Talk:Korea/Archive 1

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I feel there should be a section on Korean politics in this article. --optimistic-x 07:51, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
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:Following the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II, Korea was liberated. 
It wasn't liberated. It was just conquered by different countries.
Sounds much like Soviet "liberation" of Warsaw and Berlin. Taw 14:00 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)
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I changed the above slightly. What war broke out in 1950? Are the two Korea's still seperate countries? (I think so, but geography is hardly my strongsuit). I think some attention should be given to the current economical position of Korea. (or perhaps split up in North and South Korea?? Same for issues like religion, education, you name it. This needs work. 
kh7 19:14 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)
Bluelake August 5, 2003: I notice someone is having a fit when it comes to romanization.  It looks like most everything that was written into the "official" romanized system by one person was changed to the old M-R system by another.  Personally, for some things I like the old M-R system (i.e. well-known words, such as family and place names), but many others look better, IMO, with the "newer" system (i.e. 'Hanja', instead of 'Hancha').
It is not the point but I don't think "Hancha" conforms to the standard M-R system. As far as I know, a nonaspirated initial consonant after a vowel, -n, -m, -ng or -l is spelled the voiced counterpart if there is. --Nanshu
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Korean) soax
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Historical question, see the mention of the 1945 Cairo meeting, but have also seen a "Cairo Joint Communique" references (one place from google) in 1943.  Is this a typo on their part, or another Cairo meeting?
-- ~ender 2003-09-05 13:40:MST
2nd reference: http://www.history.navy.mil/books/field/ch1d.htm (google cache)
"By 1943, however, American thinking with regard to Korea had advanced to the point of contemplating that liberation from Japan would be followed by an international trusteeship.  The communiqué of the Cairo Conference promised Korean independence "in due course," and both at Yalta and at Moscow discussion of the trusteeship idea resulted in apparent general agreement."
-- ~ender 2003-09-07 04:31:MST
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I reverted a heavily biased edit by User:172.192.49.113. Tuf-Kat 06:14, Sep 5, 2003 (UTC)
:172.194.4.175, please read NPOV.  You can't describe Japan's rule as inhumane exploitation; instead, explain who think it was so and why, and who disagrees and why. Tuf-Kat 06:28, Sep 5, 2003 (UTC)
::I've just reverted changes by User:172.192.102.200 for the same reasons as above diwiki 10:44, 14 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

message: "During the night of the August 10th and early hours of August 11, Col. Charles H. Bonesteel, Chief of the Policy Section, US Army Operations Division, and Lt. Col. Dean Rusk, later to become assistant secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs 1947-1960; Secretary of State 1961-1969 and the main architect of the
Vietnam War, formulated General Order No. 1. James Bymes, US Secretary of State in 1945, instructed the young colonels to draw up a line "as far north as possible". The colonels were unable to find a detailed map of Korea and ended up using a small wall map of the Far East. Lt. Col. Rusk's fingers found the 38th parallel on the tiny map."
"Stalin named his price. His wish list included splitting Korea at the 38th Parallel, Sakhalin's southern half, the Kurile islands, preeminence in Manchuria, Port Arthur, and free use of the Chinese railroads. Stalin promised to enter the war in two or three months after the German surrender. The division of Korea was not entirely original. Similar proposals for Russian sphere
of influence in the North, and a Japanese sphere in the South, had been called for during the last years of the tottering dynasty nearly a half-century ago."
So it seems funny that everyone is surprised when Russians accept the 38th as a division point.  What is amazing is that Russians pull back at that point to behind the 38th parallel.
:Also, at the outbreak of the Korean War, Russia abstained from the UN Security Council vote on sending forces to Korea (they probably would have vetoed the US initiative if they had voted).  --Sewing 15:46, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: In addition to Chinese customs, there are Korean customs as well.  禮儀 might be better translated as "rules of ceremony" (according to my Cantonese-English dictionary), or perhaps more loosely, "ceremonial observance(s)."  And 東方 strictly means "eastern direction" or "eastern region": it only means "east of China" in a Chinese (or Sino-Korean) context.  Thus, a more accurate translation would be: "The country of ceremonial observances located to the east [of China]."--Sewing 15:46, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)

