Susan+Park

In the primary source, we learned how Korea also purposely isolated itself from foreigners and had a very negative attitude towards them; just like China. In order to defend itself from outside influences, Korea came up with two responses: a new religion and the resurgence of the Confucian orthodoxy. This is a crucial point in the packet because these two factors primarily kept Catholicism out and they slowed down Catholicism from spreading. Korea also faced bad experiences with Western powers mainly concerning trade. Just like China, Korea was pressured to many trade compromises among the Western nations.

In my point of view, I don’t believe Korea would have been better off if it had “opened up.” Although Japan is also a fairly small country, Korea would have total loss of identity of its country. China could still be unified due to its vast land, where its culture was widely spread. For Korea, it would have been influenced quite quickly and it would have lost its cultural identity. I thought it was good that Korea had stayed somewhat open (not completely isolated) because it gave Korea the ability to take in ideas, but at the same time keep its traditions and etc.