Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Apology to the former colonies.

Marmot has an interesting discussion about apology to the former colony.

Some comments pathetically lack the historical knowledge.
For instance,

Add that to the fact that Chiang was trained in Japan and he had formal ties and equipment and technology and engineers going back and forth between them for a brief time, and it seems like Chiang Kai Shek’s govt was much more formally active with the Axis powers than Korea was. At least Korea lacked the formal status to be courted by Nazi Germany. Chiang had the status as the “ruler” of China. Before Japan took over the good parts of it.


Ironically, The commenter is an (Korean) American.

Asean and China


But now, a significant security concern among ASEAN members is how to deal with the emerging political and military power of China, he wrote.

Four ASEAN members--Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei--are at loggerheads with China over territorial claims in the South China Sea.IHT/Asahi: November 29,2006)


For Japan Asean is one of the most important international association. The alliance with the sea power is essential for Japan's strategy.


Asean

A declaration of the end of the Korean War

Bush 'Offered to Sign End to Korean War With Kim Jong-il' The Chosun Ilbo/Nov.30,2006

Hmmm, the problem is what the US is up to.
The U.S. says the two Koreas should be the signatories to any declaration of the end of the war or a peace treaty, and if they sign first, the U.S. and China will offer guarantees

So does this mean the U.S. has a secret agreement with China about North Korea?
One likely scenario is that China will take the hegemony over North Korea, and the U.S. will finally leave the peninsula. It might be, considering the budget the U.S. can afford to East Asia.

Hey, Japan is praised!



OKYO (Reuters) - Bono, the Irish rock star and outspoken campaigner against poverty and
AIDS, praised Japan's policies on those issues on Wednesday, in a departure from his usual criticism of rich nations for not living up to expectations.


"The world doesn't really understand that Japan in the '90s led the world not just as a percentage contribution to the world's poor but as the volume contribution," he told reporters at the prime minister's office.

"The world doesn't understand that Japan has had a lot of success in its aid and assistance in Southeast Asia in particular, and that there's a lot we can learn from Japan in applying this to the rest of the developing world."

Wow, it is good to be praised once in a while.
But ,who is Bono?---Ahh Bono!! ---



But Bono expressed disappointment there was no talk about music, which would surely have come up had he met Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, known as a music buff and an avid Elvis Presley fan.Wed 29 Nov 2006


I would praise Abe if he started practicing say, Billy Joel, for public relation.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

enemy within

The latest criminal case involving the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) can be described as having been committed by the North Korean government. On Monday, the Metropolitan Police Department searched the pro-Pyongyang association's Tokyo head office and other locations on suspicion of violating the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law.

KAST, an organization comprising North Korean scientists and engineers in this country, is controlled by the Workers' Party of Korea. It is necessary to uncover the truth behind KAST's activities.

Even prior to the latest case, the police authorities suspected KAST had played a role in the unauthorized transfer of advanced technology from Japan to North Korea. Appearing before the U.S. Congress, a former North Korean engineer has testified that 90 percent of parts used to build North Korean missiles were acquired from Japan.

Various products and technology have been sent to North Korea from Japan over the years. All this has supported--directly or indirectly--an attempt by North Korea, a military state under the iron fist of Kim Jong Il, to build missiles and promote its nuclear weapons program. The latest case must be examined to determine whether North Korea used IV bags for a purpose unrelated to their intended use.

The Japanese government should have taken measures even earlier to foil illegal activities by Chongryon and KAST. However, the government has failed to squarely confront the realities of North Korea's wrongdoing.The Yomiuri Shimbun/(Nov. 29, 2006)
Japanese version

A party for monkey in Thailand


3.000 monkeys were invited to the party in the Hinduism temple in Thailand. The town is famous for the monkey in Thailand. The fruits and caked were served. In Thailand the money is sacred animal, the city has a party every year for the monkey who brings the city a lot of tourists.

I love this kind of report.
タイのヒンズー教寺院で開かれたパーティーに街に住む3,000匹のサルが招待される
サルが多く住むことで有名なタイのある街で、サルを招待してパーティーが開かれた。
ヒンズー教の寺院で開かれたパーティーに、街に住む3,000匹ものサルたちが招待され、テーブルの上には、お菓子や果物が次々と運ばれてきた。
タイでは、サルが神聖なものとされていて、街では、多くの観光客を呼び寄せてくれるサルたちのために、毎年パーティーを開催している。
用意されたごちそうは2,000kgで、子ザルたちも大好きなお菓子に夢中になっていた。
[29日14時22分更新]link

Monday, November 27, 2006

Chinese Communist Party's 'Abe Plan'


The report indicated that Wang Yi frequently stated that art can bring together people with different backgrounds, even people who dislike each other. When Wang Yi found out Akie is a fan of Wu Rujun, he planned to have the Abes watch Wu's show. Soon the Abes and Wu became friends.

On April 30, when the Abe and the Wu families met for dinner, Wu said to Ankie: "You should visit China and let Chinese people know of Shinzo Abe's future policy toward China and that Shinzo wants to be the founder of Sino-Japan alliances." Ankie thus agreed to visit China.

What is ironic is that all the tools used to impress Ankie are related to ancient Chinese culture and arts which the CCP has always denounced and criticized. Chinese Culture Used by the CCP

In the 1970s a book, disclosing some of the CCP's secrets, called "Liberate Japan" revealed the CCP's plan to export communism to Japan: Step I is to establish a relationship between China and Japan; Step II is to win Japanese people's support by utilizing their interests in Chinese culture. The CCP uses Chinese culture to cover up its real purpose and have the Japanese people give up their vigilance. Nov 27, 2006/epock times

Epoch times is the anti-Chinese newspaper, so I understand its intention.
And some Japanese blogger warn that Japan should be careful not to be attracted to Chinese market. I agree. Japan should demand China to abide the rule of law, so that the interest of private company may not be taken away arbitrarily. Besides, Japan should keep insisting that China pay respect to the human right.
But there is nothing wrong with friendship between people of the both nations.
If China wants to be friendly with Abe, so be it.

"Chinese gov't continues favorable policy in Tibet"---favorable policy?

BEIJING, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- China's State Council has recently decided to continue favorable and supportive policies during the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2006-2010) to promote the economic and social development in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

Continue favorable policy? Huh? When did China start the favorable policy? You mean gulping up Tibet was supportive policies toward Tibet because Tibet was underdeveloped?

The government will continue to enhance infrastructure construction in Tibet, extending the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, reconstructing the main roads connecting Tibet and surrounding regions, accelerating the construction of airports, as well as improving the energy, postal, and telephone services during the next five years.www.chinaview.cn 2006-11-27 20:21:10

I heard this railroad was the one that concern native Tibetan most.
Traditionally China gulped up another land by sending enormous amount of Chinese(漢) people, and . And that is an strategy of Sun Tsu's art of war.
You know, "Hey this is our land, look, most of people are Chinese!"
And the railroad from the main land is the most convenient way to transport Chinese.

If Chinese newspaper is talking about Tibet without mentioning Shooting the monks by Chinese soldier, I guess China's hypocrite policy has not changed essentially.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

S. Korean inspectors find bone fragment, ban sale of U.S. beef

Korea will return or destroy the first shipment of U.S. beef in almost three years after discovering a bone fragment in it Chosun Ilbo
Japan banned the US beef for the mad cow deceases, but,,,,,Japan did not set up the photo like this, is this another example of South Korea's anti-Americanism, or am I reading too much?

update

Activists demand that the U.S.military remove the pollutants from their bases before being returned to Korea.
How about this one?......maybe not.

Japanese man admits human experiments

A FORMER medical officer in Japan's WWII navy has admitted to conducting vivisection in the Philippines on some 30 prisoners of war, including women and children.
It was the first time such testimony had been given on experiments on human beings by a Japanese officer in the Philippines during WWII, Kyodo News reported late today.

Similar experiments were conducted in northern China by the notorious germ warfare Unit 731, which is blamed for the deaths of up to 10,000 Chinese and Allied prisoners of war, the report added.From correspondents in Tokyo

November 26, 2006 04:58pm

I didn't know vivisection took place in the Philippines.
The truth should be investigated.

update

“The former naval medic, Akira Makino, 84, of Hirakata, Osaka Prefecture, offered the revelation in a recent interview despite opposition from wartime friends. After keeping it to himself for nearly 61 years, he decided to come forward.”

[…]

“Little in the way of Japanese testimony has emerged about what happened in Southeast Asia during the war because few military units survived…”

A survivor keeps something like that to himself for 61 years, in part because of fellow survivors, the “wartime friends.”

Yet we are to believe the reason we know so little is because few survived.

Perfect, that.

Lie about the past, then lie about why you’re lying about it.oranky

The repatriation movement of Koreans after independence

Looks like it’s the guy that wrote this book in 2002.
http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/4334973752
North Korea - the Devil’s Real Identity

From what molly* and this site says,
http://www.geocities.jp/flying_grooves/past/040321_aoyama.html
He wasn’t a Japanese spy working in NK, but a NK agent who used his Japanese abilities to spy on Japanese technology in China, sell technological info to China, and send the profits to NK. It seems he felt himself in danger of being labeled “not loyal enough to Kim,” and he defected to a Japanese embassy and traded his intelligence on NK for a visa to Japan. He is still a Chinese national, using the fake Chinese ID he used during his days as a NK agent. He is basically angry that the Japanese government is not giving full protection to its collaborators.

