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Check out this video introducing free resources for teaching about East Asia in classrooms.

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East Asian Studies Center, The Ohio State University

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From HR to SDGs: Anthropological Reflection on Japanese Approaches to Building a Better Tomorrow Today

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From HR to SDGs: Anthropological Reflection on Japanese Approaches to Building a Better Tomorrow Today

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Abstract: This presentation will juxtapose previous years of anthropological research in Osaka on the human rights movement of Japan’s largest minority (known generally as Buraku people) with more recent ethnographic forays into a trio of efforts undertaken by Kawasaki (Japan’s eight most populous city) to promote diversity and sustainability. A particular focus of the presentation will be to consider how Japanese cities partner with other stakeholders to promote and pursue SDGs in a manner that is strikingly apolitical. Are there lessons that might help inspire more imaginative ways of securing buy-in and co-operative action from government officials, civil society, and the public sphere?

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1. Do you think a similar approach to SDGs is viable in your classroom/school/community/state? What might be some of the opportunities and obstacles at each level?

2. What do you think makes it so hard for people in the US to focus on common aspirational goals? Do you think shifting how we talk about things to focus more on civic engagement might help spark more productive conversations and partnerships?

3. We saw in Japan that a lot of effort went into including and engaging young people. When do you think is the appropriate time to begin engaging children on issues like sustainability? Is earlier necessarily better or do you think one should wait until they reach a certain level of maturity? This question is meant to highlight how children might be seen and treated differently in Japan than the US. Note that this is something that can also be seen in many anime. Perhaps you know of some examples.

4. Thinking about your goals as a teacher, what can those of us in higher education do to better assist you? Should we be devoting more time to writing or preparing materials to help you develop a working knowledge of our areas of specialization? Should we be partnering with you to produce material accessible to different ages and grades? Should we be looking to develop professional development opportunities that get you out to different parts of the world for a couple of weeks so that you can pass onto students some of what you learn? Should we be doing something different from all of the above?

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English｜Institute of Human Rights Studies

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The Institute of Buraku Studies was established at our university in 1974. This Institute was the first of its kind among private universities and the second among all in Japan where a wide range of issues on human rights and discrimination were researched. It was reorganized in 1985 to become what is known today as the Institute of Human Rights Studies, which has reached the 50th anniversary in 2024. Needless to say, human rights conception is not unchanged but prevailed and deepened while a lot of people have been addressing protection and establishment of human rights. Our institute consists of more than 20 researchers and about 10 contract researchers from outside. We are tackling diversified and intensified human rights issues. I wish our research will lead to the solution of human rights problems.

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Developing safer digital technologies for all Read the story

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Sustainability Goal Links UN Sustainability Goals and East Asia: Sustainability Goals Data_ East Asia Videos of interest:

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World Population:

reached 8 billion on November 15, 2022 according to the latest United Nations estimates.

is projected to reach 9 billion in 2037, and 10 billion in 2058.

has doubled in 40 years from 1959 (3 billion) to 1999 (6 billion).

is currently (2023) growing at a rate of around 0.88% per year, adding around 70 million people per year to the total.

growth rate reached its peak in the late 1960s, when it was at 2.09%.

growth rate is currently declining and is projected to continue to decline in the coming years (reaching below 0.50% by 2048, reach 0 in 2086, and decline by -0.11% in 2100) .

a tremendous change occurred with the industrial revolution: whereas it had taken all of human history up to the year 1800 for world population to reach 1 billion, the second billion was achieved in only 130 years (1930), the third billion in 30 years (1960), the fourth billion in 15 years (1974), the fifth billion in 13 years (1987), the sixth billion in 11 years (1998), the seventh billion and eighth billion in 12 years each (2010 and 2022). During the 20th century alone, the population in the world has grown from 1.65 billion to 6 billion.

Sources for the world population counter: For more detailed information:

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Worldometer - real time world statistics

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Live world statistics on population, government and economics, society and media, environment, food, water, energy and health. Interesting statistics with world population clock, forest loss this year, carbon dioxide co2 emission, world hunger data, energy consumed, and a lot more

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Biographical & contact information for John Davis

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The Sustainable Development Report 2023 tracks the performance of all 193 UN Member States on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

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China

East and South Asia

Overview Indicators Policy Efforts

SDG Dashboards and Trends

Click on a goal to view more information.

Dashboards:

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Check us out on social media!

The Sustainable Development Report (formerly the SDG Index & Dashboards) is a global assessment of countries' progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. It is a complement to the official SDG indicators and the voluntary national reviews.

All data presented on this website are based on the publication Sachs et al. (2022): From Crisis to Sustainable Development: the SDGs as Roadmap to 2030 and Beyond. Sustainable Development Report 2022. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Feedback? Questions? Contact us at info@sdgindex.org

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The Sustainable Development Report 2022 tracks the performance of all 193 UN Member States on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

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Select one of the SDGs to see it on the map

All data presented on this website are based on the publication Sachs, J.D., Lafortune, G., Fuller, G., Drumm, E. (2023). Implementing the SDG Stimulus. Sustainable Development Report 2023. Paris: SDSN, Dublin: Dublin University Press, 2023. 10.25546/102924

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The Sustainable Development Report 2023 tracks the performance of all 193 UN Member States on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

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We promote use of the Sustainable Development Goals in learning so that children can contribute to a better future for all. From citizenship and justice to climate change and the environment, inspire children to make a difference!

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The 5P's Explained

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The Sustainable Development Goals - Get Involved, Make a Difference. Make some NOISE!

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The Sustainable Development Report 2023 tracks the performance of all 193 UN Member States on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

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Visualizing Development: the 2023 Atlas of Sustainable Development Goals

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The World Bank's 2023 Atlas of Sustainable Development Goals, published today, offers powerful data insights on the progress and setbacks in our efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the midpoint in their implementation.

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Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.

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World Report 2024: Rights Trends in China

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In late 2022, the Chinese government abruptly ended its draconian “zero Covid” policy. As much of the population—and the medical establishment—was unprepared, Covid-19 infections, hospitalizations, and deaths surged. Officially, the government estimated that there were 60,000 “excess deaths” in December 2022; a US academic study put the figure at 1.87 million deaths between December 2022 and January 2023. The true toll will likely remain unknown due to severe censorship.

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World Report 2024: Rights Trends in Japan

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Japan is a liberal democracy with an active civil society.

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The Republic of Korea (ROK or South Korea) is a democracy that largely respects the civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights of its citizens. However, several human rights concerns remain, including pervasive and systemic discrimination against women and girls; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people; racial minorities; migrants; older people; and people with disabilities. South Korea remains one of the few Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries without an anti-discrimination law.

In 2023, activists raised concerns about the erosion of the rights to freedom of assembly and association as the government cracked down on disability rights demonstrations, labor union protests, and LGBT parades and festivals. President Yoon Suk-yeol pledged to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (MoGEF) in a move that activists have called state-sponsored anti-feminism in the face of widespread discrimination and violence against women and girls. The government did not develop a fourth National Action Plan, a comprehensive blueprint on human rights, for 2023-2028.

Over the past year, Yoon strengthened the government's promotion of human rights in North Korea. A South Korean court ruled in February that a same-sex couple should receive the same National Health Insurance Service benefits as a heterosexual couple, recognizing the rights of a same-sex couple for the first time.

Following a string of violent crimes in July and August, the minister of justice called for the maintenance of execution facilities at correctional facilities across the country. While South Korea has not carried out an execution since 1997, 59 people still remain on death row. The government has not abolished the death penalty.

Women's and Girls' Rights

The Economist magazine's " Glass Ceiling Index," which assesses women's educational attainment, women in managerial positions, and maternal leave policies, gave South Korea the lowest rank among OECD member countries in 2023.

The government struggled to address digital sex crimes, including the widespread posting of pictures of women and girls without their consent. According to a report released in March by the MoGEF, digital sex crimes targeting children increased between 2019 and 2021. In June, the government's Sexual Violence Safety Survey found that 51 percent of 7,505 women surveyed worry about becoming victims of sexual violence while using public bathrooms or taking taxis alone.

In February, South Korea's Ministry of Justice shot down the MoGEF's plans to revise the legal definition of rape to include nonconsensual sex. South Korean courts have interpreted the penal code very narrowly, often ruling in favor of the perpetrator when there are "mitigating circumstances" such as inebriation.

In October, the National Assembly passed the Protected Birth Bill that promotes anonymous births and adoption or orphanage care as solutions to unregistered births and unwanted pregnancies. Women's rights groups opposed the bill, saying it failed to address the underlying reasons that drive women not to register births, including lack of access to safe abortions, lack of comprehensive sexuality education, inadequate support services for pregnant women and girls, and the stigma of single motherhood.

Freedom of Expression

Though South Korea has a free press and a diverse civil society, the government uses the country's criminal defamation laws to limit scrutiny of its actions. Convictions for criminal defamation are not based on whether what was said was true, but whether it was in the "public interest," and they can result in up to seven years' imprisonment and a fine.

South Korea's draconian National Security Law (NSL) criminalizes the dissemination of materials alleged to be North Korean propaganda and statements thought to praise North Korea and has effectively restricted South Koreans' access to North Korean media. In January, the National Intelligence Service and the police raided the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, alleging that some of its members had violated the NSL.

Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

In May, Seoul's city government blocked the organizers of the Seoul Queer Culture Festival from holding its annual pride parade at its usual location in front of City Hall and gave the lot to a vocally homophobic Christian organization. Despite the opposition, over 150,000 people attended the event in July in Seoul's Euljiro neighborhood, according to the organizers.

In June, lawmakers proposed legislation that would extend the right to marry to same-sex couples. Another proposed bill would create civil unions as an alternative to marriage.

Policy on Human Rights in North Korea

Though the government has yet to establish the North Korean Human Rights Foundation as stipulated by the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2016, Yoon reiterated his commitment to its terms. In March, the Ministry of Unification publicly released its annual report on the human rights situation in North Korea for the first time, which Yoon referenced in his address to the US Congress in April. He stressed the collective responsibility to "inform the world of the gravity of North Korea's human rights violations."

In December 2022, South Korea co-sponsored the annual resolution at the United Nations General Assembly condemning North Korean human rights violations and the Human Rights Council resolution on North Korea in April 2023.

In September, South Korea's Constitutional Court overturned a 2020 law amendment that prohibited sending leaflets, information, money and other items from South Korea into North Korea, calling the ban an excessive restriction on free speech. This decision followed complaints from activist groups, including North Korean escapees living in South Korea, that the restrictions were vague and punishments excessive and that the law prevented activists from sending information to North Korea.

Workers' Rights

The South Korean government has not ratified the International Labour Organization (ILO) Violence and Harassment Convention (C190), which would require it to implement measures to end harassment and violence in the workplace. In June, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions met with the ILO in Geneva to voice concerns that President Yoon had been suppressing labor movements.

Disability Rights

In December 2022 and January 2023, the Seoul Metro and police officers prevented activists with Solidarity Against Disability Discrimination (SADD) from demonstrating on the subway for an increased government budget to protect the rights of people with disabilities. Following the crackdown, the Seoul Metro filed a damages suit against SADD for 601.45 million won (about US$484,000).

Key International Actors

President Yoon has prioritized strategic relations with Japan despite public backlash caused by historical resentment surrounding Japan's occupation of the Korean peninsula. In August, President Yoon met with United States President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at Camp David, the first trilateral meeting of its kind. The three countries agreed to cooperate to counter North Korea's nuclear threats and condemned acts of Chinese aggression in the South China Sea but failed to mention the issue of human rights in North Korea. Economically, China is South Korea's top trading partner.

In July, President Yoon pledged to provide military supplies, not just financial and humanitarian aid, to Ukraine, reversing an earlier decision to only provide non-lethal supplies. South Korea also plans to increase its total financial aid to Ukraine to 250 billion won (about $394 million). These policies are expected to further worsen relations with North Korea, one of Russia's allies.

In June, South Korea was elected to the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member for the 2024-2025 term.

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World Report 2024: Rights Trends in South Korea

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The Republic of Korea (ROK or South Korea) is a democracy that largely respects the civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights of its citizens. However, several human rights concerns remain, including pervasive and systemic discrimination against women and girls; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people; racial minorities; migrants; older people; and people with disabilities.

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The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) remains one of the most repressive countries in the world. A 2014 United Nations Commission of Inquiry (COI) report found that the government committed systematic, widespread, and gross human rights violations that constitute crimes against humanity. Ruled by third-generation totalitarian leader Kim Jong Un, the government maintains fearful obedience by using threats of torture, executions, imprisonment, enforced disappearances, and forced labor. It systematically denies basic liberties, including freedom of expression, association, and religion. It does not tolerate pluralism, and it bans independent media, civil society organizations, and trade unions.

In 2023, the government continued to maintain extreme and unnecessary measures under the pretext of protecting against the Covid-19 pandemic, with deepened isolation and repression; border, trade, and travel restrictions; and strong ideological control. These restrictions severely aggravated the existing food crisis and exacerbated the country's chronic lack of access to medicines, medical supplies, and other necessities. They hurt market activities the population relied on to survive and severely undermined people's ability to make a living in 2023. The impact of the nearly four-year-long Covid-19 nation-wide country lockdown intensified as the country was hit by major droughts in March and April and flooding in August.

The government continued to prioritize weapons development, conducting over 30 missile tests between January and September, including three long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Freedom of Expression and Information

The government does not permit freedom of thought, expression, or information. All media is strictly controlled. Accessing phones, computers, televisions, radios, or media content that is not sanctioned by the government is illegal and considered "anti-socialist behavior" that is punished, including through the use of torture and forced labor. The government regularly cracks down on those accessing unsanctioned media. It also jams Chinese mobile phone services at the border and targets for arrest people for communicating with contacts outside the country.

In January 2023, the government enacted the Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Act, banning the use of language that is South Korean in style or appears to have foreign influence. The law criminalized communications "in the puppet language," a reference to the South Korean language style, setting punishments of six years or more of forced labor and even the death penalty in some cases. It also encourages the authorities to use public trials and executions to "awaken the masses."

In March and April, authorities reportedly conducted public trials in Ryanggang province under the law. One trial targeted 17 young people for watching unsanctioned videos and using South Korean language. One leader of the group was sentenced to 10 years of forced labor. In another trial, 20 youth athletes were sentenced to three to five years of forced labor for using South Korean vocabulary.

Freedom of Movement

Moving from one province to another, or traveling abroad without prior approval, continued to be illegal. The government maintained heightened enforcement of a ban on "illegal" travel to China through border buffer zones on the northern border to protect against Covid-19. Border guards remained under orders to "unconditionally shoot" anyone entering or leaving without permission. Authorities' strict enforcement of these restrictions severely impacted people's livelihoods and ability to access food, medicines, and other essential goods.

In August, North Korean state media officially announced the reopening of its borders to citizens residing abroad after they were closed in January 2020. North Korea's national airline restarted international flights, and the former North Korean ambassador to China returned to North Korea. In March, authorities allowed some Chinese diplomats to enter the country. However, humanitarian organizations and most diplomats remained unable to return. Informal trade activities stayed banned. Official trade by rail and waterways increased but remained lower than before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Activist networks in China and South Korea that help North Koreans flee their country and transit through China to a safe third country were able to resume activities, but they faced major obstacles due to increased security enforcement and mass surveillance in China. Many North Koreans in China remained hidden in safe houses. The Chinese government continued to seek to detain North Korean asylum seekers and return them to North Korea, violating China's obligations as a state party to the UN Refugee Convention. Many North Koreans detained in China were forcibly returned to North Korea-80 in August, 40 in September, and at least 500 in October-where they almost certainly faced grave abuses for their attempted escape. North Korean law states that leaving the country without permission is a crime of " treachery against the nation," punishable by death.

In 2019, over 1,000 North Korean asylum seekers were resettled in South Korea, but this number declined to 67 in 2022 and only 139 between January and September 2023.

Right to Health

North Korea is one of the poorest countries in the world. The government has constantly struggled with chronic food insecurity. Insufficient domestic food production and the government's prioritization of military and security development made the ability of the North Korean people to get food, medicine, and other necessities almost totally reliant on both official and unofficial trade with China and private product distribution across the country and market activity.

The excessive and unnecessary Covid-19 related restrictions blocked most sources of income for a large majority of the population, reducing their ability to buy any already limited food and basic necessities available in the markets. They adversely impacted the ability of ordinary North Koreans to conduct basic economic activities, generally worsening their rights to food, health, and an adequate standard of living.

There were reports of a mass vaccination campaign and a second round of vaccinations for Covid-19 in North Pyongan province, Nampo port, and Pyongyang in September 2022. However, there are no official numbers of vaccinated people available.

Forced Labor

The North Korean government routinely and systematically requires forced, uncompensated labor from much of its population to sustain its economy. The government's forced labor demands target women through the Women's Union, children at schools, workers at state-owned enterprises or deployed abroad, detainees in short-term hard labor detention centers ( rodong dallyeondae), and prisoners at long-term ordinary prison camps ( kyohwaso) and political prison camps.

At some point in their lives, a significant majority of North Koreans must perform unpaid hard labor, often justified by the state as "portrayals of loyalty" to the government. Since punishment for crimes in North Korea is arbitrary and dependent on a person's record of loyalty, personal connections, and ability to pay bribes, the refusal of a government order to work as a "volunteer" can result in severe punishment, including torture and imprisonment. North Korea remains one of only seven UN member states that has not joined the International Labour Organization.

At-Risk Groups under Songbun

North Korea uses , a sociopolitical classification system that, in its creation, grouped people into "loyal," "wavering," or "hostile" classes and discriminates against those placed in the lower classes in employment, housing, and education.

Women's and Girls' Rights

In February 2023, Elizabeth Salmon, the UN special rapporteur on North Korea, raised concerns about the disproportionate impact of the Covid-19 restrictions on women and girls, the declining economic participation of women, and the impact on livelihoods since women are the main breadwinners in most families. She also flagged possible increases in domestic violence and economic pressures linked to the pandemic. The government has failed to take any meaningful action to address the country's intense and pervasive women's rights violations, including sexual and gender-based violence, widespread discrimination, and enforcement of rigid gender stereotypes.

Key International Actors

The 2014 COI report recommended the UN Security Council refer the situation in North Korea to the International Criminal Court. In August 2023, the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights restated this recommendation to the UN Security Council, noting its ongoing documentation of crimes and abuses, including crimes against humanity against people held in long-term prison camps (kyohwaso) and short-term detention facilities.

The UN Security Council held an Arria-formula meeting on human rights issues in March 2023 and a formal debate in August, its first discussions on human rights in North Korea since 2017. (The council regularly debates and passes resolutions to address North Korea's weapons proliferation activities.) Due to opposition by China and Russia, the council remained unable to adopt any resolution addressing the situation. The council's separate debates on weapons proliferation in March, May, and June featured minimal discussion of human rights issues.

The UN General Assembly was expected to pass a resolution on North Korea's human rights record in December, as it has repeatedly done since 2007.

South Korea strengthened its commitment to promote human rights in North Korea. The United States government maintained human rights-related sanctions on the North Korean government and on Kim Jong Un and several other officials. In December 2022, the European Union extended human rights-related sanctions on two top government officials and the country's public prosecutor's office. The EU continued to lead on bringing resolutions on North Korea at the UN General Assembly and UN Human Rights Council. Japan continued to demand the return of Japanese citizens whom North Korea abducted in the 1970s and 1980s. Some Japanese civil society groups allege the number of abductees is much higher than reported.

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World Report 2024: Rights Trends in North Korea

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The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) remains one of the most repressive countries in the world. A 2014 United Nations Commission of Inquiry (COI) report found that the government committed systematic, widespread, and gross human rights violations that constitute crimes against humanity.

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KOREANS

In terms of ethnicity, the population of the Korean Peninsula is one of the world's most homogeneous. Descended from migratory groups who entered the Korean Peninsula from Siberia, Manchuria, and Inner Asia several thousands of years ago, the Korean people are distinguished from the neighboring populations of mainland Asia and Japan in terms of ethnicity, culture, and language, even though they share many cultural elements with these peoples. [Source: Andrea Matles Savada, Library of Congress, 1993 *]

Koreans have maintained their own unique language, culture and customs for thousands of years. The Koreans are believed to be descended primarily from Tungusic peoples of the cold northern regions of Central Asia. Based on linguistic evidence, the first Koreans originated from the Altai region of Mongolia and Siberia - where the Turks, Hungarians and Finns also came from - and migrated from there to present-day Liaoshi and Manchuria (regions in China) and the Korean peninsula. There is still a large population of Koreans in China today.

Sometimes referred to as the "Irish of Asia," Koreans have a reputation for being rowdy, boisterous, friendly and emotional. According to some surveys, they drink more hard liquor than any other people in the world.

Chunghee Sarah Soh wrote in ""Countries and Their Cultures"": The phrase han p'it-chul ("one bloodline") often is used by Koreans at home and abroad to symbolize their shared identity as the members of a homogeneous nation. Blood and territory thus are the most frequently invoked metaphors associated with the nation. Before the 1945 national division of the peninsula and the subsequent establishment of the two political regimes of North and South Korea in 1948, Koreans identified themselves as the people of Choson. Tan'gun as the founding ancestor has had a symbolic meaning for Koreans throughout the nation's history. A temple erected in Tan'gun's honor in 1429 stood in Pyongyang until its destruction during the Korean War. In 1993, North Korea announced the discovery of Tan'gun's tomb and a few remains of his skeleton at a site close to Pyongyang. Some Korean calendars still print the Year of Tan'gun (Tan'gi ) along with the Gregorian calendar year, which the South Korean government officially adopted in 1962." [Source: Chunghee Sarah Soh, "Countries and Their Cultures", The Gale Group Inc., 2001]

Koreans are also known as Choson and Han'guk According to the "Encyclopedia of World Cultures": "Because Korea is an ethnically homogeneous nation, there are no ethnonyms per se. There are, however, several alternative names used by outsiders as well as natives, all of which come from the names of previous states or dynasties. The name "Korea" comes from the Koryo dynasty (918-1392). "Han'guk" is an abbreviation of "Taehan Min'guk" (Republic of Korea), which is used exclusively by South Koreans. Its origin can be traced to "Taehan Che'guk" (Great Han Empire), the new name of the Yi dynasty (1392-1910) chosen in 1897. "Choson" originated from Old Choson (2333-194 b.c.) , the first Korean state that possessed a bronze culture. The Yi dynasty was also named "Choson" and North Korea prefixed it for the name of its regime, "Choson Minjuju-ui Inmin Konghwa'guk" (Democratic People's Republic of Korea). From "Choson," meaning "morning calm and freshness," Korea acquired the epithet by which it is known, the "land of the morning calm." [Source: Choong Soon Kim, "Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume 5: East / Southeast Asia:" edited by Paul Hockings, 1993 |~|]

South Korean Homogeneity

Koreans pride themselves on the racial harmony, their culture, their food and their set of commonly held beliefs. South Korea's homogeneous population shares a common ethnic, cultural, and linguistic heritage. Almost 100 percent of the population is Korean. It is almost impossible for non-Koreans to obtain a naturalized citizenship in Korea. The legal status of people of other national origins in South Korea is mostly temporary.

