Changes in Korean Colonial Society

Pre-Colonial Korean Traditional Society

The Hermit Kingdom traditionally was sealed off by its geographic isolation from outside influences but during the Ming Dynasty in China came under Chinese suzerainty and Confucian influences. Prior to the defeat of China by Japan in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894, the Choson State (1392-1910) retained almost total autonomy; nevertheless, Confucianism with its emphasis on the rigid separation of social classes and elaborate etiquette in dealings between classes as a means of reinforcing social stability tended to exaggerate the rigidities inherent in Korea's feudal structure.

According to HKK, "Korean society was far more complicated than the scholar-peasant-artisan-merchant hierarchy Confucian philosophy assumed" (192-193). The hereditary scholar aristocracy at the top, the yangban, consisted of high government officials, who remained in power through interlocking marriages and domination of the state examination system. They presided over "c

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siness in Korea, opportunities for the kaekcha declined. In the early 1900s the Japanese began for strategic reasons to invest in Korea's railroads and electric power infrastructure. The rudiments of modern port and banking systems were put in place. Capital had been accumulated which could support later industrialization. The Kabo reforms, which among other things, opened up the civil service to men of talent regardless of class, helped provide a climate more conducive to economic progress. In discussing the period prior to the First World War, Eckert says that "society was controlled to the very end by a small aristocratic group of landed families . . . who were able to perpetuate an oligopoly of wealth and power" (Offspring 3). He calls the period 1876-1919 "a halcyon era for the Korean landlord class" during which "the transformation of landed wealth into capitalist enterprise" began and that "it was the landlords who reaped the fruits of the new international market economy after 1879 and accumulated the excess capital that could be used to finance modern business enterprise" (Offspring 15-16). Expansion and Transformation, 1919-1945 A number of factors helped channel Japanese and Korean private capital into industrial ve
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Approximate Word count = 2344
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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