How did Korea manage to become very strong Catholic country?

Question

while Japan remain as Shinto

Answer 1

Korea is the second largest Christian country in Asia(second only to the Philippines) but it is "Protestant" that is dominant in Korea not "Catholic".

Christianity in Korea is said to have grown spectaculary during the Japanese occupation of Korea, as the Korean christians due to their faith, resisted Japanese colonization and rule. Also, Christian missionaries contributed a lot to Korean society by creating modern schools and hospitals.

Japan, however, is a polytheist country and they think "the more Gods they have, the more they are blessed." So the Christianity which believes in "the one and only God" can not go well with Japanese culture and society.

Answer 2

are they really?  that's new information that i have to mull over.

Answer 3

history of corean catholic is 200 years old. i heard our ancestor(200 years ago) realised catholic faith is truth without missionary. usually, unevangelised countries come to aware of catholic faith when missionary teach them the gospel. but, Coreans accept  catholic faith without missionary and feel the need to listen to catholic faith so, coreans went to seek for missionary priests themselves to china. usually, missionaries seek for unevangelised countries and areas but, coreans is the other way around. coreans realised and awared of catholic faith themselves alone and seek for missionaries not missionaries seek for coreans. we also made dogma book called 천주 강령 ourselves. corea is the only country that come to aware of truth of catholic faith without the missionary. It's the mystery of the God. I think coreans have strong faith and feeling toward God from the start of the country 6000years ago. corean mythology 단군신화 tells us corean's anchestor is son of God and son of God called 단군 establish ancient nation of the peninsula. so this corean mythology of ancient corean establishment can be ultimately related to ultimate catholic faith of truth.