Okay, East Asia 2018. Let’s get started! Of course what I’m calling my trip to East Asia was really my trip to Taiwan and South Korea. 6 days of sightseeing in each. Hiking and national parks were featured much more on this trip than usual. As a matter of fact, Taipei and Seoul both have national parks within their city limits. Actually, I found Taipei and Seoul to have a lot of geographic features in common. So much so that I kept getting them confused. I still do. In addition to those somewhat, but not really, urban parks, I visited national parks on the eastern sides of Taiwan and Korea. Like I said, lots of geographic similarities.
You can probably imagine that I feasted on delicious Asian food on this trip. That’s especially true of Taiwan. The food was just about my favorite thing about Taiwan. That and Taroko National Park. Taroko was the most beautiful place I’d seen since I went to Yosemite National Park with my mother 20 years earlier. (Almost precisely 20 years earlier.) I had a little less luck with food in Korea. But don’t worry, I didn’t starve. I tell you one thing, I had some spicy food in Korea that put India to shame in terms of hotness. And Seoul has terrific museums. I can’t wait to share everything with you!
I won’t go into too much history about the places I went. I’ve actually already covered a bit of Taiwan’s history in my history of China. The original inhabitants of Taiwan are believed to have gone to settle much of maritime Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. The Dutch and the Spanish came around a bit in the 17th century. Taiwan became officially Chinese in 1683 when it was annexed by the Qing Dynasty. In 1895, around midway through its Century of Humiliation, China lost Taiwan to the Japanese after the First Sino-Japanese War. After the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II ended in 1945, China won Taiwan back. It must be a little weird to go back and forth between 2 different sets of colonizers. (Actually, the Han Chinese make up 95% of Taiwan’s population. I did notice that Taiwan is actively making an effort to recognize and place value on its indigenous population.) The subsequent history of Taiwan is fairly well known. The Chinese Civil War ended in 1949 when the Nationalists, led by Chiang Kai-shek, fled the victorious Communists and set up their own China in Taiwan. The rest of the world recognized the government in Taiwan as the real Chinese government. Until it didn’t. And here we are.
Although China never ruled over Korea, it exerted a lot of influence. I definitely got a feeling of that from the traditional royal architecture, which I found very reminiscent of what I had seen in China. Like China, Korea had a series of dynasties. Significant foreign influence began in the 13th century in the form of our old friends the Mongols, who ruled over China as the Yuan Dynasty. They didn’t conquer Korea, but they were enough of an annoyance that Korea’s ruling dynasty at the time allied with them. That ended in 1392 when the Joseon Dynasty came to power. It was the last Korean dynasty, but also its greatest. It lasted 5 centuries and gave Korea much of its culture that remains today, including its language. You could say the Joseon Dynasty is the Korean counterpart to China’s mostly fabulous Ming Dynasty, who drove out the Mongols 14 years before the Joseons did. The Joseons were cool with a bit of Chinese culture and made Confucianism the state religion, discouraging Buddhism. Buddhism, an earlier Chinese import, had been big in Korea for eons up till then.
Even though Korea was independent, China and Japan were constantly, and aggressively, trying to exert influence. China was the dominant influencer until the rise of Japan in the 19th century. After all, the First Sino-Japanese War was fought over who would have more influence in Korea. As we know, Japan was the victor. But mere influence wasn’t enough. In the 20th century, Japan brutally occupied Korea. Fortunately, World War II ended that. But you know what comes next. Not too unlike what happened in post-war Europe, the Soviets occupied North Korea and the Americans occupied the South. In 1948, Korea was officially split into 2 countries. The Korean War broke out in 1950 when the communist North invaded the South. Fighting ended in 1953 with little gained by either side. The DMZ was set up. And here we are.
So, no separate history posts like I had for China and India. Cool, right? But you can see that another similarity that Taiwan and South Korea have is their uncertain status. Taiwan is a country not recognized as such by most of the world, with China eager to claim it back. South Korea is spiritually half a country hoping to become whole again some day, just like what eventually happened in post-Cold War Germany. These twin dichotomies were on my mind throughout my trip.
Okay, so enough heaviness for now. I’ve got great pictures coming up, not to mention food diaries to enjoy. (Mmmm…Taiwanese food. Korean food…mmmm, the spicier the better.) For now, I’ll leave you with the traditional goofiness.
Billy O
[Historical information is primarily gathered from Wikipedia, so you know it must be true.]
I throughly enjoy your writing style it’s like a conversation your having and it comes alive visualization. I appreciate the history even though I knew some of it, like China and Taiwan, although I learned some new things. I spent one night in Taipei years ago on my move to Asia, and all I did was visit a supermarket with an older gentleman also on the layover. I had limited knowledge of the world in my 20’s and if was later on I would have spent some time in Taiwan . On my flight my seat mate was a young Taiwanese women near my age and invited me to visit and she would show me around. How great that would have been. My current Taiwanese friends say they are not Chinese they are Taiwanese.
Thanks Cynthia! I could definitely feel the national pride while I was in Taiwan. It’s such a strange situation that they’re not recognized internationally as a country. I hope that changes in my lifetime.