동서문화의 충돌

Cultural Collision Between East and West: German-Korean Trade and Its Implications

In 1882 the United States signed the treaty with Korea and Britain and Germany followed suit two years later. With those treaties, Korea became internationalized for the first time. On the other hand, Germany quickly involved in colonial competition after the unification in 1871. A German trading company, Heinrich Constantin Edward Meyer & Company, successfully established its foothold in Korea and it involved in the purchase of the machine and equipment for Cheonhwanguk and the transportation of the tax rice. Also, Meyer Company provided the first foreign loan to the Korea government from the West. With help of the German Consulate in Seoul, Meyer Company became one of the most successful western firms in Korea while two nations developed a special relationship . However, both countries experienced the difficulties because of the cultural differences. Korea maintained the tributary relations based on Confucianism. Also, internally, Korea did not have a department of finance in the government as well as the unified monetary system. Confucianism, the ideology of the agricultural society, prevented Korea actively involved in the foreign trade. It was the cultural collision between the western trade tradition and the tributary relations of the East. This cultural collision resulted the decline of the trade between Korea and Germany after 1894. The failure of the trade development between these two nations was caused by the cultural collision. Korea did not have enough time to adopt the western values to reconcile with its tradition. Korea failed to overcome the cultural collision a century ago and the first internationalization of Korea failed. This historical evidence reflects the importance of the cultural understanding at the time of global economy in this century.