Opinion - The Korea Times

What to do about Confucianism

I was recently asked to give the keynote speech at a festival sponsored by the Institute of Korean Confucian Culture. It was a three-day event celebrating traditional culture in Korea with an emphasis on “K-yugyo,” or K-Confucianism, to fit into the Korean wave. As I have been watching the changes in Korean views of Confucianism, here is what I said: I’ve been concerned about the changing image of Confucianism in Korea today. Attitudes about Confucian practices like ancestral rites are changing, and society in general has developed attitudes about Korean Confucianism that are based on misinformation and misunderstandings. Confucianism is one of the great philosophies of the world. The values of Confucianism teach young people how to become responsible members of society. The values of respect for elders and humility are found in the idea of "hyo," or respect for one’s parents. Patriotism and love of one’s country is found in the values of "jeong," or loyalty. “In, eui, ye, ji"— these values guide society. "In" — benevolence, or treating others as you would like to be tre

Sep 14, 2025By Mark Peterson@contributor@koreatimes.co.kr

Mark Peterson

Liberation from Japan: 80 years in the rearview mirror

Aug. 15 was the 80th anniversary of liberation from Japanese colonial control. How does it look now in the rearview mirror? What have we learned? As a historian of the Joseon dynasty, I cannot but look at what went wrong and what led to the Japanese takeover. As I think of it, I remember the folk saying about the pen and the sword. We are taught that the “pen is mightier than the sword,” but the paradox of that saying is that everyone knows the sword is more powerful. Yet we also know that — and this is the key — in the long run, the pen is truly more powerful. Korean history bears this out. In the short term, for temporary gains, the Japanese sword was more powerful, but in today’s world, Korea has caught up to Japan in all significant measures, and the pen is becoming mightier than the sword. Why is Japan the sword and Korea the pen? How far back does that cultural truth go? The answer is that it goes back well into history, a thousand years or more! In the early Goryeo period, in the 10th century, Korea set a course away from decentralized government, away from the hostili

Aug 24, 2025By Mark Peterson

Liberation from Japan: 80 years in the rearview mirror

Mark Peterson

Correcting Korean history

I really don’t like the title I just gave you — “correcting.” The word implies a right-or-wrong interpretation of Korean history, But it’s more complicated, more nuanced than that. Elsewhere I’ve criticized a slogan I pulled off a Korean government website that said, “Correct History.” The problem is that history is a moving object and subject to multiple interpretations, all of which can be “correct.” However, having said all that, there are some aspects of Korean history that have been widely misinterpreted. I realize I’m walking a fine line between saying that there is not a “correct” history and saying that some interpretations are just plain wrong. Let me see if I can set out some examples. Overall I think the problem is 20th-century historiography that was greatly, and negatively, influenced by Japan. That with the fact that Korea was subjugated and oppressed by Japan. There are two factors — Japan-era historians writing history from a Japanese perspective, and Korean loss of self esteem and a general attitude of defeat and self-blame for having lost t

Aug 10, 2025By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Rediscovering charm of hanok

On my last trip to Korea I attended a sijo conference held at a hanok, a traditional Korean house, in Changnyeong, a rural center south of Daegu. The hanok complex had a conference center, a three-room complex, — wait for it — built underground so as to not destroy the ambiance of the old hanok architecture. It was breath-taking — both the old houses above ground and the underground conference rooms! First of all, the hanok complex was the nicest I’ve seen. I don’t know that I’ve seen all the hanok complexes that have survived, but I’ve seen many of them. In fact, on seven occasions, I hosted summer school sessions with 10 or 15 of my students from America, where we lived in a hanok village for seven weeks — half of a semester. My first hanok summer school was held in the village of Yangdong, now a UNESCO world heritage site. That was in 1999, before hanok experiences were popular. We found hanok cool long before the crowd caught on. I have had students and my family staying in hanok in Yangdong as part of programs with Yeongnam University in Gimhae and with Inje Univer

Jul 6, 2025By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Yi Sun-sin: His character and those around him

I wrote in this column recently about a presentation I made on Yi Sun-sin at a conference at Seoul City Hall. There, someone from KBS asked me to follow up that report with a program on television. This gave me the chance to delve deeper into the character of the man, and to compare him to some of those around him, including Lord Horatio Nelson. Both Nelson and Yi are seen as the two greatest naval heroes in history. By all accounts Yi was a strict, disciplined and upright man. We can see this from what he wrote in his diary, the famous "Nanjung Ilgi" — "Diary in War" — which has been recognized as a UNESCO treasure. In the diary, his character is clearly reflected in his mourning for the loss of his soldiers both high and low, in his condemning bad behavior in others and in his comments on his own actions. For example, he wrote that he regretted scolding a subordinate officer, saying he should not have lost his temper and that reflected badly on himself. Before the war with Japan, when his older “nephew” held a prominent position, he was asked if he would like to meet his neph