Although a variety of different Asian peoples had migrated to the Korean Peninsula in past centuries, very few have remained permanently, so by 1990 both South Korea and North Korea were among the world's most ethnically homogeneous nations. The number of indigenous minorities was negligible. In South Korea, people of foreign origin, including Westerners, Chinese, and Japanese, were a small percentage of the population whose residence was generally temporary. [Source: Andrea Matles Savada and William Shaw, Library of Congress, 1990 *]

Like their Japanese neighbors, Koreans tend to equate nationality or citizenship with membership in a single, homogeneous ethnic group or "race" (minjok, in Korean). A common language and culture also are viewed as important elements in Korean identity. The idea of multiracial or multiethnic nations, like India or the United States, strikes many Koreans as odd or even contradictory. Consciousness of homogeneity is a major reason why Koreans on both sides of the DMZ viewed their country's division as an unnatural and unnecessary tragedy. *

South Korean Cultural Identity

National self-image is, on one level, unambiguously defined by the convergence of territorial, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural identities. Yet intense feelings of nationalism, so evident in athletic events like the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Olympic Games held in Seoul, revealed anxiety as well as pride concerning South Korea's place in the world. More than Western peoples and even more than the Japanese, South Korean individuals are inclined to view themselves as a tightly knit national community with a common destiny. In a rapidly changing world, however, it is often difficult for them to define exactly what being a South Korean is. To outsiders, the intense concern with identity is perhaps difficult to understand; it reflects a history of subordinate relations to powerful foreign states and the tragedy of national division after World War II. [Source: Andrea Matles Savada and William Shaw, Library of Congress, 1990 *]

Many modernized, urban-dwelling South Koreans embark on a search for the "essence" of their culture, which commonly expresses itself as hostility to foreign influences. For example, the poet Kim Chi-ha, whose opposition to the Park regime in the 1970s was a model for a younger generation of dissidents, attacked the government as much for its neglect of traditional values as for its antidemocratic tendencies. *

Seoul has not been slow to employ traditionalism for its own ends. In 1987 the government adopted guidelines for the revision of history textbooks instructing publishers to describe the foundation of the Korean nation by Tan'gun in 2333 B.C. as "a reflection of historical facts" rather than simply a myth. The legendary Tan'gun was, according to the myth, the son of god and a bear-woman. According to a Far Eastern Economic Review commentator, ". . . people ranging from reputable university scholars to chauvinist mystics regard Tan'gun as the personification of ethics and values that emphasize a native Korean identity against the foreign religions and philosophies of Buddhism, neo-Confucianism, Christianity and Marxism that have otherwise dominated Korean history and thought." Tangun's legendary kingdom is older than China's first legendary dynasty, the Xia (2205-1766 B.C.), and its antiquity asserts Korea's cultural autonomy in relation to its largest neighbor. There have been proposals that the government subsidize the rites of the numerically small community of believers in Taejonggyo and other cults that worship Tan'gun. *

Problems of cultural identity are closely connected to the tragedy of Korea's division into two hostile states. Many members of the younger generation of South Koreans born after the Korean War fervently embrace the cause of t'ongil, or reunification, and believe that it is the superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, who are to blame for Korea's national division. The South Korean government's dependence on the United States has been cited as one of the principal reasons for the lack of improvement in north-south ties. While a majority of South Koreans remains suspicious of the North Koreans, many South Koreans also share the sentiments expressed by Kim Chi-ha: "our name is division, and this soiled name, like an immovable destiny, oppresses all of us." When parts of the wall dividing East Berlin and West Berlin were knocked down in November 1989, Koreans reflected sadly that breaching the DMZ would not be such a simple task. *

Regional Difference in South Korea

Against the background of ethnic homogeneity, significant regional differences exist. Within South Korea, the most important regional difference is between the Kyongsang region, embracing North Kyongsang and South Kyongsang provinces in the southeast, and the Cholla region, embracing North Cholla and South Cholla provinces in the southwest. The two regions, separated by the Chiri Massif, nurture a rivalry said to reach back to the Three Kingdoms Period, which lasted from the fourth century to the seventh century A.D., when the kingdoms of Paekche and Silla struggled for control of the peninsula. [Source: Andrea Matles Savada and William Shaw, Library of Congress, 1990 *]

South Koreans divide themselves into five groups: 1) southeasterners and people from Pusan, regarded as direct, manly and boastful; 2) northwesterners, considered honest and aggressive; and 3) northeasterners, thought of as tough and resilient. 4) People from the southwest are regarded as clever, skilled compromisers but unreliable and politically disruptive; and 5) people from Seoul and the central part of Korea are considered gentle, narrow-minded, busy and selfish.

Observers noted that interregional marriages are rare, and that as of 1990 a new fourlane highway completed in 1984 between Kwangju and Taegu, the capitals of South Cholla and North Kyongsang provinces, completed in 1984, had not been successful in promoting travel between the two areas. South Korea's political elite, including presidents Park Chung Hee, Chun Doo Hwan, and Roh Tae Woo, have come largely from the Kyongsang region. As a result, Kyongsang has been a special beneficiary of government development assistance. By contrast, the Cholla region has remained comparatively rural, undeveloped, and poor. Chronically disaffected, its people rightly or wrongly have a reputation for rebelliousness. Regional bitterness was intensified by the May 1980 Kwangju incident, in which about 200 and perhaps many more inhabitants of the capital of South Cholla Province were killed by government troops sent to quell an insurrection. Many of the troops reportedly were from the Kyongsang region. *

Regional stereotypes, like regional dialects, have been breaking down under the influence of centralized education, nationwide media, and the several decades of population movement since the Korean War. Stereotypes remain important, however, in the eyes of many South Koreans. For example, the people of Kyonggi Province, surrounding Seoul, are often described as being cultured, and Ch'ungch'ong people, inhabiting the region embracing North Ch'ungch'ong and South Ch'ungch'ong provinces, are thought to be mild-mannered, manifesting true yangban virtues. The people of Kangwon Province in the northeast were viewed as poor and stolid, while Koreans from the northern provinces of P'yongang, Hwanghae, and Hamgyong, now in North Korea, are perceived as being diligent and aggressive. Cheju Island is famous for its strong-minded and independent women. *

Koreans and Japanese

National or ethnic groups often need an "other," a group of outsiders against whom they can define themselves. While Western countries with their individualistic and, from a Confucian perspective, self-centered ways of life provide important images of "otherness" for South Koreans, the principal source of such images for many years has been Japan. Attitudes toward Japan as an "other" are complex. On the most basic level, there is hostility fed by memories of invasion and colonial oppression, present-day economic frictions, and the Japanese government's inability or unwillingness to do anything about discriminatory treatment of the large Korean minority in Japan. The two countries have a long history of hostility. Admiral Yi Sun-sin, whose armor-plated boats eventually defeated the Japanese navy's damaging attacks in the 1590s, was South Korea's most revered national hero. [Source: Andrea Matles Savada and William Shaw, Library of Congress, 1990 *]

The Japanese Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture's adoption in the 1980s of revised textbook guidelines, softening the language used to describe Japan's aggression during World War II, inspired outrage in South Korea as well as in other Asian countries. The textbook controversy was a major impetus for a national campaign to build an Independence Hall, located about 100 kilometers south of Seoul, to keep alive memories of Japanese colonial exploitation. Opened on August 15, 1987, the anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japan, the building houses grim exhibits depicting the atrocities of the Japanese military against Korean nationalists during the colonial period.

During the colonial period, and particularly during World War II, the Japanese initiated assimilation policies designed to turn Koreans into obedient subjects of the Japanese emperor. Under the slogan Nissen ittai (Japan and Korea as One), newspapers and magazines published in the Korean language were closed, the Korean Language Society was disbanded, and Korean writers were forced to publish only in Japanese. Students who spoke Korean in school were punished. There was pressure to speak Japanese at home, adopt Japanese family and given names, and worship at Shinto shrines, the religious basis for which had been transplanted from the home islands. Korean Christians who refused to show reverence to the emperor as a divinity were imprisoned or ostracized. In the words of historian Ki-baik Lee (called Yi Kibeck in Korean), "Japan's aim was to eradicate consciousness of Korean national identity, roots and all, and thus to obliterate the very existence of the Korean people from the face of the earth."

This shared historical experience has provoked not only hostility but also a desire to purge Korean culture of lingering Japanese influences. In the late 1980s, the government continued to prohibit the distribution of Japanese-made movies and popular music within the country in order to prevent unwanted contemporary influences from crossing the Korea Strait.

On a more polite level, depiction of Japan as the "other" involves contrasting the "essences" of the two countries' cultures. This process has spawned a popular literature that compares, among other things, the naturalness and "resonance" of Korean art and music and the alleged imitativeness and constriction of their Japanese counterparts; the "individualism" (of a non-Western sort) of Koreans and the "collectivism" or group consciousness of the Japanese; and the lyric contrast between the rose of Sharon, Korea's national flower, which blooms robustly all summer long, and the Japanese cherry blossom, which has the "beauty of frailty" in springtime.

The search for a cultural "essence" involves serious contradictions. The literature of Korean cultural distinction is strikingly similar to Japanese attempts to prove the "uniqueness" of their own cultural heritage, although "proof" of Japan's uniqueness is usually drawn from examples of Western countries (the significant "other" for modernized Japanese). Ironically, official and unofficial sponsorship of the Tangun myth, although a minor theme, bears an uncanny resemblance to pre World War II Japanese policies promoting historical interpretations of the nation's founding based on Shinto mythology.

Mixed in with feelings of hostility and competition, however, is genuine admiration for Japanese economic, technological, and social achievements. Japan has become an important market for South Korean manufactured products. Both countries have been targets of criticism by Western governments accusing them of unfair trading practices. Friendly interest in South Korea is growing among the Japanese public despite old prejudices, and large numbers of young Japanese and South Koreans visit each others' countries on school and college excursions. Like South Koreans, Japanese liberals have been disturbed by official attempts to revise wartime history.

First Koreans

Scholars assume that present-day Koreans did not descend from the Paleolithic humans that inhabited the Korean Peninsula half a million years ago, but may be linked to the Neolithic age (from 4,000-3,000 B.C.) humans who inhabited the area, identified archaeologically by the ground and polished stone tools and pottery they used. Around 2,000 B.C., a new pottery culture spread into Korea from China. These people practiced agriculture in a settled communal life, and are widely supposed to have had consanguineous clans as their basic social grouping. Korean historians in modern times sometimes assume that the clan leadership systems characterized by councils of nobles (hwabaek) that emerged in the subsequent Silla period can be traced back to these neolithic peoples, and that a mythical "child of the sn," an original Korean, also was born then. There is no hard evidence, however, to support such beginnings for the Korean people. [Source: Andrea Matles Savada, Library of Congress, 1993]

Koreans descended from nomadic people from northwest Asia. Based on linguistic and DNA evidence, scholars suggest that the first Koreans descended from the Tungus people of the Altai region of Mongolia and Siberia - where the Turks, Hungarians, Mongolians and Finns also came from - and migrated from Central Asia to present-day Liaoshi and Manchuria (regions in China) and the Korean peninsula. There is still a large population of Koreans in China today.

Three Korean tribes - the Mahan, the Chinchan, and the Pynhan - settled in the river valleys and fertile plains of the south. A fourth tribe, the Koguryo settled in the colder north. Koreans generally trace their origin back to the Old Chosun culture (2333 to 194 B.C.), the first Korean state to possess bronze, which arose in northwestern Korea. Rice farming was introduced to Korea and Japan from China in the second millennium B.C., bronze metallurgy arrived around 1000 B.C., and iron making began around 400 B.C..

It is theorized that Koreans are descendents of a mix of the Mongolian peoples who migrated into Manchuria (the northeastern part of China continguous with the Korean peninsula) and later waves of Yue/ Tai/ Dai people who migrated northwards from Southeast Asia, roughly following the coast. It is plausible that the indigenous groups along this route weren't welcoming towards the migrants, and migrants continued northward until they found an unoccupied area they could claim for themselves. Another theory is that Koreans descend from a group which migrated from Siberia. Japanese originated from a similar mix of Ancient peoples.

Korean DNA

Studies of mtDNA, which relate to maternal line gene flow, and Y chromosome studies of male-mediated gene flow show slightly different patterns but have common haplotypes that show strong affiliations of both Japanese and Koreans to the Chinese and of Japanese to Koreans:

Population studies of genetic markers such as HLA variation and mitochondrial DNA have been used to understand human origins, demographic and migration history. Recently, diversity on the nonrecombining portion of the Y chromosome (NRY) has been applied to the study of human history. Since NRY is passed from father to son without recombination, polymorphisms in this region are valuable for investigating male-mediated gene flow and for complementing maternally based studies of mtDNA. Haplotypes constructed from Y-chromosome markers were used to trace the paternal origins of Korean. By using 38 Y chromosome single nucleotide polymorphism markers, the genetic structure of 195 Korean males was analyzed.

The Korean males were characterized by a diverse set of 4 haplogroups (Groups IV, V, VII, X) and 14 haplotypes that were also present in Chinese. The most frequent haplogroup in Korean was Group VII (82.6 percent). It was also the most frequent haplogroup in Chinese (95 percent) as well as in Japanese (45 percent). The frequencies of the haplogroups V, IV, and X were 15.4 percent, 1 percent, and 1 percent, respectively. The second most frequent haplogroup V in Korean was not present in Chinese, but its frequency was similar in Japanese. [Source: Sunghee Hong, Seong-Gene Lee, Yongsook Yoon, Kyuyoung Song, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, 388-1 Poongnap-dong, Songpa-ku, Seoul, Korea, Heritage of Japan website, heritageofjapan.wordpress.com |||]

Ancient Koreans, Chinese and Japanese and Their DNA

Analysis of skull shapes and DNA has shown that modern Japanese are close genetic kin to Koreans and Chinese. Aileen Kawagoe wrote in Heritage of Japan: The DNA sequencing picture that emerges today shows the central Honshu people of Japan to be genetically just a little closer to Sino-Tibetan and Han Chinese (from the Jiangsu region who were possibly rice-farming immigrants during the Yayoi era) evidenced by the specific genetic Y markers found in Japanese today (ie O3a5, O3a and O1), in their mix than to modern-day Koreans whose ancestors contributed significantly to the Japanese gene pool probably during Koguryo and Paekche migrations into Japan of the Kofun era to Asuka eras around 2000 years ago. One surprising point that emerges from a look at both mtDNA and Y Haplogroups charts, is that the Koreans show an even closer genetic affinity to Okinawans (and therefore to the Jomon stock) than mainland Honshu Japanese do themselves...comprising 17.4 percent of their DNA sequence compared to the Japanese 16.1 percent of their DNA sequence. [Source: Aileen Kawagoe, Heritage of Japan website, heritageofjapan.wordpress.com |||]

"Surprisingly, Japanese also display the highest frequency of haplogroup O3a5, which is a Han Chinese and Sino-Tibetan specific O3 branch. Japanese Haplogroup O3a5 (O3e) 10/47= 23 percent This frequency is about 5 percent higher than the frequency of O3a5 among Manchus, Koreans and other Northeast Asians. For North Koreans, the frequency of O3a5 is even lower than some Tungusic populations. Overall, the Koreanic haplogroup O3 were the least influenced by Sinitic populations. |||

"Whereas pure haplogroup C3 (M217-no subclade) was observed at a high frequency among Tungusic (20 percent) and Koreanic (16 percent) populations. The frequency of haplogroup C3 among Japanese was only 1 percent. This means that Japanese origins were not as prominently from Siberia as was commonly thought, since Japanese bear more of C1, whereas C3 is found only in northern populations of Japan. Haplogroup D was observed among Japanese (25 percent) and Tibetans (40 percent); it was also observed among Han Chinese, Mongolians and Koreans. |||

The DNA sequence SNP study done by Japanese researchers in 2005 (the biggest contributor of DNA of each East Asian people is bolded) showed the following results: 1) Korean DNA sequence is made up of: A) 40.6 percent Uniquely Korean; B) 21.9 percent Chinese; C) 1.6 percent Ainu; D) 17.4 percent Okinawan; E) 18.5 percent Unidentified. 2) Japanese DNA sequence is made up of: A) 4.8 percent Uniquely Japanese; B) 24.2 percent Korean; C) 25.8 percent Chinese; D) 8.1 percent Ainu; E) 16.1 percent Okinawan; and F) 21 percent Unidentified. 3) Chinese DNA sequence is made up of: A) 60.6 percent Uniquely Chinese; B) 1.5 percent Japanese; C) 10.6 percent Korean; E) 1.5 percent Ainu; F) 10.6 percent Okinawan; G) 15.2 percent Unidentified. The biggest components in Japanese are Chinese, Korean, Okinawan. Overall, Japanese are closest to Tibetans and Han Chinese, but only marginally more so than to the Koreans.

Genetic Data on the Migration of People from Korea to Japan

Kawagoe wrote: The Haplogroup O expansion A second immigration wave arrived in Japan 2,000-4,000 years ago, and was composed of Yayoi people who brought rice cultivation (as well as weaving and metal working) from Korea and North Eastern Asia. At this date, the land bridges to Japanese islands were submerged and sea-faring migrations must have been responsible for the spread of the Yayoi. Japanese are also carriers of O - subclade O3 is major branch represented in East Asia - which is connected to agricultural revolution in Neolithic Era. The Yayoi origins are estimated to have contributed approximately 52 percent of the current population, while the Jomon contribution is estimated at 40 percent. [Source: Aileen Kawagoe, Heritage of Japan website, heritageofjapan.wordpress.com |||]

"Beside the O3 subclade, Yayoi have also been identified with the O2b1 subclade (SNP 47z). The analysis of haplotypes in the O2b1 subclade reveals a star-like network, which fits well with a model of a major or single founding lineage contributing to a Japanese population. The precursor to the O2b1 subclade, O2b (SNP SRY465), is also abundant in Japan. STR haplotyping in the O2b subclade shows a higher diversity in the Korean population versus the Japanese population, supporting an older age and probable origin in the Korean Peninsula."

"In addition to the other O subclades, the O2a subclade is found in Japan and was also probably introduced at a more recent date with the expansion of rice cultivation. O2a is however associated with Southern East Asia and with speakers of Austro-Asiatic languages (non Austro-Asiatic groups also have good levels of O2a ~ 15 percent). (O2a is also very abundant in India, and another proposed as the ancestral home of this Y-chromosome type) but the frequency of O2a (97 percent) peaks in the unique population of the Mang. A study of the Mang population who live near the border between China and Vietnam in SEAS found only 3 haplogroups: O2a (SNP M95), O3a3b (SNP M7) and O3a3c (SNP M134). The genetic signature is unique and suggests that this is an indigenous population. The Mang have a short stature, live by foraging and have a language related to Mon Khmer. |||

"Because the Yayoi spread from south to north - their highest influence is in Kyushu, which lies closest to the Korean Peninsula. However, the Haplogroup O genetic signature of the Yayoi is not found in Hokkaido, the northernmost island. The geographically separate southern Ryukyu Islands (the largest island is Okinawa) were also spared the domination by Yayoi. Essentially, the distribution of Haplogroup O (highest central location) is the reciprocal of Haplogroup D (highest in north and south). Thus, the island archipelago structure helped to create barriers and genetic structure throughout Japan. New research establishes that native Okinawans and Hokkaido's Ainu share genetic characteristics that pre'date Yayoi arrivals. |||

Origins of the Korean Nation

As is true of all countries, Korea's geography was a major factor in shaping its history; geography also influenced the manner in which the inhabitants of the peninsula emerged as a people sharing the common feeling of being Koreans. The Korean Peninsula protrudes southward from the northeastern corner of the Asian continent and is surrounded on three sides by large expanses of water. Although Japan is not far from the southern tip of this landmass, in ancient times events on the peninsula were affected far more by the civilizations and political developments on the contiguous Asian continent than by those in Japan. [Source: Andrea Matles Savada and William Shaw, Library of Congress, 1990*]

Because the Yalu and Tumen rivers have long been recognized as the border between Korea and China, it is easy to assume that these rivers have always constituted Korea's northern limits. But such was not the case in the ancient period. Neither of the rivers was considered to be sacrosanct by the ancient tribes that dotted the plains of Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula. Because the rivers freeze in the winter, large armies were able to traverse them with ease. Even when the rivers were not frozen, armies equipped with iron tools could easily build ships to cross them.

The Korean people trace their origins to the founding of the state of Chosun. Chosun rose on the banks of the Taedong River in the northwestern corner of the peninsula and prospered as a civilization possessing a code of law and a bronze culture. The Chosun people gradually extended their influence not only over other tribes in the vicinity, but also to the north, conquering most of the Liaodong Basin. However, the rising power of the feudal state of Yen in northern China (1122-225 B.C.) not only checked Chosun's growth, but eventually pushed it back to the territory south of the Ch'ongch'on River, located midway between the Yalu and Taedong rivers. The Chinese had discovered iron by this time and used it extensively in farming and warfare; the Chosun people were not able to match them. Yen became established in the territory vacated by Chosun.

Koreans are Getting Taller and Korean Physical Characteristics

In South Korea in the 1990s, 14-year-old children were 4½ inches taller that their counterparts in 1954. According to another study between 1962 and 1996 the average height of women rose from 5-foot-1-inches to 5-foot-3-inches and men rose from 5-foot-5-inches to 5-foot-8-inches.

