If you visit a South Korean school, chances are you’ll be greeted by a vast picture of Mount Baekdu’s photogenic crater-lake prominently displayed. It isn’t just that many Koreans love mountains – which cover much of the land – and hike on weekends in national parks. Bridging the Sino-North Korean border, Mount Baekdu is associated with Dangun, the mythical founder of Korea, and symbolizes people’s yearning for reunification. Wander further along the school corridors and you may spot reunification-themed artwork on the wall, or a special classroom for education related to tong-il (reunification).

When South Korean TV series are broadcast in mainland China, the Chinese glimpse the sort of affluent society to which their country aspires. Yet material poverty and hardship are well within living memory in South Korea, thanks to the Korean War of the early 1950s and its aftermath. Today, elderly vendors continue to sell silkworm larvae (bondaegi) on city streets, a reminder of times of scarcity.

South Korea suffered much trauma in the course of the 20th century. Koreans were ordered not to speak their own language under Japanese rule (1910-45), the peninsula was split in two in 1948, and the 1950-53 war claimed four million lives only to confirm the existence of the two Koreas. South Korea may have sped to prosperity as an ‘Asian Tiger’, lauded by economists, but it also suffered under brutal military regimes. It was only after 1980’s Gwangju Massacre (known in the city as the ‘Democratic Uprising’) that widespread popular resistance led to elections in 1987 and a transition to democracy under Nobel Peace laureate Kim Dae-Jung from 1992 onwards.

Today, those hard-won democratic rights are under threat from President Lee Myung- Bak. Many now wonder whether they were ‘complacent’ about the strength of South Korea’s democratic foundations when they went to the polls in December 2007.

President Lee, a former CEO with Hyundai, has ingratiated himself with big business while steadily eroding democratic rights. The most recent wave of resistance to Lee’s authoritarianism was spurred by the Yongsan tragedy of 20 January, in which iron-fisted action by a newly appointed police chief led to six deaths in a fire. From Seoul to Busan, there have been peaceful anti-government demonstrations through a cold and discontented winter – and legions of police with helmets and shields conspicuously stationed on streets. Due to a legal ban on after-dusk demonstrations, protesters may hold candles so that their demonstration can qualify as a ‘sing-along’.

Some 26 million South Koreans inhabit high-rise apartment blocks branded with company logos such as Samsung and Hyundai. You’ll find all the trappings of physical comfort in South Korea, including homes rendered cosy by underfloor heating (ondol), and communal bathing in public mogyoktang. But there are plenty of have-nots: beggars wheel themselves, belly-down, through downtown Gwangju, or sit in underpasses. And despite Confucian respect for age, you’ll notice elderly people who beg or have tough jobs.

The worst, patriarchal interpretations of Confucius remain intact in South Korea as in Japan, relegating women to a subordinate role in public life, though this is gradually changing. Sexual diversity remains unacceptable to the point of virtual invisibility, as in the West of the 1950s, unless you care for the seedy Seoul district of Itaewon.

South Korea’s religious landscape differs sharply from that of China, Japan and North Korea. At night, cityscapes are illuminated by neon red crosses – roughly a quarter of South Korea’s people are Christian, though some branches of Christianity frown on others. The Zen of Japan may be better known overseas, but similar approaches to Enlightenment exist in South Korea as Seon, and roughly a quarter of South Koreans are Buddhist. Fine Buddhist temples, exquisitely decorated with the greens, pinks and blues of ‘cosmic design’, nestle amidst mountains. Both Christianity and Buddhism have dedicated TV channels.

Jacob Lotinga

Fact file

Leader	President Lee Myung-Bak
Economy	GNI per capita $19,690 (China $2,360, Japan $37,670).
Monetary unit	Won.
Main exports	semiconductors, wireless telecommunications equipment, motor vehicles, computers, steel, ships, petrochemicals. The South Korean economy is closely tied in to the globalized trading system and has already been hit hard by the global economic downturn, which at the end of 2008 wiped 40% off the local stock exchange and saw the won lose a quarter of its value.
People	48.2 million. Annual population growth rate 0.7%. People per square kilometre 485 (UK 250).
Health	Infant mortality 4 per 1,000 live births (North Korea 55, Japan 3). HIV prevalence rate <0.1%. Lifetime risk of maternal death 1 in 6,100 (Ireland 1 in 47,600).
Environment	In contrast to the thick smog that plagues much of urban China, even South Korea’s cities are an environmental delight – with relatively clean air and mountains rising up from the cityscapes of Seoul and Busan. Some 70% of the country is covered by pristine mountains, with many prized and protected national parks. In spring, though, yellow dust blows over from China’s Gobi Desert.
Culture	Koreans have a remarkable ethnic and cultural homogeneity compared with other Asian nations. There are no distinct minorities.
Religion	Christian 26.3% (Protestant 19.7%, Roman Catholic 6.6%), Buddhist 23.2%, other or unknown 1.3%, none 49.3%
Language	Korean. *Human Development Index*: 1990 0.825; 2005 0.921 (China 0.777, Japan 0.953).

Country ratings in detail

Income distribution	Money counts in status-conscious South Korea. Factory workers spend long hours earning a meagre wage in dangerous conditions while professionals can expect to be wealthy. 1999 ★★★
Literacy	98.5%. The illiteracy rate is higher for women (2.8%) than for men (0.5%). 1999 ★★★★★
Life expectancy	79 years (North Korea 67, Japan 83) 1999 ★★★★
Freedom	Basic democratic rights and liberties are under some degree of threat from President Lee, but civil society retains its vibrancy, with regular demonstrations in major cities. 1999 ★★★★
Position of women	Improving very slowly. Women hold 13% of parliamentary seats. Ratio of female to male income 0.4. Culturally there is an extreme preference for sons. 1999 ★★★
Sexual minorities	Homosexuality is legal and LGBT life exists but keeps a low profile, even in the big cities. Mainstream society remains deeply conservative and unaccepting of difference. On the positive side, South Korea has seen its first gay pride event and in 2008 an openly lesbian candidate ran for a seat in parliament on a platform of LGBT rights.
New Internationalist assessment	President Lee Myung-Bak, who took office in February 2008, has been widely criticized for being too ‘business-friendly’ and for representing a challenge to democratic rights and values, for example by enforcing the legal ban on after-dusk demonstrations that used to exist only on paper.