text: I've done Culture of South Korea and today found Music of Korea (which wasn't linked to Korea at all...) If someone just copied bits and pieces, I think we'd have a good start. I haven't the time right now... DiruWiki 20:24, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: The Culture of South Korea page looks great!--But I renamed it Culture of Korea, since I think the article applies equally to both North and South.  Keep up the good work...  --Sewing 03:58, 5 Oct 2003 (UTC)

text: Great work from your side! DiruWiki 22:17, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.  Like you, I have discovered a lot of excellent articles written by different people (Korean War, Korean Buddhism) that aren't linked to from anywhere.  So that's why I'm trying to focus on the List of Korea-related topics now.  I also want to standardize the article titles for kings and queens, so today I created lists of the kings and queens of Silla and Goguryeo  --Sewing 22:25, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

text: Wait a sec, it doesn`t make sense for there to be an article entitled "Culture of North Korea" but not one called "Culture of South Korea". Either the "Culture of North Korea" article must be removed as well, or both pages need to be restored as before. Or perhaps a new article called "Culture of South Korea" could be created to describe cultural aspects not shared by the North? --Ce garcon 03:23, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Splitting of Korea

message: I have moved the history bit to their own article and summarized the bits here. Kokiri 21:24, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I definitely agree. Four or five short paragraphs at most would be enough on this article. I would do the summary, but I'm sure it would be remagnified (leading to pointless duplication of more detailed content elsewhere) unless we put a notice on the article itself to stop adding to the history. Iceager 03:10, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I've done my best to summarise (although I feel I should go farther). I've added a notice to dissuade people from lengthening the section; I don't know how effective/appropriate that is. --Iceager 05:54, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

text: The publication technique of movable type was invented in Korea in 1232 (although already invented about 200 years before in China by Bi Sheng, where it was not very successful, it can be assumed that it was invented in Korea analogically)
If it was invented elsewhere, how can it be assumed "analogically" that moveable printing was "re-invented" in Korea in 1232?  This part needs re-writing to be fair and accurate to Mr Bi Sheng. Mandel 12:14, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I have already made the change. Mandel 10:39, 20 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: History

message: I see that currently, Korean Peninsula redirects to Korea. I would argue that since these are not the same thing, there should be two separate articles (cf. Scandinavia vs Scandinavian Peninsula). Historically, "Korea" has neither been confined to the Korean peninsula with the current boundaries (the rivers Yalu and Tumen) nor has there been a complete absence of "non-Korean" elements on the Korean peninsula (eg. the Jurchens, traditionally regarded as "foreign" from the Korean point of view). I suggest that most of the content her be preserved and a new article created at Korean Peninsula focusing on the geographical entity, and I will work on this unless there is a compelling argument against it. --Iceager 08:51, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: For what it's worth, I say go for it.  You are quite right: the country (countries) and peninsula are two different things, and it's just a convenient gloss to treat them as one.  It's just so much work teasing apart articles (Just about as hard as merging two articles, I suppose!), so you're on your own....  --Sewing 19:45, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

text: I've created a separate Korean Peninsula page and modified the Korea article. I'm too lazy to do more work, but hopefully, invisible Wiki forces will carry on what I've started. --Iceager 03:52, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice start. Kokiri 22:34, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Korea vs Korean Peninsula

message: There are quite a few links to Japan in Korean topics that actually mean Empire of Japan. (I'm guilty of many of these links.) Just bear the existence of this article in mind when linking... Kokiri 22:34, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Japan

message: I think "Korea" should be a disambiguation page with one link to the peninsula, one to the Republic of Korea, and one to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Juppiter 18:40, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Disambiguation

message: I don't really know what to do with the flag.  It is not an official flag of either country.  But it is a widely recognized symbol used at international sporting events.  So I put it in the "Korea in sporting events" section, which is near the top of the page.  -Sewing - talk 15:16, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Flag

message: Don't want to weigh into the changing the page just yet but am aware of the following:
* Motive: The Queen wanted to be friendly with the Russians to keep the Japanese honest.
* Opportunity: Miura was a former senior army general and was the Japanese Government's representative in Korea and he directed a group of military attaches.
* Aftermath: Miura and his assasins were tried in Japan and acquitted in a sham trial.
IMHO, it is very clear the Japanese Government authorised the assasination.
PockyChoc 21:43, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: The assasination of the Queen

message: Tyler111 has added a number of images to this page originally from http://www.lifeinkorea.com// , I have reported these (seeming) copyright violations.　--Ce garcon 14:56, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible copyright violation?