Most scientist attribute the increase to nutritional changes, such as more milk and meat in the Korean diet and more food period. Since 1954 rice consumption has increased by 40 percent and the caloric intake of the average Korean has increased by a third. Others have proposed more far-fetched theories for the height increase. One researcher suggested that the switch from sitting on the floor to sitting Western-style chairs has straightened out the backs of Koreans and made them taller.

Some people - especially other Asians - think that Koreans have wider faces and broader, stockier bodies than other Asians. Koreans have a reputation for being physically tough. They are very good at boxing and martial arts and have an expression to describe their strength: "small peppers are hot."

Almost all Koreans are born with a Mongolian birthmark, a small patch of brown pigment located on their butt and/or lower back. The mark disappears when they are one or two years old. Japanese, Mongolians, some Chinese, Hungarians and Bushmen or the Kalahari have a similar mark.

About 95 percent of all Koreans are lactase deficient. This means they have problems digesting milk products.

See Separate Article ASIAN PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS factsanddetails.com

Korea: a Homogeneously Neo Confucian Society?

Many norms and mores of Korean society are rooted in the tenets of Confucianism, a system of ethics developed in China around 500 B.C.. Confucianism emphasizes devotion and respect towards elders, parents, family and people in positions of authority. Many Koreans attribute their country's remarkable success in recent decades to these values. In modern Korean society, Confucianism is most noticeable in relations between people. The Five Relationships prescribe behavior between ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, old and young, and between friends. If you fall outside any of these relationships, you do not effectively exist. [Source: Cities of the World, The Gale Group Inc., 2002]

Neo-Confucianism, the dominant value system of the Chosun Dynasty (1392-1910), combines the social ethics of the classical Chinese philosophers Confucius (Kong Zi, 551-479 B.C.) and Mencius (Meng Zi, 372-289 B.C.) with Buddhist and Daoist metaphysics. One of neo-Confucianism's basic ideas is that the institutions and practices of a properly ordered human community express the immutable principles or laws that govern the cosmos. Through correct social practice, as defined by Confucian sages and their commentators, individuals can achieve self-cultivation and a kind of spiritual unity with heaven (although this was rarely described in mystic or ecstatic terms). Neo-Confucianism defines formal social relations on all levels of society. Social relations are not conceived in terms of the happiness or satisfaction of the individuals involved, but in terms of the harmonious integration of individuals into a collective whole, which, like the properly cultivated individual, mirrors the harmony of the natural order. [Source: Andrea Matles Savada, Library of Congress, 1993 *]

During the Chosun Dynasty, Korean kings made the Neo-Confucian doctrine of the Chinese philosopher Zhu Xi (1130-1200) their state ideology. Although it was a foreign philosophy, Korean neo-Confucian scholars, of whom the most important was Yi Hwang, also known as Yi T'oe-gye (1501-70), played a role in adapting Zhu Xi's teachings to Korean conditions. This was done without denying the cultural superiority of China as the homeland of civilized thought and forms of life.

Neo-Confucianism in Korea became quite rigid and conservative by the mid-sixteenth century. In practice, the doctrine emphasized hierarchy in human relations and self-control for the individual. The Five Relationships (o ryun in Korean; wu lun in Chinese), formulated by classical Chinese thinkers such as Mencius and subsequently sanctified by Zhu Xi and other neo-Confucianist metaphysicians, governed proper human relations: that "between father and son there should be affection; between ruler and minister there should be righteousness; between husband and wife there should be attention to their separate functions; between old and young there should be proper order; and between friends there should be faithfulness." Only the last was a relationship between equals; the others were based on authority and subordination.

Throughout traditional Korean society, from the royal palace and central government offices in the capital to the humblest household in the countryside, the themes of hierarchy and inequality were pervasive. There was no concept of the rights of the individual. In the context of the wider society, a welldefined elite of scholar-officials versed in neo-Confucian orthodoxy was legitimized in terms of the traditional ethical distinction between the educated "superior man" or "gentleman," who seeks righteousness, and the "small man," who seeks only profit. This theme was central in the writings of both Confucius and Mencius. Confucianism and neo-Confucianism as political philosophies proposed a benevolent paternalism: the masses had no role in government, but the scholar-officials were supposed to look after them as fathers look after their children. In the Chosun Dynasty, status and power inequalities, defined precisely within a vertical hierarchy, were generally considered both natural and good. The hierarchy extended from the household relationships of fathers and children through the intermediary relationships of ruler and ruled within the kingdom, to Korea's subordinate status as a tributary of China.

There is a danger, however, in overstressing the idea of Korea as a homogeneously Confucian society, even during the Chosun Dynasty. Foreign observers have been impressed with the diversity of the Korean character as expressed in day-to-day human relations. There is, on the one hand, the image of Koreans as self-controlled, deferential, and meticulous in the fulfillment of their social obligations; on the other hand, there is the Korean reputation for volatility and emotionalism. The ecstasy and euphoria of shamanistic religious practices, one of Korea's most characteristic cultural expressions, contrast sharply with the austere self-control idealized by Confucianists. Although relatively minor themes in the history of Korean ethics and social thought, the concepts of equality and respect for individuals are not entirely lacking. The doctrines of Ch'ndogyo, an indigenous religion that arose in the nineteenth century and combined elements of Buddhism, Daoism, shamanism, Confucianism, and Catholicism, taught that every human being "bears divinity" and that one must "treat man as god."

South Korea's Efforts to Boost Its Image

In the late 2000s, the South Korea government that South Korea was not appreciated and spent millions of dollars on developing a national brand. Reporting from Seoul, John M. Glionna wrote in the Los Angeles Times: "In the world popularity contest, South Korea feels a little like the ugly duckling that wants everyone to know it's really a swan. Citizens flinch on hearing their country ridiculed as a place where politicians throw punches. They despair over a recent poll of foreigners in which four in 10 cited the nation's lack of "charm." Then there's the outlaw cousin to the north. When much of the world hears "Korea," it envisions Kim Jong Il and his hermit state of North Korea, not the democratic nation that has long been a trusted U.S. ally. [Source: John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times, May 3, 2009]

"Well, South Korea isn't going to take it anymore. The image-obsessed country intends to repair its maligned reputation by spending millions of dollars to develop a national brand. In a campaign that has many scratching their heads, South Korea is convinced that it must match the efforts of companies such as Hyundai, LG and Samsung to promote its public identity. So it's taking part in an international ranking system to compete against other nations on first impressions of outsiders.

"Early results are not encouraging. According to one recent Nation Brands Index, South Korea ranked 33rd among 50 nations -- behind countries that officials here whisper are lesser than their own, including Poland and the Czech Republic. The United States ranked seventh. Germany was No. 1. President Lee Myung-bak has formed a Presidential Council on Nation Branding and has announced the goal of moving to 15th place by 2013. "Korea is the world's 13th-largest economy with some $20,000 in per capita income but ranks only 33rd in the global brand index," reporters here quoted Lee as saying. "This is a big problem."

"Some find it refreshing that the nation cares about what others think about it. Others hint that it's a bit neurotic. "Korea's problem is that it doesn't have an Eiffel Tower. Paris doesn't need a slogan -- it's Paris," said public relations executive Phillip Raskin, a branding committee advisor. "Paris would be attractive even if its slogan was 'Go to hell.' In fact, it might actually be that." Analysts say South Korea has been dealt a bad hand. "One unfortunate thing is that South Korea shares its name with a rogue state," said Simon Anholt, a British government advisor who devised the ranking system. "The link to North Korea is bad news. It gets painted with the same brush."

South Korean Brand: "Way Better than You Think it Is"?

"Despite its ancient culture, South Korea is a relatively new player on the modern stage. "It just hasn't been a significant country for very long," Anholt said. "Other nations have been sending a stream of cultural or political ambassadors into global consumption for many years. Korea hasn't been doing that." [Source: John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times, May 3, 2009]

But the ambitious Lee wants to change that, introducing programs to promote the South Korean martial art tae kwon do and pitching the nation as an environmentally friendly "Green Korea." The centerpiece of his agenda is food. The government has announced a plan to globalize Korean cuisine, vowing to put it among the world's top five by 2017. Every day, newspapers carry articles about image boosting: Should the nation build a robotics museum and compete with Japan in that emerging field? How about building some of the world's tallest skyscrapers, or opening a nude beach on a popular island?

"The branding czar talks of a new volunteer program modeled after the U.S. Peace Corps and of "Rainbow Korea," a catchphrase for the nation's so-called expanding multiculturalism. "I am frustrated that people don't appreciate our culture," said Euh Yoon-dae, head of the Presidential Council on Nation Branding. "For so long, Korea has been sandwiched culturally and economically between Japan and China." Euh distinguished his plan from a mere marketing or tourism effort. "We're trying to advance the identity of Korea," he said. "It's the substance rather than the brand itself. We want to walk the walk rather than just talk up some new advertising campaign."

"Still, newspapers and bloggers have poked fun. "It's just mind-boggling. A country isn't like some product you can just promote overnight," said Jon Huer, a sociologist and Seoul newspaper columnist. "Korea's image has always been a bit harsh. It's not a Nepal or a Thailand - both tourist-friendly places. It takes time and patience to get to know the place and its people." Many here have some advice for South Korea: Relax. "Korea is stuck in this way of thinking that it has to outdance, outspend and out-palace other countries," said Michael Hurt, a local blogger, photographer and branding committee member. "It's never been about that. Korea is a quirky taste." Euh acknowledged that South Korea has a long way to go: "It takes time to change the image of a country."

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons.

Text Sources: South Korean government websites, Korea Tourism Organization, Cultural Heritage Administration, Republic of Korea, UNESCO, Wikipedia, Library of Congress, CIA World Factbook, World Bank, Lonely Planet guides, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, "Culture and Customs of Korea" by Donald N. Clark, Chunghee Sarah Soh in "Countries and Their Cultures", "Columbia Encyclopedia", Korea Times, Korea Herald, The Hankyoreh, JoongAng Daily, Radio Free Asia, Bloomberg, Reuters, Associated Press, BBC, AFP, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Yomiuri Shimbun and various books and other publications.

Updated in July 2021

KOREANS

In terms of ethnicity, the population of the Korean Peninsula is one of the world's most homogeneous. Descended from migratory groups who entered the Korean Peninsula from Siberia, Manchuria, and Inner Asia several thousands of years ago, the Korean people are distinguished from the neighboring populations of mainland Asia and Japan in terms of ethnicity, culture, and language, even though they share many cultural elements with these peoples. [Source: Andrea Matles Savada, Library of Congress, 1993 *]

Koreans have maintained their own unique language, culture and customs for thousands of years. The Koreans are believed to be descended primarily from Tungusic peoples of the cold northern regions of Central Asia. Based on linguistic evidence, the first Koreans originated from the Altai region of Mongolia and Siberia - where the Turks, Hungarians and Finns also came from - and migrated from there to present-day Liaoshi and Manchuria (regions in China) and the Korean peninsula. There is still a large population of Koreans in China today.

Sometimes referred to as the "Irish of Asia," Koreans have a reputation for being rowdy, boisterous, friendly and emotional. According to some surveys, they drink more hard liquor than any other people in the world.

Chunghee Sarah Soh wrote in ""Countries and Their Cultures"": The phrase han p'it-chul ("one bloodline") often is used by Koreans at home and abroad to symbolize their shared identity as the members of a homogeneous nation. Blood and territory thus are the most frequently invoked metaphors associated with the nation. Before the 1945 national division of the peninsula and the subsequent establishment of the two political regimes of North and South Korea in 1948, Koreans identified themselves as the people of Choson. Tan'gun as the founding ancestor has had a symbolic meaning for Koreans throughout the nation's history. A temple erected in Tan'gun's honor in 1429 stood in Pyongyang until its destruction during the Korean War. In 1993, North Korea announced the discovery of Tan'gun's tomb and a few remains of his skeleton at a site close to Pyongyang. Some Korean calendars still print the Year of Tan'gun (Tan'gi ) along with the Gregorian calendar year, which the South Korean government officially adopted in 1962." [Source: Chunghee Sarah Soh, "Countries and Their Cultures", The Gale Group Inc., 2001]

Koreans are also known as Choson and Han'guk According to the "Encyclopedia of World Cultures": "Because Korea is an ethnically homogeneous nation, there are no ethnonyms per se. There are, however, several alternative names used by outsiders as well as natives, all of which come from the names of previous states or dynasties. The name "Korea" comes from the Koryo dynasty (918-1392). "Han'guk" is an abbreviation of "Taehan Min'guk" (Republic of Korea), which is used exclusively by South Koreans. Its origin can be traced to "Taehan Che'guk" (Great Han Empire), the new name of the Yi dynasty (1392-1910) chosen in 1897. "Choson" originated from Old Choson (2333-194 b.c.) , the first Korean state that possessed a bronze culture. The Yi dynasty was also named "Choson" and North Korea prefixed it for the name of its regime, "Choson Minjuju-ui Inmin Konghwa'guk" (Democratic People's Republic of Korea). From "Choson," meaning "morning calm and freshness," Korea acquired the epithet by which it is known, the "land of the morning calm." [Source: Choong Soon Kim, "Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume 5: East / Southeast Asia:" edited by Paul Hockings, 1993 |~|]

South Korean Homogeneity

Koreans pride themselves on the racial harmony, their culture, their food and their set of commonly held beliefs. South Korea's homogeneous population shares a common ethnic, cultural, and linguistic heritage. Almost 100 percent of the population is Korean. It is almost impossible for non-Koreans to obtain a naturalized citizenship in Korea. The legal status of people of other national origins in South Korea is mostly temporary.

Although a variety of different Asian peoples had migrated to the Korean Peninsula in past centuries, very few have remained permanently, so by 1990 both South Korea and North Korea were among the world's most ethnically homogeneous nations. The number of indigenous minorities was negligible. In South Korea, people of foreign origin, including Westerners, Chinese, and Japanese, were a small percentage of the population whose residence was generally temporary. [Source: Andrea Matles Savada and William Shaw, Library of Congress, 1990 *]

Like their Japanese neighbors, Koreans tend to equate nationality or citizenship with membership in a single, homogeneous ethnic group or "race" (minjok, in Korean). A common language and culture also are viewed as important elements in Korean identity. The idea of multiracial or multiethnic nations, like India or the United States, strikes many Koreans as odd or even contradictory. Consciousness of homogeneity is a major reason why Koreans on both sides of the DMZ viewed their country's division as an unnatural and unnecessary tragedy. *

South Korean Cultural Identity

National self-image is, on one level, unambiguously defined by the convergence of territorial, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural identities. Yet intense feelings of nationalism, so evident in athletic events like the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Olympic Games held in Seoul, revealed anxiety as well as pride concerning South Korea's place in the world. More than Western peoples and even more than the Japanese, South Korean individuals are inclined to view themselves as a tightly knit national community with a common destiny. In a rapidly changing world, however, it is often difficult for them to define exactly what being a South Korean is. To outsiders, the intense concern with identity is perhaps difficult to understand; it reflects a history of subordinate relations to powerful foreign states and the tragedy of national division after World War II. [Source: Andrea Matles Savada and William Shaw, Library of Congress, 1990 *]

Many modernized, urban-dwelling South Koreans embark on a search for the "essence" of their culture, which commonly expresses itself as hostility to foreign influences. For example, the poet Kim Chi-ha, whose opposition to the Park regime in the 1970s was a model for a younger generation of dissidents, attacked the government as much for its neglect of traditional values as for its antidemocratic tendencies. *

Seoul has not been slow to employ traditionalism for its own ends. In 1987 the government adopted guidelines for the revision of history textbooks instructing publishers to describe the foundation of the Korean nation by Tan'gun in 2333 B.C. as "a reflection of historical facts" rather than simply a myth. The legendary Tan'gun was, according to the myth, the son of god and a bear-woman. According to a Far Eastern Economic Review commentator, ". . . people ranging from reputable university scholars to chauvinist mystics regard Tan'gun as the personification of ethics and values that emphasize a native Korean identity against the foreign religions and philosophies of Buddhism, neo-Confucianism, Christianity and Marxism that have otherwise dominated Korean history and thought." Tangun's legendary kingdom is older than China's first legendary dynasty, the Xia (2205-1766 B.C.), and its antiquity asserts Korea's cultural autonomy in relation to its largest neighbor. There have been proposals that the government subsidize the rites of the numerically small community of believers in Taejonggyo and other cults that worship Tan'gun. *

Problems of cultural identity are closely connected to the tragedy of Korea's division into two hostile states. Many members of the younger generation of South Koreans born after the Korean War fervently embrace the cause of t'ongil, or reunification, and believe that it is the superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, who are to blame for Korea's national division. The South Korean government's dependence on the United States has been cited as one of the principal reasons for the lack of improvement in north-south ties. While a majority of South Koreans remains suspicious of the North Koreans, many South Koreans also share the sentiments expressed by Kim Chi-ha: "our name is division, and this soiled name, like an immovable destiny, oppresses all of us." When parts of the wall dividing East Berlin and West Berlin were knocked down in November 1989, Koreans reflected sadly that breaching the DMZ would not be such a simple task. *

Regional Difference in South Korea

Against the background of ethnic homogeneity, significant regional differences exist. Within South Korea, the most important regional difference is between the Kyongsang region, embracing North Kyongsang and South Kyongsang provinces in the southeast, and the Cholla region, embracing North Cholla and South Cholla provinces in the southwest. The two regions, separated by the Chiri Massif, nurture a rivalry said to reach back to the Three Kingdoms Period, which lasted from the fourth century to the seventh century A.D., when the kingdoms of Paekche and Silla struggled for control of the peninsula. [Source: Andrea Matles Savada and William Shaw, Library of Congress, 1990 *]

South Koreans divide themselves into five groups: 1) southeasterners and people from Pusan, regarded as direct, manly and boastful; 2) northwesterners, considered honest and aggressive; and 3) northeasterners, thought of as tough and resilient. 4) People from the southwest are regarded as clever, skilled compromisers but unreliable and politically disruptive; and 5) people from Seoul and the central part of Korea are considered gentle, narrow-minded, busy and selfish.

Observers noted that interregional marriages are rare, and that as of 1990 a new fourlane highway completed in 1984 between Kwangju and Taegu, the capitals of South Cholla and North Kyongsang provinces, completed in 1984, had not been successful in promoting travel between the two areas. South Korea's political elite, including presidents Park Chung Hee, Chun Doo Hwan, and Roh Tae Woo, have come largely from the Kyongsang region. As a result, Kyongsang has been a special beneficiary of government development assistance. By contrast, the Cholla region has remained comparatively rural, undeveloped, and poor. Chronically disaffected, its people rightly or wrongly have a reputation for rebelliousness. Regional bitterness was intensified by the May 1980 Kwangju incident, in which about 200 and perhaps many more inhabitants of the capital of South Cholla Province were killed by government troops sent to quell an insurrection. Many of the troops reportedly were from the Kyongsang region. *

Regional stereotypes, like regional dialects, have been breaking down under the influence of centralized education, nationwide media, and the several decades of population movement since the Korean War. Stereotypes remain important, however, in the eyes of many South Koreans. For example, the people of Kyonggi Province, surrounding Seoul, are often described as being cultured, and Ch'ungch'ong people, inhabiting the region embracing North Ch'ungch'ong and South Ch'ungch'ong provinces, are thought to be mild-mannered, manifesting true yangban virtues. The people of Kangwon Province in the northeast were viewed as poor and stolid, while Koreans from the northern provinces of P'yongang, Hwanghae, and Hamgyong, now in North Korea, are perceived as being diligent and aggressive. Cheju Island is famous for its strong-minded and independent women. *

Koreans and Japanese

National or ethnic groups often need an "other," a group of outsiders against whom they can define themselves. While Western countries with their individualistic and, from a Confucian perspective, self-centered ways of life provide important images of "otherness" for South Koreans, the principal source of such images for many years has been Japan. Attitudes toward Japan as an "other" are complex. On the most basic level, there is hostility fed by memories of invasion and colonial oppression, present-day economic frictions, and the Japanese government's inability or unwillingness to do anything about discriminatory treatment of the large Korean minority in Japan. The two countries have a long history of hostility. Admiral Yi Sun-sin, whose armor-plated boats eventually defeated the Japanese navy's damaging attacks in the 1590s, was South Korea's most revered national hero. [Source: Andrea Matles Savada and William Shaw, Library of Congress, 1990 *]

The Japanese Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture's adoption in the 1980s of revised textbook guidelines, softening the language used to describe Japan's aggression during World War II, inspired outrage in South Korea as well as in other Asian countries. The textbook controversy was a major impetus for a national campaign to build an Independence Hall, located about 100 kilometers south of Seoul, to keep alive memories of Japanese colonial exploitation. Opened on August 15, 1987, the anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japan, the building houses grim exhibits depicting the atrocities of the Japanese military against Korean nationalists during the colonial period.

During the colonial period, and particularly during World War II, the Japanese initiated assimilation policies designed to turn Koreans into obedient subjects of the Japanese emperor. Under the slogan Nissen ittai (Japan and Korea as One), newspapers and magazines published in the Korean language were closed, the Korean Language Society was disbanded, and Korean writers were forced to publish only in Japanese. Students who spoke Korean in school were punished. There was pressure to speak Japanese at home, adopt Japanese family and given names, and worship at Shinto shrines, the religious basis for which had been transplanted from the home islands. Korean Christians who refused to show reverence to the emperor as a divinity were imprisoned or ostracized. In the words of historian Ki-baik Lee (called Yi Kibeck in Korean), "Japan's aim was to eradicate consciousness of Korean national identity, roots and all, and thus to obliterate the very existence of the Korean people from the face of the earth."

This shared historical experience has provoked not only hostility but also a desire to purge Korean culture of lingering Japanese influences. In the late 1980s, the government continued to prohibit the distribution of Japanese-made movies and popular music within the country in order to prevent unwanted contemporary influences from crossing the Korea Strait.

On a more polite level, depiction of Japan as the "other" involves contrasting the "essences" of the two countries' cultures. This process has spawned a popular literature that compares, among other things, the naturalness and "resonance" of Korean art and music and the alleged imitativeness and constriction of their Japanese counterparts; the "individualism" (of a non-Western sort) of Koreans and the "collectivism" or group consciousness of the Japanese; and the lyric contrast between the rose of Sharon, Korea's national flower, which blooms robustly all summer long, and the Japanese cherry blossom, which has the "beauty of frailty" in springtime.