The repatriation movement Aoyama is talking about is the one started in the 1958 talks between the Japanese and NK Red Cross. There were motives involved on all sides. The Norks wanted able laborers to rebuild its devastated country. Japan wanted to get rid of the Koreans who were keeping to themselves, living on welfare, and were quickly getting sucked up by the yakuza. The Koreans wanted a way out of poverty, and promises of free education, health care, housing, and equality of the people allured them. Under Kim Il-son’s orders, propaganda of how NK was “paradise on earth” was spread through the Chosun Soren (Society of North Koreans in Japan), and echoed by left-leaning Japanese media like Asahi Shimbun, and intellectuals like Kenzaburo Oe and Goro Terao. The support by a major newspaper seemed to convince many who did not trust the NK or the Japanese government that NK may indeed be paradise. The Japanese Red Cross interviewed each person individually to confirm that the wish to return was his/her own wish and not being forced on the person by other members of the family. The first ship for the repatriation set sail in Dec. 10, 1959. The repatriation continued to 1984, but by then, information of NK not being paradise had spread, and few Koreans were willing to go. There were talks of repatriation to South Korea, but it never happened because SK insisted that Japan pay for the transportation and Japan refused. The repatriated people were placed in labor camps and watched closely as capitalist spies. They were forced to write letters to relatives asking for some money to settle in, and NK used the money to finance their government. In short, they were hostages. Although the letters were censored, some wary Koreans had set up secret codes among the family to relay information before they left for NK, and information of the appalling conditions eventually got out. Asahi seems to have completely forgotten its active role in spreading the propaganda, and in May 18, 2004, wrote an article condemning the Japanese government for “taking part in the repatriation project which was nothing but a Korean deportation policy.”



Socialism gained many followers among Koreans inside and outside the peninsula during the Japanese colonial period. Korean and Japanese socialists collaborated in Japan to oppose the right-wing government, and of course, Korean, Chinese, and Soviet Communists fought together against Japan. After Japan’s surrender, Korean socialists moved swiftly to set up local People’s Committees throughout the entire Korean peninsula; the ones in the South were extinguished by the Rhee government with help from the US.

As Slim noted, only 1/6 of the Zainichi actually immigrated while the rest, who were not blinded by socialist ideals or the propaganda campaign, stayed put in a country that did not accord them full citizenship status. Better a green card holder in Japan than a citizen of the DPRK.Sonagi/Marmot

I have been researching this topic as well. Morris-Suzuki’s article is absolutely correct in its facts and should find sympathy from those of you concerned for human rights in the North. Her succinct work linked above omits other details that should also be known. For example, SCAP sent over a million Koreans to the South in just a few years, but many Zainichi who stayed did so because of postwar laws that severely limited what they could take back on the ships, including the levying of taxes on wealth. SCAP followed Japan’s lead in creating these rules. Zainichi who stayed began lobying for a better deal—that is in part how Chongryun (aka, Chōsen Sōren) was formed.

A better deal from SCAP, the Japanese, or the South never came. All Chongryun members I have interviewed freely admit repatriations were a mistake (after all, their parents stayed), but it also needs to be pointed out that the South lost the propaganda war in many people’s hearts because constantly bad news flowed freely from it, in contrast to the North (one exception below). In effect, Koreans could choose a dictatorship aiming at paradise… or a murder-torturing dictatorship… under foreign “occupation.” Important too is that the North’s Soviet subsidized economy still appeared better the ROK for years. Han Duk Su was certainly Kim Il Sung’s man in Japan, but to reduce Chongryun to a “Fifth Column” overlooks the legitimate battle Koreans have had to fight for human rights in Japan and the Japanese government’s complicity in the repatriation drive. Morris-Suzuki understands this. Most Japanese do not even understand why there are Koreans in Japan and why they just don’t go “home.”

Today the abduction issue is being pushed ad nauseam by the LDP, but few people remember even the Japanese wives of Korean men who were sent off to the DPRK, much less does the public show interest or sympathy in the plight of former “Japanese” stuck in the North. And the propaganda battles of the cold war now seem like… well, a thing of the past. Important in this context: in 1974 “The American Committee for Human Rights of Japanese Wives of North Korean Repatriates” (your guess as to their real funding) published a book titled If I Had Wings Like a Bird (I Would Fly across the Sea): Letters from the Japanese Wives of North Korean Repatriates, apparently translated from Japanese into English. For more on these issues see Okonogi Masao’s book Why Did North Korean Residents in Japan Return Home? (2004 in Japanese); Chang Myŏng Su’s book The Scheme of the Japan Red Cross: Deep into Its North Korean “Repatriation Project” (2003, in Japanese); “Repatriation of Koreans in Japan” Korea Journal, 44/4 (Winter 2004, 60-84, and for the story of one of those who made it back to Japan from North Korea, see Shin Su-Gok’s book Ghastly Lamentations: The Repatriated of My Family to “Paradise” (in Japanese 2003).Ur Onara

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*
molly Said:

November 25, 2006 at 5:45 pm

News : 青山健熙氏のこと
投稿者 trycomp 投稿日時 2006-11-26 4:03:25 (24 ヒット)

 北朝鮮を脱出した元工作員とされる青山健熙(けんき)氏=通称名=が22日、「脱北者を難民と認めないのは不当」として、国を相手に難民認定などを求める訴訟を東京地裁に起こした。

 訴えによると、青山氏は日本で生まれ、いわゆる帰国事業で60年に北朝鮮に渡った。98年に脱北後、03年2月に難民認定を申請し、04年7月には日本国籍取得の申請もしたが、ともに認められていない。会見で「私は北朝鮮当局に狙われている。(脱北時に取得した)中国籍の偽造旅券では、生まれ育った日本で平穏に生きられない」と語った。

 訴状では、外務省職員らに渡した「北朝鮮の極秘情報」の補償金として32億円も請求している。(毎日新聞)

11月22日、上記の報道が各紙でなされた。

青山健熙氏は、在日朝鮮人として日本に生まれ、1960年、「帰国事業」により北朝鮮に渡った。現地の工科大学を出た73年に労働党入党。しかし、従兄弟が政治犯収容所に投獄された事件で連座罪で、地方に追放されたりした。その後、平壌に召還され、1995年、党中央委員会工作部に配属された。
上記の記事でもそうだが、青山健熙氏には、「工作員」の肩書きがつく。この「工作員」という言葉には様々な意味がある。安明進氏のように若いときからスパイ養成学校で訓練を受けた工作員。その中で、武闘訓練を主にした者は、「工作員」よりも「戦闘員」がより実態に近い名称である。辛光洙のようにもと在日朝鮮人の特性を利用され日本に潜入し、土台人を協力者に仕立て上げて対南工作に従事する「工作員」。この土台人も「工作員」と呼ばれたりするが、「補助工作員」の方が近いだろう。
青山健熙氏が命じられた「工作」は、安明進氏や辛光洙とは異なる。その内容に関しては、2002年8月3日の産経新聞が詳しい。

三年前、日本に事実上亡命した北朝鮮の元幹部情報工作員、青山健煕氏=通名=(六三)は産経新聞とのインタビューで、中国・北京で行っていた約一年半にわたる対日工作活動の全容を語った。技術者出身の青山氏が行った工作活動は、日本の技術を巧みに盗用して中国に売るとともに外貨稼ぎをするという手法で、日本が技術スパイ天国であり、頭脳流出がいかに容易かを具体的に物語る内容だ。(北朝鮮問題取材班)

◆“頭脳流出天国”浮き彫り
 北京に派遣された青山氏への北朝鮮当局の指令は「中国、韓国、日本の軍事情報収集および外貨獲得」だったという。
 青山氏の場合、元在日朝鮮人で日本に技術系の人脈があったことから、中国がほしがっている技術を日本から盗んで中国に売り、稼いだ外貨を北朝鮮に納めるという産業スパイ活動を展開することになった。
 成功例では、中国に売った日本の特殊な鉄道レール製造技術の盗用がある。日本から退職した約十人の専門技術者を「観光客」として中国に呼ぶ。この人たちを中国側が用意した製鉄設備のある工場に招き、実際に特殊レールを製造し技術内容を中国側に教授させる。
 青山氏は中国側から多額の報酬を得る一方で、日本人技術者には青山氏が一千万円単位の「技術料」を支払う。さらに手数料をさし引いて北朝鮮へ獲得外貨を納める-という方法だ。
 大砲の自動照準制御装置もこうした方法で技術を獲得し、中国に売却した。獲得した外貨とともに技術そのものも、北朝鮮に持ち込む計画だったが、その直前に亡命したという。
 「北朝鮮もそうだが、中国も必ずしも高度なハイテク技術が必要なわけではない。日本の退職者のもつ技術力で十分だ。日本にはこうした技術防衛のノウハウがなく頭脳流出に無防備だから、さまざまな盗用が可能だった」。青山氏は、日本の人材派遣会社で専門技術者を探したこともあると話した。
 日本技術の盗用をしながら中国軍部と接触し、「中国がほしがっている技術自体を知ることも貴重な情報だった」とも話す。
 つまり、中国ではどの分野の技術情報が不足しているのかということも「軍事情報」の一部だったという。
 北京で活動する北朝鮮の工作員には、さまざまな偽装肩書を持つ韓国の情報部員が接触してくる。現金も飛び交う情報戦の最前線ならではだが、こうした接触について、北朝鮮の金正日総書記が一九九八年、大規模な内部調査を行った。青山氏も同年、突然、北京から北朝鮮に召還された。
 帰国すると工作員の仲間が二十数人、韓国当局から金を受け取った「汚職」の疑いで連行されていた。身に危険を感じた青山氏は中朝国境の密輸ブローカーを手配し、その手助けを得て家族とともに国境の川を渡り中国に脱出、その後、日本大使館に助けを求めたという。
(産経新聞 2002/8/3)

安明進氏や辛光洙とは全く異なる工作内容であることがわかる。そして、非常に重要な内容である。恐らくは安明進氏らの情報よりも、日本外務省(経産省あたりも)が欲しがる情報を持っていたことも楽に推測出来る。

青山健熙氏は、「拉致被害者を見た」というような証言はしていない。救う会系の集会に招かれて証言するというようなことはほとんどなかったため、拉致問題に関心のある人々の間でもあまり知られていないが、青山氏は「帰国事業」で北朝鮮に渡った「日本人妻」の「粛正」に関しても詳しく証言をしている。青山氏の証言は、多岐にわたり、幅広く深いものがある。

