Korean Studies Mid Term Notes

Introduction
Meiji Reforms

Initially brought about by Commodore Perrys opening of Japanese ports with his black
ships
Series of events that led to the restoration of the emperor to the throne
Accompanied by full scale modernization

Treaty of Shimonoseki

Signed in 1985 to end the Sino-Japanese war with Japanese victorious

Ended centuries of China domination over Korea
China cedes sovereignty of Taiwan and Liaodong Peninsula to Japan

Gabo Reforms of 1985

Gwageo (Civil Service Exams) system abolished to be replaced by Japanese

bureaucratic system
Japanese currency allowed for use as well as adoption of Japanese system of
measurements
Discrimination based on class system, slavery, underage marriage were banned
Widows were allowed to remarry
Cutting off the top knot

Russo-Japan War

War resulted ostensibly from a conflict over the use of the port of Liaodong Peninsula
known as Port Arthur
War was about control over a strategic piece of Asia
Japanese achieved a stunning defeat of Russian forces
Treaty of Portsmouth-Russia agrees to recognize Korea as part of Japans sphere of
influence and withdraws from Manchuria

1905 Eulsa Treaty

Japan began its occupation of Korea with the signing of the treaty, making Korea a
protectorate of Japan
Partial result of the Russo-Japanese War
Agreement gave Japan complete responsibility for Koreas foreign affairs
Placed all trade through Korea ports under Japanese supervision

Annexation Treaty

August 22, 1910 Singed by Japanese Consul General and Prime Minister Yi Wan Yong
affixed with the seal of King Sunjong
Treaty places Korea under complete control of Japanese emperor (Colonization of Korea
by the Japanese)
Koreas become citizens of the Japanese empire
Japanese style modernity, capitalism and education implemented in Korea
First 10 years of colonial rule are heavy handed

March 1st 1919 Movement

Korean students in Tokyo read a declaration demanding freedom after hearing the
Woodrow Wilsons speech on the right of national self determination
Declaration of independence is read in Seoul
Repercussions:

Korean Studies Mid Term Notes

o
o
o

Governor-General Hasagawa Yoshimichi takes responsibility and is replaced by

Saito Makato
Many aspects of Japanese rule that were objectionable to Koreans were changed
Military police were replaced by a civilian force and press restrictions were
mostly lifted

Cultural Rule

Around the turn of the century, the Korean press was promoting an idea that had come
in from Japan as civilization and enlightenment
Became the main concern of reform mined intellectuals
Japanese colonial authorities realized the value of giving Koreans cultural opportunities
to release pressure

Vortex
Causes:

Completely sustained centralized rule over centuries

Homogenous culture with no alternatives to power other than the monarchy
No local or regional organizations lack of feudal structure
Due to the lack of ethnic, religious, political and linguistic differences and a
universalistic value system all groupings are artificial opportunistic-access to power

Enabling of the Vortex

Unity and homogeneity acted to produce a mass society

Mass society:
o One lacking strong institutions or voluntary associations that could act as buffer
between local communities and the throne
o One consisting of atomized entities related to each other mainly through their
relations to state power
o One characterized by amorphousness or isolation of social relations

The Vortex

An upward sweeping funnel that narrows and increases the intensity of its pull as it
nears the apex of power (the throne)
As the horizontal structure is weak, there is nothing to stop the pull of vertical (upward)
pressure
Intermediary groups are sucked apart and upward towards power before they can
achieve aggregation (unity)
Government was a great vortex summoning men rapidly into it, placing them briefly
near the summits of ambition and then sweeping them out
o Often ruthlessly to execution or exile
Made politics more vicious than other comparable dynasties legal boundaries were
lacking and few matters were free from contest

Subordination of the Economy

Property and the economy were as orientated towards central power as politics
No real theory of private property
Privacy was regarded as virtually subversive based exclusively on political power
Bureaucracy was increasingly self-serving rather than public serving - instrument of
the state and to be exploited

Lack of Development

Korean Studies Mid Term Notes

Government did not provided any form of local development administrative and social
gap
Villages had only weak and informal horizontal integration with other communities in
the same country and none beyond
Confucian relationships gave little incentive for bridging the gap
Regionalism was weak as compared to Europe and Japan lack of association of
Koreans to a common cause