The search for a cultural "essence" involves serious contradictions. The literature of Korean cultural distinction is strikingly similar to Japanese attempts to prove the "uniqueness" of their own cultural heritage, although "proof" of Japan's uniqueness is usually drawn from examples of Western countries (the significant "other" for modernized Japanese). Ironically, official and unofficial sponsorship of the Tangun myth, although a minor theme, bears an uncanny resemblance to pre World War II Japanese policies promoting historical interpretations of the nation's founding based on Shinto mythology.

Mixed in with feelings of hostility and competition, however, is genuine admiration for Japanese economic, technological, and social achievements. Japan has become an important market for South Korean manufactured products. Both countries have been targets of criticism by Western governments accusing them of unfair trading practices. Friendly interest in South Korea is growing among the Japanese public despite old prejudices, and large numbers of young Japanese and South Koreans visit each others' countries on school and college excursions. Like South Koreans, Japanese liberals have been disturbed by official attempts to revise wartime history.

First Koreans

Scholars assume that present-day Koreans did not descend from the Paleolithic humans that inhabited the Korean Peninsula half a million years ago, but may be linked to the Neolithic age (from 4,000-3,000 B.C.) humans who inhabited the area, identified archaeologically by the ground and polished stone tools and pottery they used. Around 2,000 B.C., a new pottery culture spread into Korea from China. These people practiced agriculture in a settled communal life, and are widely supposed to have had consanguineous clans as their basic social grouping. Korean historians in modern times sometimes assume that the clan leadership systems characterized by councils of nobles (hwabaek) that emerged in the subsequent Silla period can be traced back to these neolithic peoples, and that a mythical "child of the sn," an original Korean, also was born then. There is no hard evidence, however, to support such beginnings for the Korean people. [Source: Andrea Matles Savada, Library of Congress, 1993]

Koreans descended from nomadic people from northwest Asia. Based on linguistic and DNA evidence, scholars suggest that the first Koreans descended from the Tungus people of the Altai region of Mongolia and Siberia - where the Turks, Hungarians, Mongolians and Finns also came from - and migrated from Central Asia to present-day Liaoshi and Manchuria (regions in China) and the Korean peninsula. There is still a large population of Koreans in China today.

Three Korean tribes - the Mahan, the Chinchan, and the Pynhan - settled in the river valleys and fertile plains of the south. A fourth tribe, the Koguryo settled in the colder north. Koreans generally trace their origin back to the Old Chosun culture (2333 to 194 B.C.), the first Korean state to possess bronze, which arose in northwestern Korea. Rice farming was introduced to Korea and Japan from China in the second millennium B.C., bronze metallurgy arrived around 1000 B.C., and iron making began around 400 B.C..

It is theorized that Koreans are descendents of a mix of the Mongolian peoples who migrated into Manchuria (the northeastern part of China continguous with the Korean peninsula) and later waves of Yue/ Tai/ Dai people who migrated northwards from Southeast Asia, roughly following the coast. It is plausible that the indigenous groups along this route weren't welcoming towards the migrants, and migrants continued northward until they found an unoccupied area they could claim for themselves. Another theory is that Koreans descend from a group which migrated from Siberia. Japanese originated from a similar mix of Ancient peoples.

Korean DNA

Studies of mtDNA, which relate to maternal line gene flow, and Y chromosome studies of male-mediated gene flow show slightly different patterns but have common haplotypes that show strong affiliations of both Japanese and Koreans to the Chinese and of Japanese to Koreans:

Population studies of genetic markers such as HLA variation and mitochondrial DNA have been used to understand human origins, demographic and migration history. Recently, diversity on the nonrecombining portion of the Y chromosome (NRY) has been applied to the study of human history. Since NRY is passed from father to son without recombination, polymorphisms in this region are valuable for investigating male-mediated gene flow and for complementing maternally based studies of mtDNA. Haplotypes constructed from Y-chromosome markers were used to trace the paternal origins of Korean. By using 38 Y chromosome single nucleotide polymorphism markers, the genetic structure of 195 Korean males was analyzed.

The Korean males were characterized by a diverse set of 4 haplogroups (Groups IV, V, VII, X) and 14 haplotypes that were also present in Chinese. The most frequent haplogroup in Korean was Group VII (82.6 percent). It was also the most frequent haplogroup in Chinese (95 percent) as well as in Japanese (45 percent). The frequencies of the haplogroups V, IV, and X were 15.4 percent, 1 percent, and 1 percent, respectively. The second most frequent haplogroup V in Korean was not present in Chinese, but its frequency was similar in Japanese. [Source: Sunghee Hong, Seong-Gene Lee, Yongsook Yoon, Kyuyoung Song, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, 388-1 Poongnap-dong, Songpa-ku, Seoul, Korea, Heritage of Japan website, heritageofjapan.wordpress.com |||]

Ancient Koreans, Chinese and Japanese and Their DNA

Analysis of skull shapes and DNA has shown that modern Japanese are close genetic kin to Koreans and Chinese. Aileen Kawagoe wrote in Heritage of Japan: The DNA sequencing picture that emerges today shows the central Honshu people of Japan to be genetically just a little closer to Sino-Tibetan and Han Chinese (from the Jiangsu region who were possibly rice-farming immigrants during the Yayoi era) evidenced by the specific genetic Y markers found in Japanese today (ie O3a5, O3a and O1), in their mix than to modern-day Koreans whose ancestors contributed significantly to the Japanese gene pool probably during Koguryo and Paekche migrations into Japan of the Kofun era to Asuka eras around 2000 years ago. One surprising point that emerges from a look at both mtDNA and Y Haplogroups charts, is that the Koreans show an even closer genetic affinity to Okinawans (and therefore to the Jomon stock) than mainland Honshu Japanese do themselves...comprising 17.4 percent of their DNA sequence compared to the Japanese 16.1 percent of their DNA sequence. [Source: Aileen Kawagoe, Heritage of Japan website, heritageofjapan.wordpress.com |||]

"Surprisingly, Japanese also display the highest frequency of haplogroup O3a5, which is a Han Chinese and Sino-Tibetan specific O3 branch. Japanese Haplogroup O3a5 (O3e) 10/47= 23 percent This frequency is about 5 percent higher than the frequency of O3a5 among Manchus, Koreans and other Northeast Asians. For North Koreans, the frequency of O3a5 is even lower than some Tungusic populations. Overall, the Koreanic haplogroup O3 were the least influenced by Sinitic populations. |||

"Whereas pure haplogroup C3 (M217-no subclade) was observed at a high frequency among Tungusic (20 percent) and Koreanic (16 percent) populations. The frequency of haplogroup C3 among Japanese was only 1 percent. This means that Japanese origins were not as prominently from Siberia as was commonly thought, since Japanese bear more of C1, whereas C3 is found only in northern populations of Japan. Haplogroup D was observed among Japanese (25 percent) and Tibetans (40 percent); it was also observed among Han Chinese, Mongolians and Koreans. |||

The DNA sequence SNP study done by Japanese researchers in 2005 (the biggest contributor of DNA of each East Asian people is bolded) showed the following results: 1) Korean DNA sequence is made up of: A) 40.6 percent Uniquely Korean; B) 21.9 percent Chinese; C) 1.6 percent Ainu; D) 17.4 percent Okinawan; E) 18.5 percent Unidentified. 2) Japanese DNA sequence is made up of: A) 4.8 percent Uniquely Japanese; B) 24.2 percent Korean; C) 25.8 percent Chinese; D) 8.1 percent Ainu; E) 16.1 percent Okinawan; and F) 21 percent Unidentified. 3) Chinese DNA sequence is made up of: A) 60.6 percent Uniquely Chinese; B) 1.5 percent Japanese; C) 10.6 percent Korean; E) 1.5 percent Ainu; F) 10.6 percent Okinawan; G) 15.2 percent Unidentified. The biggest components in Japanese are Chinese, Korean, Okinawan. Overall, Japanese are closest to Tibetans and Han Chinese, but only marginally more so than to the Koreans.

Genetic Data on the Migration of People from Korea to Japan

Kawagoe wrote: The Haplogroup O expansion A second immigration wave arrived in Japan 2,000-4,000 years ago, and was composed of Yayoi people who brought rice cultivation (as well as weaving and metal working) from Korea and North Eastern Asia. At this date, the land bridges to Japanese islands were submerged and sea-faring migrations must have been responsible for the spread of the Yayoi. Japanese are also carriers of O - subclade O3 is major branch represented in East Asia - which is connected to agricultural revolution in Neolithic Era. The Yayoi origins are estimated to have contributed approximately 52 percent of the current population, while the Jomon contribution is estimated at 40 percent. [Source: Aileen Kawagoe, Heritage of Japan website, heritageofjapan.wordpress.com |||]

"Beside the O3 subclade, Yayoi have also been identified with the O2b1 subclade (SNP 47z). The analysis of haplotypes in the O2b1 subclade reveals a star-like network, which fits well with a model of a major or single founding lineage contributing to a Japanese population. The precursor to the O2b1 subclade, O2b (SNP SRY465), is also abundant in Japan. STR haplotyping in the O2b subclade shows a higher diversity in the Korean population versus the Japanese population, supporting an older age and probable origin in the Korean Peninsula."

"In addition to the other O subclades, the O2a subclade is found in Japan and was also probably introduced at a more recent date with the expansion of rice cultivation. O2a is however associated with Southern East Asia and with speakers of Austro-Asiatic languages (non Austro-Asiatic groups also have good levels of O2a ~ 15 percent). (O2a is also very abundant in India, and another proposed as the ancestral home of this Y-chromosome type) but the frequency of O2a (97 percent) peaks in the unique population of the Mang. A study of the Mang population who live near the border between China and Vietnam in SEAS found only 3 haplogroups: O2a (SNP M95), O3a3b (SNP M7) and O3a3c (SNP M134). The genetic signature is unique and suggests that this is an indigenous population. The Mang have a short stature, live by foraging and have a language related to Mon Khmer. |||

"Because the Yayoi spread from south to north - their highest influence is in Kyushu, which lies closest to the Korean Peninsula. However, the Haplogroup O genetic signature of the Yayoi is not found in Hokkaido, the northernmost island. The geographically separate southern Ryukyu Islands (the largest island is Okinawa) were also spared the domination by Yayoi. Essentially, the distribution of Haplogroup O (highest central location) is the reciprocal of Haplogroup D (highest in north and south). Thus, the island archipelago structure helped to create barriers and genetic structure throughout Japan. New research establishes that native Okinawans and Hokkaido's Ainu share genetic characteristics that pre'date Yayoi arrivals. |||

Origins of the Korean Nation

As is true of all countries, Korea's geography was a major factor in shaping its history; geography also influenced the manner in which the inhabitants of the peninsula emerged as a people sharing the common feeling of being Koreans. The Korean Peninsula protrudes southward from the northeastern corner of the Asian continent and is surrounded on three sides by large expanses of water. Although Japan is not far from the southern tip of this landmass, in ancient times events on the peninsula were affected far more by the civilizations and political developments on the contiguous Asian continent than by those in Japan. [Source: Andrea Matles Savada and William Shaw, Library of Congress, 1990*]

Because the Yalu and Tumen rivers have long been recognized as the border between Korea and China, it is easy to assume that these rivers have always constituted Korea's northern limits. But such was not the case in the ancient period. Neither of the rivers was considered to be sacrosanct by the ancient tribes that dotted the plains of Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula. Because the rivers freeze in the winter, large armies were able to traverse them with ease. Even when the rivers were not frozen, armies equipped with iron tools could easily build ships to cross them.

The Korean people trace their origins to the founding of the state of Chosun. Chosun rose on the banks of the Taedong River in the northwestern corner of the peninsula and prospered as a civilization possessing a code of law and a bronze culture. The Chosun people gradually extended their influence not only over other tribes in the vicinity, but also to the north, conquering most of the Liaodong Basin. However, the rising power of the feudal state of Yen in northern China (1122-225 B.C.) not only checked Chosun's growth, but eventually pushed it back to the territory south of the Ch'ongch'on River, located midway between the Yalu and Taedong rivers. The Chinese had discovered iron by this time and used it extensively in farming and warfare; the Chosun people were not able to match them. Yen became established in the territory vacated by Chosun.

Koreans are Getting Taller and Korean Physical Characteristics

In South Korea in the 1990s, 14-year-old children were 4½ inches taller that their counterparts in 1954. According to another study between 1962 and 1996 the average height of women rose from 5-foot-1-inches to 5-foot-3-inches and men rose from 5-foot-5-inches to 5-foot-8-inches.

Most scientist attribute the increase to nutritional changes, such as more milk and meat in the Korean diet and more food period. Since 1954 rice consumption has increased by 40 percent and the caloric intake of the average Korean has increased by a third. Others have proposed more far-fetched theories for the height increase. One researcher suggested that the switch from sitting on the floor to sitting Western-style chairs has straightened out the backs of Koreans and made them taller.

Some people - especially other Asians - think that Koreans have wider faces and broader, stockier bodies than other Asians. Koreans have a reputation for being physically tough. They are very good at boxing and martial arts and have an expression to describe their strength: "small peppers are hot."

Almost all Koreans are born with a Mongolian birthmark, a small patch of brown pigment located on their butt and/or lower back. The mark disappears when they are one or two years old. Japanese, Mongolians, some Chinese, Hungarians and Bushmen or the Kalahari have a similar mark.

About 95 percent of all Koreans are lactase deficient. This means they have problems digesting milk products.

See Separate Article ASIAN PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS factsanddetails.com

Korea: a Homogeneously Neo Confucian Society?

Many norms and mores of Korean society are rooted in the tenets of Confucianism, a system of ethics developed in China around 500 B.C.. Confucianism emphasizes devotion and respect towards elders, parents, family and people in positions of authority. Many Koreans attribute their country's remarkable success in recent decades to these values. In modern Korean society, Confucianism is most noticeable in relations between people. The Five Relationships prescribe behavior between ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, old and young, and between friends. If you fall outside any of these relationships, you do not effectively exist. [Source: Cities of the World, The Gale Group Inc., 2002]

Neo-Confucianism, the dominant value system of the Chosun Dynasty (1392-1910), combines the social ethics of the classical Chinese philosophers Confucius (Kong Zi, 551-479 B.C.) and Mencius (Meng Zi, 372-289 B.C.) with Buddhist and Daoist metaphysics. One of neo-Confucianism's basic ideas is that the institutions and practices of a properly ordered human community express the immutable principles or laws that govern the cosmos. Through correct social practice, as defined by Confucian sages and their commentators, individuals can achieve self-cultivation and a kind of spiritual unity with heaven (although this was rarely described in mystic or ecstatic terms). Neo-Confucianism defines formal social relations on all levels of society. Social relations are not conceived in terms of the happiness or satisfaction of the individuals involved, but in terms of the harmonious integration of individuals into a collective whole, which, like the properly cultivated individual, mirrors the harmony of the natural order. [Source: Andrea Matles Savada, Library of Congress, 1993 *]

During the Chosun Dynasty, Korean kings made the Neo-Confucian doctrine of the Chinese philosopher Zhu Xi (1130-1200) their state ideology. Although it was a foreign philosophy, Korean neo-Confucian scholars, of whom the most important was Yi Hwang, also known as Yi T'oe-gye (1501-70), played a role in adapting Zhu Xi's teachings to Korean conditions. This was done without denying the cultural superiority of China as the homeland of civilized thought and forms of life.

Neo-Confucianism in Korea became quite rigid and conservative by the mid-sixteenth century. In practice, the doctrine emphasized hierarchy in human relations and self-control for the individual. The Five Relationships (o ryun in Korean; wu lun in Chinese), formulated by classical Chinese thinkers such as Mencius and subsequently sanctified by Zhu Xi and other neo-Confucianist metaphysicians, governed proper human relations: that "between father and son there should be affection; between ruler and minister there should be righteousness; between husband and wife there should be attention to their separate functions; between old and young there should be proper order; and between friends there should be faithfulness." Only the last was a relationship between equals; the others were based on authority and subordination.

Throughout traditional Korean society, from the royal palace and central government offices in the capital to the humblest household in the countryside, the themes of hierarchy and inequality were pervasive. There was no concept of the rights of the individual. In the context of the wider society, a welldefined elite of scholar-officials versed in neo-Confucian orthodoxy was legitimized in terms of the traditional ethical distinction between the educated "superior man" or "gentleman," who seeks righteousness, and the "small man," who seeks only profit. This theme was central in the writings of both Confucius and Mencius. Confucianism and neo-Confucianism as political philosophies proposed a benevolent paternalism: the masses had no role in government, but the scholar-officials were supposed to look after them as fathers look after their children. In the Chosun Dynasty, status and power inequalities, defined precisely within a vertical hierarchy, were generally considered both natural and good. The hierarchy extended from the household relationships of fathers and children through the intermediary relationships of ruler and ruled within the kingdom, to Korea's subordinate status as a tributary of China.

There is a danger, however, in overstressing the idea of Korea as a homogeneously Confucian society, even during the Chosun Dynasty. Foreign observers have been impressed with the diversity of the Korean character as expressed in day-to-day human relations. There is, on the one hand, the image of Koreans as self-controlled, deferential, and meticulous in the fulfillment of their social obligations; on the other hand, there is the Korean reputation for volatility and emotionalism. The ecstasy and euphoria of shamanistic religious practices, one of Korea's most characteristic cultural expressions, contrast sharply with the austere self-control idealized by Confucianists. Although relatively minor themes in the history of Korean ethics and social thought, the concepts of equality and respect for individuals are not entirely lacking. The doctrines of Ch'ndogyo, an indigenous religion that arose in the nineteenth century and combined elements of Buddhism, Daoism, shamanism, Confucianism, and Catholicism, taught that every human being "bears divinity" and that one must "treat man as god."

South Korea's Efforts to Boost Its Image

In the late 2000s, the South Korea government that South Korea was not appreciated and spent millions of dollars on developing a national brand. Reporting from Seoul, John M. Glionna wrote in the Los Angeles Times: "In the world popularity contest, South Korea feels a little like the ugly duckling that wants everyone to know it's really a swan. Citizens flinch on hearing their country ridiculed as a place where politicians throw punches. They despair over a recent poll of foreigners in which four in 10 cited the nation's lack of "charm." Then there's the outlaw cousin to the north. When much of the world hears "Korea," it envisions Kim Jong Il and his hermit state of North Korea, not the democratic nation that has long been a trusted U.S. ally. [Source: John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times, May 3, 2009]

"Well, South Korea isn't going to take it anymore. The image-obsessed country intends to repair its maligned reputation by spending millions of dollars to develop a national brand. In a campaign that has many scratching their heads, South Korea is convinced that it must match the efforts of companies such as Hyundai, LG and Samsung to promote its public identity. So it's taking part in an international ranking system to compete against other nations on first impressions of outsiders.

"Early results are not encouraging. According to one recent Nation Brands Index, South Korea ranked 33rd among 50 nations -- behind countries that officials here whisper are lesser than their own, including Poland and the Czech Republic. The United States ranked seventh. Germany was No. 1. President Lee Myung-bak has formed a Presidential Council on Nation Branding and has announced the goal of moving to 15th place by 2013. "Korea is the world's 13th-largest economy with some $20,000 in per capita income but ranks only 33rd in the global brand index," reporters here quoted Lee as saying. "This is a big problem."

"Some find it refreshing that the nation cares about what others think about it. Others hint that it's a bit neurotic. "Korea's problem is that it doesn't have an Eiffel Tower. Paris doesn't need a slogan -- it's Paris," said public relations executive Phillip Raskin, a branding committee advisor. "Paris would be attractive even if its slogan was 'Go to hell.' In fact, it might actually be that." Analysts say South Korea has been dealt a bad hand. "One unfortunate thing is that South Korea shares its name with a rogue state," said Simon Anholt, a British government advisor who devised the ranking system. "The link to North Korea is bad news. It gets painted with the same brush."

South Korean Brand: "Way Better than You Think it Is"?

"Despite its ancient culture, South Korea is a relatively new player on the modern stage. "It just hasn't been a significant country for very long," Anholt said. "Other nations have been sending a stream of cultural or political ambassadors into global consumption for many years. Korea hasn't been doing that." [Source: John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times, May 3, 2009]

But the ambitious Lee wants to change that, introducing programs to promote the South Korean martial art tae kwon do and pitching the nation as an environmentally friendly "Green Korea." The centerpiece of his agenda is food. The government has announced a plan to globalize Korean cuisine, vowing to put it among the world's top five by 2017. Every day, newspapers carry articles about image boosting: Should the nation build a robotics museum and compete with Japan in that emerging field? How about building some of the world's tallest skyscrapers, or opening a nude beach on a popular island?

"The branding czar talks of a new volunteer program modeled after the U.S. Peace Corps and of "Rainbow Korea," a catchphrase for the nation's so-called expanding multiculturalism. "I am frustrated that people don't appreciate our culture," said Euh Yoon-dae, head of the Presidential Council on Nation Branding. "For so long, Korea has been sandwiched culturally and economically between Japan and China." Euh distinguished his plan from a mere marketing or tourism effort. "We're trying to advance the identity of Korea," he said. "It's the substance rather than the brand itself. We want to walk the walk rather than just talk up some new advertising campaign."

"Still, newspapers and bloggers have poked fun. "It's just mind-boggling. A country isn't like some product you can just promote overnight," said Jon Huer, a sociologist and Seoul newspaper columnist. "Korea's image has always been a bit harsh. It's not a Nepal or a Thailand - both tourist-friendly places. It takes time and patience to get to know the place and its people." Many here have some advice for South Korea: Relax. "Korea is stuck in this way of thinking that it has to outdance, outspend and out-palace other countries," said Michael Hurt, a local blogger, photographer and branding committee member. "It's never been about that. Korea is a quirky taste." Euh acknowledged that South Korea has a long way to go: "It takes time to change the image of a country."

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons.

Text Sources: South Korean government websites, Korea Tourism Organization, Cultural Heritage Administration, Republic of Korea, UNESCO, Wikipedia, Library of Congress, CIA World Factbook, World Bank, Lonely Planet guides, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, "Culture and Customs of Korea" by Donald N. Clark, Chunghee Sarah Soh in "Countries and Their Cultures", "Columbia Encyclopedia", Korea Times, Korea Herald, The Hankyoreh, JoongAng Daily, Radio Free Asia, Bloomberg, Reuters, Associated Press, BBC, AFP, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Yomiuri Shimbun and various books and other publications.