message: I've just added an image to the Template:Korea-geo-stub, featuring a map and the yin/yang. Basically the image is the map superimposed on a slightly rotated yin-yang in such way that the red area almost exactly coincides with north korea and the blue with South Korea. I realise that any image relating to the whole Korean peninsula is likely to be a diplomatically thorny item, so can I ask regular posters to this topic (especially any Koreans) to check that the image is not "culturally insensitive". if it is, then please feel free to change it before it causes any offence! (please either comment here or on my talk page)  Grutness|hello?  07:11, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Korea geo stub image

message: Is any of the informations on Bai-dal, the Mongols, and the Huns verified to be relevent? 68.72.124.166 22:15, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Weird

message: === (Resolved) Age of the written language: 500/5000 years ===
I noticed that 128.54.199.233 recently changed the age of the written language from 5,000 years to 500 years. I want to assume good faith and not say this is vandalism, but sources such as this one suggest that the written language is indeed about 5,000 years old. Could someone with more knowledge of Korea verify this for me? --Deathphoenix 15:00, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputed 

message: I noticed that 128.54.199.233 recently changed the age of the written language from 5,000 years to 500 years. I want to assume good faith and not say this is vandalism, but sources such as this one suggest that the written language is indeed about 5,000 years old. Could someone with more knowledge of Korea verify this for me? --Deathphoenix 15:00, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  (Resolved) Age of the written language: 500/5000 years 

message: :The people of Go-Joseon are referred to as the eastern bowmen in historical text.
This single sentence is hopelessly erroneous. It is a hard job to point out all errors. This time, I explain why the term "eastern bowmen" is wrong.
First of all, the character/word 夷 has no such meaning. Look it up in a Chinese dictionary. Tz'u-yüan 辭源 would be nice for checking historical usages. Tz'u-yüan includes awfully rare usages, but we cannot find the meaning of bowmen among 14 meanings of yi. As far as we know, there is no document uses 夷 in the sense of bowmen.
The Korean claim would be based on an old theory about the grapheme of yi. Shuowen Jiezi by Xu Shen states 从大从弓. Xu Shen thought that the grapheme of 夷 followed 大 and 弓. But this does not conform to its meaning: 平也. His theory on the graphic form does not mean that 夷 stands for a big arrow, bowmen or any other meaning related to archery. Actually, researches on oracle script and bronzeware script lead a different theory.
The prototype of the current grapheme of yi can be traced back to seal script (Xu Shen dealt with seal script characters). But the forms of yi in oracle script and bronzeware script are different. They are identical with those of shi 尸 (corpse). They do not look like an big arrow but a side view of sitting posture. In addition 夷衾 (quilt covering a corpse), 夷槃 (plate on which a corpse is put) and other words indicate that 夷 was interchangeable with 尸. Bronzeware script literature contains 東夷, 南夷, 東南夷, 淮夷, 夷人 and other uses of yi, but they are all corpse-style graphemes.
There are several approaches to studying Chinese characters. One of those methods is the idea of word family. Inspired by Karlgren, Todo Akiyasu classified Chinese characters into word families. He grouped 夷 together with 矢, 屍, 指, 視, 低, and 弟, and considered that the common meaning of this word family is "straight and short" or "low". His theory conform to the fact that southern people are generally shorter in height than northern people. Actually, 東南夷 and 淮夷 were semi-fishery people who lived in modern-day Shandong and Jiangsu. This would be unacceptable to Koreans who believe they are tall.
I have brought several aspects of yi that break the Korean bowmen theory. Lastly, I examine the term Dongyi 東夷. Dongyi corresponds to 南蛮, 西戎 and 北狄, but it was from the end of the Warring States Period to the early Han Dynasty that barbarians got associated with fixed directions. Before that, 西夷, 南夷 and 東南夷 were also used. And it was after the Han Dynasty that Dongyi came to refer to people in Manchuria, Korea and Japan. It's a terrible joke to treat Dongyi as a concrete ethnic group that came into existence in mythological times. --Nanshu 12:24, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: To begin with, which era are you talking about? --Nanshu 13:49, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Bowmen?