4 Different Class Structure:

1. Yangban
o Military and scholars
o Size of the class is uncertain
o Fierce competition existed among clans
o Class carried many privileges and few obligations
o Required standards of behaviour among which the principal one was to avoid
work and hold himself aloof from members of other classes
o Number of eligible yangban far outnumbered the available jobs (1000 positions)
o Led to influence peddling, corruption or other means to get a government
position
Hyangban
o Middle or shadow class of yangban living away from the centre of power
o Large upward surge of yangban through intermarriage or the buying of status
created a substantial hyangban class
o Many yangban fell into ruin through exile or inability to produce a heir who could
pass the exams
o Later part of the dynasty marked by social mobility
Consequence of Yangban inflation:
o No advance in role or function eroded the kind of elite defence against the rise of
mass values
o Koreas elite lost the ability to transmit its values downwards
o Japanese values easily imported
o Real leadership class of the capital was small, isolated, aloof and vulnerable
Elaborated fraud possessing no leadership or cohesion
2. Chungin
o Small middle class of professionals and clerks
Chungin middlemen
Ajon county clerks
Changgyo professional military officers
o Chungin and ajon each had cohesion important functions to carry out which
helped foster cooperative activity
o However, cultural barriers against cohesion and identity stunted the fulfilment of
chungin and ajon and blocked their potential contribution to modernization
o Chungin provided intellectual and political leadership drafting the
Independence Declaration
Even though there was political ambitions and individual abilities, there
was no single group whose pride, repute and cohesion could spur its
members to leadership or rally behind them to nation
3. Sangmin
o Commoners farmers, artisans and merchants
Farmers made up of 75% of the population of Yi Korea
Only group to enjoy, in fair repute, freedom from any form of deceit or
guile

Korean Studies Mid Term Notes

Too scattered and lack of any strong federal pattern to draw villages
together
Merchants were ranked below farmers
6% of the population
Lack of a strong merchant class
Strict surveillance for trade-based economic activity
Ward off foreign jealously and curbed economic activity

4. Cheonmin
o Low-born class butchers, slaves
Those who mingled with the rest of society
Those who were outcasts
Those who were slaves

Consequence of the Class Structure:

o Government was centralized but different elements of society could not cohere
to this centre
o Class or clan characteristics, sense of community, pride and loyalty could be
clearly form
o Common interests, goals and leadership were possible only under those
conditions of extreme crisis
o Society developed through merging accommodation hostile to making or
obeying rules
o Atomized mass streaming towards power not the formation of groups
restraining power
Meditated by both the law and social pressure
Became the natural state of social order

Consequence of the Vortex:

Grouping is an opportunistic matter concerned only with access to power, hence groups
are factional in nature and easily splitting
Homogeneity vs Foreign influence:
o Both religions and forms of government in Korea have been of foreign origin
Confucian monarchy and bureaucracy, Japanese colonial rule, American military
government and constitutional democracy
o Korean psychologically inured to foreign influence and the idea that what is
native is weak and what is foreign is strong
Vulnerability resulting from the Vortex:
o Distrust of the military and Confucian disdain for the physical leads to the
weakening of military power military ban comes to resemble the literary ban
o Sinifed Chinese-fied government magnified unity
Ruling through carefully standardized institutions and relatively uniform
means its spirit was that of a jealous centralism dedicated to the
obliteration of any unorthodox activities
Lack of innovation and diversity stifle creativity and progress
Group relations are artificial and self-serving
Nepotism is a natural outcome

Centralism and the Vortex

Homogenizing power of Confucianism penetrated every level of life and explained all
things much as the church did in medieval Europe
Three bonds envisioned a world where individuals or family heads had a direct
relationship with the ruler at least emotionally

Korean Studies Mid Term Notes

Beyond village bonds, Confucianism was weak in all representational relationships

Attitudes towards authority and power that were determined outside the homes in
Europe were determined within the home and subject to parental discipline
o Obedience is deeply ingrained
Confucianism as not only political but as moral, ethical and religious code-government
Administration became entwined with religious orthodoxy and departure from it was
seen as heresy
o Innovation and change became impossible
Politics, administration, values and even emotions became centralized

Class Differentiation

The elite and hereditary nature of the study of Confucian classics and the relation of
this to power created a huge gulf between the aristocratic class and commoners
Commoners looked to shamanism and popularized Buddhism creating class and value
gaps