Updated in July 2021

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In terms of ethnicity, the population of the Korean Peninsula is one of the world's most homogeneous. Descended from migratory groups who entered the Korean Peninsula from Siberia, Manchuria, and Inner Asia several thousands of years ago, the Korean people are distinguished from the neighboring populations of mainland Asia and Japan in terms of ethnicity, culture, and language, even though they share many cultural elements with these peoples.

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PEOPLE OF NORTH KOREA

People in North Korea are referred to as North Koreans. They are ethnic Koreans. For the most part, Koreans are the only ethnic group found in Korea. North Korea has been categorized as the least ethnically diverse country on Earth followed by South Korea. There are virtually no minorities in North Korea other than small communities of Chinese and Japanese. By one count there are about 50,000 Chinese in North Korea. Koreans are regarded as one the purest ethnic strains found in Asia, which is surprising when you consider that Korea has been periodically occupied by the Chinese and Japanese throughout its history (most recently the Japanese between 1910 and 1945). In contrast, China has over 86 different ethnic groups, and even homogeneous Japan has a minority, the Ainu, on Hokaido.

According to "Governments of the World": "North Korea is an ethnically and linguistically homogenous society. Only a few Chinese and a handful of Japanese live in North Korea, some of whom were forcibly abducted by North Korean agents in the late 1970s and early 1980s. For most of its short history, emigration and immigration were virtually non-existent, although in the past few years North Korea's borders have become increasingly porous, especially along the Yalu River, which separates North Korea from China. [Source: Governments of the World: A Global Guide to Citizens' Rights and Responsibilities, Thomson Gale, 2006]

On North Korea's national identity, "Countries and Their Cultures" says: "A national identity as such was not born automatically with the emergence of the North Korean state. The northern leaders held the official view that the establishment of the North Korean state was an interim measure, with the ultimate goal being the unification of the entire peninsula in a single Korean national state. Kim Il Sung was not considered the national leader from the outset, either. He and his faction of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea (originally named the Communist Party of Korea) systematically eliminated rival factions and individuals over several decades. Kim Il Sung's ascendancy to absolute leadership started during the Korean War with the elimination of Pak Hon-yong, who headed the South Korean Workers' Party. After the war, Kim took leadership in close connection to North Korea in its sociopolitical form from traditional Korean culture, enabling it to start anew. North Korean national identity is indissolubly connected with loyalty to Kim and North Korean-style socialism. Despite the heavy Soviet influence, Northern Korea was driven by patriotic and nationalist zeal and anti-Japanese sentiment, rather than by an ideological commitment to socialism and communism. [Source: Countries and Their Cultures, The Gale Group Inc., 2001]

"In contrast to the south, where Korea's high society had been traditionally located, the north had no notable political and cultural center except for Pyongyang, which was an obvious choice for the capital. With this lack of centralized political power and cultural tradition, North Korea was able to start largely from scratch. This proved useful for constructing a brand-new North Korean cultural identity, stemming from the Soviet cultural current but distinctly North Korean at the same time.

Koreans

In terms of ethnicity, the population of the Korean Peninsula is one of the world's most homogeneous. Descended from migratory groups who entered the Korean Peninsula from Siberia, Manchuria, and Inner Asia several thousands of years ago, the Korean people are distinguished from the neighboring populations of mainland Asia and Japan in terms of ethnicity, culture, and language, even though they share many cultural elements with these peoples. [Source: Andrea Matles Savada, Library of Congress, 1993 *]

Koreans have maintained their own unique language, culture and customs for thousands of years. The Koreans are believed to be descended primarily from Tungusic peoples of the cold northern regions of Central Asia. Based on linguistic evidence, the first Koreans originated from the Altai region of Mongolia and Siberia - where the Turks, Hungarians and Finns also came from - and migrated from there to present-day Liaoshi and Manchuria (regions in China) and the Korean peninsula. There is still a large population of Koreans in China today. Man of them live across the Yalu River from North Korea. The first Japanese are believed to evolved from immigrants that came largely from Korea.

Sometimes referred to as the "Irish of Asia," Koreans have a reputation for being rowdy, boisterous, friendly and emotional. According to some surveys, they drink more hard liquor than any other people in the world. Koreans divide themselves into five groups: 1) southeasterners and people from Pusan, regarded as direct, manly and boastful; 2) northwesterners, considered honest and aggressive; and 3) northeasterners, thought of as tough and resilient. 4) People from the southwest are regarded as clever, skilled compromisers but unreliable and politically disruptive; and 5) people from Seoul and the central part of Korea are considered gentle, narrow-minded, busy and selfish.

Chunghee Sarah Soh wrote in "Countries and Their Cultures": The phrase han p'it-chul ("one bloodline") often is used by Koreans at home and abroad to symbolize their shared identity as the members of a homogeneous nation. Blood and territory thus are the most frequently invoked metaphors associated with the nation. Before the 1945 national division of the peninsula and the subsequent establishment of the two political regimes of North and South Korea in 1948, Koreans identified themselves as the people of Choson. Tan'gun as the founding ancestor has had a symbolic meaning for Koreans throughout the nation's history. A temple erected in Tan'gun's honor in 1429 stood in Pyongyang until its destruction during the Korean War. In 1993, North Korea announced the discovery of Tan'gun's tomb and a few remains of his skeleton at a site close to Pyongyang. Some Korean calendars still print the Year of Tan'gun (Tan'gi) along with the Gregorian calendar year, which the South Korean government officially adopted in 1962." [Source: Chunghee Sarah Soh, Countries and Their Cultures, The Gale Group Inc., 2001]

Koreans are also known as Choson and Han'guk According to the "Encyclopedia of World Cultures": "Because Korea is an ethnically homogeneous nation, there are no ethnonyms per se. There are, however, several alternative names used by outsiders as well as natives, all of which come from the names of previous states or dynasties. The name "Korea" comes from the Koryo dynasty (918-1392). "Han'guk" is an abbreviation of "Taehan Min'guk" (Republic of Korea), which is used exclusively by South Koreans. Its origin can be traced to "Taehan Che'guk" (Great Han Empire), the new name of the Yi dynasty (1392-1910) chosen in 1897. "Choson" originated from Old Choson (2333-194 b.c.) , the first Korean state that possessed a bronze culture. The Yi dynasty was also named "Choson" and North Korea prefixed it for the name of its regime, "Choson Minjuju-ui Inmin Konghwa'guk" (Democratic People's Republic of Korea). From "Choson," meaning "morning calm and freshness," Korea acquired the epithet by which it is known, the "land of the morning calm." [Source: Choong Soon Kim, "Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume 5: East / Southeast Asia:" edited by Paul Hockings, 1993 |~|]

Differences Between North and South Korea

North Korea is where most of Korea's resources, namely coal, are located. South Korea has traditionally been more agricultural and was where most of the peninsula's food was produced. Both North and South Korea experience cold winters but the winters in North Korea are more bitterly cold. After World War II, the industrialized north with nine million people was occupied by the Soviets . The agricultural south with 19 million people was occupied by the United States.
Doyeun Kim wrote in The Atlantic: "Today, after" several decades "of an ongoing armistice in which the two Koreas are still technically at war, the South has grown to be the 13th largest economy in the world, a dramatic departure from the war-ravaged, poverty-stricken country it once was. Meanwhile, the North, the last Stalinist state in the world, has remained disconnected from the international community, and most of its population is chronically hungry. The stark difference between the two estranged countries can be seen from satellite images of the Korean peninsula at night: The northern half is plunged in darkness, while a sudden burst of light beneath the 38th parallel clearly outlines the piece of land that belongs to South Korea. [Source: Doyeun Kim, The Atlantic, December 14, 2012]

On linguistic affiliation, ""Countries and Their Cultures"" says: Technically, North Korea uses the same Korean language as the one spoken in South Korea. The cultural and sociopolitical division of more than half a century, however, pushed the languages in the peninsula far apart, if not in syntax, at least in semantics. When North Korea faced the task of building a new national culture, it faced a serious problem of illiteracy. For example, over 90 percent of women in northern Korea in 1945 were illiterate; they in turn made up 65 percent of the total illiterate population. In order to overcome illiteracy, North Korea adopted the all-Korean script, eliminating the use of Chinese characters...By 1979, the United States government estimated that North Korea had a 90 percent literacy rate. At the end of the twentieth century, it was estimated that 99 percent of North Korea's population could read and write Korean sufficiently." The literacy rate in South Korea is near 100 percent and English is much more widely spoken than it is in Japan and South Korean parents put a lot of emphasis on their children learning it. [Source: "Countries and Their Cultures", The Gale Group Inc., 2001]

North Koreans: the "Cleanist Race"?

Brian Myers, a scholar and expert on North Korea, says North Korea's official propaganda promotes idea of racial purity and moral superiority. In his book "The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters" (Melville House, 2010), he says, according to Cathy Cockrell of the Berkeley News, " that the nation's race-based ideology has its roots in Japanese fascism. Koreans historically considered themselves to be in the Chinese sphere of influence, he said. But in the early 20th century the Japanese annexed Korea and launched a campaign to persuade the peninsula's people that they were of the same pure racial stock as the Japanese themselves, said Myers. [Source: Cathy Cockrell, Berkeley News, February 19, 2010]

"Then, when Japan left Korea at the end of WWII, pro-Japanese collaborators Koreanized the notion of a pure blood line, promoting pride in a morally superior Korean race. "Koreans are homogenous, therefore they are filled with brotherly love," Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il is quoted as saying. On recently minted Korean currency, Myers noted, the faces depicted "could be clones. Myers teaches literature at South Korea's Dongseo University and contributes commentary to The Atlantic Monthly and other national publications."

Myers said "North Korea is not the last bastion of Marxist Leninism or of Confucian patriarchy, as it is often characterized. Rather, it's guided by a paranoid ideology of race-based nationalism, he says, holding that the Korean people are inherently purer than all others." He "believes that Western misperceptions of the DPRK involve a failure to appreciate this ideology and its hold on the North Korean populace. Though "one of the most repressive nations on Earth," he said, the Pyongyang regime enjoys considerable public support. There's no way to understand that seeming contradiction, he suggested, "without going to the heart of what it tells its own people."

On the limited amount of mixing that has occurred in North Korea, Randy McDonald wrote in demographymatters.blogspot.jp: North Korea's population is exceptionally homogeneous. North Korea's ties with Communist Vietnam did see some Vietnamese students migrate there. Some ethnic Koreans from Japan with their Japanese wives settled in North Korea in the decades after the Second World War. Some North Korean female migrants, for whom survival sex is a frequent feature of life, married Chinese farmers and are integrated into local communities. Unlucky ones were deported back to North Korea, where they are stigmatized for having contaminated the Korean race by consorting with ethnic Chinese men and are subject to forced abortions (at least some of the time, more sophisticated than having prison guards repeatedly kick pregnant women), and infanticide if the pregnancy is advanced (their mothers frequently being forced to watch, so as to encourage them not to err in the future). [Source: Randy McDonald, demographymatters.blogspot.jp, November 29, 2010]

North Korea's Race-Based Worldview

B.R. Myers wrote in Foreign Policy: "North Korea's ideology is not merely a nationalist-tinged communism of the old Yugoslav variety. It is a race-based worldview utterly at odds with the teachings of Marx and Lenin. And yet, the outside world continues in the illusion that North Korea is a hard-line Stalinist state. True, the nation's first leader, Kim Il Sung, was installed by Soviet occupiers after World War II. It is also true that the personality cult of Kim Il Sung and his son and successor Kim Jong Il bears superficial resemblance to the cults of Stalin and Mao. Yet look closer, and it's clear just how different North Korean ideology is. Not for nothing was the country almost as isolated during Soviet times as it is now in the post-communist world. [Source: B.R. Myers, Foreign Policy, February 11, 2010]

"North Korea's race-centric ideology was inspired by that of the fascist Japanese who ruled the peninsula from 1910 until the end of World War II. Having been taught by their colonizers to regard themselves as part of a superior Yamato race, the North Koreans in 1945 simply carried on the same mythmaking in a Koreanized form. This can be summarized in a single sentence: The Korean people are too pure-blooded, and so too virtuous, to survive in this evil world without a great parental leader. This paranoid nationalism might sound crude and puerile, but it is only in this ideological context that the country's distinguishing characteristics, which the outside world has long found so baffling, make perfect sense. Up close, North Korea is not Stalinist - it's simply racist.

"According to the country's propaganda, the pure-bloodedness and homogeneity of the Korean race make the North's army a uniquely tight-knit and formidable fighting force. This way of thinking reflects an official ideology that many outsiders misperceive as communist but in reality belongs on the far right and not the far left of the ideological spectrum. No, I'm not referring to the pseudo-doctrine of North Korean "Juche" thought, a mishmash of humanist bromides (such as "man is the master of all things") that has never had the slightest effect on policymaking. I'm referring to the ideology that the Juche smokescreen is meant to hide from the outside world: a paranoid nationalism that has informed the regime's actions since the late 1940s.

Propaganda That Shores Up North Korea's Race-Based Worldview

B.R. Myers wrote in Foreign Policy: "The celebration of racial purity and homogeneity is everywhere in North Korea. The citizens pictured on the country's new currency, for example, could pass for members of the same family, which in a sense they are. A worker in one painting appears much like a farmer or soldier in another, while the children pictured in schoolbooks are downright identical. White is the dominant color in Pyongyang: White concrete plazas, white or at least blond-stoned buildings, and white statues of virginal maidens in long gowns abound. Pyongyang is often photographed or depicted under snow, a favored symbol of purity itself. "Our nation has always considered its pure lineage to be of great importance," a North Korean general told his South Korean counterpart during a 2006 meeting to discuss realignment of the maritime border between the two states. "Since ancient times our lands have been one of abundant natural beauty," he said. "Not even one drop of ink must be allowed." [Source: B.R. Myers, Foreign Policy, February 11, 2010]

"This worldview is not set out, at least not straightforwardly, in the writings of North Korea's father-and-son dictators, which are more often praised than read. Yet it informs all of the country's mass propaganda, most of which can easily be accessed at the North Korea Resource Center in Seoul. This material is varied in form if not in content: Over eight years, I've examined everything from nightly news reports and television dramas to animated cartoons and war movies; from the glossy-papered Rodong Sinmun, the Workers' Party organ, to women's magazines printed on gray, low-quality paper; from short stories and historical novels to dictionaries and school textbooks (these last printed, semi-legibly, on the worst paper of all); from reproductions of wall posters to photographs of monuments and statues. There is no way of knowing how much of this material is produced every year, but so significant is the propaganda apparatus that it was one of the few North Korean institutions that did not miss a beat even during the catastrophic famine of the 1990s.

"What is especially significant and perhaps unique about North Korean nationalism is its emphasis on the vulnerability of the race. Whereas World War II-era Japan's racialized worldview equated virtue with strength, the North Koreans are taught that their virtue has rendered them as vulnerable as children in an evil world - unless they are protected by a great leader who keeps a watchful eye on military readiness.

Hatred of Foreigners Helps Define North Korea's Identity

B.R. Myers wrote in Foreign Policy: "North Korea has often been called "solipsistic," but strong racial pride always entails intense awareness of an inferior other. For the North Koreans, foreigners are inferior - even the friendly ones. Typical is a panoramic painting of a procession of exultant tourists during 1989's Pyongyang World Festival of Youth and Students. In whatever direction they happen to be looking, their faces are partly obscured by a sinister shadow. A fat Caucasian woman wears a low-cut blouse, while a few African women appear in halter tops; in Pyongyang today, such clothing is considered indecent. Here and there, unsavory-looking men sport long sideburns and denim, more signs of Western decadence. The only well-groomed and attractive person in view, and the only one whose face is evenly lit, is the Korean guide - an innocent young girl, naturally - who leads the way in traditional dress. [Source: B.R. Myers, Foreign Policy, February 11, 2010]

"Although popular imagery strongly implies that all foreigners are morally inferior, and occasionally criticizes the Jews' influence on world affairs, it subjects the Japanese and Americans to the worst routine vituperation. Like the "Japs," the former occupiers, the Yankees are condemned as an inherently evil race that can never change, a race with which Koreans must forever be on hostile terms.

"Even the Soviet Union, for all its decades of patronage, is remembered with more contempt than fondness. In Eternal Life, a 1997 historical novel, Nikita Khrushchev is called a "traitor," one of the "fake communists" who betrayed world socialism. In the same book, Kim Il Sung chuckles about how he learned Soviet secrets by getting Leonid Brezhnev drunk. History books rarely mention the Soviet Union's demise without sneering about how it went down "without firing a shot."

"The Korean War predictably occupies a central place in anti-foreigner propaganda, but this tends to focus less on the U.S. Air Force's extensive bombing campaign (which is hard to reconcile with the myth of a protective leader) than on isolated village massacres and other purported outrages. The killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Sinchon in October 1950, which was actually perpetrated by Korean rightists, is held up as the Yankees' most heinous crime. The Americans are held responsible for the nation's current economic woes as well. Last June, the nightly news in Pyongyang constantly intoned that the Yankees are "the cause of all our people's misfortune."

North Korea's Especially Strong Antipathy Towards the U.S.

B.R. Myers wrote in Foreign Policy: "In countless posters displayed in city centers, North Korean resolve is contrasted with American spinelessness. "If we say we do something, we do it," a towering Korean People's Army soldier shouts in one poster as he slams his clenched fist down on the continental United States. "We don't utter empty words!" Other posters depict North Korean fighter planes and missiles destroying the U.S. Capitol while helpless American soldiers, mere spindly, insectlike creatures, are hoisted effortlessly on bayonets or squashed under missiles.

"Such violent imagery isn't confined to posters. Even North Korean math textbooks draw on the vocabulary of military might: "Three People's Army soldiers rubbed out thirty American bastards. What was the ratio of the soldiers who fought?" Dictionaries and schoolbooks encourage North Korean citizens to speak of foreigners as beasts with "muzzles," "snouts," and "paws," who "croak" instead of dying. In a chilling illustration from a recent North Korean art magazine, a child with a toy machine gun stands before a battered snowman; the caption reads, "The American bastard I killed."

"Unfortunately for the United States, there is no place in this for any improvement in relations between the two countries. Were Kim Jong Il to abandon his ideology of paranoid, race-based nationalism and normalize relations with Washington, his personality cult would lose all justification, while his impoverished country would lose all reason to exist as a separate Korean state. The problem for U.S. negotiators is therefore not one of sticks versus carrots; the regime in Pyongyang will neither be bullied nor sweet-talked into committing political suicide. Nor, to dispel an increasingly popular pipe dream, can Washington expect the Chinese to make the North Koreans commit political suicide. If you want to know why there's no possibility of a deal, you can read all about it - in Kim's own propaganda.

North Korean Stunted and Weakened by the 1990s Famine

As many 2.6 million children suffered stunted growth caused by malnutrition during the famine in the 1990s. Aid workers described malnourished children in the winter of 1997 as "nutritional dwarfs." Children that looked three years old were six. Those there were ten looked five. Four-years weighed around 10 pounds. They moved slowly to conserve energy and their skin hung from their wrists and ankles. Long-term malnutrition can leave children permanently undersized but they usually recover mentally.

In some places a child is considered full grown if the top of his head reaches the bottom of his mother's nose. Stephen Linton, an expert on North Korea that visited the country more than 80 times, said the food shortage could result in "generational stunting" and said that government may have decided let relief workers into the country because "they don't want to face the 21st century with a stunted population facing serious growth and developmental problems...If they are malnourished in the critical years, you can't make it up. You can grow up with a generation of cretins."

There were reports people beggars at railway stations asking for scraps of food, exhausted people slumped beside the road, schools letting out early so children could get food, and children so weak they couldn't even sing the Welcome Song when foreign guests arrived. Malnourished and hungry people with weak immune systems died from diarrhea, measles, pneumonia and tuberculosis. Defectors reported seeing people with faces that had "turned black" from malnutrition.

In November 1997, Hilary Mackenzie wrote in Newsweek, "Everywhere I saw people slumped by the side of the road, exhausted and starving and people stripping bark from the city's trees for food." One Chinese Korean who visited North Korea told the Korea Times, "I saw that people didn't move and I thought they were all dead. But later I realized they were too feeble to move because they hadn't eaten in days."

In some towns no people over 60 were visible because the elderly reportedly gave up their food rations so their children could survive. The elderly were too sick to get out of bed but they didn't kill themselves out of fear that their food ration might be taken away. Mackenzie wrote: "On family visits, I watched the elderly give their meager rations to children: one grandmother keeled over in front of my eyes."

North Korea Army Cuts Height Requirement to Accommodate Famine-Stunted Conscripts

In 2012, North Korea reduced its minimum height requirement for military conscripts because young people coming to military service age at that time had been stunted by the deadly famines in the 1990s. Daily NK, a Seoul-based online newspaper run by North Korean defectors, said the military has cut the minimum height from 145 centimeters to 142 centimeters. AFP reported: "There were too many short boys who don't meet the previous height requirement... so the military is now accepting all who are taller than 142 centimeters," said a North Korean source quoted by Daily NK. The average height for South Korean boys of the same age is about 172 centimeters. [Source: AFP. April 2, 2012]

North Korean boys facing conscription this year were born in the mid-1990s - at the height of the famine that devastated the impoverished communist state and killed hundreds of thousands. Child mortality during this period was high and the fertility rate low, causing an acute shortage of new conscripts, said the source. "North Koreans say the country's new generation is shrinking in size," said the source, adding the army was still struggling to find enough new troops even after relaxing the physical requirements.

"UN agencies, after a visit to the North, estimated last November that three million people would need food aid in 2012. UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos, after a separate visit last October, said that in northern regions almost one in two children were chronically malnourished."

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons.

Text Sources: Daily NK, UNESCO, Wikipedia, Library of Congress, CIA World Factbook, World Bank, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, "Culture and Customs of Korea" by Donald N. Clark, Chunghee Sarah Soh in "Countries and Their Cultures", "Columbia Encyclopedia", Korea Times, Korea Herald, The Hankyoreh, JoongAng Daily, Radio Free Asia, Bloomberg, Reuters, Associated Press, BBC, AFP, The Atlantic, Yomiuri Shimbun, The Guardian and various books and other publications.

