Formation of the Korean people.

 I haven't traveled very much, but the most impressive trip of my life was the Nevada Desert in the United States. In particular, the two days spent in the protected area of the Indian Navajo in the middle of the desert became an unforgettable memory for me. The appearance of a grandmother with a baby on her back and a basket on her head was too similar to our mother in the 1950s. When entering the protected area, the scene where an Indian supervisor who was searching for ID cards and belongings looked at my passport and welcomed me, saying, "I'm from my mother's country." At this time, I began to pay full attention to where our people came from and how far they went.》

There is a myth in any nation, any country, regardless of east or west, and this myth often does not go through accurate verification or fact-checking. After establishing themselves as stereotypes, these myths become facts that no one can encounter. A representative example in Korean history is probably the logic of a 'single people'. It is strange that the origin of our people is made up of the northern and southern circles, although academia is well aware of them, it still promotes a single nation. Perhaps it is a phenomenon caused by politicians and historians who put this forward like a golden jade to unite the homogeneity and national capabilities of the people through the tragedy of modern history. Then, where did our people come from and how did they form? To be precise, the Korean people are mainly composed of the northern and southern tribes, and other minorities consist of four tribes: the Naechim (a race that invaded from the outside) and the naturalized people. More specifically, when looking at the gene, it consists of at least 35 lineages. Since humans were born in Africa in the beginning, they migrated endlessly to the dawn and settled in the Mongolian continent, and some of them moved back to the remote south to form the current Korean people, which are the northern Korean people. Looking at these northern circles, which are the mainstream of the Korean people, they have several distinctly noticeable characteristics. For example, it is well known that blue spots appear on the buttocks, but in addition, the northern system does not have double eyelids, has thick eyelids, and shows the form of almond eyes. Twenty-five thousand years ago, when the population was moving to the Korean Peninsula, the temperature dropped to minus 50 degrees Celsius, so they had no choice but to open their eyes faintly to prevent frostbite in their eyes. The nose is wide, the cheekbones are slightly protruding, and the hair is thick and stiff. In some cases, the route to the south of the northern system came down by land, the Shandong Peninsula started from the Shandong Peninsula and landed across the West Sea through Incheon and Asanman Bay, and the east coast to the south by sea. Therefore, the northern coastal region of Gyeongsangnam-do belongs to the southern region, but the northern system is located, and since then, mixed blood has been formed along with the northern part of the southern system, so this is the most difficult area to distinguish whether it is southern or northern. The northward route is strangely exactly consistent with the evacuation route during the Korean War. The groups that continued to migrate to the east without descending to the south went through the ice-covered Bering Strait to the Americas and became what is now American Indians, and the tribes that went further south became what is now the Indio people of South America. They still have the lifestyle of the northern world, as well as their body shape and face, such as the habit of flapping their hands before eating food or washing their back necks while washing their faces. This habit is a unique phenomenon that only appears in Mongolians. Unlike this, the southern system has double eyelids and a high nose, and its skin is somewhat black and rough compared to the northern system. When we meet Japanese on the street, we sensibly recognize that they are Japanese. At the same time, when asked what is the characteristic of the Japanese, they cannot explain. However, if you look closely, the explanation is not impossible. First of all, the southern system has a narrower face than the northern system, so the face looks relatively slim. Looking at the shape of the chin, the northern system is somewhat wide and coarse, while the southern system has a fast descending line. This is because the evolutionary forms of the northern nomadic people who mainly ate meat and the southern world who mainly ate vegetables are different. In some cases, the hair is thinner or softer and curly than the northern system. The decisive difference between the southern and northern systems is the body type. The northern system has long legs, while the upper body looks somewhat dwarfed and the hands are short. The body shape, which seems to have a grand skeleton and has a narrow chest, is a phenomenon that occurs in the northern system. On the other hand, the southern system has a long hand and a developed upper body, wide shoulders, and short legs, making it a little bit of a saddle bridge. Therefore, it does not appear well in today's new generation, where nutritional status is almost the same, but not long ago, Japanese people were taller sitting down and Koreans were taller in the north. It is a natural result of evolution that the legs of the northern system running on the grassland are longer and the arms of the southern system living in the jungle are longer. In short, Jeong Ju-young and Park Tae-joon represent the northern and southern systems, respectively, without having to talk longer to distinguish between the southern and northern systems. We think they are all Koreans, but it is difficult for a third country to see these two characters and recognize them as the same race. Just as Yasuhiro Nakasone and Noboru Takeshita, who served as prime ministers of Japan, are not of the same kind, Jeong Ju-young and Park Tae-joon are of completely different descent. In many cases, the entry of the northern and southern circles was made by war. These so-called Naechim people also had a great influence on the mixed race in that they caused the migration of people who lived in the past. The defeated and remaining soldiers also accounted for a considerable portion of the mixed race. Aside from the war in ancient history, numerous mixed races took place through the invasion of the Khitan, the invasion of the Mongolians, the Imjin War, the Manchu Invasion, the 35th year of Japanese colonial rule, the Korean War, etc. War was bound to cause more mixed blood because it caused 'unwanted pregnancy'. One of the peculiar phenomena of mixed race is the fact that there were naturalized people in the past. Naturalization deliberately drifts to Korea and the sea. It is divided into settled groups again. It is already well known that the wife of King Suro, the founder of Gimhae Kim Clan, is an Indian Jang who came through China, and the fact that the civil service statue of King Suro in Gimhae has curly hair also proves this. Deoksu Jang is an example of Arab merchants settling on this land, and their body shape shows a magnificent characteristic, unlike Korean native. The face is pale and the moon-like face is Western. Hwasan Yi is a royal family of Vietnam, descendants of boat people who settled in Korea while wandering around avoiding the rebellion of their home country, and Urok Kim returned to Joseon because Japanese Jangsu Saya, who had invaded Joseon during the Japanese Invasion of Korea in 1592, returned home. It is also the surnames from China that make up the large species of naturalized people. For example, Yeonan Lee, who was a prestigious giant of the Joseon Dynasty, was a case where the general Lee Mu, who came with him when the Tang army invaded Goguryeo, stayed after the war, Cheonghae Lee was a Yeojin, and Gyeongju Seol was a naturalized Uighur. In modern nationalism, lineage is already largely denied, and considering the current trend of using the sharing of historical destiny, unity, and language homogeneity as the essence of the nation, the same or different lineage cannot be the reason for damaging the national identity. Now that Insooni, Harley, Joo Hyun-mi, and Yoon Soo-il are all in the era of globalization, what is the point of considering only my veins anymore? 

Shin Bok-ryong <Professor/Political Diplomat at Konkuk University>