I usually avoid linking to anything in the Korea Times opinion section, but Christopher Lingle has a piece that’s just too good to pass up. Here’s just some of it:
Of course, it is understandable that many of its neighbors bear a grudge against Japanese aggression and worry about a resurgence of nationalist impulses. But conjuring up memories of Japan’s wartime atrocities must be understood to be a clever ploy to keep Tokyo off balance in international affairs.
To this end, officials in Beijing (and Seoul) often insist that apologies issued for occupation by Japan were insufficient or lacking in sincerity. Meanwhile, the regular visits by senior Japanese politicians to the burial site of several convicted war criminals of the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo elicit statements of outrage.
Showing a ability to pile outrage upon outrage, Beijing introduced inaccurate and distorted information about Korea’s early history to further Chinese political hegemony. In particular, Chinese officials have offered a gross misrepresentation of descriptions of the Koguryo empire (B.C. 37-A.D. 668) whose territory included part of a Chinese regional kingdom. This strong, warrior state successively defeated invading armies of the Chinese empires of Sui and Tang.
In the Chinese version, Koguryo was incorporated into a Chinese historical timeline and included a claim that these people were of “han” Chinese descent. Beijing also interfered with an effort by Pyongyang to place Koguryo tombs on UNESCO’s World Cultural Heritage list of historic sites.
Ethnic Koreans that had lived in the region previously known as Manchuria for many centuries formed the core of the empire. Eventually, their capital was moved to Pyongyang from Jian in Manchuria in the fourth century.
After Koreans and Manchurian tribes lived together for centuries, they were incorporated into Chinese territory with a treaty by Japan and the Qing dynasty in China in 1909. It is amusing to think that Marxist-Leninists insist that unequal treaties signed by imperial powers have any legitimate force.
Unfortunately, public officials in Seoul have been unwilling to raise official objections. Instead, it was left to Korean learned societies to insist that Beijing place the Korean kingdom of Koguryo in its proper historical perspective.
For its part, Beijing insists that everyone else should exercise the highest standards of historical probity. For example, the media and diplomatic channels have been used to criticize the content of Japanese history textbooks. It is a blatant act of hypocrisy to be inconsistent in stating concerns over the correct retelling of past deeds and misdeeds.
Pretty well sums up what I feel every time I hear Beijing squealing about Japanese textbook distortions. Or, for that matter, when I listen to a country with a shrine to mass murderer Mao Zedong set up in the middle of Tiananmen Square bitch about the Japanese prime minister visiting the Yasukuni Shrine.
19 Comments
poiboy,
I am a fifth generation Canadian. All my ancstors to a one were Irish.
Does that make me an IRA member?
Or a heroic resistor of British Rule?
Or a collaborator to the British?
Or none of the above?
Wow, great find! Thanks!
Oh yeah, who is Christopher Lingle? I’ve never heard of him before. Is he just part of the Korea Times staff? Has he written much? Published? I really enjoyed his piece, wondering if there is more out there.
Christopher Lingle - his name sounds German. But the same goes for Mr. Marmot?쨈s real name (aka Robert Koehler). A proof of Germany?쨈s intellectual might, the land of the poets and philosophers?
Christopher Lingle is from Atlanta, Georgia and earned his doctorate (in economics, I think) from the University of Georgia in 1977, so he’s an American.
He was the professor of European Studies at Singapore National University who encountered legal problems there for a critical article of his that appeared in the International Herald Tribune (1994). The article critiqued Singapore’s judiciary for its subsevience (i.e., corruption) to the executive branch of Singapore’s government. Faced with a possible jail sentence, Lingle fled the country, and the IHT was sued for having published his article. If I recall correctly, the IHT paid a fine rather than have its paper banned in Singapore. I believe that it also printed an apology (under duress).
Try a google search for other information. I did and came up with this (among other things):
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/.....a-way.html
As for Lingle’s Korea Times article, I was surprised by his date of 1909 as the time of Manchuria’s incorporation into China. Does anybody know more about this? Is his point that prior to that time, Manchuria had maintained a separate political existence as the homeland of the ruling Manchurian dynasty in China?
By the way, for the past several weeks, the Korea Herald has been printing a series of articles by various Korean scholars on the Goguryeo issue. These have been sober and detailed and are therefore worth reading.
Jeffery Hodges
“Ethnic Koreans that had lived in the region previously known as Manchuria for many centuries formed the core of the empire.”
What evidence is there to say that Koguryo was made up of “ethnnic Koreans”? None that I know of. Korean textbooks even say that the languages in the north and south of the pennisula were different. In fact, even a “Korean” Seoul National University history professor (I cannot remember his name.) has written that one should not claim that Korea was “ethnically” unified until Koryo.
Jeffrey,
Thank you for that information!
Ah yes, the controversy still ensues even after I first read a similiar article a few months ago. Bah, history should be the least complicated of school subjects but it still warrants the most controversy. We really need to rethink the information children receive in school especially when it could be the root of fascist nationalism.
Actually, it’s “Jeffery,” but you’re welcome.
Jeffery Hodges
While Prof. Lingle has made a worthwhile point about the Chinese, he has made an egregiously bad, basic error about Yasukuni Shrine. He calls it a “burial site”.
No one is buried at a Shinto shrine. (Very few people are “buried” in Japan at all; they are cremated and their ashes placed in a family memorial structure on the grounds of a Buddhist temple.)
Shrines house the spirits of kami, or deities. These can range from the spirits of people to the spirits of trees or penis-shaped rocks. Yasukuni is a relatively new shrine that was under the control of the Japanese military. What is there? The “spirits” of 2.5 million war dead. Their names are inscribed on a tablet and “enshrined”. So there ain’t nothing there but air.
