3 - Learning the Ropes

Summary

OVER THE FIRST FEW MONTHS we were given an introduction to Korean mores. Our pastoral counsellor talked from his own personal experience. Like most of the early missionaries he was colonial in his mindset, which meant that whereas he had no great affection for the Japanese, he thought they were a necessary evil and an inevitable part of Korean economic development. Many foreigners were tarred with the ch’inil (pro- Japanese) brush because of attitudes like this. He also had negative attitudes about Korean abilities to do things the way he thought they should be done. He felt the screw was never given the last turn, equipment was inherently flawed, bits and pieces inevitably fell off. He didn't know it, but he was also pointing out the flaws of Japanese merchandise in the first years of Japan's industrial development. Learning is a long process. Korea was at stage one while Japan had moved on to stage two. Our counsellor had forgotten Japan's stage one.

Along with a colonial mindset, the older missionaries had a flawed view of the Confucian legacy, which I believe came, in part at least, from the early French missionaries and Dallet's book on the Korean church. Dallet never set foot in Korea. He compiled his book on the basis of letters sent home to Paris by the French missionaries. The book is amazing for the wealth of information it contains on Korean institutions and mores. The shorter English version should be compulsory reading for those who don't read French but who aspire to live long-term in Korea. Dallet reached some wrong conclusions, inevitably so, I suppose, since he was relying on second-hand information. One of the areas where Dallet got it wrong was in dealing with the Confucian tradition. Korea in the 1800s had a large population of dispossessed yangban who for one reason or another could not get posts in the bureaucracy. To work was beneath their dignity, but they retained the right to complain and criticize. They were a constant drain on society and a thorn in the side of the developing church whose appeal, despite yangban beginnings, was egalitarian.