ABSTRACT
Korean culture is a unique, vibrant contribution to world civilization. Its art is prized among international cognoscenti. Its society is the most economically dynamic in the world. In the United States, attitudes of both young and old are often a complex of Korean War and popular television memories of dubious relevance to understanding a culture of world significance and a transformed society and economy. The gradual amalgamation of a series of Altaic-speaking Tungusic tribal groups, whose origins were probably Siberian or central Asian, into what has become the Korean people, was a process tempered by more than a millennium of internecine tribal struggle. Shamanism is generally thought to have Siberian origins, and it is extensively practiced throughout Korean society. Even more important to Korean society has been the concept of rigidly defined social class, a pre-Confucian inheritance. The concept of a sociopolitical vortex, pulling all into the center in an upwardly mobile spiral, has been used to describe Korean society.