11月22日の記事に関して、青山氏が自ら言うように持っているパスポートは「中国の偽造旅券」である。そのため現在も青山氏は(日本においては)法的には「中国人」である。なぜ、本人が認めている「偽造旅券」で入国出来、さらに日本に滞在出来るのか。青山氏の日本入国に外務省の関与があったからに他ならない。青山氏は、98年、家族と共に脱北し、北京の日本大使館に接触し、日本への入国ビザを求めた。当初は冷淡であった大使館は、青山氏が情報提供を申し出ると態度を一変させたという。「98年11月25日から99年2月まで,都合5回,日本大使館のM氏に情報を流しました。北のミサイル基地,朝鮮労働党の対外情報調査部,核開発施設,日本に展開する北朝鮮と中国の情報部員の5項目についてです。」
北京の日本大使館は情報の価値を認め一万元の報酬を与えたという。しかし北朝鮮及び中国に気を使うあまり、日本入国には消極的であり続けた。しびれをきらした青山氏は中国人になりすまし中国のパスポートを取得。日本大使館は全てを承知の上、観光ビザを出し、入国させた。「中国人に観光ビザを出して入国を認めた」と(中国や北朝鮮に対して)言い訳が出来る形を取ったのである。成田で青山氏を出迎えたのは日本外務省職員である。

外務省は青山氏に対して最初の一年目は月額18万円を、2年目には月額10万円を渡し、3年目に打ち切った。しかし、青山氏が望む法的地位の変更は無視し続けた。青山氏が望んだのは、元の在日朝鮮人の地位である。外務省が当初与えた「観光ビザ」は3ヶ月で期限が切れる。直前、外務省職員が付き添って入国管理事務所に出向き、何の審理もなく3年の滞在ビザに切り替え、それを繰り返している。

2002年11月、衆議院外務委員会に青山氏の参考人招致が決まった。事態を知った外務省は必死に自民党に働き掛け、共産党、社民党の同意も取り付け、前日に青山氏の参考人招致を阻止した。理由は青山氏の身元が確認出来ない、という笑止なものであった。

外務省なり、日本政府なりが北朝鮮のような閉ざされた独裁国家の情報を入手するに際して超法規的措置を取ることに異論はない。ただし、そのようにして日本に入国させたからには、その人物の身の安全、安寧を保障することは当然のことであろう。「情報」の重要性が叫ばれて久しいが、いったん取り込んだ「工作員」の保護も出来ない国家には荷が重いと言わざるを得ない。アマチュアだったということである。今回のような訴訟を起こされること自体が、日本政府、外務省の「失敗」を物語っている。

最初に掲載した記事に関して「32億円も請求」の部分にだけ反応して「たかり」だとして「これだから朝鮮人は」というようなコメントのブログを見かけるが、そういう反応だけになれば、ほくそ笑むのは自らの「失敗」を覆い隠せる外務省、日本政府である。

北朝鮮という悪魔―元北朝鮮工作員が明かす驚愕の対日工作

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Were the land and rice confiscated during the colonization in Korea?

See also economy under Japanese rule
The colonial policy of land confiscation and forced delivery of rice to Japan both impoverished the Korean countryside and resulted in food shortages in the early 1920sJapan focus


This is how many Koreans and some Japanese leftist say. But is this true?


1 The land survey was done to investigate how large the land is, who own the land, what the land was used for:It was needed for fair the collection of the tax.

2 The total arable land was 4500,000(chouho)
Japanese who traded the land owned 255.000, 6% of the arable land.
The land confiscated by the government due to owner-less, or unproved to be owned, was 147,000, 3% of the arable land.
(Korea governor-general's office 調査資料2ー7trontalker)

3
For instance , the following is the survey of the area of 全北
Area 100-500 chouho.....more than 500 chouho
..........1926....1930....1939....1926....1930....1939
Japanese#...27......39......39......19......19......18
total....6,284...8,516...8,165..29,071..31,870..32,552
Koreans#....71......73......85.......7.......5......5
total...12,170..13,644..14,962...5,742...4,879..4,467
(全羅北道「内鮮人地主所有地調」1928年
農林省京城米穀事務所群山出張所「全羅北道・全羅南道地主調」1930年
全羅北道農村振興課「全羅北道地主調」1939年
)

And here is an survey of the land deduced from the tax survey.

.............1935......1936......1937......1939.....1942
Japanese 455*.......413.......423.......416......424
Koreans....4,001*.....4,017.....4,012.....4,029....4,096
(*.unit=1000chouho)

Japanese owner of the land was 10% of the total.

4
Some Korean historians claims that Korea was forced to deliver the rice to Japan by showing the following diagram.
year production/ export to Japan/consumption in Korea
1920 大正 9年 1、270 185 1,085
1922 11年 1、432 340 1,092
1924 13年 1,517 475 1,042
1926 昭和元年 1,497 544 953
1928 3年 1,730 742 988
1930 5年 1,370 540 830
1932 7年 1,590 760 830
1933 8年 1,630 870 760

However, the rice was not forced to export but it was traded. Note that at this period of the times, Japan was in the depression, and Japanese farmer also had to sell all the rice the produced to exchange for the money, Korean rice was cheaper, so in 1934, Japanese farmers demanded that the import from Korea should be restricted. Japanese farmers as well as Korean farmers suffered, and had to sell the rice but that does not mean Japanese government confiscated the rice.

toron


It should be emphasized that a Korean professor at Seoul University also confirms the
line of the argumen above.
....................................................................................


A Seoul University professor "The theory of confiscation by Japan is a myth
ソウル大教授「日本による収奪論は作られた神話」

 日本による植民地時代に韓国が土地と食糧を収奪されたという韓国史教科書の著述は歪曲されたものだという主張が提起されている。

 韓日問題を論じるシンポジウムでソウル大学の李栄薫(イ・ヨンフン)教授が発表した内容だが、李教授は過去の「従軍慰安婦は売春業」発言に続き、再び論争を呼び起こしている。

 「1910年に日本は大韓帝国を強制的に併合した」
 「日本は韓国が植民地だった35年間に、韓国の土地の40%以上を収奪し、膨大な米を略奪していった」

 これらが韓国が独立後、40年以上にわたり中学・高校の国史教科書に記載されている内容だ。

 しかしソウル大学経済学科の李栄薫(イ・ヨンフン)教授はこうした収奪論が歪曲された神話だと主張した。

 収奪という表現は太平洋戦争末期を除き、被害意識から出てきた言葉だと李教授は話している。

 以下はYTNによるインタビュー。

 李教授「日帝(日本帝国主義)が韓国の米を供出、強制徴収したとされているが、実際には両国の米市場が統合されたことにより、経済的『輸出』の結果だった」

 客観的数値で見ても、奪われた土地は10%に過ぎなかったと説明している。李教授は韓国の歪曲された教科書で学んだせいか、反日感情の根がかなり深くなっていると話した。

 李教授「私たちが植民地時代について知っている韓国人の集団的記憶は多くの場合、作られたもので、教育されたものだ」

 こうした主張について市民団体は植民地状況自体が不法であるという点を見過ごしていると反発している。

 李教授「植民地時期全体を見れば、労働力搾取だとか、状況が・・・その中に不法もあり、そうでなかった場合もあり、様々な次元があるため・・・こうした状況を通称し収奪と表現するのでしょう」

 李教授の主張がメディアを通じ知れ渡るとインターネットの各掲示板でも熱い討論が展開された。植民地史観の先兵と変わりがないと非難する書き込みが殺到した。

 一方で李教授の理論にも一理あるとし、教科書を客観的に見るべきという声も少なくなかった。

 李教授は2か月前にテレビの討論番組で従軍慰安婦を売春業と関連付けた発言を行い、物議を醸した人物だ。

 日本による収奪論を否定する李教授の発言は、韓国で新たな熱い論争を巻き起こしている。2004/11/20 09:48朝鮮日報

see also木村幽閉記
see also naver

The wanpaoshan (万宝山)affair and the anti-Chinese riots in Korea.

I have been curious about Lytton Reopot, and today I have just found the original text, 全文リットン報告書page 64 -67
And I found a interesting description of Mabosan/The wanpaoshan incident.

Changchun
The Wanpaoshan Incident that occurred prior to the Mukden Incident at Wanpaoshan, a small village located some 18 miles north of Changchun, in Manchuria. The village is located in a low marshy area alongside the Itung River.wiki




A lease contract for rice-land between the Chinese landowners and the Chinese broker required the official approval of the Chinese authority
.......................................

This lad was sub-leased by the Chinese broker to the Korean tenants................

The digging of an irrigation ditch by the Koreans across land owned by Chinese farmers was the principal cause of local Chinese opposition.
.................................

The Chinese farmers demanded the cessation of work on the irrigation ditch and the evacuation of the Koreans................

The Chinese and Japanese authorities at Changchun agree upon a joint investigation............

Inclusive investigation.

The joint investigation, however, apparently failed to agree upon their findings...

The incident of July 1st

Out of this train of circumstances came the incident of July 1st, when a party of 400 Chinese farmers whose lands were cut by the irrigation ditch, armed with agricultural implements and pikes, drove the Koreans away and filled in much of the ditch. The Japanese consular police thereupon rifle fire to disperse the mob and to protect the Koreans but there were no casualties. The Chinese farmers withdrew and the Japanese police remained on the spot until the Koreans completed the ditch and the dam across the Itung River.
After the incident of July 1st the Chinese municipal authorities continued to protest to the Japanese Consul at Changchun against the action of the Japanese consular police and of the Koreans.

The anti-Chinese riots in Korea.
For more serious than Wanpashan affair was the reaction to this dispute in Chosen(Korea) In consequence of sensational account of the situation at Wanpaoshan, especially of the events of July 1st, which were printed in the Japanese and Korean press, a series of anti-Chinese riots occurred throughout Korea. These riots began at Jinsen on July 3rd. and spread rapidly to other cities.

