Korean Religion?

A friend of mine back at Oberlin asked me this some while ago.

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Q)

I hope your summer is going well. I have a question for you, simply born out of curiosity: Are you and/or your family particularly religious? If so, then in what way? 

Korean religion has been of fascination to me lately, and I would love to hear your experiences!

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A)

My summer is becoming a very busy but productive one!
I hope your summer is going well too!

Our family is an interesting mix since my mother is Christian, my father’s an atheist (and a fatalist), my little sister claims to be Buddhist, and I was raised in Christian backgrounds (my mother always took me to church) though I think I believe in God more than religion itself (and thus I don’t really go to church anymore).

As a side note, the rapid industrialization of Korea in the last century influenced a fast inflow of Christianity to the country. Now the religion is the most popular in Korea.

HOWEVER, Korea is an Eastern Asian country that has embraced the beliefs and ideals of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, etc for the last few millenniums. These religions (especially Confucianism and Taoism) are not considered proper religions in the “Western” perspective due to the lack of a god or gods. It actually hasn’t been long since Koreans used the word 종교 (jong-gyo: religion) either.

Nonetheless, the three “ism”s are more of living standards and cultures that are inseparable from the people and society. These ways of life continue to exist no matter how vastly foreign religions have placed themselves in Korea.

A good example would be 효 (hyo: filial piety). For a Korean, one’s parents are forever sacred. No love is considered greater than a love from a parent to a child. (Think of a vertical line with the parents on a higher level than the children) We think that no matter how much a child strives to make up for the love that he/she has received from the parents, it is never enough. Still, the child endeavors in loving back the parents with respect and honor. In addition, we believe that loving our own children is just another way of returning the love that we have received from our parents. Such love continued forms a culture-wide filial piety. From my experience/perspective, an American family are more like friends than parents/children. I think this is great when a family is happy, but when the family has an inner-conflict for whatever reason, relationships may crumble far easily than they should. But then, I’ve only seen a couple of American families so far. And I don’t even think I can generalize 50 States by saying “American family”. Haha.

This is just one of the MANY ideals of the Korean culture and religion. I just wanted to give you an introduction. Hope this can help you in some way! If you have more to ask by any chance, please feel free to do so! I’d be more than happy to tell you what I know.

I want to congratulate you once more for your recent birthday! You’re 19! Yay~! Take care!