Updated in July 2021

PEOPLE OF NORTH KOREA

People in North Korea are referred to as North Koreans. They are ethnic Koreans. For the most part, Koreans are the only ethnic group found in Korea. North Korea has been categorized as the least ethnically diverse country on Earth followed by South Korea. There are virtually no minorities in North Korea other than small communities of Chinese and Japanese. By one count there are about 50,000 Chinese in North Korea. Koreans are regarded as one the purest ethnic strains found in Asia, which is surprising when you consider that Korea has been periodically occupied by the Chinese and Japanese throughout its history (most recently the Japanese between 1910 and 1945). In contrast, China has over 86 different ethnic groups, and even homogeneous Japan has a minority, the Ainu, on Hokaido.

According to "Governments of the World": "North Korea is an ethnically and linguistically homogenous society. Only a few Chinese and a handful of Japanese live in North Korea, some of whom were forcibly abducted by North Korean agents in the late 1970s and early 1980s. For most of its short history, emigration and immigration were virtually non-existent, although in the past few years North Korea's borders have become increasingly porous, especially along the Yalu River, which separates North Korea from China. [Source: Governments of the World: A Global Guide to Citizens' Rights and Responsibilities, Thomson Gale, 2006]

On North Korea's national identity, "Countries and Their Cultures" says: "A national identity as such was not born automatically with the emergence of the North Korean state. The northern leaders held the official view that the establishment of the North Korean state was an interim measure, with the ultimate goal being the unification of the entire peninsula in a single Korean national state. Kim Il Sung was not considered the national leader from the outset, either. He and his faction of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea (originally named the Communist Party of Korea) systematically eliminated rival factions and individuals over several decades. Kim Il Sung's ascendancy to absolute leadership started during the Korean War with the elimination of Pak Hon-yong, who headed the South Korean Workers' Party. After the war, Kim took leadership in close connection to North Korea in its sociopolitical form from traditional Korean culture, enabling it to start anew. North Korean national identity is indissolubly connected with loyalty to Kim and North Korean-style socialism. Despite the heavy Soviet influence, Northern Korea was driven by patriotic and nationalist zeal and anti-Japanese sentiment, rather than by an ideological commitment to socialism and communism. [Source: Countries and Their Cultures, The Gale Group Inc., 2001]

"In contrast to the south, where Korea's high society had been traditionally located, the north had no notable political and cultural center except for Pyongyang, which was an obvious choice for the capital. With this lack of centralized political power and cultural tradition, North Korea was able to start largely from scratch. This proved useful for constructing a brand-new North Korean cultural identity, stemming from the Soviet cultural current but distinctly North Korean at the same time.

Koreans

In terms of ethnicity, the population of the Korean Peninsula is one of the world's most homogeneous. Descended from migratory groups who entered the Korean Peninsula from Siberia, Manchuria, and Inner Asia several thousands of years ago, the Korean people are distinguished from the neighboring populations of mainland Asia and Japan in terms of ethnicity, culture, and language, even though they share many cultural elements with these peoples. [Source: Andrea Matles Savada, Library of Congress, 1993 *]

Koreans have maintained their own unique language, culture and customs for thousands of years. The Koreans are believed to be descended primarily from Tungusic peoples of the cold northern regions of Central Asia. Based on linguistic evidence, the first Koreans originated from the Altai region of Mongolia and Siberia - where the Turks, Hungarians and Finns also came from - and migrated from there to present-day Liaoshi and Manchuria (regions in China) and the Korean peninsula. There is still a large population of Koreans in China today. Man of them live across the Yalu River from North Korea. The first Japanese are believed to evolved from immigrants that came largely from Korea.

Sometimes referred to as the "Irish of Asia," Koreans have a reputation for being rowdy, boisterous, friendly and emotional. According to some surveys, they drink more hard liquor than any other people in the world. Koreans divide themselves into five groups: 1) southeasterners and people from Pusan, regarded as direct, manly and boastful; 2) northwesterners, considered honest and aggressive; and 3) northeasterners, thought of as tough and resilient. 4) People from the southwest are regarded as clever, skilled compromisers but unreliable and politically disruptive; and 5) people from Seoul and the central part of Korea are considered gentle, narrow-minded, busy and selfish.

Chunghee Sarah Soh wrote in "Countries and Their Cultures": The phrase han p'it-chul ("one bloodline") often is used by Koreans at home and abroad to symbolize their shared identity as the members of a homogeneous nation. Blood and territory thus are the most frequently invoked metaphors associated with the nation. Before the 1945 national division of the peninsula and the subsequent establishment of the two political regimes of North and South Korea in 1948, Koreans identified themselves as the people of Choson. Tan'gun as the founding ancestor has had a symbolic meaning for Koreans throughout the nation's history. A temple erected in Tan'gun's honor in 1429 stood in Pyongyang until its destruction during the Korean War. In 1993, North Korea announced the discovery of Tan'gun's tomb and a few remains of his skeleton at a site close to Pyongyang. Some Korean calendars still print the Year of Tan'gun (Tan'gi) along with the Gregorian calendar year, which the South Korean government officially adopted in 1962." [Source: Chunghee Sarah Soh, Countries and Their Cultures, The Gale Group Inc., 2001]

Koreans are also known as Choson and Han'guk According to the "Encyclopedia of World Cultures": "Because Korea is an ethnically homogeneous nation, there are no ethnonyms per se. There are, however, several alternative names used by outsiders as well as natives, all of which come from the names of previous states or dynasties. The name "Korea" comes from the Koryo dynasty (918-1392). "Han'guk" is an abbreviation of "Taehan Min'guk" (Republic of Korea), which is used exclusively by South Koreans. Its origin can be traced to "Taehan Che'guk" (Great Han Empire), the new name of the Yi dynasty (1392-1910) chosen in 1897. "Choson" originated from Old Choson (2333-194 b.c.) , the first Korean state that possessed a bronze culture. The Yi dynasty was also named "Choson" and North Korea prefixed it for the name of its regime, "Choson Minjuju-ui Inmin Konghwa'guk" (Democratic People's Republic of Korea). From "Choson," meaning "morning calm and freshness," Korea acquired the epithet by which it is known, the "land of the morning calm." [Source: Choong Soon Kim, "Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume 5: East / Southeast Asia:" edited by Paul Hockings, 1993 |~|]

Differences Between North and South Korea

North Korea is where most of Korea's resources, namely coal, are located. South Korea has traditionally been more agricultural and was where most of the peninsula's food was produced. Both North and South Korea experience cold winters but the winters in North Korea are more bitterly cold. After World War II, the industrialized north with nine million people was occupied by the Soviets . The agricultural south with 19 million people was occupied by the United States.
Doyeun Kim wrote in The Atlantic: "Today, after" several decades "of an ongoing armistice in which the two Koreas are still technically at war, the South has grown to be the 13th largest economy in the world, a dramatic departure from the war-ravaged, poverty-stricken country it once was. Meanwhile, the North, the last Stalinist state in the world, has remained disconnected from the international community, and most of its population is chronically hungry. The stark difference between the two estranged countries can be seen from satellite images of the Korean peninsula at night: The northern half is plunged in darkness, while a sudden burst of light beneath the 38th parallel clearly outlines the piece of land that belongs to South Korea. [Source: Doyeun Kim, The Atlantic, December 14, 2012]

On linguistic affiliation, ""Countries and Their Cultures"" says: Technically, North Korea uses the same Korean language as the one spoken in South Korea. The cultural and sociopolitical division of more than half a century, however, pushed the languages in the peninsula far apart, if not in syntax, at least in semantics. When North Korea faced the task of building a new national culture, it faced a serious problem of illiteracy. For example, over 90 percent of women in northern Korea in 1945 were illiterate; they in turn made up 65 percent of the total illiterate population. In order to overcome illiteracy, North Korea adopted the all-Korean script, eliminating the use of Chinese characters...By 1979, the United States government estimated that North Korea had a 90 percent literacy rate. At the end of the twentieth century, it was estimated that 99 percent of North Korea's population could read and write Korean sufficiently." The literacy rate in South Korea is near 100 percent and English is much more widely spoken than it is in Japan and South Korean parents put a lot of emphasis on their children learning it. [Source: "Countries and Their Cultures", The Gale Group Inc., 2001]

North Koreans: the "Cleanist Race"?

Brian Myers, a scholar and expert on North Korea, says North Korea's official propaganda promotes idea of racial purity and moral superiority. In his book "The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters" (Melville House, 2010), he says, according to Cathy Cockrell of the Berkeley News, " that the nation's race-based ideology has its roots in Japanese fascism. Koreans historically considered themselves to be in the Chinese sphere of influence, he said. But in the early 20th century the Japanese annexed Korea and launched a campaign to persuade the peninsula's people that they were of the same pure racial stock as the Japanese themselves, said Myers. [Source: Cathy Cockrell, Berkeley News, February 19, 2010]

"Then, when Japan left Korea at the end of WWII, pro-Japanese collaborators Koreanized the notion of a pure blood line, promoting pride in a morally superior Korean race. "Koreans are homogenous, therefore they are filled with brotherly love," Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il is quoted as saying. On recently minted Korean currency, Myers noted, the faces depicted "could be clones. Myers teaches literature at South Korea's Dongseo University and contributes commentary to The Atlantic Monthly and other national publications."

Myers said "North Korea is not the last bastion of Marxist Leninism or of Confucian patriarchy, as it is often characterized. Rather, it's guided by a paranoid ideology of race-based nationalism, he says, holding that the Korean people are inherently purer than all others." He "believes that Western misperceptions of the DPRK involve a failure to appreciate this ideology and its hold on the North Korean populace. Though "one of the most repressive nations on Earth," he said, the Pyongyang regime enjoys considerable public support. There's no way to understand that seeming contradiction, he suggested, "without going to the heart of what it tells its own people."

On the limited amount of mixing that has occurred in North Korea, Randy McDonald wrote in demographymatters.blogspot.jp: North Korea's population is exceptionally homogeneous. North Korea's ties with Communist Vietnam did see some Vietnamese students migrate there. Some ethnic Koreans from Japan with their Japanese wives settled in North Korea in the decades after the Second World War. Some North Korean female migrants, for whom survival sex is a frequent feature of life, married Chinese farmers and are integrated into local communities. Unlucky ones were deported back to North Korea, where they are stigmatized for having contaminated the Korean race by consorting with ethnic Chinese men and are subject to forced abortions (at least some of the time, more sophisticated than having prison guards repeatedly kick pregnant women), and infanticide if the pregnancy is advanced (their mothers frequently being forced to watch, so as to encourage them not to err in the future). [Source: Randy McDonald, demographymatters.blogspot.jp, November 29, 2010]

North Korea's Race-Based Worldview

B.R. Myers wrote in Foreign Policy: "North Korea's ideology is not merely a nationalist-tinged communism of the old Yugoslav variety. It is a race-based worldview utterly at odds with the teachings of Marx and Lenin. And yet, the outside world continues in the illusion that North Korea is a hard-line Stalinist state. True, the nation's first leader, Kim Il Sung, was installed by Soviet occupiers after World War II. It is also true that the personality cult of Kim Il Sung and his son and successor Kim Jong Il bears superficial resemblance to the cults of Stalin and Mao. Yet look closer, and it's clear just how different North Korean ideology is. Not for nothing was the country almost as isolated during Soviet times as it is now in the post-communist world. [Source: B.R. Myers, Foreign Policy, February 11, 2010]

"North Korea's race-centric ideology was inspired by that of the fascist Japanese who ruled the peninsula from 1910 until the end of World War II. Having been taught by their colonizers to regard themselves as part of a superior Yamato race, the North Koreans in 1945 simply carried on the same mythmaking in a Koreanized form. This can be summarized in a single sentence: The Korean people are too pure-blooded, and so too virtuous, to survive in this evil world without a great parental leader. This paranoid nationalism might sound crude and puerile, but it is only in this ideological context that the country's distinguishing characteristics, which the outside world has long found so baffling, make perfect sense. Up close, North Korea is not Stalinist - it's simply racist.

"According to the country's propaganda, the pure-bloodedness and homogeneity of the Korean race make the North's army a uniquely tight-knit and formidable fighting force. This way of thinking reflects an official ideology that many outsiders misperceive as communist but in reality belongs on the far right and not the far left of the ideological spectrum. No, I'm not referring to the pseudo-doctrine of North Korean "Juche" thought, a mishmash of humanist bromides (such as "man is the master of all things") that has never had the slightest effect on policymaking. I'm referring to the ideology that the Juche smokescreen is meant to hide from the outside world: a paranoid nationalism that has informed the regime's actions since the late 1940s.

Propaganda That Shores Up North Korea's Race-Based Worldview

B.R. Myers wrote in Foreign Policy: "The celebration of racial purity and homogeneity is everywhere in North Korea. The citizens pictured on the country's new currency, for example, could pass for members of the same family, which in a sense they are. A worker in one painting appears much like a farmer or soldier in another, while the children pictured in schoolbooks are downright identical. White is the dominant color in Pyongyang: White concrete plazas, white or at least blond-stoned buildings, and white statues of virginal maidens in long gowns abound. Pyongyang is often photographed or depicted under snow, a favored symbol of purity itself. "Our nation has always considered its pure lineage to be of great importance," a North Korean general told his South Korean counterpart during a 2006 meeting to discuss realignment of the maritime border between the two states. "Since ancient times our lands have been one of abundant natural beauty," he said. "Not even one drop of ink must be allowed." [Source: B.R. Myers, Foreign Policy, February 11, 2010]

"This worldview is not set out, at least not straightforwardly, in the writings of North Korea's father-and-son dictators, which are more often praised than read. Yet it informs all of the country's mass propaganda, most of which can easily be accessed at the North Korea Resource Center in Seoul. This material is varied in form if not in content: Over eight years, I've examined everything from nightly news reports and television dramas to animated cartoons and war movies; from the glossy-papered Rodong Sinmun, the Workers' Party organ, to women's magazines printed on gray, low-quality paper; from short stories and historical novels to dictionaries and school textbooks (these last printed, semi-legibly, on the worst paper of all); from reproductions of wall posters to photographs of monuments and statues. There is no way of knowing how much of this material is produced every year, but so significant is the propaganda apparatus that it was one of the few North Korean institutions that did not miss a beat even during the catastrophic famine of the 1990s.

"What is especially significant and perhaps unique about North Korean nationalism is its emphasis on the vulnerability of the race. Whereas World War II-era Japan's racialized worldview equated virtue with strength, the North Koreans are taught that their virtue has rendered them as vulnerable as children in an evil world - unless they are protected by a great leader who keeps a watchful eye on military readiness.

Hatred of Foreigners Helps Define North Korea's Identity

B.R. Myers wrote in Foreign Policy: "North Korea has often been called "solipsistic," but strong racial pride always entails intense awareness of an inferior other. For the North Koreans, foreigners are inferior - even the friendly ones. Typical is a panoramic painting of a procession of exultant tourists during 1989's Pyongyang World Festival of Youth and Students. In whatever direction they happen to be looking, their faces are partly obscured by a sinister shadow. A fat Caucasian woman wears a low-cut blouse, while a few African women appear in halter tops; in Pyongyang today, such clothing is considered indecent. Here and there, unsavory-looking men sport long sideburns and denim, more signs of Western decadence. The only well-groomed and attractive person in view, and the only one whose face is evenly lit, is the Korean guide - an innocent young girl, naturally - who leads the way in traditional dress. [Source: B.R. Myers, Foreign Policy, February 11, 2010]

"Although popular imagery strongly implies that all foreigners are morally inferior, and occasionally criticizes the Jews' influence on world affairs, it subjects the Japanese and Americans to the worst routine vituperation. Like the "Japs," the former occupiers, the Yankees are condemned as an inherently evil race that can never change, a race with which Koreans must forever be on hostile terms.

"Even the Soviet Union, for all its decades of patronage, is remembered with more contempt than fondness. In Eternal Life, a 1997 historical novel, Nikita Khrushchev is called a "traitor," one of the "fake communists" who betrayed world socialism. In the same book, Kim Il Sung chuckles about how he learned Soviet secrets by getting Leonid Brezhnev drunk. History books rarely mention the Soviet Union's demise without sneering about how it went down "without firing a shot."

"The Korean War predictably occupies a central place in anti-foreigner propaganda, but this tends to focus less on the U.S. Air Force's extensive bombing campaign (which is hard to reconcile with the myth of a protective leader) than on isolated village massacres and other purported outrages. The killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Sinchon in October 1950, which was actually perpetrated by Korean rightists, is held up as the Yankees' most heinous crime. The Americans are held responsible for the nation's current economic woes as well. Last June, the nightly news in Pyongyang constantly intoned that the Yankees are "the cause of all our people's misfortune."

North Korea's Especially Strong Antipathy Towards the U.S.

B.R. Myers wrote in Foreign Policy: "In countless posters displayed in city centers, North Korean resolve is contrasted with American spinelessness. "If we say we do something, we do it," a towering Korean People's Army soldier shouts in one poster as he slams his clenched fist down on the continental United States. "We don't utter empty words!" Other posters depict North Korean fighter planes and missiles destroying the U.S. Capitol while helpless American soldiers, mere spindly, insectlike creatures, are hoisted effortlessly on bayonets or squashed under missiles.

"Such violent imagery isn't confined to posters. Even North Korean math textbooks draw on the vocabulary of military might: "Three People's Army soldiers rubbed out thirty American bastards. What was the ratio of the soldiers who fought?" Dictionaries and schoolbooks encourage North Korean citizens to speak of foreigners as beasts with "muzzles," "snouts," and "paws," who "croak" instead of dying. In a chilling illustration from a recent North Korean art magazine, a child with a toy machine gun stands before a battered snowman; the caption reads, "The American bastard I killed."

"Unfortunately for the United States, there is no place in this for any improvement in relations between the two countries. Were Kim Jong Il to abandon his ideology of paranoid, race-based nationalism and normalize relations with Washington, his personality cult would lose all justification, while his impoverished country would lose all reason to exist as a separate Korean state. The problem for U.S. negotiators is therefore not one of sticks versus carrots; the regime in Pyongyang will neither be bullied nor sweet-talked into committing political suicide. Nor, to dispel an increasingly popular pipe dream, can Washington expect the Chinese to make the North Koreans commit political suicide. If you want to know why there's no possibility of a deal, you can read all about it - in Kim's own propaganda.

North Korean Stunted and Weakened by the 1990s Famine

As many 2.6 million children suffered stunted growth caused by malnutrition during the famine in the 1990s. Aid workers described malnourished children in the winter of 1997 as "nutritional dwarfs." Children that looked three years old were six. Those there were ten looked five. Four-years weighed around 10 pounds. They moved slowly to conserve energy and their skin hung from their wrists and ankles. Long-term malnutrition can leave children permanently undersized but they usually recover mentally.

In some places a child is considered full grown if the top of his head reaches the bottom of his mother's nose. Stephen Linton, an expert on North Korea that visited the country more than 80 times, said the food shortage could result in "generational stunting" and said that government may have decided let relief workers into the country because "they don't want to face the 21st century with a stunted population facing serious growth and developmental problems...If they are malnourished in the critical years, you can't make it up. You can grow up with a generation of cretins."

There were reports people beggars at railway stations asking for scraps of food, exhausted people slumped beside the road, schools letting out early so children could get food, and children so weak they couldn't even sing the Welcome Song when foreign guests arrived. Malnourished and hungry people with weak immune systems died from diarrhea, measles, pneumonia and tuberculosis. Defectors reported seeing people with faces that had "turned black" from malnutrition.

In November 1997, Hilary Mackenzie wrote in Newsweek, "Everywhere I saw people slumped by the side of the road, exhausted and starving and people stripping bark from the city's trees for food." One Chinese Korean who visited North Korea told the Korea Times, "I saw that people didn't move and I thought they were all dead. But later I realized they were too feeble to move because they hadn't eaten in days."

In some towns no people over 60 were visible because the elderly reportedly gave up their food rations so their children could survive. The elderly were too sick to get out of bed but they didn't kill themselves out of fear that their food ration might be taken away. Mackenzie wrote: "On family visits, I watched the elderly give their meager rations to children: one grandmother keeled over in front of my eyes."

North Korea Army Cuts Height Requirement to Accommodate Famine-Stunted Conscripts

In 2012, North Korea reduced its minimum height requirement for military conscripts because young people coming to military service age at that time had been stunted by the deadly famines in the 1990s. Daily NK, a Seoul-based online newspaper run by North Korean defectors, said the military has cut the minimum height from 145 centimeters to 142 centimeters. AFP reported: "There were too many short boys who don't meet the previous height requirement... so the military is now accepting all who are taller than 142 centimeters," said a North Korean source quoted by Daily NK. The average height for South Korean boys of the same age is about 172 centimeters. [Source: AFP. April 2, 2012]

North Korean boys facing conscription this year were born in the mid-1990s - at the height of the famine that devastated the impoverished communist state and killed hundreds of thousands. Child mortality during this period was high and the fertility rate low, causing an acute shortage of new conscripts, said the source. "North Koreans say the country's new generation is shrinking in size," said the source, adding the army was still struggling to find enough new troops even after relaxing the physical requirements.

"UN agencies, after a visit to the North, estimated last November that three million people would need food aid in 2012. UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos, after a separate visit last October, said that in northern regions almost one in two children were chronically malnourished."

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons.

Text Sources: Daily NK, UNESCO, Wikipedia, Library of Congress, CIA World Factbook, World Bank, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, "Culture and Customs of Korea" by Donald N. Clark, Chunghee Sarah Soh in "Countries and Their Cultures", "Columbia Encyclopedia", Korea Times, Korea Herald, The Hankyoreh, JoongAng Daily, Radio Free Asia, Bloomberg, Reuters, Associated Press, BBC, AFP, The Atlantic, Yomiuri Shimbun, The Guardian and various books and other publications.

Updated in July 2021

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People in North Korea are referred to as North Koreans. They are ethnic Koreans. For the most part, Koreans are the only ethnic group found in Korea. North Korea has been categorized as the least ethnically diverse country on Earth followed by South Korea.

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The Mental Health of Ethnic Minority Youths in South Korea and Its Related Environmental Factors: A Literature Review

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Performers at the Lotus Lantern Festival in Seoul, South Korea. The majority of South Korea's population is made up of ethnic Koreans. Editorial credit: qingqing / Shutterstock.com.

