For korea, taking over China and maybe the Mongols, would have been a little on the Absurd side.
So the entire premise of your arguments is a little absurd. In many cases the European countries had many wars because they were constantly trying to take each other over.
However, unlike Korea, and China, most European countries have not been so completely colonized, and systematically had all of their resources stolen like in the case of Korea. All of the trees were chopped down, their waters over-fished,their women turned into sex slaves, their crops stolen, their men consctipted and taken to Japan, Many of wich were killed when the two nuclear bombs blew up.
This post was wonderfully astute. I am a westerner (sort of-South American father and Kiwi mother, growing up in Arizona, in a town mainly dominated by Mexican immigrants. God knows how you group that into an ethnic background) who grew up in the Unification Church, a movement originating in Korea. Throughout my life, over and over, the heaping of historic injustice Koreans have faced has been constantly reiterated. It never occurred to me to question the point.
Those who argue that Europeans alternated between conquering and invading don’t have a very clear grasp of European history, and are only looking at the major players taught to us in American (sorry if you didn’t grow up in the states, just ignore my sweeping generalization) schools, namely Spain, England, France and Germany. Try taking a look at Bosnia, Latvia and Estonia, for starters.
Or, moving away from Europe, but not from European invasion, look at the Native Americans. While the many tribes don’t represent a unified country, such as Korea, I live in a State where many Native American people were dumped, or confined within (if they were already living on the land) reservations. Many people still live on the reservations – often lacking electricity or other basic commodities even today.
At my university I was in a Southwestern Native American Arts class, and its surprising how little victimization is mentioned (I mean REALLY, Native Americans in the states STILL receive shit treatment) but instead there is an emphasis on building nation relations (yes, Native Americans are considered a separate nation) and improving Native communities.
I found this post very helpful. It gave me a different view on a subject I had considered a fact of life. Thanks.
You’re welcome Amy, although technically you should say the “article” and not the “post”: in this case I was merely the messenger!
I don’t have much to add sorry, but if you’re further interested in the origins of the “invasion myth,” and the ways in which it has been used and exploited in modern Korea, then I highly recommend reading Ethnic Nationalism in Korea: Genealogy, Politics and Legacy by Gi-Wook Shin (2006). Scholarly but still very readable, I learned so much about Korea from it that I could easilydevote several months of blog posts to it!