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The fallacy that Korea was a hermit kingdom has increasingly been seen as erroneous, and falsified repeatedly by contemporary Korean historians - as well as being seen as a racialist label for the Korean people, and its foreign policy, which was always active, always engaged with the world abroad, and which had a long history.
This article will examine the hermit kingdom fallacy, lay out its origins, and compare it to other labels for countries and continents whose achievements were denigrated or repudiated by western writers, particularly missionaries, before the late 20th century.
Koreans react to having their nations called "hermit kingdoms" in much the same way that Africans react to their various nations called "the dark continent" or "darkest Africa" negating great achievements and an incredibly long rich cultural history.
With hope this article will make clear why this label has become a very sensitive issue, and on what basis it is being solved; and suggestions to international media in avoiding using this term which is both perjorative and racialist, and further erroneous.
A fast summary of Korean foreign relations to 1900
Korean students have been studying in China as far back as the 5th century when Buddhist monks travelled back and forth and Buddhism became the primary religion of Korea; and which then was exported to Japan by Korean monks, and increasingly large libraries.
The actual date of Korean influence in Japan is over 2000 years ago when a Korean colony of immigrants to Japan raised the Izumo shrine. However, it took some time for more extensive organized trade with Japan to build at a great scale: primarily exports of Korean pottery, swords, horses, Buddhist texts, and the like that had been going on within the context of organized foreign relations and trade missions since well before the 8th century, based on discoveries of artefacts in Japan, and this has been uninterrupted since then til the present day. The Izumo shrine in Japan was built by Korean immigrants in the time roughly 100 BCE to 100 AD. It is considered the second most important original shrine in Japan, and reflects the beginning of prehistoric Korean influences on Japanese Culture. ...
Korean monks visited India, Nepal, Tibet, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, studied there, and returned with Buddhist texts and statuary from the 12th century onwards, and as well Korean ships had extensive trade as far south as Vietnam again from that time.
The Chinese imperial navy which attempted invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281 used Korean shipbuilders, naval plans, and Korean sailors who were impressed for that purpose. Korea as well had extensive relations with the island later known as "Taiwan" again from the 8th century onwards, and the development of much of Korean pottery trade shows throughout that region from then on. Events May 7 - In France the Second Council of Lyons opens to consider the condition of the Holy Land and to agree to a union with the Byzantine church. ...
Events February 22 - Martin IV becomes Pope August 15 - Kamikaze storm wipes out invading Mongol army in the coast of Japan The Ottoman Empire was founded as an autonomous state (Beylik) in present day Bilecik, Turkey, by Osman Bey. ...
Trade missions to China were so frequent and so profuse, as with Japan, in medieval times, that they had to be restricted. Koreans in the 1870s read speeches that had been translated into Chinese by Abraham Lincoln, and knew European history, and as well had travelled extensively in Mongolia, and the northern Russias. Tariffs and restrictions on trade by Korea that reduced foreign trade were neither more or less usual than other areas in that region. The protectionist markets of Korea were closed to international trade, or highly restricted before the 1880s, which again was similar to what was isolationism throughout the west, and national trade tariffs.
In no sense was isolationism inherent to a culture based on both Buddhism and Confucianism, the most international of religions. As well Korean neo-confucianism had been importing western ideas since the 17th century through Jesuit translations of western works into Chinese as Chinese was the basic language of the educated yangban Korean scholarly/administrative class. Statues of Buddha such as this, the Tian Tan Buddha statue in Hong Kong, remind followers to practice right living. ...
Confucianism (儒家 Pinyin: rújiā The School of the Scholars), sometimes translated as the School of Literati, is an East Asian ethical and philosophical system originally developed from the teachings of Confucius. ...
The Yangban were on the top of the social hierarchy in pre-Modern Korea. ...
Throughout the 18th century within Korea, Catholicism spread and was left to grow unrestrained, indeed the royal libraries had "books by the tens" on western thought, and the Koreans were well aware of Jesuitical relations with China from the earliest times. Debate was ongoing on the extent by which Christianity would be assimilated within Korea, and for at least a full century, the possibility of integrating Christianity within the Korean society of Confucian administrators was strongly considered.
Historical introduction to the fallacy As early as Carpenter's Geographical Reader of Asia (NY, America Book Company, 1897) reference is made to "the hermit nation" which is "largely controlled by Japan". And as well comments are made that "Koreans until lately driven travellers away from their shores"; and that "the United States...opened Korea to the rest of the world". All three statements were and are erroneous, and began a foundation of error which was given reinforcement by subsequent books. (qv.
The book title "The hermit kingdom" for Korea was used by an American missionary who lived in Japan and had very strong anti-Korean sentiments in a book by that title.
The writer of the book had never visited Korea, did not speak the language, and had no first-hand experience with the country from the time he wrote the first through third books on Korea. As well he supported both the invasion of Korea, the occupation of Korea by Japan, and in his works attempted to prove the supremacy of Japan by belittling Korean achievements or negating them. The publication of "The Hermit Kingdom" in 19xx, and its circulation, particularly in North America, led to tacit approval of Japan's incursions into Korea, and was used to justify Japanese actions by showing the Korean people as primitive, uncultured, unable to function internationally, and needing Japanese direction.
The immense influence of this title, and the inherent racism behind its approach, have had an overwhelming influence on western scholarship, and led erroneous summations based on a theory of isolationism that never occurred.
A background to Korean foreign relations
A background to Korean international relations
A background to relations with the west before 1900
Addressing the fallacy to modern scholars
Addressing the fallacy to the media
The Japanese textbook issue There has been repeated controversy in Japanese school textbooks both eliminating Korean cultural origins of Japanese culture, and as well historically suggesting inferiority of Korean culture that needed direction from Japan post 1880s. Numerous fallacies are dealt with by many Korean organizations in exerting pressure for more accurate textbooks, and are best looked at elsewhere in the wikipedia for this discussion.
Reference Work Korean Impact on Japanese Culture: Japan's Hidden History, Dr. Jon Carter and Alan Covell, NJ: Hollym Publishers, 1984. Reprinted 7 times.
Historians' Fallacies : Toward a Logic of Historical Thought by David H. Fischer. See: http://www.amazon.com for listing.
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