section_path: National variations/Korea
section_name: Korea
paragraph_text: Korea
  
  During this time, Korea "aimed at isolation" and was known as the " hermit kingdom " but became awakened to Enlightenment ideas by the 1890s such as with the activities of the Independence Club. Korea was influenced by China and Japan but also found its own Enlightenment path with the Korean intellectual Yu Kilchun who popularized the term Enlightenment throughout Korea. The use of Enlightenment ideas was a "response to a specific situation in Korea in the 1890s, and not a belated answer to Voltaire."