South Korean
Alternative Names
Republic of Korea; Corean, Han'guk, Taehan, Taehanmin'guk
Orientation
Identification. Koryo (918–1392) and Choson (1392–1910) have been the remaining two Korean dynasties. Korean immigrants and their descendants in Russia, China, and Japan use the names of these dynasties as a reference for their ethnicity. Despite the ongoing use of Choson as a self-name in North Korea, the Japanese convention of relating to the Korean nation through that name (stated Chosen in Japanese) may be offensive to South Koreans because of its evocation of Japanese colonization of the nation (1910–1945).
Koreans proportion a not unusual way of life, but a experience of regionalism exists among northerners and southerners and among southeasterners and southwesterners in phrases of customs and perceived character characteristics. Some advise that this regionalism dates returned to Three Kingdoms of Koguryo (37 B.C.E. –668 C.E. ), Silla (57 B.C.E. –935 C.E. ), and Paekche (18 B.C.E. –660 C.E. ). In South Korea politicized regionalism has emerged between the southeastern (Kyongsang Province) and southwestern regions (Cholla Province) for the reason that overdue 1960s because of an uneven pattern of improvement that blessings people in the southeast.
Location and Geography. South Korea occupies the southern half of the Korean peninsula, which protrudes approximately 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) southward from the Eurasian landmass between Soviet Siberia in the northeast and Chinese Manchuria to the north. About three thousand islands belong to Korea, amongst which the Province of Cheju Island is the biggest. The general location of the peninsula, along with the islands, is about eighty five,000 rectangular miles (222,000 square kilometers), of which approximately 45 percentage or about 38,000 rectangular miles (99,000 square kilometers) constitutes the territory of South Korea.
Geopolitically, the peninsula is surrounded on three aspects via the sea and by using Russia, China, and Japan. Korea has suffered from the tries of these neighboring nations to dominate it, especially in the twentieth century. Each of them considers Korea to be of major significance to its own security, and seeing that 1945 the USA has had a primary protection interest in the kingdom. The peninsula was divided on the thirty eighth Parallel in an agreement among the United States and the Soviet Union on the quit of the World War II. Subsequently, the Military Demarcation Line mounted by the Armistice Agreement of 1953 to deliver a quit-fireplace to the Korean War (1950–1953) replaced the boundary. A 2.Five-mile (four-kilometer) wide strip of land that runs along the end-fire line for about one hundred fifty miles (241 kilometers) is fixed at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) as the no man's land among North Korea and South Korea.
Korea is mountainous, and only about 20 percent of the land within the south is flat sufficient for farming. Seoul, the capital, is inside the northwestern a part of the united states at the Han River, which flows closer to the Yellow Sea. Seoul changed into first mounted as the walled capital of the Choson Dynasty in 1394. Before Japan colonized Korea in 1910, Seoul become the first town in east Asia to have strength, trolley vehicles, a water system, phones, and telegraphs. Seoul has grown right into a town of greater than ten million citizens. The palaces, shrines, and different vestiges of the Choson Dynasty are still distinguished capabilities of the city north of the Han River, serving as fundamental traveller points of interest. In the previous couple of decades, the place south of the Han River has built modern commercial centers and high-rise condo.
Demography. In 1997, the populace become forty five.Nine million, with 1,two hundred humans consistent with rectangular mile (463 individuals in line with square kilometer). Since the mid-1980s, when Korea stabilized at a low level of fertility, remarkably excessive sex ratios at beginning have resulted from son-selective reproductive behaviors including prenatal sex screening and intercourse-selective abortion. Another great demographic trend is the growing ratio of the elderly: the 1997 census discovered that 6.Three percent of the whole population was 65 years of age or older.
Linguistic Affiliation. About seventy million humans communicate Korean. Most live at the peninsula, but greater than five million live across the globe. Korean is considered a part of the Tungusic branch of the Altaic group of the Ural-Altaic language circle of relatives. It additionally has a close courting to Japanese in general structure, grammar, and vocabulary. The shape of Korean spoken around Seoul is regarded as standard. Major dialects differ particularly in accent and intonation. Except for vintage Cheju dialect, all are mutually intelligible.
Koreans fee their local tongue and their alphabet, han'gul , which become invented inside the mid-15th century. Until then, Korea's aristocratic society used Chinese characters, while the government and people used the writing gadget known as idu (a transcription gadget of Korean phrases invented within the eighth century through Silla pupils the use of Chinese characters). The Chinese writing device calls for a fundamental knowledge of numerous thousand characters. Commoners who did not have the time or way to master Chinese couldn't examine or write. Moreover, it is tough to explicit spoken Korean in Chinese characters.
Considering the frustrating scenario of mass illiteracy and afflicted by using the incongruity between spoken Korean and Chinese ideographs, King Sejong (1397–1450), the fourth ruler (1418–1450) of the Choson Dynasty, commissioned a collection of students to devise a phonetic writing machine that would represent the sounds of spoken Korean and could be found out via all the people. The end result turned into Hunmin Chong'um ("the Correct Sounds to Teach the People"), or han'gul , as it is known as today. The gadget became created in 1443 and promulgated in 1446. South Koreans look at Han'gul Day on 9 October with a ceremony at King Sejong's tomb.
Han'gul is easy to study since each letter corresponds to a phoneme, and Korea now has one of the maximum literacy costs inside the global. UNESCO set up the King Sejong Literacy Prize in 1988 and gives it annually to an person or institution that contributes to the eradication of illiteracy international.