Heavy loss of life and property among the Chinese residents.
Alleged responsibility of the Japanese authorities in Korea.


The Chinese state, on the basis of their official reports, that 127 Chinese were massacred and 393 wounded and that Chinese property to the value of 2500,00 yen was destroyed. They claim, moreover that the Japanese authorities in Korea were in adequate steps to prevent them and did not suppress them until great loss of Chinese life and property had resulted. The Japanese and Korean newspapers were not prevented from publishing sensational and incorrect accounts of the Wanpanoshan incident of July 1st which were of a character to arouse the hatred of the korean populace against the Chinese resident.
The Japanese claim, however, that these riots were due to the spontaneous outburst of racial feeling and that the Japanese authorities suppressed them as soon as possible.

The riots in Korea intensified the anti-Japanese boycott in China.....

The Japanese Government expressed regret for the anti-Chinese riots and offered compensation for the families of the dead.

From July 22nd until September 15th, there were negotiations and exchanges of notes between the Chinese and Japanese local central authorities over the Wanpaoshan affair. The Chinese maintained that the difficulties at Wanpaoshan were due to the fact that the Koreans were living where they no right to be, since their privileges of residing and leasing of land did not extend outside of Chientao District in accordance, with the Chientao Agreement.......

The Japanese position.

The Japanese on the other hand, insisted that the Koreans had a treaty right to reside and lease land at Wanpanosha, since their privileges were not limited to those specified in the Chientao Agreement but included the rights , granted to Japanese subjects in general of residing and leasing land throughout South Manchuria. The status of the Koreans, it was claimed, was identical with that of other Japanese subjects. The Japanese also urged that the korean had undertaken their
rice cultivation project in good faith an that the Japanese authorities could not assume responsibility for the irregularities of the Chinese broker who arranged the lease. The Japanese Government consented to the withdrawal of the consular police from Wanpaoshan, but the korean tenants remained and continued to cultivate their rice-lands.
A complete solution of the Wanpaoshan affair had not been reached by September 1931.
.....................................................................................


1) This is very different from the Korean account of the massacre in which a Korean historian blames Japan for Koreans killing Chinese. The conspiracy theory goes so far as to claim that Japanese government plotted the incident.

2) The description shows that Japanese government treated Koreans equal to Japanese citizens.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Korea's future

A rumor is making the rounds of a deal between the U.S. and China that Washington will withdraw its forces from South Korea and put an end to its alliance with Seoul, and that Beijing, in return, will guarantee a nuclear-free North Korea by overthrowing the Kim Jong-il regime and establishing a pro-Beijing regime. The self-reliance idea this administration has held on to so firmly for three years and nine moths has led to South Korea’s complete exclusion from these matters that concern our survival.

Wow, the rumor might turn out to be true.But what if US military left Korea? ---No, I
am not worried about South Korea, I am worried about Japan. No, I am not worried about China, but I am worried about what South Korea will do against Japan without US
military in the peninsula.


The country’s situation resembles that of 100 years ago, when the sovereignty of the nation fell to the ambitions of the Japanese Empire because Korea made the wrong choices among the fierce competition of surrounding superpowers vying for their national interests -- mostly the same major players as now. The king’s incompetence was responsible for the situation then. The people know who is responsible now.chosun ilbo

Yeah, we know.

African-American view of Japanese women

You can say "Gaijin Smash" all you want, little old Japanese women are unfathomable levels of broken. Our Gaijin Superpowers just don't work, cause they just don't give a damn. I'm not even sure Jack Bauer or MacGuyver could successfully take on a little Japanese granny. I still contend that if Japan had sent grandmothers into the war, we'd be the United States of The Rising Sun right nowGaijin smash



How about young women?


Let me tell you, there is nothing, NOTHING scarier than a Japanese girl with the Unleashed Furies of Hell behind her. And I say this as a large black man. If I somehow found myself in a house, and upstairs was Freddy Krueger, Jason, the masked guy from the Scream movies, Predators, Aliens, and Celine Dion singing the Titanic song, and downstairs were a group of Japanese girls in K-Groove Jack Bauer berserker mode, I'd go upstairs and take my chances. I'd actually have a remote chance of coming out of it alive.Gaijin smash


I can't say he is not telling the truth.

Well it will be much better that we send more women to the congress.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

GREGORY CLARK ---VICE-PRESIDENT, AKITA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERISTY

if Japan's rightwingers could stop fulminating, and start thinking, they would discover a neat answer to many of their gripes. Under common international practice, Japan today would be quite entitled to begin to challenge some of the 1951 San Francisco Treaty obligations imposed on it during its period of weakness and occupation more than half a century ago. This would greatly increase the legality of its territorial claims.

And challenging the "war criminal" Article 11 of the treaty would also do much to end the rightwing trauma over Yasukuni and war guilt -- a point noted by some on the more intelligent right such as former trade minister Hiranuma Takeo. Provided the right admitted that there were war atrocities (something it still tries to deny), while noting also the times when Japan's wartime authorities behaved well -- for example by building schools and infrastructure in occupied or colonized territories -- they would do much to improve Asian respect and understanding for Japan.

Australia's former colony of Papua New Guinea provides a good example of this dichotomy. The eastern districts are still bitterly anti-Japan, because of the cruel massacres carried out there by the Kempeitai and the Japanese Army. The western districts are still strongly pro-Japan. They were administered by the Japanese Navy, which built the famous primary school in Wewak from which a generation of PNG leaders, including prime minister Michael Somare, were graduated.Japan focus



I think his argument that Japan's hard line policy against North Korea is not effective is weak. It was the family of the abducted who demanded harder policy on North Korea, and they took this position out of the desperate dead end situation.
But his view of policy for Japan to take is pragmatical. I think he has
something the conservative who put the national interest in the first place should listen to .
BTW American blogger/Riding Sun criticized Clark before. It was an interesting article.

Pollution might hamper Chinese development

link
The serious state of environmental pollution elsewhere in China has been recognized by the Chinese government. In September, the State Environmental Protection Administration announced that China is losing the equivalent of 511.8 billion yuan (7.5 trillion yen) because of pollution of various kinds. The loss is equivalent to more than 3 percent of the country's gross domestic product, in a nation that boasts of annual economic growth rates of about 10 percent.

The fact that water pollution accounts for more than half of the estimated economic loss prompts me to wonder whether China will continue during the coming 50 to 100 years to suffer the negative aftereffects of its modernization and industrialization, as Japan did in the case of Minamata disease caused by industrial water contaminated with mercury.YomiuriNov. 18, 2006

(the photo: viaReading China through pictures.写真で読む中国

US base is essential for Japan

Okinawa may get extra money for for Futenma relocation effortStars and Stripes

I understand how Okinawan people feel about the military base.
Okinawa is the only battle field in Japan where Japanese citizens were forced to fight during WWⅡ.Okinawa is the place where Hirohito suggested the US to keep it as a military base after the occupation by the allies. Okinawa government was in the hand of US military for a long time.
But JSDF is not so formed as to act independently of US military. When US leave Japan, it is the time that Japan will decisively go nuclear. And geographically Okinawa is the crucial place to defend Japan. In this sense ,the military base in Okinawa is essential for Japanese strategy. The news that they get extra money was good one. Japanese government should do everything to lessen the inconvenience of Okinawan people due to the military base.

Korea demonstration again.

Korea Sees Worst Labor Protests in YearsChosun ilbo
Nothing is wrong with the demonstration ,people have constitutional right to demonstrate but when they turn violent and they engage in this kind of demonstration so often, some people might begin to think something is seriously wrong with Korean society.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Leftist Korean interpretation of the Korean War

The Korean War was the biggest tragedy in our history. It killed over four million people and displaced 10 million. Documents pouring out of the Soviet Union since the collapse of communism reveal without an iota of doubt that the Korean War was caused by an invasion from Kim Il-sung. Even the die-hard revisionists who think it was a war of unification daren’t peddle that view in international academic circles for fear of being laughed out of court. Hence they sell it only at home; “they” being people like Prof. Kang Jeong-koo of Dongguk University, who famously asserted that but for the U.S. intervention the war would have ended “in a month.” The view that the U.S. is the enemy of the 4 million war victims is quite unique to South Korea.Chosun ilbo



韓国戦争は約400万人の人命被害と約1000万人の離散家族を産んだ、民族史上最大の悲劇だ。ソ連の崩壊を受けて公開された資料を見れば、韓国戦争が金日成(キム・イルソン)による侵略戦争であった事実は疑いようもない。北朝鮮と国内の偏向した「修正主義史観」の支持者だけが、韓国戦争を「統一のための内戦」という「こじつけ」に執着している。

 彼らも世界の学界ではそうした主張を提起することはできない。せいぜいあざわらわれるのがおちだからだ。そのため彼らはそうした歴史観を国内に限定して登場させている。「米国が他人のお家騒動である統一内戦に介入しさえしなければ、戦争は1カ月以内に終わっていたはずだ。命を奪われた400万人にとって、米国はかたきだ」とした姜禎求(カン・ジョング)教授のような立場は、大韓民国にしか見あたらない特異なものだ。朝鮮日報

Monday, November 20, 2006

Newly discovered document for Korean title to Dokdo!?

SEOUL, Nov. 20 (Yonhap) -- The Japanese government, in an unprecedented move, has acknowledged the existence of a 19th-century document that could prove Japan's longstanding claim over Dokdo, a set of South Korean islets, to be groundless.
Yohan

Wow Did Japanese government finally admit it? ----Which document?

Responding to Yonhap's latest written inquiry sent to Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso, however, the ministry said it knows about the existence of the document drawn up by the Japanese government body called "Daijokan" in Japanese and "Taejeonggwan" in Korean.

Do you mean 1877 Dajoukan documents? It has been well known among Korean and Japanese
researchers. Even an amature like me has already posted it
Armature foreign historians like wedgie and Lovmo knew its existence,
I am sure Japanese government has known it.It is no secret!! When did Japanese government reject acknowledging it ?

