Korea and Taiwan: Tigers Rising - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 363

7 vowels. Consonants and vowels are grouped into
a syllabic block form to create a word. This new
system, called Hangul, differed radically from the
Chinese ideographic system in which a concept is
conveyed by each character. King Sejong presented
his “correct sounds for the instruction of the peo-
ple” in 1443 and literacy became widespread.

TANGLING WITH A JAPANESE TIGER
Japanese forces invaded Korea in 1592 and again in 1597.
With the help of China, the Koreans fended off the Japan-
ese but were forced to send artisans and scholars to teach
Chosun' s advanced technology in Japan. The Japanese
ceramic and lacquer-ware industries owe their origins to
the Koreans. Later, the Japanese were given residence
rights in a small area of Busan (Pusan).
The seventeenth century brought Manchu control
and subsequent decline. After much struggle, Korea fell
to Manchu power in 1637. Significant change was on the
horizon. Factional strife within Korea weakened the po-
litical structure. Christian ideas, introduced via official
tribute missions to China, clashed with Confucianism.
New agricultural techniques fostered a commercial econ-
omy , despite aristocratic disdain for such activity . Cor-
ruption and intrigue hampered orderly administration.
By the mid-1800s, Korean politics and the economy were
in shambles.
In 1864, the Korean government closed the country
to all except the Chinese and the Japanese at Pusan. It
was during this period that Korea became known as the
Hermit Kingdom. All other foreign interests were
spurned until Japan forced Korea to enter into its first
foreign commercial treaty in 1876. This period also
marked a great divide in the nation' s history . Prior history
was China-centered. The future would be determined by
Japan and the West.
Korea fell prey to Japanese imperialism in the late
nineteenth century . The Japanese engineered the murder
of the anti-Japanese Korean Queen Min in 1895. The
Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 saw Japanese troops
operating on the Korean peninsula as they moved the
war front into Manchuria. Korea became a Japanese pro-
tectorate in 1905, and despite anti-Japanese efforts, Japan
was able to annex the country in 1910. Japanese rule was
highly resented by the Koreans, who viewed themselves
as culturally superior. Japan relied on the use of force to
transform its colony .

Figure 13-3
This corner eave of the great Buddhist temple at Pulguksa illus-
trates the detailed craftsmanship of Korean temple builders. The
central dragon is meant to ward off evil. Built in the sixth century ,
this is one of the oldest surviving Buddhist monasteries in Korea.
Photograph courtesy of B. A. Weightman.

Hangul

In the fifteenth century , King Sejong (who ruled
from 1419 to 1450) commissioned scholars from
the “Hall of Worthies” to develop a Korean alphabet
system for those who had not mastered Chinese
characters. After analyzing the phonetic structure of
the language, they distinguished three separate ele-
ments of words: initial, medial, and final sounds. Of
these, the medial element is a vowel. The new al-
phabet consisted of 29 letters—22 consonants and