When Korea abandoned centuries of isolationism and opened its doors to the West in the 1880s, a floodgate of Western culture arrived. Westerners built towering buildings that dwarfed traditional wooden structures and thatched huts in Seoul, major port cities and other major evangelistic posts. The buildings are now a symbol of the beginning of Western encroachment, and the government has decided to protect them as part of the country’s heritage. – Korea Herald