Africans and Indians cannot pass as English or French, but Koreans might be mistaken for Japanese and frequently are. No doubt the colonial period with its lengthy humiliations was the mother of modern Korean nationalism. On the other hand no other people is so close to Japan culturally. Enormous Korean trade deficits with Japan reflect economic factors only partly. They also reflect the comfort and satisfaction Korean businessmen derive from doing business the Japanese way.
Nothing is more dangerous than a definitive tilt at a cultural profile.
No people deserves a conclusive description which must, in an essay this length, constitute a dismissal. Thus my purpose here is to describe not conclude, and to end with the hope that this sketch will be at least a threadbare beginning to further interest in Korea. A palace in downtown Seoul. A market dealing in securities not listed on the stock exchange. He is currently Research Associate at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University.