KBS reports that British songwriter Michael Hoppe, who discovered musicians like ABBA and Vangelis, has recently composed a piano piece entitled "Prayer for Dokdo," reports KBS.
Hoppe said that with the world media bringing attention to the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute/non-dispute, he wanted to write a piece that would bring reconciliation and peace to the much-talked-about (in Korea, anyway) islets.
KBS added that the use of the name "Dokdo" rather than "Takeshima" clearly indicated that the islets were Korean territory.
Hoppe will give a Korean concert in March to mark the one-year anniversary of Shimane Prefecture’s "Takeshima Day" proclamation; the artist plans to convey a melody of peace.
49 Comments
Was his guy’s career on the skids or something?
Oops: “THIS guy’s”
Exactly . . .
Who was it that said something about “useful idiots”…?
“who discovered musicians like ABBA and Vangelis” So that’s the guy who unleashed the plague.
I hope he gets the chance to hear my new composition, “Ode to Islas Malvinas”….
“KBS added that the use of the name “Dokdo” rather than “Takeshima” clearly indicated that the islets were Korean territory.”
!!!
Pathetic
The fact that he will be performing the piece in Korea in commemoration of “Takeshima Day” clearly indicates that the islets are Japanese territory.
This has inspired me to write my first English textbook, entitled: Dokdo English, with 12 units centered around this great little rock and a bonus unit on how to curse the Japanese in proper English.
Kaching!
“KBS added that the use of the name “Dokdo” rather than “Takeshima” clearly indicated that the islets were Korean territory.”
Because some unknown singer says that Dokdo is Korean definitely makes it so.
Great idea, Captain Howdy. Your book will be adopted by schools throughout Korea, and you’ll make a fortune.
Why stop there? Why not “Ode to the Red Devils,” “USFK Go Home” or “The NORKS Are Our Misunderstood Brothers?” The guy could become the Robert Kim of the music world if he put out a whole album of this stuff.
So I suppose Park Seong-Hwan should return the favor and write “Prayer for Falklands?”
whiskey…tango…foxtrot
This is the funniest thing I’ve read all day. And the most pathetic as well.
Good for him.
While he’s at it he sould write a song for marmots about how his name be Hopp? not Hoppe.
Money makes the world go around!
Michael: I hope he gets the chance to hear my new composition, “Ode to Islas Malvinas”….
I don’t you’ll get any argument from him about the Falklands. Brit artistes lefties are ardent devolutionists, especially when this means handing territory to foreign countries. Take note of how hard Tony Blair has been working to hand Gibraltar back to Spain over the overwhelming objection (something like 90%) of its residents. In the 80’s, Pink Floyd put out a song whose express purpose was to savage Thatcher for taking it to the Argies for their invasion of the Falklands.
What’s so pathetic about it. Isn’t he right? Let me say something about you foreigners who live in my country and still are disposed to betray my country. Die, all of you! Seek another home.
Katz: What’s so pathetic about it. Isn’t he right? Let me say something about you foreigners who live in my country and still are disposed to betray my country. Die, all of you! Seek another home.
Are Koreans living in the US required to support American positions? Heck, are Koreans living in Korea required to support your position, let alone foreigners? Since when do you and your ideological kin get to define what is and isn’t acceptable? Koreans who disagree with you aren’t your slaves. Maybe you are betraying them instead of the other way around.
I said that in a good view. So don’t try to contradict.
Katz cares about Dokdo. hahahaha.
You are such a loser that you let being succumbed by the pressure and pessimism around us. Have faith, will you?
Yeah, I’m with Katz, die losers! Korea owns Usan-do, no, Sok-to, wait, Dok-do, umm, no, the Manalai and Olivutsa Rocks, err, uh, the Hornet Rocks, Takeshima, the Liancourt Rocks–eh, never mind.
might makes right. it’s mine if i say so. what u gonna do about it ?
If it isn’t ours, what make it Japanese if it never belonged to them?
Hey Katz, Tarzan. I think plenty of the foreigners here think Dokto/Takeshima belongs to Korea (I think it does), but many of us think the whole fanatical nationalist idiocy surrounding it all is just stupid and laughable.
