Talk:Korea - Definition and Overview

This page on the country is woefully inadequate. --Daniel C. Boyer

There's also a korean Wikipedia. http://ko.wikipedia.org soax

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)

I changed the above slightly. Still there are a few questions left here. 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

Historical question, see the mention of the 1945 Cairo meeting, but have also seen a "Cairo Joint Communique" references (one place via 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

I reverted a heavily biased edit by . 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 for the same reasons as above diwiki 10:44, 14 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Splitting of Korea

"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)

For your information, 東方禮儀之國 doesn't mean "The country of noble etiquette in Far East Asia". 東方 (eastward) doesn't mean "Far East Asia", but "the place to the east of China". 禮儀 is completely different from what we think "noble etiquette" is. It is the set of Confucian protocols. So 東方禮儀之國 actually means "the country which keeps Chinese customs well located to the east of China". --Nanshu 01:47, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)

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)

"ceremonial observances" lacks the nuance 禮儀 has. It is the dogmatic set of Confucian forms, followed merely for the sake of procedure. A procotol which does not conform to Confucianism isn't 禮儀 even if it is courteous. --Nanshu 01:09, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Shouldn't we have a summary of the history of Korea here and have the full version on the seperate pages only? I'm thinking about the Japanese colony bit in particular, but the history of Korea in general. diwiki 10:20, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hello, everyone: I have added information to the pages Transportation_in_South_Korea and Hanja. I have also added short articles for some smaller cities (Mokpo, Gunsan, Pohang) abd added text to some other Korea-related pages (for example, Seoul). There are some typos which I will have to fix, but later; I'm also in the process of adding Hangeul & Hanja glosses to the Korean words I added.

I have also begun adding articles for some important railway lines and freeways, but I think I will probably follow Nanshu's example and add "Line" after the name of the railway line or "Expressway" after the name of the expressway to the article titles, to help clear things up.

Sewing 25 Sept 2003

I have added a page on the traditional Eight Provinces of the Yi Dynasty. Its main feature is a table giving provincial names in English, Hangeul, and Hanja; dialects; regional "nicknames" (e.g., Yeongdong); and modern administrative divisions. There is a link to it from the Korea page. Sewing 15:49, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

This country needs an entry on culture! Maybe someone can copy together a bit from South Korea and North Korea? There's a shared past... DiruWiki 16:20, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

You mean a paragraph on this page, or a separate page? Anyhow, I agree: music, dance, masks, ceramics, clothing, etc.... There could be one overview article or page, with links to separate pages on each of these topics. --Sewing 17:18, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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)

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)

Great work from your side! DiruWiki 22:17, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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)

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)

I added the List of Japanese Governoers-generals, altough it must be corrected yet. Because of the bioraphies of these persons.--Egon

I have reverted non-NPOV changes. Kokiri 20:47, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

History

I have moved the history bit to their own article and summarized the bits here. Kokiri 21:24, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Can we please stop adding to the history bit? There is a seperate article (History of Korea) to cater for the details. It's a question of balance. Kokiri 09:04, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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)

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)

I am making this request for any korean out there. First, you know the idea of Um/Yang and how it governs eastern medicine.

Well, there is only a page about chinese medicine and yin yang if someone could write a similar article about korean medicine, I would be very appreciative

Traditional_Chinese_Medicine maybe call it Traditional_Korean_Medicine

Hfastedge 16:41, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I am wondering if there is anyone here who reads Korean and is interested in politics who could help me understand the Korean election statistics at the Chosun Ilbo website (http://www.chosun.com/politics/elections.html)? Please drop me a line if you can help. Adam 00:13, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This section is self-contradictory:

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)

I have already made the change. Mandel 10:39, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Korea Page in Korean WikiPedia.