In Shinto, these spirits become “kami” (literally ‘above’) and are thus divinities, of sorts. Very, very few modern Japanese take that stuff seriously (and almost none identify their religion as Shinto). It is an old form of spirit and ancestor worship, and the spirits are not always people. Other than New Year’s, or New Year’s eve, people seldom even go to shrines, and they certainly don’t worship or spend much time there when they do. They go through the motions of various Shinto ceremonies to conform to tradition. Most Japanese wedding ceremonies are Shinto, but they aren’t held at these shrines.
Of the 2.5 million spirits there, 14 are those of Class A war criminals, secretly enshrined there in the 70s.
Regardless of one’s opinion about this one way or another, I would have serious doubts about the credibility of anyone who would call a shrine a “burial site”, much less Yasukuni, about which a ton of information is available on the web. People who spend time in Japan find out about this stuff in about the first two weeks.
To the previous commentor… I think your name is Bill, right? (I think I’ve seen your name on the Honyaku or Keitai-l mailing lists.)
I agree with your objection to the term “burial site”, I think you are spot on with that - but why follow it with statements like “Most Japanese wedding ceremonies are Shinto,” or “…people seldom even go to shrines, and they certainly don’t worship or spend much time there when they do.”?
Hi, Justin,
“why follow it with statements like “Most Japanese wedding ceremonies are Shinto,” or “…people seldom even go to shrines, and they certainly don’t worship or spend much time there when they do.”?”
Because most Japanese wedding ceremonies are Shinto. I’m not talking about the reception later, I’m talking about the wedding itself. If you have statistics that state otherwise, I’d be interested in seeing them.
Japanese (some) go to Shinto shrines on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, and that’s about it. There are ceremonies such as shichi-go-san, but that’s a one-time visit per child. Then there are the ring-toss, goldfish-scooping, fried-squid festivals, but they could be on any vacant lot. Most people don’t think about where they are. It’s even less like church than the US.
They pull the rope to make the noise and draw the attention of the kami, clap three times, and pray to pass an entrance exam, or whatever it is they seek. I doubt any of them think there is a deity actually listening to their requests. There’s no worshipping going on. It’s a folk custom.
I’ve been living in Japan 20 years this month. My house is a 15-minute walk from the two biggest shrines in town. The pigeons have the run of both places.
Your right, Bill, I was thinking of the reception and it stuck in my mind having just been to one recently. The actual ceremony is overwhelmingly Shinto in majority. I had a professor at Tenri University who wrote a book about Japanese weddings from a cultural context. I’ll try and look him up next time I’m in Nara and see if he has a solid number on this.
Regarding the worshipping… I guess this is just a matter of opinion in that I think of the clapping and pulling the rope, even if it is just “going through the motions”, as a form of respect or even worship (however casual or contrived it may be). Thanks for the clarification, though. Your points are definitely taken. If you don’t mind me asking, what part of Japan are you in?
I’d like to leave a teaser by stating that I found an ancient mountain shrine dedicated to foxes a few years back that has made me a believer in the “special” energies or even entities that surround some of these sites. If you are ever in the Nara area and interested in this type of thing let me know.
Make that “Your” a “Yore” already.
Most Japanese weddings are Christian, according to this article. 53% Christian, 32.3% Shinto, 11.5% Secular, 0.8% Buddhist, and the rest labeled Other.
It’s one of the reason that they have so many Christian clergymen, despite the tiny number of actual adherents.
WJS– it is a social phenomenon more than anything. People seem to like the white dress, the chapel, the music, inviting lots of people to the ceremony (not just reception), all that stuff. It’s popular to have a Christian style wedding. It doesn’t *mean* anything, though.
That was your original point, anyway. Religion is one of those things in Japan that is done because it is “what is done,” at least for most people. The only way to reliably know that someone actually means it is if they are part of a tiny minority– like the people who actually have Buddhist weddings are probably devout Buddhists, and similarly the people who go to Christian services.
But visiting a Shinto shrine on New Year’s is about the same as watching the stupid TV programs that come on on New Year’s. It’s just what you do.
John, first of all, props to you for finding the marriage statistics. (I’m ashamed to say my Japanese conditioning automatically led me to agree with Bill before verifying it myself.)
I have a question regarding your last post, though - are you saying that “hatsumode” (visiting a shrine on New Year’s eve) has no spiritual or religious significance whatsoever for the majority of Japanese? I tend to think it has a bit more significance than watching the TV specials, which I agree are stupid. I’ve done hatsumode with different groups of friends over the years and it has been my impression that they were all sincere in thinking it would have a positive effect on the coming year.
Maybe the point of the whole issue of the Yakusuni Shrine is that there are war criminals honored by inclusion with the others who died in the war. I think the disagreements stem from the way these convicted war criminals were “snuck” into the shrine. Honoring these people in any way is very difficult to understand. Perhaps someone could explain why anyone would choose to do this??? This appears as exremely insensitive and arrogant to many people.
I can fully understand Japan’s neighbor’s uneasiness when the Japanese PM visits this shrine. How would the Poles feels if a German PM visited a shrine that included people who had committed war crimes against the Poles?
Justin– perhaps I was a bit strong, because it does have somewhat more significance, but it’s odd. There are people who are definitely religious. There are also more people who sort of view it as both tradition and sort of a superstition– it’s a good thing to do, and the right thing to do, and it won’t hurt and will probably help, but… Hmm. It’s hard to explain. This doesn’t account for everyone, but it does for a lot of people I know. (Not that of course this doesn’t account for many people’s approach to religion in the US as well, but the average is a bit different.)
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