Symbolism. The countrywide flag, T'aegukki , is a completely unique image. The flag of T'aeguk ("Supreme Ultimate"), symbolizes the simple ideas of east Asian cosmology shared by the peoples within the Chinese subculture place. In the center of a white heritage is a circle divided horizontally in by means of an S-formed line. The top component in pink represents the yang , and the decrease component in blue symbolizes the um ( yin in Chinese), depicting the yinyang precept of a universe in best balance and harmony. The vital symbolism inside the T'aeguk shape is that while there is a steady movement of opposites within the universe (day and night, exact and evil, masculinity and femininity), there is also stability. The four trigrams at the corners of the flag additionally specific the ideas of opposites and stability. The three unbroken traces within the upper left nook constitute heaven while the 3 damaged strains placed diagonally in the lower right nook represent the earth. The trigram within the upper right corner represents water, at the same time as the one located diagonally at the decrease left nook represents fire.
In evaluation to the cosmological symbolism within the flag, the national anthem, Aegukka , conjures a experience of the national identification of the Taehan people by means of making territorial references to the East Sea (Sea of Japan), Paektusan ("White Head Mountain," on the northern border with China), and the stunning land of mugunghwa (the rose of Sharon, the countrywide flower). The word samch'ol-li kangsan ("three-thousand-li land of range and river"), which is covered inside the national anthem, refers back to the country wide territory.
The phrase han p'it-chul ("one bloodline") regularly is used by Koreans at home and overseas to represent their shared identity as the members of a homogeneous country. Blood and territory as a consequence are the most often invoked metaphors associated with the kingdom.
National days of party consist of Liberation Day ( Kwangbokchol ) on 15 August and National Foundation Day ( Kaech'onjol ) on 3 October. Kwangbokchol (the Day of Recovering the Light) celebrates the country's liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945. Kaech'onjol (Heaven Opening Day) commemorates the founding of the primary Korean country, KoChoson, by means of the mythical priest-king Tan'gun Wanggom.
History and Ethnic Relations
Emergence of the Nation. The Korean peninsula has been inhabited for more than half 1,000,000 years, and a Neolithic culture emerged around 6,000 B.C.E. The mythical beginning date of the Korean humans is said to be 2333 B.C.E. , whilst Tan'gun established the kingdom of Choson ("Morning Freshness," often translated as the "Land of Morning Calm") around latest P'yongyang. To distinguish it from the later Choson Dynasty, it's miles now called Ko ("Old") Choson.
In the legend, Tan'gun was born of a divine father, Hwan-ung, a son of the heavenly king, and a lady who had been transformed from a endure. The undergo and a tiger had pleaded with Hwan-ung to transform them into humans. Only the bear executed the transformation via following Hwanung's instructions, which protected 100-day seclusion to avoid sunlight and the ingestion of a group of mugwort ( ssuk ) and twenty portions of garlic. This bear became lady then married Hwan-ung, and their offspring become Tan'gun. A current interpretation of the undergo girl is that she came from a endure totem tribe.
The Old Choson length is split into the Tan'gun, Kija, and Wiman durations. Shortly after the fall of Wiman Choson in 108 B.C.E. And the status quo of Chinese army manipulate inside the north, the Three Kingdoms (Silla, Koguryo, and Paekche) duration started. In 668, Silla unified the Three Kingdoms. Silla's decline within the overdue ninth century brought about the rise of Later Paekche and Later Koguryo. Wang Kon, who mounted the Koryo Dynasty, subsequently reunified the state. A collection of Mongol invasions that began in 1231 devastated the usa inside the 13th and fourteenth centuries. General Yi Song-gye overthrew Koryo and installed the Choson Dynasty in 1392. Despite invasions by way of Japan and Manchu (Qing) inside the 16th and 17th centuries, respectively, Choson endured for more than 5 centuries until 1910, whilst Japan colonized the country for 3 and a 1/2 decades.
National Identity. Before the 1945 countrywide department of the peninsula and the following establishment of the two political regimes of North and South Korea in 1948, Koreans identified themselves because the people of Choson. Tan'gun as the founding ancestor has had a symbolic which means for Koreans all through the kingdom's records. A temple erected in Tan'gun's honor in 1429 stood in P'yongyang till its destruction at some point of the Korean War. In 1993, North Korea announced the discovery of Tan'gun's tomb and a few stays of his skeleton at a site near P'yongyang. Some Korean calendars nonetheless print the Year of Tan'gun ( Tan'gi ) at the side of the Gregorian calendar yr, which the South Korean authorities formally followed in 1962.
Ethnic Relations. Korea is one of the few international locations in which ethnicity and nationality coincide. The simplest immigrant ethnic minority institution is a Chinese community of about 20,000 this is focused especially in Seoul and has existed for the reason that late 19th century.
Urbanism, Architecture, and the Use of Space
Traditionally, dwellings with thatched roofs and houses with clay-tile roofs symbolized rural—urban in addition to decrease-class—higher-elegance differences. The traditional houses of yangban (gentry) households were divided via walls into ladies's quarters ( anch'ae ), guys's quarters ( sarangch'ae ), and servants' quarters ( haengnangch'ae ), reflecting the Confucian guidelines of gender segregation and standing discrimination among the yangban and their servants inside the social hierarchy of the Choson Dynasty. Western architecture was brought in the nineteenth century. The Gothic-style Myongdong Cathedral (1898) is a prominent instance of the earliest Western architecture in Seoul.
