As if it weren’t bad enough that China decided to erase Koguryo History from the introduction to Korean history on the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s homepage, it has been learned that Chinese maps mark the East Sea as the “Sea of Japan.” What’s more, Chinese maps apparently mark Bidam Island (also known as Maan-do), a small island located about 14.5 km from the mouth of the Yalu River that represents the westernmost point of the Korean Peninsula, as Chinese territory. The Association for the Study of Korean Place Names, which dredged up all this info, also pointed out that many Korean geography and social studies textbooks mistakenly refer to the body of water off the coast from Incheon in the Chinese fashion, i.e., the “Yellow Sea,” rather than the Korean “West Sea.”
If it means anything to the association, I usually use “West Sea” on this blog.
Meanwhile, those hard-working folks over at VANK have targeted foreign websites that “incorrectly” describe 1936 Olympic marathon gold medal winner Sohn Kee-jung as a Japanese national:
Sohn Kee-jung, a Korean marathon hero who won the gold medal in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, is wrongly described as a Japanese national on hundreds of foreign Internet portal sites.
According to the Voluntary Agency Network Korea (VANK), an Internet-based civilian diplomatic mission, 847 Websites overseas described Son as “Kitei Son” with Japanese nationality.
The sites include U.S. broadcaster CBS (cbs.sportsline.com), a U.S. sports history site (sportsfacts.net) and a French marathon site (marathoninfo.free.fr).
VANK, which claims about 15,000 members at home and abroad, said it was campaigning to correct misinformation about Korea ahead of the 2004 Athens Olympics set to open on Aug. 13.
Yes, I understand how this is a thorny topic, but I checked out the Korean version of this, and the term used for nationality here is gukjeok, which is generally used in explaining which passport the person carries. Being this is the case, I don’t see what’s so mistaken — Sohn was a Japanese national, as were most Koreans in 1936 (Korea being a Japanese colony at the time). When Sohn won the gold medal, he did so running under the Japanese flag. Sad? Yes, but also a historical fact. I can see changing the proverbial slave name, but as for the nationality issue, VANK needs to find another issue to belabor.
Dong-A Ilbo (Korean) has a pretty good section dedicated to Sohn — check it out.
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Korea is the only country in the world that calls the Sea of Japan, the “East Sea.” Much like the Vietnamese are the only ones who call the South China Sea, the “East Sea.” And this is fine. These countries should call their surrounding bodies of water whatever they want.
But isn’t it presumpuous for Korea to insist that the whole world use their naming conventions?
Nice that you brought up the Son Kee-jung issue; thought about having a word or two about it myself. Seems that the brave diplomats of VANK are not really aware of what they are doing, if their aim is to have him as Korean in all the medal lists and so on. I’d welcome getting his name written in the Korean form - I like to think it as if the 1912 2-medal winner Hannes Kolehmainen was in the books as Gennadi Kolechmanov.
But just like the medals that the Estonian, Lithuanian and Latvian athletes won as Soviet citizens between 1952-1988 will remain officially Soviet medals, I don’t see how this could be made a Korean gold medal.
The article brings up an interesting question. Why is Korea willing to accept the name, Yellow Sea, for their “West Sea,” but is against using the name, Sea of Japan, for their “East Sea”? Maybe, she feels that asking the international community to think of Korea as the center of the world is asking too much? Or maybe she fears China would react to it more aggressively than Japan does?
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History is history… you’d think leaving the guy’s nationality as Japanese might be useful as a very powerful reminder to both Koreans and the Japanese of their respective pasts.
Brian
A couple years ago I happened to have a girlfriend whose great uncle turned out to be Sohn Ki Jong. One day I read something (I can look up the title) about Sohn Ki Jong not being allowed to light the Olympic Flame in ‘88 since he was, as a Korean whispered, “not a good patriot” . My girlfriend was shocked to here this since Koreans NEVER talk about this, but she admitted that Sohn Ki Jong did in fact “like” Japan a lot. She said he wore Japanese fashions, schmoozed with them, etc… The official Korean version of events has Sohn as a bona-fide rebel ripping off the Japanese flag from his jersey (in fact a major Daily had made the change on their copy–and the Japanese didn’t like that at all). Was Sohn a player? Perhaps, but then my sense is that a lot of Koreans did this (and had to) to further their careers. It was only later, in the 60s and 70s, that Sohn (probably to save face) started actively trying to get the official country of origin changed to Korea. He even made several trips to Germany for this purpose. Make of this what you will, but at least appreciate the complexity of Korean history over the last century.
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Simon World gives us a round-up of news, cultural notes, and other items of interest from Hong Kong, Taiwan and China, Korea and Japan, and Southeast Asia. From a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan to the shifting political sands of Indonesia, you’l…
aletheia, please find that link - it sounds very interesting.
Marmot- as for “changing the proverbial slave name”, surely you know (or maybe you dont) that the family name ’son’ does not exist in the Japanese Language. It is obvious that he was using a Japanese nickname as his first name at the olympic games, which was common in Korea at the time and ‘cool’ and not forced at all. If he had changed his name then he would have to change his last name too. The difference in Sohn and Son is simply a difference in romanisation.
Marmot, if you really want to know about the process of name changing in Korea at the time, I can explain it to you.
shakuhachi–
In fact the references to Sohn Ki Jong are from a book my roomate lent me. I’ll be back in Korea in a few weeks, so send me an email in the next couple weeks at aletheia3@yahoo.com and I’ll find that book title. It was an obscure book about Asia (mostly Japan) written 15-20 years ago by a British guy. I could scan the relevent chapter if the book is too hard to find.
Toolboy and Gery above. I think I can understand what you are saying….East Sea…Sea of Japan…what’s the difference…and who cares? And yes, Koreans are the only ones who call it East Sea…the way it should have been. Well, the thing is it’s not the sea of Japan that belongs to Japanese….and the problem is most of people think that it belongs to Japanese just because the maps have marked it as the Japanese asked them to. Eureka…If you have heard what Japanese government is up to, you wouldn’t dare to say that. Now they have made people around the globe automatically think it as the sea that belongs to Japan, they actually argue that it is the sea that belongs to Japan.
Well think it this way…how would you feel if Russia still called Alaska their territory? Or for Canadians, it’s like saying just because Niagra fall shares the border line with US, it should mean that whole Niagra fall belongs to US. It would be outrageous right? Well same here. What’s wrong with fixing the error that should have been fixed long time ago and prevent wrong perceptions like you two have?
Maybe it’s time to open your minds…and try to understand.
I think your view of the situation is a little skewed.