Se+Jin

"My Words are very easy to understand and very easy to put into practice." but "Straightforward words seem paradoxical..." 1. What does this mean? How does it come into play in The Tao of Pooh with regard to scholars?

This quote demonstrates how believing and practicing Tao can be more easier and simpler than Confucianism. Since it is based on nature and of its flow, it can be dealt with less thought and hesitation. Whereas, the Confucius ideas, "straightforward words" can possibly contradict what it is trying to say and what it actually wants the people to do. Relating to The Tao of Pooh, it explains how scholars try to use big words and be arrogant. So "straightforward words" can be explained as scholars who pretend to know everything and to try to look intelligent. Scholars like to act like they know everything.

2. Read the poem of page 30. What does Pooh seem to think about scholars? How does that relate to the Taoist view of knowledge?

Pooh thinks of scholars as boring and lifeless. In a way they might look like they have an exaggerated life, however, because of their overly high expectations and knowledge it eventually takes the meaning of "life" away from the scholars. Pooh and also Taoists see scholars as someone who try to find out too much about life and cannot even achieve it. They have too much information, and always look for "something more." Taoist have a mindset of knowledge being natural and being born with. Like the quote "The wise are not learned, the learned are not wise," it means that Taoists do not think that people who are smart or have a lot of knowledge learned it by readying books or studying. Taoists strongly urge people not to be learned because someday the nature will provide them with knowledge. Also, to people in general, they should not have a tremendous amount of knowledge, they should actually have less.

Along with China and Japan, Korea was also introduced to western influence. Unlike Japan, Koreans strongly urged not to open up to the western ideas and they set forth the concept of exclusionism. Any cultural, political, social, or religious influence was to be isolated from Korea. Even until strong forces urged Korea to open up, Korea remained sturdy against the foreigners. Some people can predict that if Korea opened up earlier, they might have not gone through the devastating troubles with Japan. In extreme terms, Korean rulers and citizens were xenophobic of foreign intrusions.  Out of the several ideas that came into Korea, Christianity was one religion that came in, to make big conflicts between the westerns and Koreans. Like stated above, Taewongun was xenophobic about almost all new ideas that came into Korea and that he did extremely harsh executions to get rid of all the Christians in the nation. One main reason why Taewongun was so afraid of Christianity was because he did not want people of Korea to start becoming westernized and lose the traditional cultures of Korea. With these worries and problems, Koreans made their own religion called Tonghak. It differed from Christianity because it gave hope to the peasants and to those that were in the lower classes. The religion Tonghak stressed social equality and peace among all, whereas Christianity served to be more conservative and leaned toward the wealthier people. Christianity seemed to be an arrogant and superior religion to the Koreans and more since they were in a hard time, they could not grasp the concept of Christianity in a positive way. From a Tonghak’s perspective, Ch’oe Cheu wrote “On Spreading Virtue,” which juxtaposed the religion of Tonghak and Christianity. It states that, “Since the times of the five sage-kings of ancient China, holy men were born and wrote concerning the ways of Heaven, earth, sun, moon, and stars,” and it goes on talking about Christianity, “I heard that the Westerners were building their churches and spreading their religion, proclaiming the will of God and not expecting wealth and honor, but conquering the world.” These two phrases show the negative and positive view of Christianity and Tonghak.  Also, another document that shows influence of religion is Confucianism. In Korea, Confucianism was still significantly used in the society and among families. In the document, “On Practicing Truth At Home,” it talks about Confucius elements that need to be done inside a family. For example, “Do filial duty to your parents with all your strength, respect your husbands wholly, and love your children and daughters-in-law.” This demonstrates the need for people to respect elders and follow Confucius beliefs. 

Do countries have the obligation to compensate each other for injustices done in time of war? I feel that countries need to pay reparation for the mess that they have made by opening a war with one country. Especially if the country has lost or they have gravely hurt the other country, they should be thoughtful enough to support a bit of warfare expenses.

The difference between the Japanese invasion into Korea and U.S.'s intrusion into Korea was that the Japanese invasion into the Korean peninsula was on purpose and their goal was to take over the continent. However, the U.S's attack was accidental and they were purely trying to guard the South Koreans from the North Korean's invasion. The similarities are that they killed a lot of people, just like it was stated in the document. " The was amidst these circumstances of rapid movement and volatility that US troops killed Korean civilians at Nogun-ri."