As part of government-sponsored rural development projects since the late 1960s, thatched-roof houses in rural regions have ordinarily been changed via concrete systems with a ramification of brightly colored slate roofs. The tile-roofed traditional city residential homes have additionally end up nearly extinct, partly because of the ravages of the Korean War and the frenzy toward modernization and improvement. Now a extensive variety of architectural patterns coexists. For instance, the Toksu Palace of the Choson Dynasty constructed inside the traditional style, the Romanesque Seoul City Hall built at some point of Japanese rule, and modem excessive-rise luxury hotels can all be visible from City Hall Plaza in downtown Seoul.
According to the 1995 country wide census, approximately 88 percent of the populace lives in city regions. Lack of land for creation and adjustments in humans's lifestyle have blended to make condominium flats the dominant housing kind in city regions. Close to 1/2 the city populace consists of apartment dwellers, however the bedrooms in most condos nonetheless characteristic the ondol floor gadget. Traditional ondol floors were heated with the aid of channeling heat air and smoke thru a device of under-the-floor flues from an outside hearth. Those floors commonly have been product of large pieces of flat stone tightly covered with several square-backyard-size portions of lacquered paper in light golden brown to offer an aesthetically pleasing floor and save you gas and smoke from coming into the room.
Customarily, the "decrease give up" of the room ( araemmok ), that is the closest to the supply of heat, turned into reserved for honored guests and the senior participants of the family, at the same time as people of decrease social fame occupied the "upper quit" ( ummok ), farthest from the source of warmth and near the door. This standard exercise reflected the social hierarchy. This distinction does no longer exist within the modern-day residences because the heating gadget is centrally managed.
Food and Economy
Food in Daily Life. The rapid modifications in existence that have followed monetary development since the 1960s have changed the traditional pattern of ingesting rice at every meal. Some urbanites may additionally consume toast, eggs, and milk for breakfast, using a fork and knife. Nonetheless, for many people a bowl of steamed white rice, a soybean-paste vegetable soup, and a dish of kimch'I might also still constitute the simple everyday meal, to which steamed or pro vegetables, fish, meats, and other ingredients can be delivered as facet dishes ( panch'an ). Many human beings eat at a low table while sitting on the ondol floor, the use of a spoon and chopsticks.
Kimch'I is the country wide dish. It is a pungent, often warm, mixture of fermented and/or pickled greens. Almost any vegetable can be fermented to make kimch'I, however Chinese cabbage and daikon radishes are the maximum usually used. As part of the country wide diet for hundreds of years, it has many variations relying on the vicinity, season, event, and personal taste of the prepare dinner. Kimch'I has lengthy been the check of a housewife's culinary abilities and a circle of relatives subculture. A South Korean consumes an average of 40 kilos (eighteen kilograms) of kimch'I a yr. Many agencies produce kimch'I for both domestic consumption and export.
Meat dishes including pulgogi (barbecued meat) and kalbi (short ribs) are famous amongst each Koreans and foreigners. They are traditionally charcoal-roasted after the beef has been marinated in soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, minced garlic, and different spices. The ingredients to be had at restaurants range from state-of-the-art Western cuisine, to various ethnic distinctiveness foods, to both indigenous and foreign fast meals. There are not any meals taboos, despite the fact that Buddhist monks may also exercise vegetarianism and study other meals taboos.
Food Customs at Ceremonial Occasions. A variety of ttok (rice cake), other conventional confectionery, and fresh culmination are served to have a good time birthdays, marriages, and the hwan'gap (the 60th birthday). The services at ch'arye , memorial services for one's ancestors completed on special vacations, consist of rice wine, steamed white rice, soup, barbecued meats, and clean fruits. After ritual offerings.
Basic Economy. South Korea converted its traditional agrarian subsistence economy to a frequently industrialized one in little more than a technology. In 1962, while the First Five-Year Economic Development Plan became launched, in keeping with capita gross countrywide product turned into $87 (U.S.), in assessment with $10,543 (U.S.) in 1996. However, rapid will increase in quick-term debt induced by means of overinvestments with the aid of chaebols (family-owned and -controlled conglomerates) and insufficient foreign exchange reserves caused the financial disaster of 1997, which necessitated emergency monetary useful resource from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in December 1997. After a 12 months of rising unemployment, bad economic increase, and reforms of the monetary quarter in 1998, the economic system began to recover. For gross home product (GDP) of $406.7 billion (U.S.), the us of a ranked thirteenth and for in keeping with capita GDP it ranked thirtieth most of the global's nations in 1999.
The operating-age population (15 years or above) numbered 34.7 million, and sixty two.2 percent (21.6 million) of those humans were inside the hard work force in 1997. More than thirds of them had been hired within the carrier zone in 1997.
South Korea still produces maximum of its domestically consumed rice. Traditional coins plants which includes ginseng, tobacco, tea, and silkworms stay crucial. The cattle enterprise raises pork and dairy farm animals, hogs, and chickens. Meat production has elevated, in large part in response extended consumption and government support. South Korea imports beef and milk, exports beef to Japan, and keeps self-sufficiency in chickens and most vegetable products.
Land Tenure and Property. Traditionally, land, specially farmland, became the primary form of wealth, and tenants had normal rights that allowed them to farm the equal plots 12 months after yr. The land survey and tax shape under colonial rule modified the nature and quantity of land tenure, forcing many owner-farmers to sell their land to the Japanese. Some humans argue that the violation of tenants' normal rights predates the Japanese incursion. The majority of the rural population became impoverished, landless tenants via the give up of the colonial rule.