The Pyramid

Vortex has the shape of a pyramid with the king at its apex
Court was endowed with a multitude of enticing positions
Local power could be attractive but promotion up the pyramid had to come from the
court

1920 Seoul
Modernity

New way of life Seoul as a Colonial Metropolis

Capitalism and the emergence of a middle consuming class
New ways of transportation, consumption and leisure
Boom in cultural production popular anti-Japanese sentiment channelled into
institutionalized forms urban, literate, middle-class are subsumed into ambiguous
culture of colonial rule

Post 1919 Policy of Culture Rule

1910-1920 Cultural and political life faced many restrictions

New Governor-general Saito Makato New cultural rule policy
Many unpopular laws were modified including those that relate to punishment for minor
offences and economic matters
Explosion of cultural activity, especially in the field of print media

Education

The 6th Imperial University-Kyeongseong Imperial University opened in 1926

Korean language and literature taught at KIU
Thousands leave to study in Japan

New Ideas

Social radicalism and socialism were very popular in Japan in the 1920s in the wake of
the Russian Revolution in October 1917
This though immediately made its way into Korea
Western ideas are also made inroads ideas related to modernity
Womens liberation became a common theme
Korean Artists Proletarian Federation born in 1925

Korean Studies Mid Term Notes

Nationalism

Shin Chae Ho writing a new history of Korea

Replaces China as the cultural centre
Nationalism in ethnic a trend that would continue till the present day
Ethnic Vs Cultural nationalism
Short-lived period of cultural nationalism characterized by the Buy Korea movement
Cultural nationalism movement is defunct by the late 1920s

1920s Modernity

Modernity developed unevenly in the colony

o Some groups yangban, traditional landowners were disinvested
o New groups gained access to opportunities and upward mobility
Importation of western ideas dating, womens right and love
Invention of a language of modernity

1920s and 1930s Colonial Period

By mid 1920s, Seoul was starting to take the look of a fairly modern city (city centre)
Life is changing rapidly due to the influx of modernity

Colonial Reality

Generation of Koreans had been born and raised in the colonial reality
Culture policy of rule and widening opportunities serve as a release valve for popular
discontent with colonial rule
2 way nature of colonial rule Many Koreans accommodate themselves to the colonial
reality and the Japanese authorities accepted that there will remain a peninsular
consciousness cannot erase Korean culture completely

Colonial Modernity New Employment

Industrialization creates need for the factory worker mostly women

o Explosion of print media creates need for the journalist
o Advent of the salary man
o Railroad becomes a larger employer
o Police force comprises of more than half Koreans
o Bar hostess

Colonial Modernity New modes of leisure

Idea of vacation becomes common

Hot spring resorts become popular
Travel to Manchuria by train and Japan by plane or boat
Skiing First ski hill developed by the Japanese in 1927
Cinema Hollywood movies becoming popular
Arts Museums, concerts and theatre
Bar, cafes and clubs as new cultural places

Advent of a Cosmopolitan Seoul

Idea of Korea as participating in the world (western culture)

Manifestations of cosmopolitanism:
o Changing tastes coffee, butter, whiskey
o Changing spaces departmental stores
o Changing values Modern boy, girl, women sex and marriage

Korean Studies Mid Term Notes

Korea as part of colonial order

1931 Japan adds Manchuria to the colonial empire

Koreans being to feel the benefits of being Japanese citizens
Waposhan Incident of 1933

Modernism

Powerful attraction to formal experimentation and innovation

Logical ruptures and the linking of ostensibly incompatible phenomenon
Deliberate cultivation of ambiguity, multi-facetedness and associations
preoccupation with disorder, crisis, randomness and fragmentation
Explorations of different conceptions of reality and the self