Jun 23, 2025By Mark Peterson

Yi Sun-sin: His character and those around him

Mark Peterson

International sijo

I will soon go to Korea to participate in a conference on sijo, the famous three-line Korean poetic form. The conference will be held in Changnyeong, south of Daegu, a rural area where the Seong family originated. My part will be to talk about the internationalization of sijo, as sijo is being recognized and composed in English in many parts of the world. Sijo in English! This means translation of Korean sijo, on the one hand, and original compositions in English in the regulated verse format that is uniquely sijo, on the other hand. I am happy to report that sijo is being written in English. And there are sijo contests. And websites. And books published. And seminars online and in person. All on original sijo compositions in English. The leader in sijo activity in the English-speaking world is the Sejong Cultural Society based in Chicago. For 19 years they have sponsored a contest for American students, and then in 2018, they created an adult division, separate from the student division. And in 2021, they created an International division which has been successful in attracting sijo wr

Jun 12, 2025By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

The end of Korea?

The video “South Korea is Over” has been making waves in Korea. If you haven’t seen it, you need to. It gives a statistical analysis of the end of Korea as its dystopian population decline will ruin not only the population but the culture, the housing and the economy of Korea as it declines into ruin. The video argues that it may already be too late — that the freight train of low population growth cannot be stopped. It is a very grim video. People who see the video report feeling depressed and hopeless, and that, indeed, is the message of the video. I don’t completely disagree with the video, but I do think there is hope on the horizon. The reason I feel hopeful is that I’ve seen Korea, in the last sixty years, overcome many difficulties, and I think they can overcome this one. But it will require a sea change in culture — a paradigm shift, we say. But I’ve seen sea changes before. The most obvious one was the economic miracle. I first came to Korea in 1965 when per capita income was $125 per year. Grinding poverty was everywhere. Korea, on the economic front, is an ent

Jun 1, 2025By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Yi Sun-sin was a Seoulite

I was recently invited to give the keynote speech for a conference held at Seoul City Hall to honor Yi Sun-sin and to share knowledge about his life and times, including his life in Seoul. He was born in Seoul, where there are two different plaques that each claim he was born on that spot. They are 150 meters apart, but that’s probably as close as we are going to get to the actual location. He moved to Asan when he was 14, and Asan has a shrine to honor him and claims him as their native son. However, he was born in Seoul. Seoul city leaders are about to set history straight by building a commemorative hall for him in the next few years. They are looking for the right place and examining some building plans. Who was Yi Sun-sin? We may well need to answer that question, but most people who have anything to do with Korea already know. It is his huge statue that stands guard over the central intersection in Gwanghwamun. He was the admiral who fought the Japanese in the 1592-98 Imjin War. But there is more to the story — a lot more. My presentation outlined nine crises in his life, any

May 11, 2025By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Choe Chi-won and Confucianism

On my recent spring trip to Korea, I was asked to participate in a conference celebrating Choe Chi-won. The conference was held in Hamyang, South Gyeongsang Province, on the north slopes of Mount Jiri. I was perplexed that Choe would be celebrated so far from Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, the place where he lived. But I soon found out that Choe had been assigned as the magistrate of Hamyang and he served there for six years, a long term compared to the average of closer to one year. And in the heart of Hamyang is a huge park with “one thousand trees” descended from ones originally planted by Choe 1,200 years ago. Choe is a very important figure in Korean history. He is the first Confucian sage enshrined at the Seonggyungwan, the national shrine to Confucius and his disciples. There were a total of 18 Korean sages enshrined there, but Choe was the first. He is honored for bringing Confucianism to Korea. He lived in the late ninth and early 10th century at the height of the Silla Dynasty (57 BCE – 935 CE). His story is filled with remarkable achievements. He went to Tang Chi

Apr 21, 2025By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Impeachments in Korea's history

Lately, I’ve been asked the precedents for impeachments in Korean history. It's a hot topic as the Constitutional Court on Friday impeached the country's second president in less than 10 years. And indeed, there is a history of removing a king in the 1392-1910 Joseon Dynasty and the 918-1392 Goryeo Dynasty as well. There is, of course, the removal from office through legal and non-violent means of impeachment. But there is also what you might call impeachment by assassination — the removal from office by violence. Korea has seen both methods in historic times and modern times. In that regard, I'm reminded of something I’ve written elsewhere — that while we often think the highest form of democracy is voting, it's actually when a tense, even potentially violent, political situation is resolved peacefully through impeachment. That's democracy at its most powerful. The issue is made more complicated for non-parliamentary democracies like Korea and the United States, because there is no established method for removal through a no-confidence vote in parliament. Most European democra

Apr 8, 2025By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Read more

What to do about Confucianism

Liberation from Japan: 80 years in the rearview mirror

Correcting Korean history

Rediscovering charm of hanok

Yi Sun-sin: His character and those around him

International sijo

The end of Korea?

Yi Sun-sin was a Seoulite

Choe Chi-won and Confucianism

Impeachments in Korea's history

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