A hundred years before, Americans might have gone to Korea and taken it in stride, but no longer. America had changed, both materially and subtly over the decades, and now in the Orient American soldiers could not live without insulating themselves from the life around them. It was not that Americans came with arrogance or with a feeling of insurmountable superiority. They simply would not—could not—accept the way the people of Chosun lived. No matter how cultured or ancient the civilization, no average American is going to condone the absence of flush toilets. Not now, not ever.
