Korea, China and Japan are three great countries in Far East. They have territories nearby each other, so they have confluences in cultural heritages. Historically this is topic to researches that fork many diverse reception of differences depending on nationality. In this posting, I would like to introduce it for international people, to extend how Korean people feel about the three countries historical, political and cultural things.
First of all, Chinese heritage is influential, their influences to many other Asian countries and even some of it to the Western world too. Chinese people have one of the most oldiest civilizations in world history. They invented many scientific inventions such as gunpowder, paper and Chinese writings. The most latter, Chinese writings are paramount, which was transferred to Korea and Japan and it shaped both countries cultural formation and how they think about when nuances are differed from Indo-European languages.
Chinese writings have made differences when denotative academic things. The philosophical terms such as 體 and 用. The both ones are often used to translation of system and usage. The example. “國家社會는 互助의 體이요, 道德과 仁義는 互助의 用이다. 國家는 體이고, 政治는 用이다. 法律은 治의 體이고, 治의 用은 權勢다. 만약 用이 없다면, 體는 存在할 수 없다. 世界에 本質이 있고, 精神의 用을 행하지 않는다면, 人類가 아니다. 또한 物質이 없다면, 精神의 表現은 불가능하다 ” (Sun Yat-sen) = “Society is system of coexistence, morality and toleration are use of coexistence. The nation is system, politics is use. The law is system of governance, power is use of governance. If there is not use, system cannot exist. In the world, if there is system of substances, but not exists use of mind, it is absolutely not humane. Also, if there is no material, it cannot express mind.”
The example above is about the two conceptional argument utilising 體 and 用. There are differences in understanding these two terms because denotative capacity is. In Chinese denotation, 體 is multiple meaning all-inclusive manner for system, body, principles, discipline, container and so on, but in English they are denoted in different separate words. So, when people need to distinguish the nuances sharply, it makes divergence from advanced studies. 體 and 用, Chinese tradition can be more sensical to their synthetic capacity, when utilising the two conceptions. 體 as dynamically advanceable to medical sense which is incorporated with systematic discipline from social philosophy as the above quotation, but in English there would be more endeavor to make contextual connection to the term. So, many Eastern philosophers established ethical and moral strengths in Chinese philosophy, this is also agreed by Korea and Japan.
The notable thing is that Korean people have superior feelings on when they say Chinese writings. Korean people transferred Chinese writings to Japan and earlier industrialization enabled Japan, Japan in turn translated Western terms back to Korea and China, so three countries have shared way of expressing Westernized conceptions mutually understandable. The thing is political in sometimes, because imperialistic era, there was collision in the three countries. Korean people have tendency to agree with the international historians opinions about Chinese heritage influences over Korea, Korean people can approve this research without hesitation. However, with Japan, Korean people emphasize their influences more older era and Japan emphasize to “beyond the territories of Asia” focusing on the first nation to be industrialized in all Asian history. These two beliefs’s collisions have many political tension between the two countries’s peoples, so many times friendship making also have tension between the two when they see for the first time. Similarly in Canada, there is some normativity such that Canadian people special meaning of saying “North” over the US people, the questions like google.ca or google.com? also existed in Korean people’s morality over Japanese people.
The related issue is that the US people have humanistic culture so recently they have mourning to nuclear explosion to Japan in 1945. Korean people hardly say this, because of the history explained at the above. So, when you feel some Korean people express agitative way about this topic, please do not oppose it. It is true that many Korean people express agitative ways when they have to assert things and it is held by many intellectuals differently, it is moral restriction existed between Korea and Japan.
So, wise people make mutual agreement not to talk about the history and politics and many mutual people express approval of each country’s heritages, for example, Korean people sing “Nagasaki wa kyou mo ame datta” or Japanese people mentioned the Korean people’s transfer of Chinese writings to Japan.
Recently the mainland China had launched historical research project Northeast Project of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences so Korean people also have new restriction in approving the scope of the influence from Chinese culture to Korean cultures, it is also issues that Taekwondo versus Chinese Kungfu, Kimchi’s origin and so on, which have elements of researching the two countries. It is not very severe than what is invocative by Korean people to Japan, however, it is also issued because the two countries are nearby neighbours.
The modern Korea is well-industrialized country and many Korean companies established business in China. There has been direct introduction of Korean mass-media cultures, movie and drama, popular songs too, and some events Korean diplomatic officials’s treat to Chinese officials which Korean eccentric popular cultures pressure to change Korean officials (as colloquial sense, Korean entertainment changed Korean cultures especially over the official is too serious or so) and the debates on some sports games in the world scale, Lotte was sanctioned by Chinese government, (Lotte is one of the enterprise established by Korean Japanese family which have massive influences on Korean economy too).
China and the US are very important friends for South Korea, there are many political issues on it too. The US have been defending South Korea from the Korean War, and economically they supported South Korea. China is so-called “friends from blood” to North Korea. Recent 30 years, South Korea have made treaty with China and cooperative manner for culture and economy, but recent expansion of China and the US, including Taiwan, South Korea was put to pressure how they make wise decision on the two giant countries.
With Taiwan too, when South Korea had made treaty to China, China requested to close diplomatic relationship to Taiwan, it is also issue between South Korea and Taiwan. It is not only with South Korea, many other countries too. However Taiwan is still favored travel site by South Korean.
Thesedays, North Korean people have strong connection with China and Russia, confronting the US and their alliances. The interconnection between strategic significance over different circumstances in the three Far East countries have many topics to talk and research. The topics in this posting are named very few, please look deeper by finding out for your turn too ^^