After the liberation, redistributions of land were effected in 1948, while former Japanese-owned agricultural lands were offered to the incumbent tenants, and in 1950–1952, whilst the authorities below the Land Reform Act (promulgated in 1949) acquired tenanted land owned with the aid of absentee landlords and the balance of residences larger than 7.4 acres held via owner-farmers. That assets become offered to tenant farmers and those and not using a land. The imposition of a maximum of three chongbo (7.Four acres) on criminal land holdings meant that big-scale landlords were eliminated, and the common farm length became much less than 2.Five acres. The land reform become a political and social achievement, destroying the colonial landlord elegance. However, it contributed to a fragmentation of the land into small holdings, making cultivation inefficient and now not conducive to mechanization. Since the Nineteen Sixties, systematic efforts have been made to boom, rearrange and consolidate farmland with the aid of reclaiming mountain slopes and beaches as arable land to enlarge farm mechanization and boom the software of farmland. In 1975, the Arable Land Preservation Law became changed to restriction the use of arable land for functions aside from farms.
In a country wherein herbal assets are scarce, the efficient use of the land is crucial. Government land improvement projects started in the Sixties with the 1963 Law on Integrated National Land Development, the 1964 Export Industrial Estates Assistance Law, and the 1967 National Parks Law. Those legal guidelines have been observed via the 1972 Law on the Management of National Land and the 1973 Law on the Promotion of Industrial Estates. In addition to the improvement of big-scale industrial estates at Ulsan, P'ohang, and elsewhere, a superhighway linking Seoul and Pusan and huge-scale water resources improvement projects together with the Soyang Dam had been built. A primary land price pattern changed into officially decided to permit an equitable distribution of the earnings from land improvement. Despite a diffusion of rules, however, speculation in actual property has been a main tool for accumulating wealth unexpectedly and irregularly.
Major Industries. The percentage of number one enterprise in the monetary structure reduced gradually from 26.6 percentage in 1970 to 5.7 percentage in 1997. Farmwork more and more is accomplished by way of girls and antique guys as young humans go away for urban jobs. As a result of structural reforms inside the economy, Korea has constructed a sturdy business foundation, particularly in the regions of electronics, vehicles, shipbuilding, and petrochemicals. The shipbuilding enterprise is 2d handiest to Japan's and has a 32 percent proportion of the sector marketplace. In the semiconductor industry, Korea ranks third within the global market. Three Korean organizations deliver greater than 40 percentage of the global call for for laptop reminiscence chips. The Korean automobile and petrochemicals industries rank fifth inside the world in phrases of production.
Trade. The economy is export-oriented and at the equal time heavily depending on foreign places raw materials. In 1999 exports were $143.7 billion (U.S.) and imports were $119.8 billion (U.S.). Korea ranked twelfth for exports and fourteenth for imports among the nations in the global. The essential buying and selling companions are america and Japan. Since the Eighties, fundamental export items have blanketed computer systems, semiconductors, cars, steel, shipbuilding, digital items, machinery, textiles, and fishery merchandise. Overseas creation is a essential supply of foreign currency and invisible export profits. Major import gadgets are metallic, chemicals, timber and pulp, cereals, petroleum and petroleum merchandise, and electronics and electrical device. The modern-day account stability for the first 1/2 of 2000 marked a surplus of $four.Four billion (U.S.).
Division of Labor. Leading chaebol organizations which includes Hyundai, Samsung, and the LG Group recruit white-collar workers from amongst university graduates thru the kongch'ae system (an open aggressive
written examination and interviews). Smaller agencies frequently depend upon social connections to hire employees. For government and top-degree control jobs, companies may additionally scout the preferred personnel with the aid of the usage of a spread of approach, including expert headhunting offerings. Employment in the civil carrier, which is primarily based on a grade device, reflects a sturdy tradition of seniority. Positions are assigned strictly in keeping with grade, and remuneration is based totally on grade and duration of provider. Recruitment from out of doors is allowed handiest at positive grade ranges thru the civil provider exam gadget, with age obstacles that choose the young. Vacant positions, except at the lowest grade degree, are filled commonly by means of promotions based totally on seniority. The tradition of seniority, however, is being challenged as part of the huge-ranging restructuring taking vicinity inside the public area in addition to within the financial and corporate sectors due to the 1997 monetary disaster.
Social Stratification
Classes and Castes. The traditional gentry ( yangban ) repute became officially abolished by using the Kabo Reforms of 1894, however the legacy of the class system is seen in social mental and behavioral patterns. In 1994, 60 percentage of South Koreans regarded themselves as belonging to the center elegance. The subjective perception of 1's magnificence function became carefully correlated with one's stage of tutorial attainment. Eighty-3 percentage of those with a university education perceived themselves as belonging to the middle class, in comparison with 41 percentage of these with a number one college training. In general, industrialization and urbanization have contributed to a leveling of the nonkin hierarchy in social lifestyles, however the profits hole between the working instructions and the industrialist class as a new power elite has grown. Family historical past, education, career, and the overall attractiveness of a meritocracy are essential social elements that make a contribution to the unequal distribution of wealth by means of elegance.
