The sign behind the bicycles says "Goguryeo is our history, Gando is our land." The students have been riding their bikes around the country since July 13th, and will continue until August 15th. Sorry about the cellphone pics; more information via this website. You can watch what VANK has to say on the issue, if you'd like:
I don't have any dogs in this fight, but it is funny to watch East Asian nationalists bicker about history and land, trying to see who can put history in the biggest quotation marks.
12 comments:
Ah yes, the beauty of youtube: inter asian squabbles + Asians having to argue points in varying degrees of English proficiency = solid intellectual debate.
who cares about this varying degrees of English proficiency.? Its not a measure of intelligence (and never will be), especially for Asians, Europeans and other countries whose primary language is not English. In cases like this, the most important thing is the ACCURACY of the history that they are pointing out.
"trying to see who can put history in the biggest quotation marks"
Im not a fan of cheap you tube documentaries, nor any websites that discusses history unless the person who did it is qualified to do so. Im so tired of conspiracy theories, delusions (due to extreme nationalism) and I prefer academic credentials rather than personal interests, passion or whatever.
Regardless of what official position South Korea takes, even if it heads a unified Korean government, the ethnic Koreans who have predominated in that region will be itching to join a unified Korea if it remains stable. It would be just one of quite a few separatist movements that the Han Chinese will have to deal with.
I'm referring just to the Kando part, not that whole of ancient Koguryŏ thing.
||who cares about this varying degrees of English proficiency.? Its not a measure of intelligence (and never will be), especially for Asians, Europeans and other countries whose primary language is not English. In cases like this, the most important thing is the ACCURACY of the history that they are pointing out.||
I'm not suggesting english proficiency is a measure of intelligence. I'm suggesting bad, broken english conveys points poorly, leading to more confusion about what points people are making.
Actually, if you can find an intellectual debate on youtube in even good english, I'd love to see it.
That's the point I'm making. Youtube comments sections can be an interesting peek at the holy wars being waged between Asian netizens. That it's conducted in broken engrish just makes it all the more amusing.
@mmt
if thats what you really meant, then i agree. I dont think its easy to find an interesting (intellectual) debate in youtube. Most are mixed with profanities and hateful comments, which makes the discussion less interesting (at least for me).
Language is really a problem i know. What Steven B have done for the case of Liancourt Rocks/Dokdo/Takeshima is interesting at least for the sense of having an information available sorted out in a language that most people will understand. It can surely generate intellectual discussions. The accuracy of the information is of course a different story
Historical revisionism is something that Korea doesn't want to add to its international headaches especially when dealing with the Chinese.
One thing that changes throughout time is boundaries.
When I lived in Hungary, I met some Hungarians who were still stuck on all the territories lost after World War I. This does not serve anyone anything good. It is just destabilizing. Also, when one always looks back, he f*cks up his future.
These people yelling about Gando should get a life and accept the fact that boundaries are not static.
I read "Koguryo" as "Koguma" or sweet potato so I was quite confused by the article. Lunch time, I guess.
In officialdom, nobody has any serious eye on Kando or Tsushima. After reunification, there may be a push to revisit some of the treaties that the DPRK made with the PRC regarding some tiny parcels of land here and there, but other than that, there won't be any issues with China.
But China itself may have a problem internally with Kando. Han Chinese are indigenous to only about 50% of PRC territory, and they have been for decades trying to flood non-Han regions with Han Chinese to offset any dominance of local indigenous people. Hence you have the Tibetan issue and the problem with the Uighurs.
Though smaller in scale and smaller in territory, there is a legitimate concern of something similar in Kando, where many of the several million ethnic Koreans live. This would be chickens coming home to roost, as China sought out territory — in cahoots with Japan — that was essentially Korean, culturally and linguistically, and loosely administratively.
IOW, China wouldn't have a Tibet problem if they didn't have Tibet. They wouldn't have a Mongol problem if they didn't occupy half of Mongolia. They wouldn't have a Uighur problem if they didn't occupy that area.
There is a lot of silliness from one of the people posting comments here.
Some facts -
1. Koreans present in Yanbian (called Gando by Koreans) are the result of Korean emigration in the 19th and early 20th century. Some went independently, others were encouraged by the Japanese government to do so.
2. Yanbian was never administered by Korea and has always been firmly a part of the historical state of China. Chinese control of the area was only broken for 2 years from 1907 to 1909, when Japan invaded. Japan withdrew and recognised China's sovereign right to the area in 1909. It was later controlled by the Manchurian puppet state under the Qing Emperor until the end of WW2.
3. The native people of the Yanbian are not Korean. The native people are various Manchurian (and related) tribes, including the Qing, a people that came to rule all of China.
4. The Tumen river is a natural boundary between China and Korea. Korea definitely did not control parts of China.
5. China regularly deported Koreans that came across the border into Yanbian. Only in the late 19th century did the Koreans start to be welcomed as laborers and workers.
Yanbian is no more Korean land than London is part of Pakistan. The presence of migrants and their descendants, and supposed affiliation with ancient peoples that lived in the area is not a legitimate land claim. Of all the land claims made by Koreans, this is most certainly the silliest. It annoys Chinese people and also attempts to paint Koreans as the victims.
On a final note, Korea was a vassal state of China. The idea that Korea administered areas of China is ludicrous on the face of it.
I am posting this from a Manchu town on the NK border. Brian can check my isp to confirm this fact. Please note that Brian's site is banned in China and I am using a proxy.
kushibo: "... that was essentially Korean, culturally and linguistically, and loosely administratively."
Hah. Hah.
Is "was" the weasel word? We're talking "is" here. The modern world.
I know of no Joseonjok in modern Dongbei under the age of 25 who can speak Korean. It's a dead language up here.
If you want to get into a good university => learn putonghua.
Grandparents = good Korean.
Middle aged = mine is better.
Young = communicate through grandparents if I don't have a Chinese friend with me.
Joseonjok do not like South Koreans who treat them like vassals. One good thing (amongst bad things) of Chinese communism is the reduction of serf-like obsequiousness to people "flashin' the cash."
Please do not pontificate to the Joseonjok about the best choices for their children.
matew,
i think you must be chinese, and you must be ignorant, gando belongs to korea a thousand years ago, and it was never a vassal state, the japanese reconized illegaly like chinese land just only to explore the natural resourches and ferry train acess to manchuria.
you must study history and don't make comments before deeply understanding of the facts.
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