This category is mixed in with history and other pages... separate it out...
Themes in fiction
Class divisions
- yangban - nobles, landowners, passed state exam
- chungin: minor official,clerk, translator, doctor, scientists
- yangnin - commoners
- chonmin: butchers, prostitutes, slaves, entertainers
- nobi - slaves
There are other divisions, such that merchants are looked at as below commoners/farmers, as they were assumed to be peddlers or people with a stall in a market. This concept is in flux in the 1860s as trading and commerce expand and become more respectable as merchants become wealthier.
Politics
*The royal family
- see Royal geneology
- the dowager queens
- local magistrates
- local yangban families
- general nationalism, respect for royalty, commoner disgust with yangban/local goverment
- extreme disrespect for Japan (pirates, invaders) but maybe some smuggling or trade on the sly
- Good relations with China
- foreigners suspected of being grave robbers (with good reason)
Religion and Philosophy
- confucianism
- silhak "practical learning" (korean reformed confucianism/science)
- Catholicism/christianity (Oppressed fairly brutally, some areas more accepted)
- tonghak (which basically began in spring 1862)
- Reverence for ancestors, ancestor rites, graves and tombs are important
Military
- Military organization (I know nothing yet!)
- Archery is popular
- swords
- archery from horseback and obviously... from dragonback
- guns, probably flintlock
- rockets/cannon
Women tended to (on Jeju Island at least) to determine marriages and adoptions and thus, inheritance.