Yangban

The yangban were a social class which one saw in Korea until in 1910. It was made up men educated according to the ideal confucéen. The word yangban (literally: the two classes) refers to the two lesson professed with the yangban in becoming: literary teaching ( munban ) and martial teaching ( muban ).

History

The yangban were the equivalent, in the dynasty Chosŏn (1392-1910), of old noble the Koryŏ having received the Buddhist lesson confucéens and . The succession of the Yi generals during the Chosŏn dynasty and the many fights of factions having marked this time left a need to install an administration organized better in all Korea, and a need for creating a new order of civils servant, more educated, raised by a new system of education. The yangban in fact were inspired by the model of the Chinese bureaucracy during the Dynastie Ming.

An individual could become yangban by making a success of the contests, his determining results his row in the administration. But in practice, they was especially secured people, or who knew the influential characters, who could hope to be received in the administration. Towards the end of the Chosŏn dynasty, the tests were even directed so as to support wire of easy families and wire of yangban .

The yangban dominated the royal court and soldier lasting before the contemporary time of Korea. They were often exempted some tax S and could be withdrawn from certain laws.

If the system yangban were relatively free from corruption at the beginning of the dynasty, the system started to test failures after the conflict with the known Japan under the name of war Seven Year old, whereas the Korean economy was put at péricliter. It was current for a yangban to receive bribes or a remuneration in exchange of advantageous places within the courses royal or military. Corrupted yangban went even until imposing to the landowners and to the peasants of the taxes to the ridiculously raised amounts, knowing pertinently that those would be unable to discharge these sums, thus creating a pretext to confiscate the grounds and to adapt them.

In the current South Korea, the yangban do not have any more any advantage, but several draw a pride to count yangban among its ancestors. The ancestors yangban can be recalled by consulting the Jokbo or chokbo , a register of the ancestors which is transmitted traditionally of the father to the oldest son, from generation to generation. The jokbo is the Korean equivalent of the family trees which one finds in the Occidental cultures.

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