Colonial Totalitarianism

Chosen dynasty (1910-1945) colony at that time that was held by a non-Western
power
Chosen was clasped in vice-like grip by Japanese military with ubiquitous security preoccupations instruments of repression were stronger that in other colonized countries
Initially ruled by governor-general appointed by the Japanese
Reported directly to the Emperor of Japan
1919 Korean Independence movement civilian could be appointed as governorgeneral none were all were military men, mostly active
Theme of rule:
o Stern, centralized, bureaucratic, administration without constitutional or popular
restraint
o Justified as efficient by the Japanese
Koreans had to accustomed to a rule of complete despotism dedicated to their
Japanization
o Shifting Confucianism to obedience to an imperial autocrat
o Replaced with foreign bureaucratic centralism
o New channels of communication was in place:
No Korean newspapers were allowed until 1919 those that were around
were strongly censored
o Political activities went underground
Insulation and alienation from the political process were increased by the
thickness and exclusiveness of the Japanese presence
Presence of an enormous Japanese ruling class
Rising tide of government and economic modernization
o Japanese filling most of the important jobs
Economic exploitation
o Concentration of landholding in fewer and fewer hands became a constant trend
o Many Koreans forfeited their property
o Vague ownership of land (yangban) were acquired by Japanese land companies
or Korean landlords
Gaps of the rich and poor widened
o Resentment led to the emigration of thousands to Manchuria and Japan
Farmers became less isolated within the economy
o Landlessness, more rural schools, expanding communications and stronger
exchange economy
o Came close to political consciousness as they were increasingly alienated from
the hierarchical structure express consciousness
Japanese theory and employment law in Korea
Cultural factors: Difference in police

Korean Studies Mid Term Notes

o
o

Japanese lower samurais measure of social respect

Korean performed by commoners and the lower class Monkey people end of
civilization line

1919 Independence Movement

Intended Outcome:

Realization that there was a lack within society of any strong secondary institutions of
loyalties and leadership groups or classes
o Outcome was greatly increased by the development of a massive disciplined
bureaucracy that was able to control every organization and to effect a
totalitarian mobilization of society
Large resources of Japanese nationals
Capability of integrating Koreans

Unintended Outcome:

Generation of relatively intense nationalist feelings

o Increased both nationalism and participation in the colonial system
o Resulted in greater political mobilization but with the certitude of increased
conflict

Forced Modernization

March 1st 1919 Movement proved to be a watershed of more than one kind was an
open break with Japan
o Competition for central power that had been the mainspring of the old Korean
political tradition
o Concentrated the attention of Tokyo policy makers on Chosen
o Push reforms to remove differences between Chosen and Japan treat Chosen on
the same level as Japan
Education
Industry
Civil service
Education
o Increasing Korean participation in their own society in education
o Reassert national pride
o Elementary schools system, courses and textbooks were under the influence of
the Japanese private schools and government-improved textbooks
o Hiring experienced Japanese teachers government control over education was
unbreakable
o However, more than 50% of Koreans in 1945 were not receiving compulsory
primary education
o Koreans were zealous for education and deeply resented Japanese educational
discrimination
o Education was moulded in planned uniformity to Japans purposes
National characteristics and national language (Japanese)
Loyalty to the king
o Education was the only path to ambition all good schools were oversubscribed
o Education was a double edged sword
Ideas opposed to militarism and colonialism appealed strongly to students
who felt resentment at Japans subjection of Korea and its culture
Japan social unrest in 1920 proved to be an excellent incubator for
hatching Korean revolutionaries
o Creation of more institutions
Focus of loyalties and of group coherence

Korean Studies Mid Term Notes

Koreans felt largely shut out by Japanese staging protests and strikes
The Press
o Function of the newspapers in maintaining national consciousness and providing
a forum of public opinions
o Editorship was generally conservative-nationalists harboured distinct and rising
socialist and even communist influence
o Centralized in Seoul
o No local Korean press to inspire a sense of local pride and community or voice
local issues
o Increased forms of centralization to be strengthened failure to hold together
local loyalties outside Seoul
Industrialization
o Chosen was looked primarily as a source of food for Japanese expanding
population and as a market for Japanese goods
Industry and middle class were not greatly strengthened
o Social mobilization was gradual
o Chosen became the base for domination in Asia
Industries were built up
Raw materials were exploited
Communications system was established Japans lifeline for domination
in Asia
o Classic example of swift social mobilization
In the interest of Japan rather than Korea
Korea had to be politically stable to ensure Japans expansion and
exploitation
o Good foundations laid by the Japanese for agricultural development
Increasing populations
Need for employment
Sought alternative avenues of advancement
Potential new sources of order for the society
o Industries were developed
Locating industries in areas where resources lay
Gave promise of development of intermediary institutions and interest
groups that will serve for economic development and political barriers to
uncurbed central power
Bound people together to form communities of common interest laid the
foundation to form a mass society
o However, tempo was hectic
New places without names, traditions or ties grew overnight
Facilities and resources were overused
Overtime was constant
Union activity was forbidden
Industrial institutions had Japanese roots and not Korean roots
Ownership and management were alien
Koreans only participated in the lowest form of jobs
Development of specialization, new hierarchies, respect system,
advancement were limited
No stable career overworked
o Japanese filling most of the important jobs
Communications
o Korean network was concentrated in the north
o Used for internal needs and to service Japans connections with Asia
o Facilities were used by the Japanese
o Dramatically improved in the years before 1945

