Culture as an imported concept and "Korea" as a nation-state

The new term munhwa (sic) or "culture," that swept Korean society in the 1920s was in fact adopted as the translation of the Japanese term bunka in the 1910s. the path to realizing the value of the concept of "culture" in Korea could not help but be a rocky one. This was not only because Korea was a colony, but also because the concept of "culture" itself was one re-defined by Japan for the purpose of calling its colonial ethnic groups the people of the Japanese Empire, and was formed in reference to bunka, the Japanese rendition of "culture." The intellectuals of a colonial Korea attempted to form their own identity and representation through Japan's colonial discourse. If their efforts stemmed basically from implicit aspirations towards nation-state status, then the "culture" in colonial Korea can be regarded as a space in which munhwa confronted and vied with bunka, as well as a space in which munhwa could be absorbed by and integrated into bunka at any time.