And the discussion has taken place between Korean side and Japanese side.
In 1876 document, Internal affair office asked Shimane prefecture about the island 100 ri or so off Oki in the North Sea.This is not about Dokdo because Dokdo is located 80 ri off Oki. This island is probably Ulleungodo or Gwanundo.
In respond to the request, Shimane answered this issue should be sent to Dajoukan with the attached 1877 document.
Let's examine the attached document.
(1)If we focus on the distance in the document and the distance on the map attached. it surely looks as if Matsushima is Dokdo.
(2)However, if we focus on other parts of document describing Matsushima and the Gwanundo on the map it agree with the descriptions of Ulleungdo (or Gwanundo)
The ambiguity remains.
Next let's examine Dajoukan's document. It says Japan has nothing to do with Takeshima and another island.
Takeshima refers to Ulleungdo.The problem is what the "another island" refers to.
The same ambiguity remains.
(a) It might refer to dokdo according to the first interpretation (1)
(b) it might refer to Ulleugdo or Gwanundo according to the second interpretation(2).Moreover if we assume Japan knew the name of Dokdo as Matushima, and yet , she did not use that name "Matsushima" to refer to another land, then it is probable that she did not mean Dokdo by "another island .In addition, considering the fact that Dajoukan made a statement in respond to Shimane and 1876 document above which talked only about the island 100 ri or so off Oki, another island is less likely to be Dokdo.
In any case,

A The ambiguity remains.
B This is internal documents, It does not admit Korea had effective control and Korea did not recognize Dokdo at this time anyway. So it does not affect Japanese title to Dokdo.
C Japan included Dokdo in 1905 when Korea had no effective control over Dokdo before.So this document itself has nothing to do with the title to Dokdo after all.BBS #15/20/16 wedgie/opp/ponta at opp's home page


I wonder why the major Korean newspaper wrote as if Japanese government had admitted the document for the first time.

Why Matsuzaka is Korean, not Japanese.?

A man, apparantely Korean person,* argues that Matsuzaka, who is rumored to play in the American major leageue, is Korean.This is not Korean government's annoucement, it is just one Korean person's speculation.Boston Red Sox Message Board But it might be a good speculation.Let's see.
(*See UPDATE below)

His argument.
General - Why Matsuzaka is Korean, not Japanese. Subscribe
From: moralist Nov-18 9:21 am
"To: ALL (1 of 52)

203150.1

1. In WBC, Ichiro Suzuki made a speech to make light of Korean baseball, but Matsuzaka did not say any word about Korea.

2. One of the players he holds the greatest respect for is Kim Byung Hyun, because he won big fame in Boston Red Sox.

3. Most Japanese girls are addicted to Korean boys and wanna get married with them, and his wife is Japanese.

4. I hear that his grandparents were forced to go to Japan as a labor before Pacific War began. Their real name is Park, but they made themselves Matsuzaka to escape from discrimination in Japan.

5. It is well-known that the brilliant people in Asia are all descended from Koreans. Matsuzaka, having an excellent ability, is Korean, too.



And its reaction
Thanks for sharing. May I present your post to my composition students as an example of logical fallacies?

203150.6 in reply to 203150.5

Koreans pathological mentality is driving people in Taiwan, Japan, and China to their wits' end...

(1) Koreans were once insisting that Ichiro was a Korean. But, their tone suddenly changed when Ichiro said at the WBC preliminary matches in Asia, "We want to outgame opponents to the degree of leaving the impression that Japan is unbeatable coming 30 years." (Ichiro said like that, but intentionally or inadvertently his remark was misleadingly translated in Korea.) Many hyper-reactive anti-Japanese Koreans literally hyper-reacted at his remark. They appears to have felt that they got mocked, and they are still with the feeling of being abused.. In fact, Ichiro didn't mean any insult to anybody. He just wanted to express his enthusiasm for WBC to inspire the team as the team leader. But, since then, many pathological Koreans have harbor deep-seated hatred against Ichiro too persistently.. Interestingly, they suddenly stopped rewording Ichiro was a Korean. Instead, their endless quest to diminish Ichiro began. They cannot stop. Koreans pathological persistence has been sickening Japanese people in every way. This is just one of those examples.

(2) Koreans insist that every shining Asian individual should be a Korean. That's their diseased fancy or pathological idiosyncrasy. In Taiwan, Taiwan people are really dismayed to know that Korean people are now insisting that Chien-Ming Wang (NYY) is a Korean. That made the big TV news in Taiwan, and Japan. Of course, Wang is not a Korean.

(3) In China, the same kind of trouble is happening right now. Koreans are now insisting that Confucius was actually a Korean, and trying to apply for their own ceremony dedicated to Confucius with the UNESCO World Heritage!! Not only this, but they are also insisting that it was the ancient Koreans that invented the Chinese writing system. They are also trying to apply for this surprising allegation with the UNESCO World Heritage in a serious manner. Chinese people are really pissed.

(4) Other hard-to-believe Koreans assertion.. you may laugh.. but they are serious believe it or not...
* David Beckham is a Korean. British people are descended from Koreans.
* Carl Lewis is a Korean.
* Korea is the root of the ancient Mesopotamian, Indus, Egyptian, and Chinese civilizations.

It's only a matter of time that Koreans starts asserting that Jesus Christ was a Korean. This is not a joke. SERIOUS!!

Personally, I suspect that their pathological mentality of this sort is the reflection of their inferiority complex


Hmmm, it seems Matsuzaka is Japanese after all.

UPDATE
Two cents at occidentalism gave a warning as to the nationality of the person who posted it.
Mika Said:

November 20, 2006 at 7:43 am

Some Koreans are now claiming that the Japanese baseball playerr Daisuke Matsuzaka is Korean…You can see another example of their obnoxious boasting and nationalistic lies.
http://www.forums.mlb.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=ml-redsox&msg=203150.1

Two Cents Said:

November 20, 2006 at 9:21 am

Mika,
I’m going to be rather careful about identifying “slimlady,” who claimed Matsuzaka to be a Korean, as indeed a Korean. He/she seems also to have claimed that Ichiro is Korean. It may be a Japanese (maybe a 2-channeler?) posing as a Korean hoping to present Koreans in a bad light. You can’t be really be sure about who is who on the net. As usinkorea has said, on the net, you are only as good as your words. But, unfortunately, you can easily pretend to be someone you are not.two cents at occidentalism

Her argument stands. We should be careful.But I still thinks it is doubtful that a Japanese 2 channeler posted it, for Japanese 2 channeler is notorious for their poor English ability, but as far as I see it, his English is not as bad as Japanese writers. My English is not as good as his.I have never heard of an Japanese American having trouble with Koreans, but some Kyopos are notorious for the their "patriotism" for their mother country. It is more likely that he is ethnic Korean. But yes, we should be careful not to make a hasty judgement. So I should have written, probably Korean American, or I should not have specified the nationallity.I stand corrected.

Chinese Marines

Interestingly, the marines are not stationed where they could be used for an invasion of Taiwan, but in the south, where they can grab disputed islands. While these islands, which control fishing and potential oil fields, are considered disputed, China has already laid claim to some of them by force. In 1974, China fought a naval battle with the Vietnam off the Paracel islands. In 1988, China and Vietnam fought another naval battle, off the Spratly islands. Both of these battles were followed by Chinese troops establishing garrisons on some of the islands. In 1992, Chinese marines landed on Da Lac reef, in the Spratly Islands. In 1995, Chinese marines occupied Mischief Reef, which was claimed by the Philippines.



The Chinese marines are trained and equipped for raiding, not for large scale landings against a defended shore. The latter task is apparently left to army divisions that have been drilled on how to get on, and off, amphibious ships. While the Chinese marines might play a part in a Taiwan invasion, their full time job appears to be in the South China Sea, where the Chinese stand ready to grab more islands, if the economic advantages seem high enough.Military news


See, economic development of China is okay,but military build-up is a threat to Japan.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Nobi--Korean slave before colonization

I began this study intending to tell the story of the nobi in their own words, but I quickly discovered no narrative of nobi life written by a nobi has yet been unearthed. It may be that no such narrative exists despite the fact that the nobi system was part of Korean society from the time of its earliest recorded history, and the nobi made up 30 percent to 40 percent of the total population during times of the nobi system's greatest expansion.

beings: human beings whose services were indispensable to maintaining their privileged way of life, but also property that could be bought and sold, inherited, given as gifts, and punished at will. Unless we understand this seemingly contradictory nature of the nobi-master relationship, we cannot begin to understand its complex reality. A part of this dehumanization of the nobi in the mind of the yangban owners can be seen in the names given to them. Commonly, a nobi had no family name but only a two-character name that looks more like a nickname than a common Korean given name, as for example, Makchong (male), Songno (male), Pun'gae (female), Ch'un'gae (female), and so forth. In most of these, one of the two hanmun characters in these names appears to represent not its original hanmun sense but what its sound might mean in Korean. Thus, for example, the gae of Pun'gae and Ch'un'gae appears to point to the Korean word gae meaning a dog. Similarly in the case of Makchong, the mak suggests, not its hanmun sense, but what its sound might mean in Korean, something like any/all. Thus, combined with the hanmun character chong denoting a male laborer between the ages of sixteen and sixty, the two-character name, Makchong, would mean something like an all-purpose male servant/worker. In the names of male nobi such as Songno and Dongno, the second character, no, simply denotes he is a nobi: thus the names mean literally Song-nobi, Dong-nobi, and so on.

