ABSTRACT
Korea has been known emblematically as the ‘hermit kingdom’ or ‘land of morning calm’. Under the gunboat diplomacy of Japan, Korea officially became a protectorate for approximately 40 years (1905-45). During this period, regulations were imposed to drive the construction of the modern transport infrastructures. These regulations were designed to support Japan with natural and human resources, and to provide better control of regions of Korea through streamlined military mobilization. Other infrastructural changes were brought about in various domains, including political, social, economic and, more importantly, cultural. Korean heritage – such as language, religion, relics, and even individuals’ names – was banned, manipulated, destroyed and taken away by force. Some, such as the Korean language, covertly remained intact. However, such rapid and forced transformation led to disorder in the Korean people’s perception of their identity at a societal and individual level. This was an expected result considering that the intention of the Japanese government was not to develop and preserve, but rather to exploit and destroy, what was Korean. Five years of independence following the Japanese occupation (1945-50)
was inadequate to rebuild Koreans’ broken selfhood, a situation that was exacerbated by the Korean War (1950-3). What was (re)built prior to the war was yet again destroyed, demanding a fundamental restructuring when the war ended. At this stage, South Korea was ostensibly a ‘liberated nation’ but, in truth, it was at the mercy of foreign countries and especially the United States, which provided a large amount of financial support while exerting substantial cultural and political influence on the country. In this context, Korea’s modernization has an ambivalent meaning for its citizens: first, as a form of endeavour to ‘catch up’ with the West, symbol of modernity and supremacy; and second, to ‘fight against’ the West as the dominant threat to Korea’s advancement in the global economy and to traditional Korean culture. The prevalent slogan in twentieth-century Korea, ‘Western technology, Eastern spirit’, clearly reflects this view (Shin 2003).