The South Korean Republic has Seoul as its capital and largest city. The country is highly urbanized with over 92% of its citizens living in urban areas with over 50% of them residing in Seoul. South Korea is one of the most ethnically homogeneous countries in the world with almost a negligible percentage of foreign immigrants. The immigrants mostly come from the People's Republic of China, United States of America, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines.

Chinese in South Korea

After the People's Republic of China and South Korea reformed their relationship in 1992, a new wave of Chinese migrants into South Korea emerged. The latest statistics show that 50% of immigrants to the country are Chinese. The relationship between the two nations dates back to 1882 during the Qing Dynasty where the dynasty lifted trade restrictions with Korea. The Korean government was also very instrumental in helping the Qing Dynasty quell rebellions. In the early 1900s, a trade agreement was signed, allowing Chinese merchants to conduct business in Korea. During the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, most Chinese migrants in Korea shifted to the USA but were unable to cope with the culture, climate, and the language and opted back to South Korea. Today, most Chinese prefer going to Seoul due to its quiet, serene and clean environment.

Americans in South Korea

Most Americans come to the country as tourists or professionals. They are the majority of English teachers found in the country.

Vietnamese in South Korea

Vietnamese-South Korean ties date back to the year 1200 when Ly Duong had to flee to Goryeo in Korea after a succession of power disputes. The Vietnamese have kept contact with both the South Koreans and North Koreans after the division of Korea in 1945.

Filipinos in South Korea

The bilateral relationship between the Philippines and South Korea can be traced back to 1950 during the Korean War, when over 7,500 Filipino soldiers fought on the United Nations' side to assist South Korea's conflict against communist North Korea. After the war, Filipino engineers and technicians played a vital role in reconstructing the country. In the 1990s, South Korea experienced a rapid economic growth coupled with decreasing birth rates which required increased labor and therefore many people immigrated to fill these positions. In 2007, Filipino immigrants to South Korea were estimated to number 70,000 people.

Rank

Country of Origin

Share of Foreign-Born Population in South Korea

Other Countries

17.2%

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Ethnic Minorities And Immigrants In South Korea

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Ethnic Minorities And Immigrants In South Korea

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The South Korean Republic has Seoul as its capital and largest city. The country is highly urbanized with over 92% of its citizens living in urban areas with over 50% of them residing in Seoul. South Korea is one of the most ethnically homogeneous countries in the world with almost a negligible percentage of foreign immigrants.

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The graph shows the share of ethnic minorities in the population of China's minority autonomous regions by province. In 2020, about 57.76 percent of the population in minority areas in Xinjiang belonged to ethnic minorities.

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China: ethnic minority population share in minority areas| Statista

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The graph shows the share of ethnic minorities in the population of China's minority autonomous regions by province.

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China is a multi-ethnic state. According to the census conducted on 1 November 2000, aside from the Han Chinese, which account for 91.6 percent of the population, there are 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities, or 'national minorities' in Chinese parlance ( shaoshu minzu 少数民族), numbering some 106.4 million people all together. These minorities inhabit approximately 60 percent of Chinese territory, often in the strategically more important or sensitive areas along the borders. The largest minorities are the Zhuang (in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, 15 million); the Manzu, or Manchu (in Northeast China, 9.8 million); Moslems, or Hui (all over China, 8.6 million); Uygur, or Weiwu'er (in Xinjiang Province, 7.2 million); Tujia (Hunan Province, 5.7 million); Mongolians, or Meng (Inner Mongolia, 4.8 million); and Tibetans, or Zang (in Tibet, Qinghai and Sichuan, 4.6 million). The smallest national minorities number only a few thousand members, for example the Gaoshan (Fujian Province) and the Lhoba (Tibet). Many other different ethnic groups (as many as 350) seek official recognition, and at least 15 of them are reported to be officially considered for such recognition.

It is a longstanding myth in China that all peoples inhabiting the territory form a homogeneous whole, the Zhonghua minzu 中华民族, or Chinese nationality. This myth is based upon the premise of a shared descent from the mythological Yellow Emperor, the foundation figure of all Chinese who was purportedly born in 2704 BCE. This legend in turn forms the basis for a (racial) nationalism that implies the existence of primal biological and cultural bonds among China's various ethnic groups. According to scientific research conducted in the early 20th century, the Han nationality was the main branch of all the different population groups in China. This principle forms the basis of China's minority policy. All minority groups ultimately belong to the same 'yellow' race, although they are deemed inferior to it. In other words, the political boundaries of China appeared to be founded on clear biological markers. This line of reasoning has resulted in the official concept that the Chinese people form one big, united family of ethnic groups.

The levels of development of the minorities differ widely, and they are highly heterogeneous both culturally and physically. Some are highly urbanized, while some others practiced slash-and-burn agriculture in the not too distant past. Nonetheless, the Han Chinese always have felt that they are on a civilizing mission and have an obligation to help and defend all those peoples that they consider their inferior, backward ( luohou 落后) 'younger brothers' ( didi 弟弟).

The actual inventory and identification of these minorities only started after the PRC was formally founded. In the Republican period, only five ethnic groups were recognized: Han, Manchu, Mongol, Tibetan and Muslim. In 1950, numerous 'Visit the Nationalities'-teams were sent out to determine what actually constituted minorities, what could be considered as sub-branches of nationalities, or what groups in reality actually belonged to the Han nationality. Initially, the CCP adopted a very broadminded attitude towards the non-Han.

In the early 1930s, viewpoints such as the formation of a federal state granting a high degree of independence to minorities, or even the possibility of secession, were included in the Constitution of the Jiangxi Soviet. In Yan'an, the CCP became aware of the necessity of minority nationality support and appealed to them to support the struggle against Japan. Following Sun Yatsen's ideas about the minority issue, i.e., that all nationalities in China were equal, had the right to self-determination and would be part of a free and united republic of China, Mao asserted that their spoken and written languages, their manners and customs and their religious beliefs had to be respected.

The nationalities' policies as phrased in the Common Program of 1949, the provisional Constitution that predated the first Constitution promulgated in 1954, actually favored those groups that had a minority status. One result of this was that the first national census, which took place in 1953, reported no less than 400 minorities. In the period 1953-1956, all these groups that asserted a separate nationality status were determined by applying the definitions that Josef Stalin had defined as markers for nationality status. Thus, they had to share a common language, a common economic base, a common psychological makeup (or culture), and a common territory. As this was not always applicable in China, the markers of historical origin, migration history and agreement by the people themselves were added. By applying these definitions, 54 minorities had been officially recognized as such by 1957. Over the years, the identification work would continue. The last people to be recognized, the Jinou, was added in 1979.

It is important for an ethnic group to be officially recognized as a national minority. Minority peoples are given special treatment, including a license of moral, cultural, religious and social liberties which the state does not wish to grant to the majority of the population. These liberties include a family planning policy which does not restrict the number of children; the right to retain certain marriage patterns and traditions of conducting one's sexual life; and the right to engage in various forms of religious practices which are otherwise considered "superstitious". On the political level, being a minority may lead to a level of limited autonomy that leaves room for local decisions on education, finances, culture and religion. It is also important for the state to officially recognize a national minority. It has set up an apparatus for registering and administrating ethnic differences, allotting different rights to different ethnic groups. This enables selective social control and formal structures for political inclusion or cooptation of groups which otherwise might alienate themselves from the system.

The cooptation of minority interests has been an important factor in forging national unity, in merging all 56 national individual minorities into one Chinese nation. Another element has been the presentation of the best and most pliable elements of nationality culture in terms of this unity. In the media, national dances, music and songs are woven together in a mixture which implies unity while at the same time emphasizing the individual characteristics of each nationality.

Although it can be said that these elements have saved certain minority practices from extinction, they at the same time have had a stiffling effect on the development of these peoples. The 'noble savages' in their colorful national costumes, fellow countrymen yet so alien, living in their traditional dwellings and compounds, engaging in traditional songs and dances, have become important components of a thriving tourist industry that caters to both foreign and Chinese visitors. Sadly enough, the minorities themselves usually are not sharing in the profits.

Despite the official recognition of separate ethnic groups, there exist both an ingrained prejudice and a local negative opinion among the Han Chinese towards these minorities, something that is inevitably noted by the minorities themselves. The Chinese mistrust and bias towards non-Han as barbarians are age-old phenomena. Some of this is discernible by the appellations of the minorities in Chinese: in many cases, the characters that were used for the official name of a minority originally contained the pictorial element of 'dog' or 'pig'. Although this has been changed in most cases, minorities are still not completely accepted and integrated. Many Han Chinese continue to see minorities as childlike persons, wearing colorful costumes and spending the day with song, dance and other typical local practices.

Their portrayal often can be considered derogatory and colonial, but this is a practice that extends to imperial times, and is not specific to the PRC. Moreover, many myths exist about the alleged carefree sexuality that is celebrated by the minorities. That may also explain why minority representatives on posters are usually females. When males are represented, they invariably are shown while engaged in non-threatening behavior. Minority peoples that have no strong outward physical resemblance to the Han Chinese, for example the Dai, or who are considered to be more primitive, tend to be more easily eroticized than groups such as the Manchu and the Koreans.

That the state felt the need to instruct the minorities is quite obvious from the propaganda posters produced in the first three decades of the PRC. They all show happy minorities enjoying the fruits of socialism, but guided by the Han. Another indication of the ethnic unity that existed was provided by the posters dedicated to mass scenes extolling the virtues of the PRC or of Mao. They usually featured token Tibetans, Miao, Dai, Khazaks and others minorities in national dress, acting as icons for the ethnic diversity of China.

No minorities appeared in posters in the first half of the Cultural Revolution, but they were reintroduced after 1969, and in large numbers. The same period witnessed the publication of posters with bi- or multi-lingual titles, or slogans. Next to the text in Chinese, a translation was provided in a number of cases in Mongolian, or Uygur, Tibetan, or one of the languages used among the peoples living in the Southwest. This was a departure from the previous state of affairs, when the use of most of the minority scripts that had been (re)constructed so painstakingly in the 1950s, was restricted. These bi- or multi-lingual posters generally address themes relevant for relations between the Han Chinese and the minorities. Examples are images of Mongolian herdspeople holding books ("herdspeople love books by Marx and Lenin"), Tibetans accompanying Han soldiers ("The blossom of Dazhai blooms on the plateau"), Mongolian elderly following the example of Lei Feng, etc.

The late 1970s witnessed the production of a number of posters depicting the minorities' joy with the concrete fruits of development, such as wireless radios and electricity. Similar considerations were responsible for the posters that represented the hospital treatment of minorities by Han nurses, or the fact-finding tours in factories, where fraternal Han workers showed them around. Aside from the much-vaunted unity, other messages are made very clear. Thanks to the Han Chinese, minorities now not only have access to health care, but also are taken care of by Han medical personnel. Thanks to the Han Chinese, minorities have access to radios and electricity, and in the near future even will operate sophisticated factory equipment themselves.

After the Cultural Revolution officially came to a close in 1976, large numbers of minorities were put on display on posters. This was part of Hua Guofeng's attempts to become a true successor of Mao. To accomplish this in the public gaze, minorities were recruited in a major way to indicate that an unprecedented level of unity existed, as all peoples supported the leadership change, and had boundless faith in Chairman Hua. The predominance of Mongols, Kazaks and Tibetans changed slightly in favor of other groups.

Only after 1978, when Deng Xiaoping had returned to power, the leadership openly admitted that its minority policy had failed to improve conditions in most minority areas and had, in fact, even had been responsible for a general deterioration. Moreover, it acknowledged that during the Cultural Revolution in particular, incidents of violent devastation and severe oppression had taken place in minority regions. Autonomous regions with large numbers of minority populations, such as Tibet and Xinjiang in particular, had suffered greatly and they became the areas where large-scale restorations were undertaken.

The only examples in which artists continued to use representatives of the minorities, in their colourful garb, were those in which the founding fathers of the CCP, such as Mao, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi and Zhu De, were depicted, in order to perpetuate the image of one happy extended family of peoples. In line with the more urban orientation that propaganda took in the 1980s, the minorities' propaganda appeal has clearly diminished.

Anne-Marie Brady, "'We Are All Part of the Same Family': China's Ethnic Propaganda", Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 41:4 2012), 159-181

Uradyn E. Bulag, "Models and Moralities: The Parable of the two 'Heroic Little Sisters of the Grassland'", The China Journal, No. 42 (1999)

Uradyn E. Bulag, "Seeing Like a Minority: Political Tourism and the Struggle for Recognition in China", Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 41:4 (2012), 133-158

Uradyn Bulag, "Nationality / 民族", Made in China Journal (4 September 2020)

Flemming Christiansen & Shirin Rai, Chinese Politics and Society - An Introduction (London etc.: Prentice Hall 1996)

Frank Dikötter, "Reading the Body: Genetic Knowledge and Social Marginalization in the People's Republic of China", China Information, vol. 13:2/3 (1998-1999), 1-13

Dru C. Gladney, "Representing Nationality in China: Refiguring Majority/Minority Identities", Journal of Asian Studies 53:1 (1994)

Gregory E. Guldin, The Saga of Anthropology in China - From Malinowksi to Moscow to Mao (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1994)

Thomas Heberer, China and its National Minorities - Autonomy or Assimilation? (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1989)

Hsieh Jiann, The CCP's Concept of Nationality and the Work of Ethnic Identification Amongst China's Minorities (Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1987)

Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, National Minorities Policy and its Practice in China (Beijing, 1999)

James Leibold, "More Than a Category: Han Supremacism on the Chinese Internet", The China Quarterly 203 (2010), 539-559

Li Yu, Representations of Ethnic Minorities in Chinese Propaganda Posters 1957-1983

Colin Mackerras, "What is China? Who is Chinese? Han-minority relations, legitimicay, and the State", Peter Hays Gries & Stanley Rosen (eds), State and Society in 21st-century China - Crisis, Contention, and Legitimation (New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004)

Thomas S. Mullaney, "Ethnic Classification Writ Large -- The 1954 Yunnan Province Ethnic Classification Project and Its Foundations in Republican-Era Taxonomic Thought", China Information 18:2 (2004), 207-241

Barry Sautman, "Myths of Descent, Racial Nationalism and Ethnic Minorities in the People's Republic of China", Frank Dikötter (ed.), The Construction of Racial Identities in China and Japan - Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (London: Hurst & Company, 1997)

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Our country is a united and unified multi-cultural nation, ca. 1982 | National Minorities | Chinese Posters

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Exploring the Ethnic Groups of China | Cusef Blog | China-United States Exchange Foundation

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China may be known for having vast terrain, with borders touching 14 other countries, where geographic climates can range from snowy mountains to sandy deserts. But did you know that inside those borders lives a world of diversity among China’s 1.4 billion people?

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China has promoted the participation of ethnic minorities in Party and State politics by co-opting elites from ethnic minorities across various provinces. Managing the political participation of minority groups is increasingly important for social stability in China as well as China’s international image.

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University of Minnesota Human Rights Library

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China is a comprising 56 state-recognized nationalities officially termed “ethnic minorities.” These ethnic minority groups do not necessarily self-identify as such, and are not equally represented in China. The largest ethnic group is the Han (91.6), and the largest non-Han minority groups are Tibetans, Mongols, and Uyghurs. These territories (Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang) are resource-rich and these ethnic groups often dispute the autonomous regions. Numerous human rights violations and independence movements have caused major instability in these regions and international criticism of the Chinese Communist Party’s ethnic minority policies. There are ethnic groups that are still seeking official recognition by the state.

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An essay on some of China’s 56 ethnic minority groups.

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Although it is believed that the Ainu culture was established around the 12th or 13th century, the first historical materials to mention the Ainu date from around the 15th century. At that time, the Ainu primarily made their livelihood by fishing, hunting and plant gathering, and also traded with people in other areas. It is not certain when Wajin* began living in Ezo (presently Hokkaido). Their areas of residence spread from Mukawa in the east to Yoichi in the west. In the vicinity of what is now Hakodate, merchant ships came from Wakasa (the southwestern part of Fukui Prefecture) and wholesale shops and blacksmiths were established. From Ezo, the "three Ezo specialties" of kelp, dried salmon and herring, as well as products that came from China via Northern Ezo (presently Sakhalin), were shipped to Honshu. Iron implements, lacquer ware, sake, and the like were transported from Honshu. The Ainu were direct and indirect producers and tradesmen of articles shipped to Honshu.

*Wajin: Before the Meiji era, this referred to people who migrated to Hokkaido from Honshu. The expression is currently used to distinguish the ethnic Japanese majority from the Ainu.

In 1456, a young Ainu man had a quarrel with a blacksmith in Shinori (presently Hakodate) over a knife that he had ordered. In the heat of the argument the blacksmith stabbed the young man to death with the knife, prompting the father and son of Koshamain, an Ainu leader, to lead an uprising the following year. With increases in the number of Wajin in Ezo, the influential figures among them became feudal lords and their bases were referred to as castles. Twelve castles dotted the southern tip of the Oshima Peninsula. Koshamain's father and son captured all but two of these castles in quick succession. One of the holdouts was Hanazawa Castle, under the Lord Sueshige Kakizaki, and it was here that Nobuhiro Takeda was serving as a guest general. Takeda launched a surprise attack and defeated Koshamain's father and son, thereby escaping the imminent danger of annihilation. As a result, Takeda inherited the Kakizaki family and later on became the founder of the Matsumae family. The feud between Wajin and Ainu continued for nearly a century. Some of Kakizaki's engagements against Ainu leaders were won by surprise attack. The long, drawn out battles are thought to have been caused by political or economic discord between Ainu and Wajin. During this time, Kakizaki solidified his position as the ruler of Wajin and obtained the power to levy taxes on merchant ships from Honshu. Even so, political and military stability was not achieved. In 1550, the Law Concerning Traffic for Foreign Commercial Vessels was enacted to appease the Ainu and reach a compromise with them. Under this law, two Ainu leaders were forced to live in the areas now known as Kaminokuni and Shiriuchi, with Ainu and Wajin living north and south of these areas, respectively. Taxes levied on merchant ships from Honshu were partially distributed to these leaders. Ainu ships lowered their sails and sailors bowed when approaching Kaminokuni in the west and Shiriuchi in the east.

Shinori Castle, one of the 12 castles of Ezo, is rectangular and measures 152.7 m east-west by 112.7 m north-south.(Property of the Hakodate City Board of Education; Historic site Shinoridate ruins aerial photograph)

Yoshihiro Kakizaki (the fifth-generation descendent of Nobuhiro Takeda) met Toyotomi Hideyoshi in Nagoya in 1593 and Tokugawa Ieyasu in Osaka in 1599. Around that time, he changed his surname from Kakizaki to Matsumae. In 1604, he was presented with the Kokuinjo, or Black Seal, an official letter from a feudal lord. It granted him a monopoly on trade in Ezo. Under the shogunate government, the Matsumae clan was unable to use rice as a stipend for clansmen as was done in clans in Honshu. Instead, the Matsumae clan gave prominent retainers the right to trade with Ainu in limited areas, a system that was approved by the Tokugawa shogunate. These trade areas were referred to as "places of commerce" or "trading posts." Enfeoffed lords (clansmen stationed at places of commerce) sent ships to their own places of commerce once a year to trade with the local Ainu. They obtained goods there and resold them in Matsumae to merchants from Honshu, living off the profits. Later on, the enfeoffed lords borrowed living expenses and money necessary to trade with the Ainu from merchants and repaid the merchants with articles obtained through trade. When the debts to merchants began to increase, however, enfeoffed lords began contracting out to merchants the rights to trading posts for fixed charges. This is referred to as the "trading post commission system." As the enfeoffed lords had done, merchants who contracted for these trading posts traded with the Ainu there. However, around 1740 or so, with increased demand for Nagasaki tawaramono (roasted sea cucumber, abalone, kelp, and other dried marine products sold in straw bags) and with burgeoning catches of shimekasu, which served as fertilizer for cash crops such as indigo on Honshu, merchants started to fish on their own. They attempted to increase their catch by improving their fishing gear and introducing new techniques, which led to their use of Ainu as laborers at fishing grounds. The Ainu went from being producers and traders to living as laborers tied to the fishing grounds.

Black seal that Tokugawa leyasu presented to Yoshihiro Matsumae .It was with this seal that the Matsumae clan was given a monopoly on trade in Ezo. (『徳川家康黒印状』Property of Hokkaido Museum)

The Battle of Shakushain originated from a struggle between two groups of Ainu living in the Hidaka region over fishing and hunting rights. In 1669, however, Ainu in Ezo responded to a call by Shakushain, one of the leaders of the two groups, to wage an all-out war with the Matsumae clan. The opponents were almost equally matched, and the parties eventually reconciled. During the banquet celebrating the reconciliation, Shakushain was murdered in a surprise attack, thus bringing the wars of the Ainu to an end. As a result, the Ainu had no choice but to agree to obey the Matsumae clan.

The Matsumae clan brought several of its battles with the Ainu to a close with surprise attacks when it thought it was losing ground. It should be pointed out that the Ainu were very susceptible to surprise attacks because they were traders. Trade, which was indispensable to the Ainu livelihood, was not simply an act of exchanging goods, but rather a solemn ceremony for politely apologizing for the long period of silence. Therefore, when Wajin politely suggested reconciliation, the Ainu and their leaders, in particular, did not brush aside such suggestions and approached them in a dignified manner. When the formalities with their former foes were completed and the tense atmosphere was eased, the Ainu suffered surprise attacks.

With the Battle of Shakushain, the Wajin solidified their advantage. Many Ainu were forced to work at fishing grounds and put up with abuse and trade improprieties from those contracted with the right to run trading posts and the subordinates of such contractors. The opening of trading posts by the Matsumae clan and the employment of the Ainu even spread to remote places in Matsumae. Under these circumstances, the Ainu living on Kunashiri Island, who still had their independence, stood up against the abuse and improprieties of traders employed by Kyube Hidaya, who was commissioned to run the Kunashiri trading post. The battle spread to the Menashi region (presently Shibetsu) on the opposite shore. However, the war was brought to an end by the persuasion of the lords of Kunashiri and Akkeshi. Nonetheless, punitive forces dispatched by the Matsumae clan executed major figures and punished others concerned. This battle prompted the Matsumae clan to bring the Ainu on Kunashiri Island and in Eastern Hokkaido under its control. This was the last battle fought by the Ainu against Wajin.

