A History of Korea (120 page)

1
. South Korea’s per-capita gross national income (
GNI
) shot up from a meager $67 in 1953 to $20,045 in 2007. Adjusted for inflation, its per-capita
GNI
grew 14-fold from 1954 to 2003, while that of the world expanded 2.8 times. The nation’s gross domestic product (
GDP
) grew 746-fold to $969.9 billion in 2007 from $1.3 billion in 1953. Trade volume skyrocketed to $728.3 billion in 2007 from $230 million in 1948.

2
. MacDonald,
The Koreans,
26.

3
. Korean Culture and Information Service, “History Being Whitewashed Again-and-Again.”

1
. Lee,
A New History of Korea,
5.

2
. Iry
ŏ
n,
Samguk yusa
, 35–37; Cumings,
Korea’s Place in the Sun,
23–24.

3
. Lee,
A New History of Korea,
15–16.

4
. Ibid., 17.

5
. Chumong’s real name was Ch’umo. Since good archers were called
chumong
in Puy
ŏ
, it is certain that Chumong, who was skillful in archery, came south from Puy
ŏ
.

6
. Han,
Tasi ch’ann
ŭ
n uri y
ŏ
ksa,
93–94.

1
. It is said that Paekche was originally named
Sipche,
meaning “rule over ten persons,” representing the fact that ten vassals aided Onjo in founding his state. Later the name was changed to
Paekche,
or “rule over 100 people,” indicating that many people followed Onjo’s leadership.

2
. Han,
Tasi ch’ann
ŭ
n uri y
ŏ
ksa,
107.

3
. Paekche and Silla took advantage of internal dissension in Kogury
ŏ
. During the reign of King Anw
ŏ
n (531–545), factionalism grew fierce among the Kogury
ŏ
aristocracy. Two royal in-law families fought each other to enthrone their own favorite princes, until eight-year-old King Yangw
ŏ
n (545–559) was finally crowned. But the power struggle was never definitively resolved, and ceaseless struggles among the aristocracy sapped the nation’s strength.

4
. The term
Silla
was a shortened word of the sentence
t
ŏ
k
ŏ
p ilsin, mangna sabang,
or “the virtuous rule undergoes improvement day by day and spreads in all directions.”

5
. The term
Kaya
originated in the word
Kara,
a Chinese transliteration of a native Korean word meaning “village.”

6
. After Kogury
ŏ
’s downfall, many of its ruling class and soldiers were forcibly sent to Tang or massacred. In 765 the descendants of Yi Ch
ŏ
ng-gi, who had been forced to settle in the Shandong region, founded their own state, Qi (Che in Korean) (765–819), and carried out a total of five raids on Tang’s capital, Leyang. On one of these raids, in 783, the Tang emperor was compelled to flee to seek safety.

7
. Lee,
A New History of Korea,
50–51.

8
. The term “Mukhoja,” meaning “black (
muk
) barbarian (
hoja
),” may be interpreted as referring to an Indian monk. Since Mukhoja was said to stay in Silla for 71–111 years, several Indian Buddhist monks appear to have clandestinely proselytized Buddhism in the kingdom. The term “Ado” also does not indicate a specific person, but several persons, specifically Buddhist monks from India. The monk Marananta was an Indian monk as well.

9
. According to legend, one day Ich’adon presented himself to King P
ŏ
ph
ŭ
ng, who dearly wanted to secure the acceptance of Buddhism in the kingdom. But when Ich’adon announced that he had become a Buddhist, the king had him beheaded. When the executioner completed the task, milk poured out of Ich’adon’s body instead of blood. As a result, everybody at the court came to believe that the Buddha possessed supernatural powers. Apparently the king and Ich’adon had agreed on this venture of self-sacrifice in advance.