Broadly speaking, there were two categories of nobi: the kongnobi (or kwannobi), that is, state-owned nobi, and the sanobi, privately owned nobi. During the Choson dynasty most of the nobi were sanobi. (7) Whether they were state-owned or privately owned, depending on their service obligations they were either ibyok nobi (service nobi) or napgong nobi (tribute-paying nobi). The ibyok nobi were those who were in service in person (whether to a public agency or private master), while the napgong nobi were those who were obligated to make an annual tribute payment in lieu of their personal service. In the case of the sanobi (privately owned nobi) most of the napgong nobi were also called oego nobi (outside-resident nobi) because they lived some distance away from the owner, whereas most of the ibyok nobi were also called solgo nobi (service nobi) because they lived in the household of or in the vicinity of the owner's household. The oego nobi (outside-resident nobi), however, could be summoned by the owner to serve as a solgo nobi (service nobi) whenever the owner required the nobi's service either in his own household or that of his children or kin. The oego nobi's outside-resident status thus appears to have been a privilege granted or revoked at the pleasure of the owner.

More of the oego nobi (outside-resident nobi), both male and female, were married and lived as a family unit, whereas more of the solgo nobi (service nobi) were unmarried single men and women, who lived as dependents of the owner. A minority of the solgo nobi who were married and had a family would ordinarily live on their own either in the same village as the owner or in the vicinity and would be in service in person to the owner either full-time or part-time. If in service part-time, they would also be working on their own in spinning and weaving, sericulture, handicrafts, agriculture, and the like or hiring out their services to another master. (8) Although precise figures are hard to come by, it is estimated by most students of the nobi that at its peak from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, the nobi, both public and private together, constituted 30 percent to 40 percent of the country's total population. (9) A gradual decline of the nobi system began in the middle of the seventeenth century and accelerated after the 1730s. The system all but disappeared by the second half of the nineteenth century. The nobi system as a legal institution was not abolished until the Kabo Reform of 1894-95. (10)


The nobi's indispensability in the daily life of the yangban household is perhaps best illustrated by the way the yangban saw the role of the nobi in their own lives. They thought of them as their sujok, meaning hands and feet. (16) But in fact, the nobi were much more than their sujok, for they were, as one scholar put it:

... not only the yangban's hands and feet but also acted as their ears, eyes, and nose. They provided the food for the yangban and his family by planting and harvesting the crops; cut the firewood and cooked their meals and warmed their rooms; not only prepared fodder for their horse but also had the horse ready when their masters rode out, hence they were the yangban's hands and feet. [And] whenever there was any news, happy or sad, they carried the news to their master's friends living far away and also reported back whatever they heard and saw on their errands, and thus, they were [also] the yangban scholars' and scholar-officials' eyes, ears, and mouth. (17)Unheard voices: the life of the nobi in O Hwi-mun's Swaemirok.

Source: Korean Studies

Publication Date: 01-JAN-03

Author: Kim, Kichung

Saturday, November 18, 2006

South Korea ----returning to militarism??

I came across the following article while internet surfing. You know, South Korea replaced some ministers, Roh appointed Lee Jae-joung, a hawkish as Defence Minister.

And Korean military is now working on nuclear defense plans

The JCS is now developing a three-stage nuclear defense concept - deterrence, surgical strike and damage control.

Surgical strike is considered as part of the second stage of the plan.

The JCS mulls the use of South Korea's conventional weapons to destroy North Korea's nuclear arsenal when an attack becomes imminent, according to the sources.

In the event of such a preemptive strike, the JCS plans to use F-15K fighter jets to drop satellite-guided JDAM bombs or fire 280-kilometer range SLAM-ER missiles at the North's nuclear installations. Those weapons can hit the target with an error of margin of 3 metersKorea herald



Hey,Hey, wait a minute, do you remember what South Korea said when some Japanese politicians said Japan should ponder preemptive attack on North Korea?

South Korea Tuesday accused Japan of returning to its past militarism by suggesting a possible pre-emptive strike on North Korea, in a sharp split over the response to Pyongyang's missile tests.

South Korea, at a meeting of top officials, renewed its condemnation of Pyongyang's missile launches last week but was unsparing in its criticism of the "arrogant" former colonial power Japan.

"It is a serious development that Japanese cabinet ministers have made a series of comments that justify a possible pre-emptive strike and the use of military power against the Korean peninsula," said Jung Tae-Ho, spokesman for President Roh Moo-Hyun.

"We cannot but maintain vigilance as it has unveiled Japan's expansionist nature," he said in a statement after a meeting of Roh and his top aides.Tokyo (AFP) Jul 11, 2006


Hmmm, is South Korea unveiling the expansionist nature?

Friday, November 17, 2006

Does a intercepting a missile violate the constitution?

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has caused a commotion by calling for a study on whether Japan can intercept a missile heading to the United States, an act that critics say would violate the Constitution. The official government position is that Japan, under its constitutional constraints, cannot shoot down a ballistic missile for the defense of a third country

I don't understand why the peace constitution bans shooting down the aggressive missile heading to the US. It is not setting fire, rather it is extinguishing the fire.

Article 9:

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

The point is how to interpret "as means of settling international dispute". Sure in one interpretation, the use of force is forbidden unless it is in the case of self-defence. However, the point of Article 9 is to prevent Japan to become an aggressor. Intercepting missiles is not an aggressive action, and it is rather for the prevention of the (authentic) use of force as a means of settling international dispute. I think this interpretation is in line with the spirit of the article.



Similarly, the government said Japan cannot intercept a missile in the midcourse phase, outside the Earth's atmosphere, unless it is clearly coming in Japan's directionasahi

This is an stupid argument. When it turns out it is clearly coming in Japan's direction, it wil be probably too late.

Germans Attack the United States

Germans Attack the United States
November 17, 2006: Lawfare has now gone international, with a lawsuit against American officials, filed in Germany, by the Center for Constitutional Rights. The suit, targeting Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and former CIA Director George Tenet, is aimed at getting the German government to investigate alleged war crimes that have, to date, been shown to have little basis in reality. Germany was selected as a venue for this lawsuit due to the fact that it claims universal jurisdiction over war crimes. This means that any war crime committed by anyone anywhere on the globe can be tried in a German court. And anyone can bring a suit in a court in the Western world.

military news

This wasfrom Military news, but TIME brings up a different aspect of story.
"The utter and complete failure of U.S. authorities to take any action to investigate high-level involvement in the torture program could not be clearer," says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a U.S.-based non-profit helping to bring the legal action in Germany. He also notes that the Military Commissions Act, a law passed by Congress earlier this year, effectively blocks prosecution in the U.S. of those involved in detention and interrogation abuses of foreigners held abroad in American custody going to back to Sept. 11, 2001. As a result, Ratner contends, the legal arguments underlying the German prosecutor's previous inaction no longer hold up.

Whatever the legal merits of the case, it is the latest example of efforts in Western Europe by critics of U.S. tactics in the war on terror to call those involved to account in court. In Germany, investigations are under way in parliament concerning cooperation between the CIA and German intelligence on rendition — the kidnapping of suspected terrorists and their removal to third countries for interrogation. Other legal inquiries involving rendition are under way in both Italy and Spain.

U.S. officials have long feared that legal proceedings against "war criminals" could be used to settle political scores. In 1998, for example, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet — whose military coup was supported by the Nixon administration — was arrested in the U.K. and held for 16 months in an extradition battle led by a Spanish magistrate seeking to charge him with war crimes. He was ultimately released and returned to Chile. More recently, a Belgian court tried to bring charges against then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for alleged crimes against Palestinians.

For its part, the Bush Administration has rejected adherence to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on grounds that it could be used to unjustly prosecute U.S. officials. The ICC is the first permanent tribunal established to prosecute war crimes, genocide and other crimes against humanity.Friday, Nov. 10, 2006


Here is Jurist's opinion.
Here is reactions form American blog

Thursday, November 16, 2006

The Army 'approved abuse of prisoners'/UK

THE Army's high command was accused last night of officially sanctioning the hooding and mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners in direct contravention of the Geneva Convention.

Five members of The QLR and two from the Intelligence Corps are on trial. One of the prisoners, Baha Musa, died after 36 hours of being hooded, handcuffed, beaten and deprived of sleep.times on line

Geneva Conventions

Hanoi meeting.

The Japanese government official said that the United States and Japan — Washington’s top ally in East Asia — had already been working on an acceleration of missile defenses, and that the Aso-Rice meeting was confirmation of that effort.By Joseph Coleman
Associated Press


FOREIGN Minister Alexander Downer flagged that an agreement on closer defence ties between Japan and Australia could be finalised within months.November 17, 2006 02:02am


Okay, Japan is on the right track.


Well how about Korea?

Bush, Roh will meet in Hanoi


Analysts say the two leaders won't have much to discussNovember 16, 2006


Hmmm, Is Korea going a different way. Well, if that is her choice, i have no complaint.

Tibetan cause and Japan

Accepting the fact that Japanese government has so far been diplomatically very meek on the Tibetan issue, Mr. Makino said that things are now starting to show up of the need to support the Tibetan cause.

Mr. Makino said that owing to various factors, the Japanese government’s attitude towards the Communist China is now shifting. “There are some important and influential leaders within the Japanese Government who now strongly feel their government should raise the issue of Tibet”.Phayul[Thursday, November 16, 2006 21:57]
By Phurbu Thinley
Phayul Correspondent


It is a bit late but It is a good sign. Japan should be more involved with the cause of Tibet.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

The death of a taboo

Some people, including in the US, believe that just discussing Japan's possible nuclear armament can be important and effective strategically, not only as a warning to North Korea but as a "Japan card" to pressure China to work harder to stop Pyongyang developing nuclear weapons. Apparently with the Japan card in mind, US Vice President Dick Cheney once said, "The idea of a nuclear-armed North Korea with ballistic missiles to deliver those will, I think, probably set off an arms race in that part of the world. That's not in China's interest."
Asia times

North Korea is the pressing issue, somehow it needs to be settled.



A second, senior defense official privy to the effort said
the Bush administration recently affirmed its commitment
to both South Korea and Japan that it would use U.S. nuclear
weapons to deter North Korea, now considered an unofficial
nuclear weapon state.
"We will resort to whatever force levels we need to have,
to defend the Republic of Korea. That nuclear deterrence is
in place," said the senior official, who declined to reveal
what nuclear forces are deployed in Asia.The washington times/November 3, 2006


It is not time to be demonstrating "No saction Do dialogue
(I can't laugh at them, though.)