(1) Soya (2) Rishiri (3)Teshio (4) Yoichi Ainu (Hachiroemon) (5) Mashike (6) Ishikari Ainu (Haukase) (7) Takikawa (8) Yoichi (9) Otasutsu (10) Suttsu (11) Sapporo (12) Shikotsu (13) (Onibishi) (14) Shumukuru (15) Etomo (16) Otoshibe (17) Uchiura Ainu (Aikouin) (18) Netanai (19) Hae (20) Saru (21) Shifuchari (22) Urakawa (23) Kusuri (24) Tokachi (25) Menashikuru (Shakushain) (26) Leaders' residential areas (27) Important bases (28) Leaders' names (29) Land of Wajin

Regional unity of the Ainu at the time of the Battle of Shakushain(From 『蝦夷地のこころ』 the Historical Museum of Hokkaido currently known as Hokkaido Museum)

In the Shadow of Politics

In 1799, ten years after the battles on Kunashiri Island and in Menashi, the Tokugawa shogunate gained direct rule over the southern half of Ezo and Eastern Ezo, and in 1807 it extended this control to the northern half of Ezo, Western Ezo and Northern Ezo by relocating the Matsumae clan to Yanagawa (presently Fukushima Prefecture). This was a result of the management of trading posts that imposed harsh labor at fishing grounds and improprieties on the Ainu as well as the vigilance against Russia's southward advance. The shogunate conducted fair trade with the Ainu so they would not be enticed by Russia's offers of appeasement and had other clans in Honshu dispatch soldiers to Ezo. Profits from trade were used for the management of Ezo, but the expenses for opening roads and expanding defensive preparations exceeded these profits. As a result of lowered vigilance against Russia and the Matsumae clan's campaigns of territorial recovery, Ezo was returned to the Matsumae clan in 1821.
The Tokugawa shogunate, allowing foreign ships to stop at Hakodate, started to directly rule areas around Hakodate in 1855 and put Ezo and its surrounding islands under control in 1856.
The southwestern part of the Oshima Peninsula, however, continued to belong to the Matsumae clan, who held it to reinforce the defenses against Russia, to reclaim Ezo and to foster new industries.
Aiming to demonstrate to Russia that the Ainu belonged to Japan and that their places of residence were Japanese territories, the Tokugawa shogunate tried to appease the Ainu through trade and protection, and lifted the ban on wearing bamboo hats, straw raincoats and Japanese sandals, which had been imposed by the Matsumae clan. Furthermore, the shogunate forced the Ainu to change their hairstyles, clothes, names and the like into those of Honshu and outlawed traditional Ainu customs and manners, including earrings, tattoos and the ceremony to send back bear spirits. During the second ruling of the shogunate, the aforementioned measures were reinforced, provoking the antipathy of the Ainu. This indicates that the customs and manners cultivated by the Ainu were deeply rooted in their daily lives and could not be easily changed - not even by force.

Japanized Ainu(『箱館より宗谷までの絵図』property Hokkaido Museum)

In 1869, the new Meiji Government renamed Ezo "Hokkaido", unilaterally making it part of Japan. The government incorporated the Ainu people into the nation and listed them as "commoners" on newly created family registers, but it also referred to them as "former aborigines" and continued to discriminate against them.

In the same year, Kaitakushi (the Development Commission), which was established to rule Hokkaido, outlawed the Ainu language and lifestyle, and introduced a policy of forced Japanization. It took away land and resources of the Ainu, making these national property. This property was then sold to the private sector. Salmon fishing and deer hunting were banned. Together with the institution of a national system aimed at moving Japan away from Asia and toward Europe as well as increasing wealth and military power, social pressures aimed at the transformation of livelihood and lifestyle accelerated.

As a result of the policy that gave priority to development advantageous to Wajin, the situation of the Ainu worsened, even to the point that they did not have enough food. Although agriculture was encouraged, in many cases it was difficult to change lifestyles overnight. For this reason, the Ainu were mistakenly defined as being deficient in property management skills, resulting in restrictions on their rights to own land and other property.
The government concluded the Treaty for the Exchange of Sakhalin for the Kuril Islands with Russia in 1875, forcefully relocating the Ainu on Sakhalin and the Kurils to the islands of Hokkaido and Shikotan. Those who were forced to relocate suffered from the abrupt change in lifestyle and prevalence of diseases, and many of them died. Such forced relocation continued in numerous areas.

In 1886, the Hokkaido Government was established. The new government promoted development and transfer of land and resources to the private sector, thereby reducing the places where Ainu could live.

When the hardships of the Ainu were further aggravated by this policy, the Hokkaido Former Aborigine Protection Law was enacted in 1899. This law was aimed at granting land to be used for farming and assimilating the Ainu to Wajin culture by educating them in the Japanese language and Wajin customs.

Some Ainu who were given land succeeded in farming, but many failed to convert their land to farmland, thereby resulting in forfeiture of that land, or were given land unsuitable for farming from the very beginning. The amount of land granted to the Ainu was far smaller than that granted to Wajin - especially those with large amounts of capital. The Hokkaido Former Aborigine Protection Law stipulated that the land to be handed over to the Ainu be up to 15,000 tsubo per household. This can be clearly seen as ethnic discrimination when compared with the 1872 Regulations on Land Sales and Leasing in Hokkaido, which allowed 100,000 tsubo per Wajin, and the 1897 Law Concerning the Disposal of Nationally Owned Undeveloped Land in Hokkaido, which stipulated that up to 1.5 million tsubo of reclaimed land be disposed of free of charge.
With regard to the establishment of schools, there were Ainu who donated land and funds to enable their children to receive an education. However, the Ainu language and culture were denied at school, and children had to learn the Japanese language and Wajin lifestyle. Important aspects of education under the Hokkaido Former Aborigine Protection Law included the basic principle of education segregated from Wajin children and unreasonable discrimination in educational content.

Ainu from Sakhalin who were forcefully relocated to Tsuishikari(Property of Hokkaido University Library)

The period from the 1910s to the 1920s, referred to as "Taisho Democracy," saw a breath of social freedom, which prompted the Ainu to become more aggressively engaged in activities. The Ainu protested against discrimination, criticized the prejudice and ignorance of Wajin who still believed the Ainu were leading traditional lives, and called for independence. There were also movements to form ethnic organizations. Some Ainu were even elected to municipal assemblies.
In 1934, the Asahikawa City Former Aborigine Protection Law was enacted. This was a measure to redress the problematic situation of the Ainu in Chikabumi, Asahikawa, who were about to be expelled from their land. The Ainu had their representatives lobby in Tokyo and took other measures to prevent the forfeiture of the land. The situation was restored to normalcy, although some problems remained unsolved, such as placing the land that was supposed to be granted to the Ainu under the control of the Governor of Hokkaido as common property.

After Japan's defeat in World War II, the Ainu established the Hokkaido Ainu Association (renamed the Ainu Association of Hokkaido in 1961), toward becoming a proud ethnic group by enhancing their social standing. In those days, agricultural land reform was being undertaken whereby land was taken away from landlords and sold to tenant farmers at low prices. However, much of the land granted to the Ainu under the Hokkaido Former Aborigine Protection, Law was lost as a result of this policy. The Hokkaido Ainu Association was opposed to this reform, but no consideration was given to the past unreasonable deprivation of Ainu lands. As a result of a series of measures that began in the Meiji era and the illegal transfer of rights due to economic reasons, land that still belongs to the Ainu accounts for less than 15% of that in the initial period.

In the 1960s, environmental improvement projects were initiated whereby assembly halls (community halls) and joint workshops were established in areas where many Ainu lived, to redress the disparity in living standards and the hardships they had faced. In 1974, the Hokkaido Ainu Welfare Measures, which incorporated measures for housing, employment, school attendance and other issues, were launched. Although this was a seven-year program, it has been continued to date with different priorities and under different names. In the 1970s, activities designed to preserve and pass on the unique Ainu culture began to expand.

In 1984, the Hokkaido Utari Association (current Ainu Association of Hokkaido) resolved on the draft of the Legislation Concerning the Ainu People at its general meeting, calling for the recovery of the basic human rights of the Ainu, the elimination of discrimination against them, the introduction of special legislative seats aimed at enabling the direct reflection of the Ainu representatives' views on politics, the implementation of comprehensive educational and cultural measures, and the improvement of certain conditions concerning agriculture, fishing, forestry, commerce and industry to allow the Ainu to achieve economic independence.
The Association lobbied for the enactment of this new law at the Hokkaido Government, the central government, the Diet and other organizations. In 1986 when then Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone stated that "Japan is a racially homogeneous nation and there is no discrimination against ethnic minorities with Japanese citizenship," discussions and campaigns related to the Ainu became brisk. In addition, the Ainu began to pay attention to global trends regarding the rights of indigenous peoples, accelerating international exchanges with other indigenous people who were dominated, oppressed and put at a disadvantage in modern nations and society just like the Ainu. Supported by these movements, the first Ainu took a seat in the Diet in 1994.

In response to wide-ranging campaigns conducted mainly by the Ainu seeking the adoption of a new law, the Act on the Promotion of Ainu Culture, and Dissemination and Enlightenment of Knowledge about Ainu Tradition, etc. newly came into force and the Hokkaido Former Aborigine Protection Law was abolished in 1997. The new law, however, addressed only cultural aspects out of all the requests the Hokkaido Utari Association had made.

Trends at home and abroad

While the establishment of the Law for the Promotion of Ainu Culture broadened the range of transmission activities of the Ainu language and traditional culture, challenges such as the correction of living disparities and the elimination of prejudices and discrimination remained. This is why the Ainu people continued their campaigns both in Japan and overseas.

The United Nations continued to study ways to recover the rights lost by indigenous peoples around the world for long time. Finally, in September 2007, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the "United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples", which specified standards each state should attain concerning ethnic groups' self-determination, rights in land and resources, intellectual property rights and others.

In addition, in June 2008, the Diet unanimously passed "a resolution that recognizes the Ainu as indigenous peoples of Japan" on a basis of United Nations Declaration. In response to adoption of the resolution, the Chief Cabinet Secretary announced the Government view on the instructions of conducting policy towards the Ainu "on a basis of recognizing the Ainu as Indigenous peoples". In July of the same year, the Government organized "an Advisory Panel of Eminent Persons on Policies for the Ainu People". In July 2009,the panel submitted a report to the Government.

Based on the Report of the Advisory Council, the national government set up the Council for Ainu Policy Promotion as a forum for discussion to reflect the Ainu people's opinion on policy promotion, etc. in December of the same year. Furthermore, a working group was established under the Council to discuss the realization of the "Symbolic Space for Ethnic Harmony", which would be the cornerstone of the Ainu policy, the deployment of measures from a national perspective based on the "Survey on the Ainu Living Conditions outside Hokkaido", and activities to promote the understanding of the people. Based on this discussion, the national government promoted implementation of measures.

In June 2014, the Cabinet approved the basic policy for the development, management and operation of the "Symbolic Space for Ethnic Harmony" to promote revitalization of the Ainu culture, and it was decided that the Symbolic Space would be set up in the area near Lake Poroto, Shiraoi Town. The Act on Promoting Measures to Realize a Society in Which the Pride of the Ainu People Is Respected was promulgated in April 2019 and came into effect on May 24. On the same day, the national government decided to ban discrimination based on being an Ainu, establish a grant and set up the Ainu Policy Headquarters in the Cabinet. Under the Act mentioned above, the Foundation for Ainu Culture was designated by the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology as a juridical person in charge of promotion of Ainu culture and management, etc. of the Symbolic Space for Ethnic Harmony (Upopoy).

In July 2020, the Symbolic Space for Ethnic Harmony (Upopoy) was opened as a hub for revitalization and development of the Ainu culture, which is faced with an existential threat in spite of being part of Japan's valuable culture, and as a symbol for building a dynamic society with a diversified, rich culture that respects indigenous people's dignity and is free from discrimination.

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公益財団法人 アイヌ民族文化財団

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アイヌに関する研究、アイヌ語やアイヌ文化の振興、アイヌの伝統等に関する普及啓発等が目的。イベント情報、関連団体の紹介。

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The Ainu are an indigenous people who primarily inhabit the island of Hokkaido in Japan, but also live in the north of Honshu, Japan’s main island, and Sakhalin island in Russia. There are more than 24,000 Ainu in Japan. While there are no official census figures, the Hokkaido Government conducted surveys of Ainu living conditions in Hokkaido in 1972, 1979, 1986, 1993, 1999, 2006 and 2013 and according to the latest survey, the population of Ainu in Hokkaido is at least 19,786.) Only a very small number of Ainu remain fluent in their traditional language, which UNESCO recognizes as ‘critically endangered.’

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Japan Languages, Literacy, Maps, Endangered Languages, Population, Official Use (JP) | Ethnologue Free

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Japan is a country in Asia that is home to 122,856,000 people. It is also home to 16 living indigenous languages. One of these, Japanese, is the official language of the country. In addition, 4 living non-indigenous languages are established within the country. In formal education, 2 indigenous languages are used as languages of instruction.

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is a polite term for the outcasts from the four-tiered Japanese feudal social system. Burakumin literally means simply "people of the village." In this context, however, the "village" in question is the separate community of outcasts, who traditionally lived in a restricted neighborhood, a sort of ghetto. Thus, the entire modern phrase is hisabetsu burakumin - "people of the discriminated (against) community." Burakumin are not members of an ethnic or religious minority - they are a socioeconomic minority within the larger Japanese ethnic group.

Outcast Groups

A buraku (singular) would be a member of one of the specific outcast groups-the eta, or "defiled ones/filthy commoners," who performed work that was considered impure in Buddhist or Shinto beliefs, and the hinin, or "non-humans," including ex-convicts, beggars, prostitutes, street-sweepers, acrobats and other entertainers. Interestingly, an ordinary commoner could also fall into the eta category through certain unclean acts, such as committing incest or having sexual relations with an animal.

Most eta, however, were born into that status. Their families performed tasks that were so distasteful that they were considered permanently sullied - tasks such as butchering animals, preparing the dead for burial, executing condemned criminals, or tanning hides. This Japanese definition is strikingly similar to that of the dalits or untouchables in the Hindu caste tradition of India, Pakistan, and Nepal.

Hinin were often born into that status as well, although it could also arise from circumstances during their lives. For example, the daughter of a farming family might take work as a prostitute in hard times, thus moving from the second-highest caste to a position completely below the four castes in a single instant.

Unlike eta, who were trapped in their caste, hinin could be adopted by a family from one of the commoner classes (farmers, artisans or merchants), and could thus join a higher status group. In other words, eta status was permanent, but hinin status was not necessarily.

History of the Burakumin

In the late 16th century, Toyotomi Hideyoshi implemented a rigid caste system in Japan. Subjects fell into one of the four hereditary castes - , farmer, artisan, merchant - or became "degraded people" below the caste system. These degraded people were the first eta. The eta did not marry people from other status levels, and in some cases jealously guarded their privileges to perform certain types of work such as scavenging the carcasses of dead farm animals or begging in particular sections of a city. During the Tokugawa shogunate, although their social status was extremely lowly, some eta leaders became wealthy and influential thanks to their monopoly on distasteful jobs.

After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the new government headed by the Meiji Emperor decided to level the social hierarchy. It abolished the four-tiered social system, and beginning in 1871, registered both eta and hinin people as "new commoners." Of course, in designating them as "new" commoners, the official records still distinguished the former outcasts from their neighbors; other kinds of commoners rioted to express their disgust at being grouped together with the outcasts. The outcasts were given the new, less derogatory name of burakumin.

More than a century after burakumin status was officially abolished, the descendants of burakumin ancestors still face discrimination and sometimes even social ostracization. Even today, people who live in areas of Tokyo or Kyoto that were once the eta ghettos can have trouble finding a job or a marriage partner because of the association with defilement.

Chikara Abe, Impurity and Death: A Japanese Perspective, Boca Raton: Universal Publishers, 2003.

Miki Y. Ishikida, Living Together: Minority People and Disadvantaged Groups in Japan, Bloomington:iUniverse, 2005.

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is a polite term for the outcasts from the four-tiered Japanese feudal social system. Burakumin literally means simply "people of the village." In this context, however, the "village" in question is the separate community of outcasts, who traditionally lived in a restricted neighborhood, a sort of ghetto.

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International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism

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International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism

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IMADR: International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism

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Japan has a reputation of being a homogeneous, mostly harmonious society. There are few foreigners, linguistic differences are rare and on the surface class distinctions are largely absent. But, as Mike Sunda discovered, there is one, often hidden, exception: Japan's untouchables.

In the corner of a pristine room tucked away in Tokyo's Shibaura meat market is a table topped with a stack of crudely composed hate mail - evidence of a prejudice that dates back to medieval times.

Slaughtermen, undertakers, those working with leather and in other "unclean" professions such as sanitation have long been marginalised in Japan. That prejudice continues to this day and especially for those working in the Shibaura abattoir.

Never mind that the men here are dicing up some of the most expensive and highly prized animals on the planet. This is where Japan's world famous wagyu beef is prepared - prime steaks, shot through with ribbons of fat, that can set you back eye-watering prices.

It's a process requiring such immense skill, training and mental fortitude that mastering the job can take a decade. And yet, for all the craftsmanship that goes into their work, many here will never speak freely about their occupation.

"When people ask us about what sort of work we do, we hesitate over how to answer," slaughterman Yuki Miyazaki says.

"In most cases, it's because we don't want our families to get hurt. If it's us facing discrimination, we can fight against that. But if our children are discriminated against, they don't have the power to fight back. We have to protect them."

Feudal origins

Like many in the abattoir because of his profession, Miyazaki is associated with the Burakumin, Japan's "untouchable" class.

Burakumin, meaning "hamlet people", dates back to the feudal era. It originally referred to the segregated communities made up of labourers working in occupations that were considered impure or tainted by death, such as executioners, butchers and undertakers.

The lowest of these outcasts, known as Eta, meaning "abundance of filth", could be killed with impunity by members of the Samurai if they had committed a crime. As recently as the mid-19th Century a magistrate is recorded as declaring that "an Eta is worth one seventh of an ordinary person".

Though generally considered offensive, the term Eta is still in use today. One of the letters received at the abattoir expresses sympathy for the animals being killed "as they're being killed by Eta."

The caste system was abolished in 1871 along with the feudal system. Yet barriers to their integration remained. Marginalised Burakumin communities were widespread across Japan.

Having the wrong address on your family registry, which records birthplace and is often requested by employers, often led to discrimination.

Efforts were made in the 1960s to improve their lot by funding assimilation projects that improved housing and raise living standards, but despite this discrimination continued..

In the mid-1970s, a Buraku rights group discovered the existence of a 330-page handwritten list of Buraku names and community locations that was being sold secretly to employers by mail order.

Many big name Japanese firms were using the list to screen job applicants.

As recently as 2009, there was public outcry when Google Earth incorporated publicly available historical maps of Tokyo and Osaka that pinpointed the location of Buraku villages in feudal times, dragging up the contentious issues of prejudice and profiling.

Today, the exact number of people living in historic Buraku communities is hard to pin down.

A government survey in 1993, listed nearly a million people living in more than 4,000 communities around the country. The Burakumin Liberation League (BLL), a rights organisation founded in 1955, puts the number of communities at around 6,000 and estimates that the total number of Burakumin is closer to three million.

Toshikazu Kondo, from the BLL, says they still encounter such lists today, but find that they are being used for different purposes.

"When it was discovered in the 1970s that corporations were using these lists to conduct background checks on potential recruits, regulations were brought up to make that illegal," he says.

"Nowadays it's still a well-known fact that people are buying this information, but rather than corporations, it's individuals buying it to check on future in-laws ahead of marriage. That's one of the biggest examples of discrimination that we frequently face."

The mob connection

In a survey last year conducted by the Tokyo government, one in 10 said that they would have reservations about their child marrying someone with Burakumin ancestry, although nearly a half of respondents said this wouldn't bother them.

One reason for the lingering stigma may be the association of Buraku communities with the yakuza, the Japanese mob.

Jake Adelstein, an American reporter who has worked the Japanese crime beat for 20 years, estimates that a third of yakuza come from Buraku communities, drawn to the organization when other doors were closed to them.

A yakuza leader justified his organisation to Adelstein on the basis that it gave people who had suffered discrimination a family and discipline.

"It's true - the yakuza is a meritocracy," Adelstein says. "If you are willing to be ruthless and a bully and pledge your loyalty to your boss, they'll take you."

However, it's not just those with Burakumin ancestry that run the risk of prejudice. So strong is the historic connection between certain jobs and this historical category of outcasts that all workers at the slaughterhouse run the risk of discrimination, no matter their family history.

Yutaka Tochigi, the 58-year-old president of the Shibaura Slaughterhouse Union left his job as a computer programmer to spend more time with his children but immediately ran into opposition from his family.

"My father said to me that I might as well be pumping septic tanks. I realised that he meant I was doing a Burakumin job," says Tochigi, who doesn't have Burakumin ancestry.

"I remember once when my wife and I were visiting with some of her father's relatives. When I told them what I did, they stopped pouring me beer."

Both Tochigi, and the BLL's Kondo are, however, hopeful that things are changing for the better.

"You don't see as much hate speech as before - and those who have attempted it have been forced to pay damages in court cases," Kondo says.

"We still hear about workplace discrimination and anti-Burakumin graffiti, but more than ever before there are people getting in touch to inform us when this happens."

The small room which contains the table display of hate mail is part of the Shibaura meat market's information centre, an educational outreach effort to try and change attitudes.

Just next to the table, on a wall, are letters of another kind. Grateful messages from groups of schoolchildren brought in on tours to learn about the remarkable skill and dedication with which the labourers carry out their jobs - evidence, perhaps, that old, discriminatory habits may yet be consigned to history.

About the author: Mike Sunda is a Tokyo-based writer specialising in music and Japanese youth and urban culture.

Additional reporting by Rebecca Milner.

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Japan has a reputation of being a homogeneous, mostly harmonious society. There are few foreigners, linguistic differences are rare and on the surface class distinctions are largely absent. But, as Mike Sunda discovered, there is one, often hidden, exception: Japan's untouchables.

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Burakumin (Buraku people) in Japan - Minority Rights Group

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The Burakumin (from the words buraku, meaning community or hamlet and min, meaning people) are not an ethnic minority, but rather a caste- or descent-based group. They therefore share with other Japanese the same language, religion, customs and physical appearances.