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When Korea received its freedom and independence from Japan, it was practically taken advantage of. All other nations involved, such as the United States, Russia, Great Britain, etc., wanted to instinctively take part in revitalizing Korea with other intentions in mind. Both parties, both countries involved created unnecessary turmoil in a land that was already in search of its own identity. Instead of helping out, in the end, they ended up causing damage that to this day, still lives on. Everything was decided for a nation, without consulting the nation that would be directly affected by everything. It was this inconsiderate way of thinking that would eventually prevent Korea from every really being just one country.

In Chapter 5 of Bruce Cumming's Korea's Place in the Sun (1997), life for Korea after the division of it into two states, North and South Korea, is discussed with more detail. After dividing into the two nations, the Korea's still had problems with what their arrangement turned out to be. South and North Korea both wanted land that turned out to be in each other possession, something that they did not want. Because of this fight over land, politics, and rights, a civil war broke out. South Korea received most of the blame for this war within one country. South Korea was said to provoke the North and were actually the ones who not only started most battles, but also was the side that sent the most troops in to invade North Korea. This strong overwhelming insurgence from both sides made this civil war one that would damage land and its people far beyond repair.

This was a very sad occurrence as it was a war between a nation that had high hopes of being freed from an overbearing power, such as Japan. After so many decades under Japanese rule, Korea was finally free to establish itself as its own independent nation, but instead had so many political, governmental, and outside forces influencing their every decision, that it instead caused a turmoil that is still present till this day. When Korea was finally no longer under Japan's colonization, it instead turned one people against another and at the cost of so many lives. What is even more astonishing about all this, the disagreements, the civil war, is that even after all that fighting, and all the deaths, everything is still the same. Nothing was won, but so much was lost. Had it not been for so many outside influences, influences that did not fully comprehend their already established culture, and their way of living, things could have turned out differently. If maybe from the beginning Korea itself could have determined where divisions were to be set, or if even divisions were necessary, this civil war could have been avoided, or if not avoided, it's damage on families, land, and culture could have been far less than it actually turned out to be.