MItsubish and war reparation.

Chinese press case in Japan over forced labor in wartime

By Norimitsu Onishiherald tribune

Oonishi again! I don't like his style of writing but i thank him for quoting
William Underwood .His article "Mitsubishi, Historical Revisionism and Japanese Corporate Resistance to Chinese Forced Labor Redress" is worth reading.
Mitsubishi needs to publicized the facts and should set up the fund for the victims of forced labors.That is not only for the victims, that is also for the company's image of Mitsubishi.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

the history of t'aegwondo's origins

By: Steven D. Capener

Steve Capener is former Chief Instructor of Big Sky Taekwondo at the University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, and continues to be a technical adviser to that organization. He has resided in Seoul, Korea for the past decade, and is a professor at Ehwa University.
The overemphasis on establishing and asserting t'aegwondo's indigenous Korean origins and development, however, has actually been an impediment to t'aegwondo's potential growth and development. T'aegwondo seems to have reached it's goals of international recognition upon its inclusion as an official sport in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, testimony to the incredible growth of t'aegwondo as a sport in the last 35 years, that t'aegwondo is now grappling with serious philosophic problems, regarding its identity and future development.

The main cause of these problems is found in the history of t'aegwondo's origins. The fact that t'aegwondo was first brought into Korea from Japan in the form of Japanese karate around the time of the liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial rule, and the way this fact has been dealt with in Korea has left many serious inconsistencies [81] in the way t'aegwondo has been developed within Korea and propagated abroad.

This process of development can be broadly outlined as follows: Japanese karate called kongsudo or tangsudo was introduced to Korea just after liberation from Japan by Koreans who had learned karate in Japan. Upon returning, these Koreans opened karate gymnasiums promoting what they were teaching as karate, much like the process followed by the early Judo instructors. Well after these schools became established, the need to "Koreanize" was felt. The process of Koreanization consisted of three main aspects. The first was the selection of a new, non-Japanese name. The second was the creation of a system of techniques and training which was distinctly different from that of karate, and the third was the attempt to establish t'aegwondo's existence and development within tile historical flow of Korean civilization. The development of a new system of techniques and training was under-taken by moving away from karate's nature as a martial art of self-defense through the development of t'aegwondo as a sport? This has been called the "competitionalization" or sportization of t'aegwondo.
This, however, is where the problems which still plague t'aegwondo had their genesis. First of all, the concept of martial art based on the Chinese philosophical concept of tao was developed in Japan beginning with the transformation of swordmanship from a battlefield necessity to a form of philosophic human movement.4 This philosophical concept, as it was applied to fighting skills by the Japanese, did not exist in Korea. Rather, during the last half of the Choson dynasty, physical activity, especially of a martial nature, became all object of scorn and a sign of low breeding as seen in the royal court attitude of valuing learning and disregarding martial skill. Koreans' first concrete exposure to this concept of martial art was through the martial arts training judo and kendo under the militaristic education policy effected by the Japanese during the colonial period. This concept was reinforced with the entry of karate into Korea. The propagation of the philosophies associated with karate flourished as did many other Japanese policies and methodologies. This was especially true in the sport and physical education realms as can be seen by the fact that the faculty of the physical education department of Seoul National University at that time consisted almost exclusively of Japanese trained educators whose teaching and training methods were exclusively Japanese.STUDENT FORUM from Korea Journal, Winter, 1995.

Courtesy University of Montana Big Sky Taekwondo Association


http://www.donga.com/docs/magazine/new_donga/200204/nd2002040010.html
Shocking Confessions of Tae kwon do’s History by Lee Zong-wu (이종우: I don’t know if I spelled it right)

Section on “권법 1단에서 태권도 9단으로”
1st Level in Kempo Equivalent to 9th Level in Tae Kwon Do

“그곳이 바로 일제시대 유도 도장이었는데, 그때는 조선연무관이라는 간판을 내걸고 유도부와 권법부를 만들었어요. 그때부터 권법부에서 가라테를 배운 거죠. 권법이 바로 일본 가라테거든요. 일본말로 부르면 국민감정도 있고 하니까 권법이라고 부른 겁니다.”
The place (where I learned martial arts after liberation) was originally a judo gym during the Japanese occupation. It was renamed the Chosun marital arts gym, and two sections were made - the judo section and the kempo (拳法) section. That is where I leaned kempo. Kempo was no other than Japanese karate. But calling it that would go against popular sentiment at the time, so we called it kempo.”

“당수(唐手)로 쓰는 사람도 있고 공수(空手)라고 쓰는 사람도 있었죠. 당수나 공수를 일본말로 옮기면 가라테가 되거든. 모두 같은 내용인데 도장별로 특색 있게 보이기 위해 권법이다 당수도다 공수도다 그렇게 불렀어요.”
There were people who referred to the art as Tansu (唐手) and Konsu (空手), but when translated into Japanese, they’re all the same. The contents were the same too, but people tried to make themselves look original by calling themselves by different faction names.

Section: 최홍희와의 인연과 악연
Relations Good and Bad with Che Hongfui (崔泓煕??)

그 뒤 최홍희가 부대에서 여러가지를 조합해 무술을 만들었는데, 그게 모두 일본 거예요. 가라테를 기본으로 만든 거죠. 가라테를 기본으로 하고 명칭만 태권이라고 했으니까, 아예 처음부터 가라테라고 인정한 우리가 더 순수하죠.
After that (the name tae kwon had been chosen by Che), Che combined many forms of marital arts in the army to create tae kwon, but we were all worked together. Tae kwon do was founded upon karate. The association named its creation Tae kwon while the basics were all from karate. That is why I believe we, who insisted on calling it karate were more pure in our motive.

Section: 초창기 태권도는 가라테의 변형
A Derivative of Karate in the Early Stages

초창기에는 태권도를 해외에 보급하는 과정에서 옛날부터 있었던 한국의 전통무술이라고 하면 명분도 서고 잘 먹혀들었어요. 하지만 아무리 유사성이 있더라도 그것은 사실과 다른 겁니다. 역사적 원류로 본다면 중국 것이 일본으로 들어갔고 일본 것이 한국으로 들어왔다고 해야 설득력이 있죠. 일본 사람들이 중국 무술을 많이 개량해서 과학적으로 만들었어요. 한가지 문제가 뭐냐 하면 일본 사람들은 유연성보다 근육성에 바탕을 두고 운동을 만들었단 말이에요. 그러니까 몸의 움직임이 굳을 수밖에 없죠.
In the early days when promoting tae kwon do abroad, saying that it was a traditional Korean martial arts attracted more people. However, even if there seems to be some resemblances, that is simply not true. The history that Chinese martial artswas introduced into Japan and then introduced into Korea is far more convincing. The Japanese made many modifications to the Chinese martial arts, and made it into a scientific one. One problem is that the Japanese gave priority to muscular strength than flexibility, that is why the motions are stiffer in karate.

―그렇다면 우리 전통무예와의 유사성은 없다는 얘기입니까.
“언뜻 보기에는 있는 것 같지만, 기본기가 완전히 달라요. 그래서 사실상 유사성이 없다고 봐야 합니다. 택견도 현대에 와서 많이 변질됐어요. 태권도 하던 사람들이 택견을 배우니까 발차기가 태권도 스타일로 나오는 거죠.”
Interviewer: Does that mean that there are no similarities between our traditional martial arts (and tae kwon do)?
At a glance, there appears to be similarities. However, the basic forms are totally different. That is why I must conclude that there are none. Tae kyon has been transformed in modern times. People who had previously learned Tae kwon do learn Tae Kyon and end up with a tae kwon do-style kick.

My conclusion: Since Tae kwon do developed from karate and the basics of tae kwon do seems to lack semblance to traditional Korean martial arts (tae kyon), I don’t see how the introduction of traditional Korean martial arts into Okinawa (though I have yet to see the source for this claim) could have influenced the development of karate.two cents at occidentalism

Dokdo in the silver pavilion at Kyoto





This is 'Temple of the Silver Pavilion in Kyoto.
Someone wrote hangul letters 독도 on the bamboo handrail. It means Dokdo.Whoever did it, don't do it.

via厳選韓国情報

Sunday, November 12, 2006

comfort women---Ministry of Gender Equality in Korea


This photo is from the Korean site of
Ministry of Gender Equality (via jijisama)
On the left is the advertisement for comfort women in Seoul newspaper(京城新聞)


...................................................................................
Comfort women Recruitment
Age: from 17 to 23
place:comfort station following 700 unit
wage:300 yen a month (and the advance loan of 3,000 yen at the maxim is also possible)
Visit us from 8a.m. to 10p.m.
Imai agency
.................................................................................

What should be noticed is who recruited women and how much they are paid.

Imai agency is a private entity and the woman were recruited through the private citizen and they applied for the job for 300 yen a month when the starting salary for the police was 45 yen a month. link

This is different from Korean claim that comfort women were forcefully abducted by the authority of Japanese army.

As I wrote before, Japanese army was involved in the comfort station in that it regulated illegal pimps, it regulated the rule of comfort station, it carried out VD tests. And Japanese soldiers used the comfort station.

Remember Korea has had the similar system during the Korean war, after the Korean war around American town in Korea. I wonder why the Korean ministry keep ignoring this aspect of gender equality.
................................................................................