message: Hello. - 68.23.104.69
There exists archaeological and paleolithic evidence that people were living in the land we now call Korea 40,000 years ago. Bronze age culture, introduced around the 10th century BC at the latest, catalysed early state formation. The first precursor Korean nation called Han-gook (also pronounced Whan-gook) was founded in 7,197 BC originating from Lake Baikal of Siberia and lasted more than 3000 years. As the ice melted Koreans would disperse deeper into the peninsula. The nation of Bai-dal arises after Han-gook then is followed by Go-Joseon. King Chi Wu of Bai-dal was called the "Red Devil" by his enemies because he wore red armor in battle. Even to this day the "Red Devil" King is referenced in Korean pop culture. Eventually, Go-Joseon (Which means "Land of the morning calm") the most important and powerful of these early states was established, and its foundation is highly symbolic holding sentimental value for many Koreans even to this day. According to mythology, all Koreans share the Tan-gun (founder of Go-Joseon) bloodline and are descendants of the gods. After a couple thousand of years, Go-Joseon fell to the Chinese Han Dynasty in 108 BC. Go-Joseon disintegrates to become northern Buyo and later became Goguryeo which is firmly established by the 1st century. The Han established commanderies in the conquered territories as control over the territories switched back and forth from the Han of China, Buyo/Goguryeo of Korea, and then to the Yen of China. The longest lived Chinese incursion would last until Goguryeo destoryed the Chinese controlled territory Lolang (Nangnang) in 313 AD in southern Manchuria.
Doesn't this make perfect sense? - 06:04, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No.  -- Visviva 00:35, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yello! 

message: Perhaps the article should say that the DPRK is Democratic in the Stalinist usage of the word, where Democracy is only a pantomime, and rather than being representative of the people, government is controlled by the politburo or the highest echelons of the ruling party. 
This state of affairs and government is hardly "Marxist", rather is the telltale sign of the so-called socialist governments of the XX Century, of which the DPRK is a sad and terrifying reminder. But again, not so for the Marxist justifications of their policies and excesses (that have themselves little to do with Marxism proper), but for the abuses of its ruling classes, bent on preserving their privileged status quo.
--Agurza 15:54, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Democratic in the Marxist usage of the word? 

message: Considering how xenophobic Koreans as a whole are, 11,000 could be considered a lot of x-pats. It is all a matter of perspective. Of course in reality, 11,000 is not 'very large'.
*Masterhatch
:Your post is offensive.--222.233.205.227 11:53, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  11,000 x-pats 

message: I was under the impression that there was a list of cities in Korea (or South Korea), but looking through the Korea-subject guide I can't find it.  If one or more such lists exist, could some-one please give me the name (I've tried Korean cities, cities of (s.) Korea and other phrases to no avail).  If it doesn't exist, then we should start one (e.g., by stealing from the French or German Wik).
Kim / Kdammers (sign-in not achieved)b 211.225.32.225 06:45, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: List of cities in South Korea. --  Visviva 13:10, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of Korean cities or localities 

message: There are some things about the summary box that are odd.  Currently, it gives Korea the following names: 코리아, 高麗, Koria, K'oria.  These are all individually legitimate, but it's quite strange to give them as equivalents like this.  There was historically a Korean kingdom called 高麗 / 고려 / Goryeo / Koryŏ, which turned into Corea and Korea in European languages; the English pronunciation of this word was much later brought back to Korea and phonetically rendered in Hangul as 코리아.  It's true that 코리아 is used today in S. Korea at least to refer to S. and N. Korea together, but I think that name remains strongly tied to the English word "Korea," and only weakly connected to the kingdom name 고려.  Therefore, it doesn't look right to see 高麗 given as a Hanja equivalent to 코리아.  I'm also not used to seeing the transliterations Koria, K'oria, since these are just back-transliterations of "Korea" - actually, they're Romanizations of a Korean borrowing of the Europeanized version of a Korean name whose parts are derived from Chinese!  I suggest just giving the Hangul version 코리아 and the English name Korea, which are closely associated.  I'll just leave this as a suggestion, and if somebody else (perhaps a native Korean speaker) thinks that makes sense, they can change the info box.  --Reuben 05:20, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name in summary box 

message: the history section seems too long, nearly dupicating the "history of korea" article. anything in this article's history section that's not in the "history" article should be moved there, & this history section summarized to flow better.
the culture section needs to be expanded, i think. Appleby 16:35, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: cleanup needed

message: Is this combining N and S Korea?  If so, is it a meaningful statistic?  I don't know that it makes sense to refer to all of Korea as a single economy.  There's a pretty hefty division between the two.  --Reuben 01:54, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: 11th largest economy in the world