Korean Studies Mid Term Notes

o Helped Koreans to participate more widely and a large scale political mobilization
Urbanization
o Abruptness of urbanization swept people from all ties and known settings into
the alien worlds that sought only to exploit their labour and knew no pause in
war for social needs

Politics and Mass Society under Colonization

First Stage 1910-1920

Japanese militarist view of political activity as a meaningless, inefficient and dangerous

nuisance
Fist army autocrats had no intention of allowing political activity
Koreans were denied all access to political power, had no franchise and were not even
permitted voluntary participation in defence
Local customs were suppressed
Koreans had to be Japanized First duty
Economic Development without political distractions Second Duty
Administration did grind steadily and efficiently without hindrance from the public
opinion, criticism or discussions
Only political gesture was the establishment of the Chusuin Central Advisory Council
Lacked of political communication factional disputes undermined any possible political
movement

Second Stage 1920-1931

Reforms of 1920 brought a way to a more advanced political participation

Organizations were allowed to form and meet
Provincial councils consultative of the governor-general
Japanese elections were dismissed as empty gestures

Third Stage 1931-1945

War rather than planned Japanization was what made the political difference
Industrial, communication development and urbanization altered the dynamics and
relationships of Korean society
Manchurian incident brought a tougher breed of militarists and policies to the governorgenerals office
Korean language was dropped from courses and forbidden in schools and businesses
Totalitarian climax to the process of minute social control increasing during the war

Fracturing of the Society

War had shifted people, increased communication and tended to erode rather than
aggravate sectionalism
Regional splits lead to social divisiveness
Communists made use of this issue to strengthen themselves and make themselves
successors in a revolution of leadership
Suspicion, tension and backbiting were sown throughout society
o Middle class lacked unity
o Society lacked the capacity to form the bodies an independent Korea needed
Japan could not give economic progress or modernization a social or political framework
Expansion through education, communications, urbanization an industrialization
Koreans are able to engage and exert pressures on politics
Unable to mobilize a central government due to a lack of attachments and loyalties

Korean Studies Mid Term Notes

Japanese forbid Korean political activity freeze ancient Korean patterns and political
instincts
Unable to perform their own political experiments

Colonial State and Society

Chosen State Bureaucratic, centralized and authoritarian

Government of Central Korea penetrated Korean society more thoroughly
o Used their experience building the Meiji state and 20 th century technology to
advance their strategic, economic and political goals
Japanese colonization of Korea:
o Attempts to efface Korean culture and language
o Colonial exploitation, repression and racism
Governor General in charge appointed by the Japanese prime minister
o Reported to the emperor directly ambiguity in lines of authority
Pacify the colony
o Subdue the remnants of the righteous army resistance
o Upper yangban was stripped of their political power left with lands intact and
considerable residual social prestige
o Swept and arrested rebellious Koreans
o Core leadership of the New Peoples Association
o Without any leadership in armed resistance for the Korean society , the Japanese
was able to establish their institutions of rigid, highly intrusive administrative
colonialism
o Created new laws:
Land, family registers, heath regulations, sanitation procedures, fishery
regulations, water and irrigation rights, markets etc.
Dual system of jurisprudence:
o Japanese in Korea had special rights and granted special laws
o 2 sets of law and punishments Japanese and Korean
Use of traditional punishments for Koreans whipping
Too barbaric for Japanese citizens
o Expanded juridical system
Majority of the judgeships were held by the Japanese