The advertisement in question is on page 384 the book by Hata.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Yi Sunshin

Yi Sunsin

パク研究員は「李舜臣、帝国と植民地の間で」という論文を通じて「李舜臣将軍を『民族の守護者』『東洋のネルソン』と作り上げたのは日本」とし「日清戦争を控えた1892年、日本の現役陸軍大尉である柴山尚則が書いた『李舜臣伝』が李舜臣を世界史の名将に仕立てた母胎だった」と主張した。

彼は「3.1運動以後、文一平(ムン・イルピョン)、申采浩(シン・チェホ)、李光洙(イ・グァンス)らがそれぞれ李舜臣に関する論文などを発表した」とし「李舜臣を『救国の英雄』と表したのは日中戦争以後の総動員体制で、植民地朝鮮と帝国日本の間の内鮮一体と統合を強調する論理として活用された」と主張した。ハ教授は「火旺山城(ファワンサンソン)の記憶」という論文を通じて「1597年、加藤清正の侵略を郭再祐将軍が慶南昌寧火旺山城で塞いだという記録は実在より誇張されている」と主張した。彼は「もともと火旺山城は戦争がない疎開先にすぎなかった」とし「137年の歳月が経った1734年に出版された『倡義(チャンイ)録』を通じて火旺山城の記憶は誇張され始めた」と明らかにした。


2006.06.20 12:33:36中央日報JoongAngDaily/2006.06.20 12:33:36


Translation

A researcher Pak claims that it is Japan that invented "the protector of the country" and "the oriental Nelson"" out of Yi Sunshin. Japanese captain Shibayama wrote the book "the story of Yin Sunshi" and that was the first book that made Yi Sunshin a famous admiral of the world history. After the 1919 independence movement, (Korean)people like 文一平 ,申采浩,李光洙 began to write the article about Yin Sunshi and Yin Sunshi was put as the hero who saved the country to emphasize the logic of unification of Japan and Korea under the mobilization system after sino-Japanese war. Another professor Ha claims that story that Yin Sunshin saved the castle of 火旺山in 1597 against Japanese admiral Kato is bloated; the place is not the battle field in the first place---it was evacuation place. The story began to be bloated after the publication of 倡義録 in 1734, 137 years after the battle.



国文学者の著者は李舜臣(イ・スンシン)、金玉均(キム・オッキュン)、明成皇后など、歴史上の人物たちが近現代史の筋目ごとに小説やドラマで大衆の前に呼び起こされてきた要因を掘り下げる。

 1945年に日本支配から独立後、歴代政権が李舜臣を英雄化することで民族の正統性を強調してきたのは親日に対する恥ずかしさを隠すためだったという解釈がそうだ。


朝鮮日報 2005/03/07Chosun

the author claims the reason Yin Sunsin, Kim Okyun, and the Queen Min ,, were brought to life to the Korean public by dramas and novels after the Korean Independence was the desperate attempt to hide the shameful fact that Korea was pro-Japanese, by making them heroes, emphasizing the legitimacy of Korean race.( Here I am roughly summarizing and translating what is written. )ponta at occidentalism

The last one Yi participated was actually after Hideyosi’s death, and the Chinese and Korean forces attacked Japanese forces that were trying to pulling out from Korea (the Japanese did not wish to continue the war after their leader had died). And the Japanese did succeed in that with minimal loss, while Yi was killed by Shimazu forces,It’s interesting that the so-called “great victory” is not recorded by the Japanese as any great defeat, and major daimyos like Shimazu, Kato and Konishi still went on to be significant players in the post Hideyoshi-era. The Japanese completed its goal of retreating from the Korean peninsula with minimal loss. Maybe the Chinese and the Koreans some how misinterpreted the retreat of the Japanese as their “great victory”.tomato at occiendalism

Korea

kaya(gaya)=mimana

Yi Sunshin

Hangul

Koguryo

The Origins of the Japanese People

The late Chosun period

Korea/late Chosun period/interpretation

social class in Chosun period

nobi Korean slave before Japanese rule

Mongol and Korean invasion of Japan

Sadae Ideology( Serving the Great) 事大主義

On the road to the annexation

Queen Min

population under Japanese rule

Economy under Japanese rule

landownership-in-korea-under-japanese rule

Culture under Japanese rule

Scenery of Korea under Japanese rule

War collabolatoin under Japanese rule

Korean women under Japanese rule

comfort woman under Japanese rule

Comfort woman before and after Japanese rule

Torture under Japanese rule

Labor conscription under Japanese rule

were-land-and-rice-confiscated?

Massacres of civillians under and after Japanese rule

High status Koreans and pro-Japanese under Japanese rule

Memories of Japanese rule

Apology and reparation for Japanese rule

how history is being used in Korea

how history is seleceted by Korean people

Korean War in Korean history textbook

repatriation-movement-of-koreans

Tsushima belongs to Japan

history-of-taegwondo

Samurai and Saurabi

Instant noodle
Letfist Korean historian's interpetation of Korean war

how history is being used against USA

Freedom of speech in Korea

n-general-korea-has-tougher
restrictions on hardcore pornography than developed nations like Japan and the United States,?


under the black umbrella

Utro village

articles
concerning "lies"


Kim ku 金九

The Assassination of D.W. Stephens and the Tonghak leaders, Chon Bong Jun(marmot)


Durham Stevens

The origin of hangul

'Phags-pa script
Ledyard believes that the traditional account of the derivation of the hangul consonants from the shapes of the speech organs, as described in the Hunmin Jeong-eum, is a post hoc explanation, and that the core of hangul derives from the Mongol Phagspa alphabet of the Yuan dynasty, known as the 蒙古篆字 měnggǔ zhuānzì or Mongol seal scriptwiki

GarlicBreath

In July, 1894, Mr Otori made the useful innovation of publishing the Gasette in clear type, and inthe following January it appeared in a mixture of Chinese hieroglyphs and En-mun, the "vulgar script" of Korea, and became intelligible to the common people.

p374 Isabella L. Bird

Koguryo and after Koguryo

Three Kingdoms of Korea
the three Korean kingdoms were not genetically related (except maybe for Koguryo and Paekche), and modern day Korea is decended from Silla, which was probably not ethnically related to Japan. Also, you mix up statehood with ethnicity…immigration to Japan predates any state in Korea…just like England is no heir of any German states, Japan (Yamato) is not decended from any of the kingdoms in ancient Korea. And even if there was ethnic relationship, cultures could be very different…like the example I gave…England and Germany. Or even Italy and England, or India, Iran and England (all same Indo-Europeans).tomato at occientalism


http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/HI16Dg01.html

An additional twist is added by the little-known fact that the few surviving Koguryo words seemingly demonstrate that its inhabitants did not speak a language ancestral to modern Korean. The language of Silla was proto-Korean indeed, but the known Koguryo words have close analogues in early Japanese, of all languages. It is not incidental that the only research book on the Koguryo language is called Koguryo: The Language of Japan’s Continental Relatives (by Christopher I Beckwith, published in 2004). Not all linguists would agree with this opinion, but it is shared by the majority and still never mentioned by participants of the discussion.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/sci;300/5619/597

Around 400 B.C., intensive rice agriculture, new pottery styles, and new tools, all based on Korean models, appeared on the southwestmost Japanese island of Kyushu near Korea and spread northeast up the Japanese archipelago. Genes and skeletons of the modern Japanese suggest that they arose as a hybrid population between arriving Korean rice farmers and a prior Japanese population similar to the modern Ainu and responsible for Japan’s earlier Jomon pottery. Modern southwest-to-northeast gene clines in Japan and DNA extracted from ancient skeletons support this interpretation (59, 60). Japanese origins would thus rival Bantu origins as the most concordant and unequivocal example of an agricultural expansion, were it not for the flagrant discordance of the linguistic evidence. If Korean farmers really did become dominant in Japan as recently as 400 B.C., one might have expected the modern Japanese and Korean languages to be as closely similar as other languages that diverged at such a recent date (e.g., German and Swedish), whereas their relationship is in fact much more distant.
The likely explanation is language replacement in the Korean homeland. Early Korea consisted of three kingdoms with distinct languages. The modern Korean language is derived from that of the ancient Korean kingdom of Silla, the kingdom that unified Korea. However, the now-extinct language of one of the two ancient Korean kingdoms that Silla defeated, Koguryo, was much more similar to Old Japanese than is Sillan or modern Korean (61). Thus, a Koguryo-like language may have been spoken by the Korean farmers arriving in Japan, may have evolved into modern Japanese, and may have been replaced in Korea itself by Sillan that evolved into modern Korean.Tomato at occidentalism


Similarity between the words in old Koguryo and old Japanese are also described in the following PDF file. It also shows that the words used in Koguryo/Japan were radically different from Korean words.
http://www.msu.edu/~jk13/Abs.Beckwith.pdf

‘three’
Old Koguryo: mir ; Old Japanese: mi

‘five’
Old Koguryo: ütsi ; Old Japanese: itu

‘child’
Old Koguryo: ku ; Old Japanese: k ú, kwo, ko

‘tree, wood’
Old Koguryo: kir, key ; Old Japanese: kì, ki

‘deep’
Old Koguryo: puk ; Old Japanese: puka- ; Early Middle Korean: kiph u˙n

‘level, flat’
Old Koguryo: piar ; Old Japanese: pira- ; Early Middle Korean: ‘y o˙th o˙/ny o˙th o˙/’yath u˙n

‘valley’
Old Koguryo: tan ; Old Japanese: tani ; Early Middle Korean: kolk o˙iAki at occidentalism

No body denies that in Japan. And noody denies that Japan kept contact with Korean states and imported Chinese culture via Korea.

But this relationship did end very early, as Japan lost her allies in Korea (Koguryo and Paekche…interesting that these states may be ethnically related to Japan) and Silla and the later Koryo kingdom being essentially Japan’s enemy, Japan had to sail directly to China to learn advanced technologies and cultures of the day (which was very dangerous back in the 7th Centrury). So, the Korean claim on having cultural infulence on Japan is still much exaggeratedtomato


When Japan lost her allies Koguryo and Paekche, Japan was cut off from the Korean penninsula and had to cross the storm-infested East China Sea with primitive ships to get direct access. Many people were lost at sea, you know… So, whenever I hear Koreans saying that they taught the barbaric Japanese civilization, I would have to doubt how much they really know…and wonder where the arrogance comes from? Some Chinese risked their lives to give the Japanese enlightenment.tomato


See alsoKaya
Historical Controversy/The Asia Pages