10
. Lee,
Korea and East Asia,
46. Some Korean scholars claim that the Ch’
ŏ
ms
ŏ
ngdae was a temple to Inanna (or Ishtar), the Mesopotamian goddess of love and war (and possibly of heaven), said to have been worshiped by Queen S
ŏ
nd
ŏ
k.

11
. Lee,
A New History of Korea,
63.

12
. Silla artifacts, including unique gold metalwork, demonstrate a clear influence from those of the northern nomadic steppes but less Chinese influence than those of Kogury
ŏ
and Paekche.

13
. Lee,
A New History of Korea,
64.

14
. Lee,
Korea and East Asia,
28–29.

15
. Mural paintings in Japanese royal tombs, many Korean historians believe, suggest that the Japanese imperial house lineage may have had Korean origins.

16
. Lee,
Korea and East Asia,
28.

17
. Ibid., 33.

18
.
Chos
ŏ
n ilbo,
24 March 2010 (Seoul).

19
. In 2007 the Chinese even tried to co-opt Paekche and Silla into Chinese history. Chinese historians wrongly argue that, just like Kogury
ŏ
, a group of people from the Puy
ŏ
tribe, an ethnic minority in an ancient Chinese borderland area, founded Paekche. According to the Chinese argument, because its people were of the same lineage as the people of Kogury
ŏ
, Paekche was a provincial kingdom established by a Chinese ethnic minority. Silla was also founded by exiles from the Chinese Qin dynasty. The argument that both Paekche and Silla were established by Chinese ethnic minorities and maintained vassal relationships with China is a politically far-fetched interpretation of history to deprive Korea of its entire ancient history.

1
. By the ninth century the Silla people had called Parhae the “Northern State.” Viewed in this light, it is surmised that the people of Parhae might have called Silla the “Southern State.” Parhae was also termed the “Northern State” in the twelfth-century historical work
Samguk sagi.
Yu T
ŭ
k-kong, historian of the eighteenth-century Chos
ŏ
n dynasty, advocated the proper study of Parhae as part of Korean history and coined the term “Northern and Southern States Period” to refer to this era.

2
. The ky
ŏ
l was a unit measuring the area of farmland. One ky
ŏ
l equaled the area of land that could produce 10,000 handfuls, or 1,200
tu,
of grain. These days, 1 tu is equal to 16 kilograms, but at the time it seems to have been equivalent to one-third that amount. As agricultural technology gradually improved, the output per unit area increased, and thus the amount of ky
ŏ
l also increased. In short, the ky
ŏ
l was a unit of the area of farmland, based on productivity rather than on the size of a parcel of land.

3
. Lee,
A New History of Korea,
78.

4
. Ibid., 80.

5
. According to legend, W
ŏ
nhyo set off to China with a close friend,
Ŭ
isang, but he did not complete his journey. One night he awoke quite thirsty, discovered a container filled with delicious cool water, drank it, and went back to sleep. The next morning he saw that the vessel he had drunk from was a human skull and the water was rotten rainwater. At that moment he attained enlightenment, suddenly realizing that the mind controlled everything. He therefore had no reason to proceed to China and returned home.

6
. Lee,
A New History of Korea,
85.

7
. Ibid., 108–109.

8
. Korean historians divide the entire Silla history into three periods—the early period (before unification), the middle period (the time between the reigns of King Munmu and King Hyegong), and the late period (since the reign of King S
ŏ
nd
ŏ
k).

1
. By the end of the Silla period, Pyongyang was outside the kingdom’s territory and had been degraded to a hunting ground for the Nuzhen (formerly Malgal) people. T’aejo advanced the status of the old Kogury
ŏ
capital by making it one of the three capitals of Kory
ŏ
, the Western Capital.

