Message from madams

[Anonymous]

I thought that it was really interesting that Professor Jung-Kim down played the Chinese influence in early Korea. I do understand however, since one of her main theses was that Koreans are really proud of their heritage and history.

I'm still trying to get AP WH under my belt and last week I had to discuss the early years of Korea to my students (from Ancient Korea until the Yi Dynasty in the 1300's) and I was hoping that she would elaborate on some of the more Chinese aspects of Korean culture historically.

I wish she had gone into the fact that China and Korea today disagree about the historical aspects of Korea. Korea believes their empire begins with the Choson in 2333 BC whereas China maintains that the Kogyuro Dynasty of the 1st century BC was the first.

I also find it interesting that Korea was dominated by the Han Dynasty and later by the Yuan Dynasty and the effects of the Koreans were minimalized. I have read that under the Mongols the Koreans suffered greatly because of Khubilai Khan's desire to attack Japan from Korea.

I did find the discussion of Colonial Korea to be most helpful. Like Professor Pitelka, she went into great detail about all of the unfair treaties, the world's reaction to Korea and what they did within it's borders (like the 1st Sino-Japanese War).

The resources that she gave to us are amazing! If you picked up the "Korean Cultural Insights" or "Korea for Kids" you need to flip through them! I'm sad that I already started ancient Korea and couldn't use these in conjunction with my lecture and discussion. I guess I'll have to wait until we get to Colonial Korea to use this to review with them!