Korean Studies Mid Term Notes

Land Ownership
o Land survey ordinance registered with government documentary proof of any
claims to ownership to cultivation rights
o Swept away tradition Korean practices and replaced with a strict and rational
system to fix tax regulations and rationalize land transfer sales
o Thousands of peasants lost their land as they did not understand these new
regulation procedures or filed claims improperly
o Government controlled 40% of land in Korea by 1918
Fujiland Company
Oriental Development Company
Finance
o CGK regulated the finance and business activities through the Company Law of
1910
o Close control of the Bank of Chosen Chosen Industrial Bank
Central for economy, provided capital for projects and infrastructure
development
o Provided loans for Manchuria and North China
o Initial economy policy focused on underdeveloping Korea
Restrict investment to raw materials extraction
Increase rice production for the Japanese market
All businesses to be licensed by the CGK
Publications
o Restricted cultural and political life
o Privately run newspapers were closed down
o Korean Daily News press for the CGK
o Fine-tuned censorship and publication permits
1907 Newspaper Law and 1909 Publication Law
o All private organizations were abolished and another permit system was created
to regulate public assembly of any kind
Infrastructure
o Building up infrastructure
o New Seoul
o Symbols of Japanese domination in modern Korean society
o Communications infrastructure
Railroad tracks, lines that linked from Korean southern ports to Manchuria
East west lines connected mines and rice-producing areas to the new
ports along the coasts
o Korea became a strategic and economic centre of Japanese dominated Northeast
Asia
o Increase in towns drawing population and economic activity

Cultural Control & Ideology of Empire

Cultural Rule limited Korean cultural autonomy culturally assimilated to become

Japan in all aspects
o Colonial ideology of a common ancestral origin of the Korean and Japanese races
o Assimilation was a long term goal but became urgent following the war
o Lay historical and archaeological foundations of assimilation theories
Conversion of Korean history into Japanese
o Spread the Japanese language use
o Inculcate proper values of good imperial citizens among Korea subjects
Education
o School expansion was slow
o Separate schools for Japanese and Koreans
o Educational Ordinance of 1911 new regulations on textbooks at private schools

Korean Studies Mid Term Notes

o Japanese language study was compulsory and accredited in all schools

o Korean secondary education stressed vocational and technical education
o Limited opportunities to study arts, law, medicine and humanities
o Limited opportunities for educated Koreans to cultural production and journalism
Consequence
o Japanese total control
o Increased physical mobility by providing railroads
o Intensify economic contacts stimulated by increasing influence in the
international rice market
o Internal migrations of Koreans brought people together
o Increased in literacy and education created more political awareness
o Resentment towards colonial rule
Severe military rule
Legal and education discrimination
Arrest of political and intellectual leaders
o Galvanized anti-Japanese consciousness disrupted the lives of Koreans

March 1st 1919 Movement

Movement failed as it neither dislodge the Japanese nor gain attention of the Western
powers
Did demonstrate to Korean nationalists of all political stripes that it was possible to
organize a mass following under the appeals to nation and anti-Japanese sentiments
New governor general appointed reform colonial policy under a softer label
Forced Japanese to rethink their policies in Korea

Cultural Policy

CGK reorganized administrative structures and increase size of local advisory boards
staffed by prominent Koreans
Create more Korean participation in government affairs
Japanese ensured that colonial authority is not diluted
Abolished traditional forms of punishment for minor offences
Modified unpopular laws traditional burial practices and police interference with rural
markets
New pay scale for civil servants reduce different between Koreans and Japanese of
equal ranks
Changes in Agricultural developments
o Invested in agricultural production stimulated rural economy of Korea
o Prosperity for farmers and landlords
o Rapid expansion of rice-growing lower prices for rice in Japan
Changes in Company Law
o Encourage more native entrepreneurs
o Main aim to open up private investment from Japan
o Exploit labour in Korea
o Removal of trade barriers between Japan and Korea
Cultural policy strategy was to mollify public opinion through administrative reshuffle,
selected legal reforms, cosmic changes in police practices and the currying favour of
Korean elites
o Japanese however reinforced their entire control apparatus
o Promise for new schools turned out to be bait and switch
o About tone and expression
o Gave up nothing in the important area of control
Reforms were significant in terms of the new freedom to publish and organize
immediately expanded the publish sphere

Korean Studies Mid Term Notes

Koreans were able to test new boundaries and administrators contemplated their
limit of tolerance
o Stimulated national independence movement abroad
Colonial rule evolved into a flexible rule of divide and conquer
Provided outlets for mild forms of dissent and by making governance and economy
slightly more inclusive of Koreans
o