2
. In the Kory
ŏ
and Chos
ŏ
n dynasties, posthumous titles were given to kings in accordance with their lifetime achievements. Usually
cho
(
-jo
) was given to monarchs who performed meritorious deeds such as founding a dynasty, defending the state against foreign invasion, suppressing rebellions, and so forth, whereas
chong
(
-jong
) was given to kings who did not render these distinguished services. The former kings were called “persons of merit” and the latter “persons of virtue.” In Kory
ŏ
, T’aejo (Wang K
ŏ
n) was the only king whose title contained the term “cho,” although some other kings deserved it. The Chos
ŏ
n dynasty, on the other hand, followed in accordance with the pattern more faithfully than the preceding dynasty and thus witnessed several kings whose posthumous titles had the term “cho.”

3
. Kory
ŏ
set up several togam, or directorates, as nonpermanent organs to carry out specific tasks.

4
. Lee,
A New History of Korea,
113–116.

5
. Han,
Tasi ch’ann
ŭ
n uri y
ŏ
ksa,
218–219.

1
. Lee,
A New History of Korea,
145–147.

2
. In 1236 Kory
ŏ
began the re-creation of the Tripitaka on Kanghwa-do. This collection of Buddhist scriptures took 15 years to carve on 81,137 woodblocks.

3
. Posthumous titles were bestowed in these ways on six Kory
ŏ
kings: Ch’ungny
ŏ
l-wang (1274–1308), Ch’ungs
ŏ
n-wang (1298, 1308–1313), Ch’ungsuk-wang (1313–1330, 1332–1339), Ch’unghye-wang (1330–1332, 1339–1344), Ch’ungmok-wang (1344–1348), and Ch’ungj
ŏ
ng-wang (1348–1351).

4
. Lee,
Korea and East Asia,
97.

1
. King Sejong also frequently declared a national amnesty to release those imprisoned for minor crimes, and he improved the social status of slaves by banning owners from punishing them at will.

2
. Whereas Silla was symbolized by “metal,” Kory
ŏ
was represented by “water.”

3
. Lee,
A New History of Korea,
180–181.

4
. Originally, in 1396, the 37-volume
Kory
ŏ
sa
was compiled in chronological format by Ch
ŏ
ng To-j
ŏ
n. Because its emphasis was on the role of bureaucrat-officials, the king commanded that a revised version be published that stressed the role of the monarch.

5
. According to the ancient Chinese philosophy of Naturalism, the calendar signs consisted of 10 “heavenly stems” and 12 “earthly branches,” the latter associated with the signs of the zodiac. When combined in a sequence of pairs of characters, these formed the traditional cycle of 60, used for counting time in periods of 60 days and 60 years.

6
. Lee,
A New History of Korea,
203.

1
. At first copper mining was not well developed, since copper was mainly imported from Japan. In the eighteenth century, however, when the Japanese forbade the export of copper and China demanded it in great supplies, copper mines began operating on a large scale.

2
. Swartout, “A History of Korean-American Relations,” 8–10.

3
. Chung,
Korean Treaties
, 205.

4
. Swartout, “A History of Korean-American Relations,” 12–13.

5
. When the Chos
ŏ
n representatives went to Japan in September 1882, they took the present-day South Korean national flag, the
T’aeg
ŭ
kki
, or Great Absolute Flag, with them, for the first time in the country’s history, to demonstrate that Chos
ŏ
n was an independent nation. The T’aeg
ŭ
kki was formally adopted as the national flag on 6 March 1883.

6
. The Hongb
ŏ
m included 14 stipulations: Chos
ŏ
n’s independence from China; the exclusion of royalties and royal in-laws from politics; the enactment of a royal ordinance to prescribe royal succession and other norms for the royal family; separation of the palace apparatus from that of the government proper; the establishment of the modern
cabinet system; taxation specified by law; the placement of all fiscal matters under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Finance; retrenchment of expenditures for the royal household; the establishment of an annual budget system; restructuring of local government; the promotion of advanced civilization by dispatching students to foreign countries; the establishment of a universal conscription system; protection of people’s life and property through civil law and criminal law; and the abolishment of class distinctions and the appointment of talented persons to office.