It was similar to north Korea, you can live a ok life, maybe even a good life if you pledge loyalty to your ruler, but throughout history Koreans have fought to the death for the sake of freedom and culture. Korea even resisted the mongol conquests to keep their independence and culture, during the qing Korea was exempt from wearing the que hair style and kept their culture at great resistance. The Japanese also wanted to erase korean culture and generally people didn't take it sitting down. Thus many people were slaughtered due to not accepting Japanese influence.