Essay- Korean Psyche

Nowadays, many Korean are prejudiced against the Japanese. The main reason why we feel antipathy for them is the Imjin War of 1592 and the era under the colonial administration of imperial Japan. Then, I will write about why we have gotten antipathy, even though we won the Imjin War and we separated from Japan now. Also, that is all water under the bridge. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, unified Japan for the first time and wanted to make territorial expansion. Plus, they believed the power of rifles made in Portugal.

Korea always defeated Japanese raiders previously, so we were not too concerned at the onset of the Imjin War.

As a result, Korea was considerably damaged. But this is not the thing that Koreans hostile toward the Japanese. The reason is they not only encroached upon the territory of our country, but also plundered Korean cultural assets. Their behavior became inglorious chapter in our mind. Before the Japanese Invasion of Korea (Imjin War), Japanese culture lagged far behind.

For this reason, The Japanese were envious of Korean cultures such as artistic handicrafts, printing technique and Confucianism. After the Imjin War, the thing that Japan got greatly influenced by us is the skills of making pottery.

Japan imported pottery from Ming and Joseon Dynasty since theirs were awfully poor before war. Therefore, Japanese troops stationed in Korea wanted to get Korean pottery. They plundered and looted Korea’s. Also, a number of Korean potters among the prisoners of war were taken to Japan. With this, Japanese techniques of making pottery developed rapidly. Not only pottery techniques, but their Confucianism also developed through Korean Confucianism books and Korean Confucian scholar. They looted and kidnapped our cultures and our thoughts. I want to stress again that they was not just tried to invade the territory.

What is more, they looted our books, specialty publications, cultural assets, and kidnapped our people to develop their cultures. How clever the Japanese were. They acted as though they owned all of things in Korea. Furthermore, they did not respect us as human, especially during the era under the colonial administration of imperial Japan, such as electric torture and comfort women. ‘Imjin war’ and ‘Japanese occupation period’ are an inglorious chapter in Korean history by which we had done little to prevent ourselves. However, Japanese behaviors at that time would be an awfully inglorious chapter in Japanese history.