Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Yu_Bum_suk]

All right, so let's try this a second time.

It's interesting how much is made about the Occupation by the Japanese and its effect on Korean history, but the reforms initiated in 1894 by a pro-Japanese cabinet are something that completely and permenantly changed the nature of Korean society.

Amongst other things:

- A new, standardised currency was brought about, based on the silver standard.

- Torture of criminals was abolished.

- Punishing a criminal's family for crimes he / she committed was abolished.

- Sumptuary laws were abolished.

- The privaledge of Yongban was abolished, and outcasts and minstrels were given full legal rights.

- The system of 곤 was entrenched, with local governments stripped of judicial powers.

- The judiciary was seperated from the excetuve.

- And, as I believe Racetraitor pointed out yesterday, the marriage age was raised to 16 and child marriage was abolished.


Anyone have anything else to add?

[caniff]

[SeoulFinn]

- widows (women) were allowed to remarry
- women could divorce their husbands (before only men could "divorce," or more likely, send their wives away)

[ChopChaeJoe]

Essentially a profit motive was set up through a new tax scheme. land could no be judged by what it COULD produce, in crops or otherwise. Reember that before 1895 there was no industry in korea, no factories; pretty much just a living made from the products of the earth.

This caused massive displacement of the populace, some drifted to the "cities" others gave up entirely and went to the hills.

Some saw their chance and took it, as collaborators with the Jap. Some of these were eventually invited into Rhee's goverment, which was a tool of the extreme right wing.

[djsmnc]

[ChopChaeJoe]

When was child marriage abolished in the U.S.A.? 2006?

Or is it still legal in alabammar and mississipi?

[endo]

I was going to start my own thread on a similar topic, but I will just post it here.

The reform that interested me the most was the punishing a criminal's family for crimes that he / she committed.

Punishing one's family reflects in a sense the deep Confucian thinking of the Koreans during this period. After all it's been said that while the Chinese invented Confucianism, it was the Koreans who really went with it.


Now the practice of punishing an entire family for the actions of a lone individual within that family is a practice that is still carried out in North Korea.


My question is; what role does Confucianism play in the structure of the regime in North Korea?

How does the leadership use Confucian logic to maintain power and controll over its people?

Is North Korea a communist state of a radical Confucian one?

[JMO]

[Kimchieluver]

Punishing one's entire family for the deeds of an individual was not exclusive to Asia. Many if not most Western countries did it at some time or another and in one way or another.

[cdninkorea]

[naimah116]

North Korean political culture is rooted in Confucianism insofar as many north Koreans are guided by an instinct to feel loyal to Kim Jong-Il because they have a longstanding "relationship" with him, giving this relationship leverage over the social repression they experience. They "know" him and his policies, and can trust his consistency in a certain way that a tenuous unification or liberating force would disrupt. The Confucian focus on stratified relationships preempting all else at work. Check out "The Koreans" by Michael Breen.[/u]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[Yu_Bum_suk]