I edited the link for making better connection to Korea in Korean Page, . Somebody made the link to the page of Korean Penninsular in ko.wikipedia.org, so, I corrected the link. It is to manage consistency of translation from Korea to the word in Korean. --RomanPark

Korea vs Korean Peninsula

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)

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)

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)

Nice start. Kokiri 22:34, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Japan

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)

Disambiguation

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)

Flag

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)

4.23.83.100

Please discuss here your changes. They violate the Wikipedia principle of NPOV, and take every opportunity to attack Japan. --Golbez 07:16, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

I think the most recent edit, Attribuitating the queen's death to Miura isn't anywhere near conclusive enough to state that as fact... The only source I can find for a direct allegation all leads back to an opinon article in korean times in 2001: Byong-Kuk Kim, Assassination of Empress Myongsong (Opinion), Korea Times, Dec. 28, 2001 http://www.hankooki.com/kt_op/200112/t2001122817121248110.htm (if someone can read Korean). Everything else mainly cites this and are radically pro korean places... I can't find any neutral historians citing it(I do find netural historians citing it as alledlgy though)

Apparntly the murders were put on trial too, but Japanese Imperalist history is rather difficult to find truthfullness in, so yes... just putting these facts out.

The assasination of the Queen

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)

... I don't even need to reply to you... Miura was never tried in any type of miltiary court, just the assasins if you are going to follow me around disputing everything I say, at least bother to reasearch stuff.

Possible copyright violation?

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)

Enough.

I've had enough of singlehandedly policing an article on a subject I'm not too familiar with; I just know poor additions when I see them. Someone else, see if the anon's additions are valid. They don't seem gramatically okay, but he'll just readd them (PIECE BY PIECE) if I revert them, and he has a history of never listening to comments of talk, so hey. Taking this off my watch list, it's someone else's problem now. --Golbez 07:18, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Korea geo stub image

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?
Grutness.jpg


07:11, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Weird

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)

• The Go-Joseon part of the article probably has a lot of myths. 68.72.124.166 22:18, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Did the Koreans really originate from Lake Baikal? 68.72.124.166 22:20, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There was a program on A&E or history channel on TV about it, but alot of the info is with the Mongolians and Koreans who acknowledge they are related cause of history, food, language, sports, etc.

There is biological evidence that Koreans, Mongols, and Huns (present day Hungarians) came from the same race. Also, the fact that Koreans have relatively less flat nose and longer eyes show that they lived in northern areas, whether it be Lake Baikal or other regions. In addition, please cite any evidence if you want to debunk something. It is very unacceptable to call historically accepted facts as "weird," "myths," and so on.

Joseon Dynasty Material

I've moved a considerable amount of historial material on Korea to a sub-page of this Talk page. Perhaps someone will find time to work it up into a reasonable History section.

Historical material from Joseon Dynasty

Disputed

(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 (http://www.declan-software.com/korean.htm#Hangul) 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)

The standard Korean written language used in modern times (Hangul) was commissioned in the early 15th century (about 1440), so it is around 560 years old. Before Korea developed its own written language, Koreans used Chinese characters to write their language. It's also interesting to note that Chinese characters still enjoy limited usage in Korean texts (such as the newspaper), however for most writing in Korean, Hangul is used. Zonath 16:21, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, having re-read this part of the article, it would probably make more sense and be more accurate to say something about Korea's history recording back to 5000 years. The age of the language seems to have little or nothing to do with the content of the rest of the paragraph. Zonath 17:15, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Crap, my own link apparently traces the written language back approximately 1500-2000 years, not 5000 years as I originally stated. Also, this link (http://www.learnkorean.com/whanja/hclassindex.asp) suggests that Hanja (based on the Chinese language) was introduced to Korea some two thousand years ago. Were there other written forms of the Korean language used before this time? I was thinking of perhaps explaining that Hangul has been around since 500 years ago, but the Korean written language being (2000/5000) years old. --Deathphoenix 05:07, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That's a moot point. Looks like solved the problem simply by replacing that entire text with "The", and I think he's right. The statement in dispute was an aside message anyways, so it's the right correction to make. I wish he'd have posted something in this discussion, though. --Deathphoenix 15:16, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Surely an error?

I find it curious that the Soviet Union was sending out archeological expeditions "in the 1800s", time travel? ;) Seriously, I have little knowledge on this subject and the article is structured in such a way that I hesitate to tamper with it, but it seems clear that the Soviet Union wasn't doing very much of anything in the 1800s.