Symbols of Social Stratification. Major symbols of social reputation include the scale of one's apartment or residence, the place of 1's residence, chauffeur-pushed massive motors, fashion and best of dress, club in a golf club, and using honorifics in speech. According to the authorities type, residential space between eighteen and 25.7 p'yong (one p'yong equals three.95 rectangular yards) is appeared as medium-sized housing. People within the middle and upper-center classes tend to stay in apartment units of over thirty p'yong. The precise variety of p'yong of one's rental frequently is interpreted as a barometer of one's wealth. Academic ranges along with a doctorate and expert occupations including remedy additionally symbolize higher social popularity.
Political Life
Government. Koreans lived underneath a dynastic system until 1910. After liberation from Japanese colonization in 1945, the southern half of the peninsula was occupied by the United States and the northern 1/2 through the Soviet army till 1948, whilst Koreas emerged. Since then, South Korea has traveled a rocky avenue in its political development from autocratic governments to a extra democratic nation, amending its constitution 9 instances inside the wake of tumultuous political activities such as the Korean War, the April Revolution of 1960, the 1961 and 1979 army coups, the 1980 Kwangju rebellion, and the 1987 democracy movement. The authorities has maintained a presidential system besides in 1960–1961, whilst a parliamentary gadget was in vicinity. Government strength is shared through three branches: the government, legislative, and judicial. The Constitutional Court and the National Election Commission also perform governing features.
The government department below the president as the head of nation consists of the prime minister, the State Council, seventeen govt ministries, seventeen impartial companies, the Board of Inspection and Audit, and the National Intelligence Service. The president is elected by popular vote for a unmarried 5-yr term. The top minister is appointed by means of the president with the approval of the National Assembly. The legislature includes a single-residence National Assembly whose 273 participants serve 4-12 months phrases. Some degree of nearby autonomy turned into restored for the primary time due to the fact 1961 by the implementation of nearby assembly elections in 1991 and popular elections of the heads of provincial and municipal governments in 1995. The judiciary has 3 levels of courts: the Supreme Court, the high courts or appellate courts, and the district courts.
Leadership and Political Officials. Political events had been organized usually round a frontrunner as opposed to a platform. The homeland and school ties of the founding chief of a celebration have regularly influenced balloting patterns, contributing to emotional regionalism among electorate as well as politicians. The political events represented within the Fifteenth National Assembly (1996–2000) are the National Congress for New Politics (NCNP), the United Liberal Democrats (ULD), and the New Korea Party. The NCNP (based by using Kim Dae-jung) and the ULD (based by means of Kim Jong-pil) as opposition events formed a coalition for the 1997 presidential election to help D. J. Kim win the election. The socalled DJP alliance, named for the coalition of Kim Dae-jung and Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil, promised to exchange the government branch right into a cupboard device with the high minister as the head of kingdom. The constitutional modification for a parliamentary government as a result has emerge as a major political problem inside the Kim Dae-jung management.
Social Problems and Control. According to the National Statistical Office, the range of suggested major penal code offenses become 864 in line with a hundred,000 in 1997, and the most commonplace crime became robbery. Since the 1980s, sexual violence against ladies has drawn public situation, and regulation to cope with it become enacted in the Nineteen Nineties.
Public prosecutors and the police are authorized to behavior investigations of criminal acts, however theoretically, police authority to research crook acts is issue to the course and. Evaluate of prosecutors. The National Police Agency is under the authority of the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs, at the same time as the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office, the penal management, and other prison affairs are supervised by the Ministry of Justice. The ideally suited prosecutor preferred is appointed by means of the president. Historically, the govt branch exercised extraordinary impact on judicial choices. There isn't any jury machine. Cases that contain offenses punishable by way of the death penalty, life imprisonment, or imprisonment for multiple yr are attempted by 3 judges of a district or branch court; other cases are heard by means of a unmarried judge.
Military Activity. The North Korean invasion in June 1950 caused the fratricidal Korean War that resulted in 1953, killing one million South Korean civilians. Since then, the armed forces have grown to be the most important and maximum influential government organisation. According to the 1998 Defense White Paper, the kingdom has 690,000 troops. The 1997 defense expenditure accounted for about 15 percent of the country wide authorities budget. Weapons and system modernization and the operational charges of the 3 armed offerings and the armed forces reserves are the principle items in the protection budget. Based at the 1953 Korean-American Mutual Defense Treaty, the two nations preserve the joint workout Team Spirit every spring to sell military cooperation and readiness. The Korean peninsula is the arena's most densely armed zone with over 1.8 million combat-prepared troops confronting each different across the DMZ.
Social Welfare and Change Programs
Much progress has been made within the region of social welfare since the 1970s, specially inside the fitness care machine. The National Health Insurance Program, which started out in 1977 with coverage of less than 10 percentage of the population, protected the complete populace by way of 1989. The government additionally enacted the National Health Program Law and the Mental Health Law in 1995 to promote fitness education, antismoking campaigns, and the improvement of the civil rights of the mentally sick. The price range of the Ministry of Health and Welfare has been growing hastily.
Nongovernmental Organizations and Other Associations
Until the past due 1980s, civil companies normally developed in opposition to the authorities and contributed to democratization. In the past decade, nongovernmental companies (NGOs) have multiplied in numbers and services. The Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice, the Korean Federation for the Environment Movement, the Korean Women's Associations United, and the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery through Japan (called Chongdaehyop ) are famous NGOs. Since its formation in 1990, Chongdaehyop has carried out brilliant achievement in bringing to the eye of the sector community the "consolation ladies" who served Japanese troops earlier than and at some point of World War II. Its sports have improved the dwelling situations of the surviving sufferers and reinforced feminist human rights movement. Many Christian church supported NGOs send missionaries and offer on-website useful resource in Africa and other regions.
