Western ideas, including Christianity, had reached Korea…

Western ideas, including Christianity, had reached Korea through China in the seventeenth century.

By 1785, however, the government had become incensed over the rejection of ancestor worship by Roman Catholic missionaries, and it banned all forms of Western learning.

Western ships had begun to approach Korean shores after 1801, seeking trade and other contacts, but the government has rejected all overtures from abroad.

When news of the Opium War in China (1839-42) reaches Korea, the dynasty has all the more reason to shut the doors tightly against Western "barbarians."