However, the procedure was not cemented as a widespread practice until the 1950-53 Korean War. Less than 0.1 percent of Koreans had undergone the surgery before 1945, according to a study made by a team of researchers led by Kim in 2000.
As U.S. troops stationed in Korea popularized the practice among Korean soldiers, the then-developing nation began to associate the high rates of circumcision in Western countries with the state of industrialization, according to Kim.
In his survey of Korean doctors in 2000, more than half of them believed the circumcision rate in Scandinavian countries was over 50 percent, Kim said, when the actual rate was more like 1 to 2 percent.
“Koreans came to believe that practicing circumcision was ‘advanced and modern,’ just like the American soldiers,” U.S. sexologist Robert Francoeur wrote in “The International Encyclopedia of Sexuality” (1997). “If Americans did it, it must be good,” he said.
Die Koreaner wussten eben nicht, wie man den USA das aufgeschwatzt hatte...
https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-04-2…mcision/2029413