Gender Roles and Statuses
Division of Labor with the aid of Gender. Gender and age had been the two fundamental influences in patterns of social organisation. Housework is maximum commonly seemed as ladies's work even when a female works outside the house. Industrialization and democratization have given ladies more possibilities to play various roles in public life, however the simple shape of a gender department of hard work is observable in public existence. As of April 1998, 47.7 percentage of all grownup females labored outside the home. Women's average income had been sixty three.Four percentage of these of men in the equal jobs. In June 1999, there was one female amongst seventeen cabinet individuals and no girl vice minister. Women occupied 2.3 percentage of the provincial and nearby meeting seats in 1999. Women as expert leaders in spiritual lifestyles are constrained in numbers in each Christian churches and Buddhist temples. The exception to this pattern is seen in shamanism, wherein girls dominate as priestesses.
The Relative Status of Women and Men. The charter stipulates equality of all citizens earlier than the regulation, but the norms and values that manual gender family members in daily existence stay influenced by an ideology of male superiority. The interaction between those gender role ideologies complicates the styles and processes of social alternate inside the area of gender position performance and the relative popularity of women and men.
One of the results of those dual gender function ideologies is the behavioral sample that compartmentalize the social arena into public as opposed to non-public spheres and formal as opposed to informal conditions within each sphere of social action. The patriarchal gender role ideology tends to guide human beings's behavior at institution ranges in public casual conditions in addition to personal formal situations. Democratic egalitarianism is more effectively practiced on the societal degree in public, informal conditions, and at the person degree in non-public, casual conditions. Thus, a female can and did run for the presidency, but ladies are expected to behave in a submissive way in public, casual gatherings inclusive of dinner parties among expert colleagues. In non-public, informal situations which includes own family affairs, but, city center-magnificence husbands generally tend to leave the selection making to their better halves. Nonetheless, male authority because the household head ( hoju ) is socially anticipated and the law favors husbands and sons over other halves and daughters.
The essential resources of social trade in gender popularity had been the women's movement and the position of the kingdom in legislating to protect ladies's rights and enhance their repute. In response to feminist activism, a few guys organized the primary National Men's Association in 1999. Complaining of opposite sexism, they asserted that laws enacted to save you domestic violence and sexual harassment unfairly desire women and vowed to marketing campaign to abolish the exclusively male responsibilities of navy service so that each sexes can also shoulder the duties of national defense.
Marriage, Family, and Kinship
Marriage. Family history and academic degree are essential issues in matchmaking. Marriage among people with a commonplace surname and origin region ( tongsong tongbon ) changed into prohibited by way of law until 1997. Many urbanites discover their spouse at schools or offices and feature a love marriage. Others may also locate partners thru organized conferences made by mother and father, spouse and children, friends, and expert matchmakers.
In urban centers, the organized assembly frequently takes region in a resort espresso save where the person, the girl, and their parents may also meet for the first time. After changing greetings and a few communique, the dad and mom go away in order that the couple can talk and decide whether or not they would love to look every different once more. Most individuals have freedom in choosing a marital partner.
Marriage has been seemed as a rite of passage that confers a social reputation of adulthood on an man or woman. Marriage is also notion of as a union of not just a man and a lady but of their families and a means to ensure the continuity of the husband's family line. Ninety percentage of girls marry of their twenties, although the average age of first-time brides has extended from 20.4 years in 1950 to 25.Nine years in 1997. Traditionally, divorce changed into rare, but it tripled from 1980 to 1994.
Remarriages constituted 10.9 percentage of all marriages in 1997. Traditionally, remarriages of widows were no longer allowed and remarriages of divorced ladies have been hard. However, changes are happening within the remarriage sample, particularly for divorced women. The ratio of a divorced lady marrying a bachelor used to be decrease than that of a divorced guy marrying a in no way-married female. Since 1995, but, this example has reversed in desire of ladies, with a 1997 ratio of two.Nine to 2.6 percent. Divorced women with impartial economic approach, especially a hit professionals, no longer face the conventional gender bias against their remarriage and can marry bachelors who are younger and much less occupationally superior. This phenomenon simply well-knownshows the significance of the economic issue of marriage.
Domestic Unit. Two-technology families constituted 73.7 percentage of the eleven.1 million families in 1995, one-technology and 3-era families constituted 14.7 percentage and 11.4 percentage, respectively. Traditionally, three-generation stem families have been patrilineally composed. That custom keeps, but some couples now live with the dad and mom of the wife. In an extended circle of relatives, the house responsibilities duties generally are performed via the daughter-in-regulation unless she works outdoor the house.
Inheritance. Traditionally, the oldest son obtained a larger proportion of an inheritance than did more youthful sons due to his obligation to coreside with aging
mother and father and study ancestor ceremonies. After the 1989 revision of the Family Law, family inheritance ought to be divided equally many of the little children. The kids may additionally inherit actual estate, cash from financial savings accounts, furniture, and other own family heirlooms.
