Korea: History, Geography Culture and Food Patterns

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Korea: History, Geography Culture, and Food Patterns

Korea is a highly discussed nation because of its delicious food, viral pop music, political unrest within northern half of the nation, and its rapid development in the past 60 years. Overall, the Republic of Korea is a very developed nation that still holds onto its traditional roots and practices. Korean food is extremely varied and is known for its signature red pepper spice. Korea is a very complex nation that has been shaped by its complex history and influence from all of the military invasions that have captured and recaptured the country.

Korea is a peninsula about 600 miles long and 150 miles wide that hangs off of the southwest portion of China and extends out into the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the Sea of Japan. Mountains on the east side of the region gradually extend into plains on the west coast. Since 1953 Korea has been definitively divided at the 38th parallel into North Korea and South Korea, also referred to as the Republic of Korea (McWilliams 2011).

Roughly only twenty percent of Korea’s land is actually farmable. Because of this, the nation has mostly mechanized food production, attempted to improve crop strains for better overall yield, built extremely impressive irrigation systems, and constructed greenhouses to nurture food crops that couldn’t survive naturally in Korea’s climate.

Korea’s oldest kingdom, Old Choson held power in the 24th century BCE for roughly 1200 years. Many Korean’s still celebrate the founding of this kingdom each year on the third of October. When Old Choson fell, Korea was split into 3 tribal states and the old four northern states were considered part of Han China. Korea’s period of the Three Kingdoms was...

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...onclusion, Korea’s geographical location has made it vulnerable to a countless number of military invasions. Its geography also limits agriculture and so most food production has been industrialized. Since the Korean War, South Korea has become a very modern and developed nation that still manages to hold traditional practices and values close to its heart. Korean food typically consists of rice or noodles, kimchi, sliced meat, soup, tea, and a lot of seafood.

References

Anon. (2006, November 3). The Korean War. Current Events, 9, 2-3.

Kallen S.A. (2014, January 1). K-POP: Korea’s Musical Explosion. Kirkus Reviews, 1, 4.

Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Hidden Korea. Accessed April 17, 2014, from http://www.pbs.org

McWilliams, M. (2011). Food Around the World: A Cultural Perspective (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ. Pearson Education Inc, 335-342.

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