YEONGJU, KOREA — Confucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius. The core of Confucianism is humanism, the belief that human beings are teachable, improvable and perfectible through personal and communal endeavor especially including self-cultivation and self-creation.
His principles are still taught today though the sands of time have caused this belief system to lose interest, especially with the modern day youth.
Park Seok-hong is chief curator of Sosu Seowon, Korea’s oldest private Confucian academy. A complex of 11 lecture halls and dormitories make up this institute that first opened in 1543, 100 miles southeast of Seoul.
Park states the country is “turning into a realm of beasts.” He refers to current news explaining “young people swear at elderly passengers in the subway and children jump to their deaths to escape bullying or the pressure of intense competitiveness school life. We may have built our economy, but our morality is on the verge of collapse,” Park said. “We must revitalize it, and this is where we can find an answer.”
The word “Confucian” is affiliated with being “old fashioned.” People like Park are working to spark the interest in Confucian teachings that emphasize communal harmony, respect for elders and loyalty to the state; principles that many older Koreans believe the younger generation have lost.
“In the past five years, a steadily increasing number of schoolchildren — as many as 15,000 a year — have come here for a course on Confucian etiquette. Elsewhere, about 150 other seowon, or Confucian academies, have reopened for similar extracurricular programs,” said Park Sung-jin, executive director of the National Association of Seowon in Korea.
For decades, many Koreans strove to free themselves from the strictures of Confucian tradition, blaming it for the rigidly hierarchical corporate culture and a centuries-old preference for boys that once led to rampant abortions of female fetuses.
Korean parents are famous for well educating their children in many subjects, which was praised for the country’s rapid economic development but criticized for the ills associated with high-pressure school life.
Under Japanese colonial rule, Korea adopted a universal education system with a Western-influenced curriculum. The seowon that still stood at the time served mainly as shrines where traditional Koreans held closely to their Confucian educational roots.
Although, Confucianism has suffered greatly due to industrialization and science, many older Koreans argue that the youth could learn many important ethical principles from Confucius and grow to be responsible and moral adults.