Kin Groups. Outside the family, the patrilineal family organization ( tongjok ) is organized into tangnae and munjung . Consisting of all the descendants of a fourth-era common patrilineal ancestor, the individuals of a tangnae participate in demise-day and vacation commemoration rites of the kinfolk group. Munjung as a country wide-level agency consists of all of the patrilineal descendants of the founding ancestor and owns and manages corporate estates for carrying out the yearly rites to honor ancestors of the 5th technology and above at their grave websites. The essential cause of these lineage businesses and ancestor rites is to say gentry ( yangban ) status and reaffirm agnatic ties. Since meals services and formality equipment are expensive, simplest a small quantity of family agencies have formal lineage agencies. The Kimhae Kim, the largest lineage, is stated to have greater than 3.7 million members. "Kim" because the most not unusual Korean surname is composed of approximately one hundred fifty corporations of that name with one of a kind places of origin, accounting for about one-fifth of the populace. The Hahoe Yu of the Hahoe Iltong village in Kyongsang Province are the first-class known example of kin companies residing inside the same village.
Socialization
Infant Care. Because of fast modifications in life in the last few a long time, the care of infants varies widely, depending, amongst other matters, on the magnificence positions of a circle of relatives. Generally, all through the primary two years children acquire first rate deal of affection, indulgence, and nurturing from their dad and mom. Infants seldom are separated from their moms. They was once carried at the mother's back however nowadays may also trip in child carriages. Many mother and father sleep with their toddlers within the identical room. Infant care practices inspire emotional dependence of the children on their dad and mom.
Child Rearing and Education. Obedience, cooperation, admire for the elders, and filial piety are the important values inculcated in a toddler's early years. Most children acquire conventional gender role socialization from early formative years. Parents visit exquisite lengths to offer the best training for their kids, specially their sons, for the reason that parents traditionally have depended on their youngsters in old age. Children, especially sons, preserve a robust experience of dependence on their mother and father in the course of formative years and until after marriage. The differential treatment little children obtain from their mother and father is considered a essential supply of the gender shape in Korean society, in which ladies are possibly to be greater self-reliant and individualistic than guys.
Higher Education. The traditional excessive regard for training as a means to improve one's socioeconomic reputation continues in modern-day Korea. The annual college front examinations are extremely competitive. Many unsuccessful candidates repeat the examinations with a purpose to enter elite universities. From handiest nineteen establishments of better education in 1945, the variety has improved to 9 hundred fifty. Over 26 percent of fellows and approximately 13 percent of women age twenty-5 and over received better schooling as of 1995.
Etiquette
Koreans are very repute aware, and their speech conduct reflects the hierarchical dating among social actors. Except amongst former classmates and different very close friends, adults do no longer use first names to deal with each different. Position titles along with "professor," "manager," "director," and "president" are used in mixture with the honorific suffix nim to deal with a social advanced.
Koreans are usually courteous to the extent of being ceremonious while they interact with social superiors however may be very outgoing and friendly amongst friends and associates of same social popularity. Their conduct with strangers in city public situations can be characterised through indifference and self-centeredness. Koreans look like impolite to strangers since they typically do no longer say a phrase when they by chance push or jostle different humans on the streets, and in the stores, teach stations, and airports. Traditional Confucian teaching emphasized propriety inside the 5 units of human relationships, which covered the relations between sovereign and difficulty, father and son, husband and spouse, senior and junior, and friend and buddy. Confucianism nevertheless serves as the standard of ethical and social behavior for lots human beings.
Religion
Religious Beliefs. As a result of constitutional ensures of freedom of religion, there may be a extensive variety of non secular beliefs, from shamanism, Confucianism, and Buddhism to Christianity, Islam, and other religions. Indigenous people beliefs and shamanism have co-advanced, sharing a essential notion inside the lifestyles of a myriad of gods (consisting of the mountain gods, the residence gods, and the fireplace god) and spirits of the lifeless, all of which may additionally influence humans's fortunes. Korean Buddhism has each doctrinal and meditative traditions. Buddhists consider that human struggling is brought on particularly through desire. Thus, a few Buddhists attempt to acquire enlightenment via cultivating an attitude of detachment, while others seek to meet their goals by way of providing prayers of requests to Kwanum, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Confucianism is a political and social philosophy that emphasizes the virtues of in , generally translated as "human-heartedness," and hyo or filial piety, which is expressed through rite consisting of ancestor rites. The Confucian idea of heaven is an impersonal yet willful force in nature and society, and is beyond human manage.
Early Korean Catholics who embraced Catholicism as part of Western Learning ( Sohak ), suffered persecution at some stage in the Choson Dynasty for renouncing their ancestral rites as "pagan" rites. Christianity, which include each Catholicism and Protestantism, has come to be a major religion. Lay Christians searching for material and religious richness thru fervent prayers, even as some theologians have recommended new theologies focusing on the plight of the underprivileged minjung (the "masses") and/or women. Ch'ondogyo (the Teaching of the Heavenly Way), which began as Tonghak (Eastern Learning), based with the aid of Ch'oe Che U in 1860, is a syncretistic faith that grew on the grassroots degree. "Humanity and heaven are one and the same" is its simple guiding principle, which emphasizes human dignity and gender equality.
Religious Practitioners. Shamans derive their electricity from their capacity to function a medium among the spirit international and their clients at some point of kut (shaman rituals). The Buddhist and Christian clergy derive their power from their information of scripture. Another supply of energy for the clergy of principal religions is the wealth their churches have collected from the contributions of fans. The activities of the Christian clergy consist of no longer only sermons however also habitual private visits to the houses of their congregants. Buddhist monks may additionally carry out personalized prayer offerings in return for financial donations.
Rituals and Holy Places. A shaman keeps a shrine wherein her parent deity and the instruments for ritual offerings are kept. Kut , which encompass songs, dances, and incantations, are done at various places to relaxed appropriate fortune, remedy ailments, or guide the spirit of a deceased individual to heaven. Numerous Koreans perform Confucian-fashion ceremonies to commemorate their ancestors on death dates and unique holidays at home and/or grave websites. The National Confucian Academy in Seoul holds semi-month-to-month and semiannual ceremonies to honor Confucius, his disciples, and other Confucian sages. Christian churches are ubiquitous in urban and rural regions. Some offer offerings not handiest on Sundays but additionally at predawn hours on weekdays. Leading Christian churches have large new buildings which can accommodate numerous thousand worshipers. Buddhist temples was located away from city centers near the mountains, but extra temples are actually being erected in urban areas.
Fortune. At domestic rites finished at the eve of the loss of life day and on essential vacations, the ancestral photograph is that of residing, dependent, and inactive mother and father to whom meals and wine are supplied.
Death and the Afterlife. Many Koreans believe in ancestral spirits and have a look at Confucian rituals concerning funerals, mourning practices, and memorial offerings. Folk beliefs about the afterlife are somewhat influenced by means of Buddhism but are characterised by means of variety. Mourning intervals range, relying at the social fame of the deceased, from at some point to 2 years.
Medicine and Health Care
The fitness care gadget consists of both Western and conventional medication. As a result of growing public call for for classic remedy, the Oriental Medicine Bureau turned into hooked up within the Ministry of Health and Welfare in 1966. There have been 62,609 Western docs and nine,289 conventional medical doctors in 1997. Traditional docs practice acupuncture and prescribe natural remedy for the prevention and remedy of illness. Some humans flip to a shaman for complex kut overall performance to remedy ailments attributed to evil spirits.
Secular Celebrations
The most vital countrywide holidays are New Year's Day and Ch'usok (which falls at the 8th complete moon via the lunar calendar). Koreans take a look at both sun and lunar New Year's vacations of which many people wear hanbok (traditional dress), offer sebae (New Year's greetings with a "massive bow") to their mother and father, eat ttok-kuk (rice-cake soup), play conventional video games, and observe ancestor rites. On Ch'usok, the harvest festival celebrations encompass consuming unique meals consisting of songp'yon (half of-moon-fashioned rice cakes) and making family visits to ancestral graves to tidy the tomb location and offer fruits and different foods, which includes steamed rice cooked with newly harvested grain.
The Arts and Humanities
Literature. Korean classical literature became written in Chinese, and the overdue Koryo and early Choson sijo poems dealt particularly with the subject matter of loyalty. The kasa shape of Choson poetry expressed man or woman sentiments and moral admonitions. After the introduction of the Korean alphabet, many works of fiction were written in Han'gul and royal ladies wrote novels depicting their personal conditions and private mind. Modern literature started out in the mid-19th century due to the brand new Western-fashion training and the Korean language and literature motion. The themes of 20th-century literature mirror the country wide stories colonization, postliberation department of the homeland, the Korean War, urbanization, and industrialization. Translations of literary works commenced to appear in overseas countries inside the Nineteen Eighties. The novelists whose works were most broadly translated are Hwang Sun-won and Kim Tong-ri.
Graphic Arts. Traditional brush paintings encompass practical landscapes; genre artwork of flora, birds, and the each day lives of regular human beings; and calligraphic presentations of Chinese phrases extolling Confucian virtues together with filial piety and loyalty embellished with designs and photos. Traditional sculptures in bronze, stone, and rock had been inspired by using Buddhism. The Sakyamuni Buddha inside the rotunda of the Sokkuram Grotto is regarded as a national masterpiece.
Performance Arts. Korean music and dance advanced over three thousand years from the spiritual ceremonies of shamanism and Buddhism and regularly had been linked to the rural cycle. Traditional music has two genres: Chong'ak ("accurate tune"), a style of chamber tune with a leisurely pace and a meditative man or woman, and minsok'ak (people music), characterised by way of spontaneity and emotionality. P'ansori as a category of people vocal tune is a completely unique aggregate of singing and storytelling by means of a unmarried vocalist with the accompaniment of a changgo (traditional drum). The Tale of Ch'unhyang , a love tale and one of the 5 extant conventional p'ansori compositions, requires extra than eight hours to perform. Among folk instrumental music, samul nori has been the most famous shape for the reason that Nineteen Seventies. The in the main percussive track is performed on gongs made from bronze and leather and double-headed hourglass and barrel drums. Koreans also revel in classical and famous Western tune. South Korea has thirty-one symphony orchestras and has produced internationally renowned violinists which includes Kyung-hwa Chung and Sarah Chang.
There are categories of traditional dance: courtroom dances and people dances performed by using farmers, shamans, and villagers. Kut and nong-ak (farmers' competition track), which integrate track and dance with ritual and entertainment, stay famous. Mask dances achieved through villagers mixed dance with satiric drama, making amusing of erring officers and monks for entertainment and ethical edification. The Traditional Dance Institute of the Korean National University of Arts turned into installed in 1998 to educate destiny generations inside the traditional dance history.
The State of the Physical and Social Sciences
The Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology turned into installed by means of the government in 1971 as a model for research-orientated universities producing scientists and engineers. The Pohang University of Science and Technology changed into based with similar objectives by the Pohang Steel Corporation in 1986. The Korean Science and Engineering Foundation and the Korea Research Foundation are the fundamental funding groups for college studies in primary science. The Academy of Korean Studies become based in 1978 to encourage in-intensity social technological know-how and arts studies of the background of the Korean kingdom. Since 1980, it has offered graduate publications in Korean research.
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