Hey Katz, Tarzan. I think plenty of the foreigners here think Dokto/Takeshima belongs to Korea (I think it does), but many of us think the whole fanatical nationalist idiocy surrounding it all is just stupid and laughable.
Amen.
Starting a “diplomatic war” over the issue when South Korea and Japan should be moving forward together was short-sighted. The president should be a wise leader, not a fanatical follower.
Who got to you, Hoppe? Who’s paying you!?
Dokdo -of course it’s quintessentially ours. It’s our nation’s way of displaying to the world our petty national inferiority complex. Johnathan Swift couldn’t have paid our Lilliputan nation a better tribute in parody. We’re ready to go to diplomatic war over which side of an egg should be broken - in other words an issue of less import than which socks to wear.
Look it’s not inferiority complex. Your comments show how ignorant you are. It’s not just a piece of land but what this land represents. You don’t know the feelings behind the islands. If you are not Korean, be quiet. And even if it wasn’t that way, this would be a revolting situation.
\”It\’s not just a piece of land but what this land represents.\” Katz is right–it represents control of gas hydrate deposits that might be in the area, along with fishing rights. So it\’s understandable that Korea wants the little rocks. It\’s more difficult to understand why the Korean gov\’t provoked Japan last year by issuing Dokdo stamps, but that sort of childishness is no longer unexpected.
Look, it’s not my country that is provoking them but you and they are provoking us.
\”you and they are provoking us\” Christ on the cross, Joan of Arc, and now Katz….
“Look it’s not inferiority complex. Your comments show how ignorant you are.”
Yes it is, and ignorance trumps denial.
“It’s not just a piece of land but what this land represents. You don’t know the feelings behind the islands.”
Ah, it represents feelings. And this from someone who just denied the inferiority complex.
“If you are not Korean, be quiet.”
First give me a valid reason and not a discriminatory one.
“And even if it wasn’t that way, this would be a revolting situation.”
What’s a revolting situation? The fact that you haven’t offered a single valid argument?
“\”It\’s not just a piece of land but what this land represents.\” Katz is right–”
I’ve already concurred with this. Dokdo is entirely symbolic, an entirely emotional issue. What it epresents is our chance to hit back at the Japanese after the bell. It represents a valve to vent our hatred of Japan. You see, nationalism for us is largely defined by our sense of having been wronged and misunderstood - our national inferiority complex, in other words.
“it represents control of gas hydrate deposits that might be in the area, along with fishing rights.”
No, this is what is called a rationalization - manufacturing rational excuses for our irrational behaviors. Your first red herring is gas - but if there is any gas down there that’s economically viable to tap, why hasn’t it been done already? There are over 2000 islands in Korea, and this is the only one that has gas reserves? It never was about gas.
Your second red herring is fishing rights. In fact we signed an agreement with Japan granting them fishing rights and have violated this turning their fishing boats away. Thia is the issue that provoked the poor fishermen to press for the Takashima Day declaration. So the question is, why do we violate agreements when we feel like it and provoke ill feelings with our neighbors?
“So it\’s understandable that Korea wants the little rocks. It\’s more difficult to understand why the Korean gov\’t provoked Japan last year by issuing Dokdo stamps, but that sort of childishness is no longer unexpected.”
Thank you. It is we who have continuously provoked Japan over Dokdo and not vice-versa. We could just keep our mouths shut and nobody would come to take Dokdo away. But we deliberately provoke anti-Japanese feelings over this insignificant issue, rubbing salt into our own wounds. We do this to feed the inferiority complex that we erroneously call “nationalism.” For us, it’s all about emotion, and we are content to shoot ourselves in the foot and betray our national interests to vent our feelings. How childish and insecure can a nation be?
Katz: “Look, it’s not my country that is provoking them but you and they are provoking us.”
Really? And how did he and they ever provoke us?
Has Japan sent an armada of warships to wrest Dokdo from our control?
What do you call it when we deliberately turn Japanes fishing ships away from Dokdo in direct violation of our treaty obligations, knowing full well that the relatively poor fisherman of that prefecture in Japan depend on it for their livlihood?
When, despite the local Tokashima Day declaration was declared, the national government choose not to offer support this but rather avoided the issue, then how can the Japanese government be said to be provoking us?
When we continually make noise about an issue that quite frankly nobody in Japan or any other country cares about, who is doing the provoking?
Grow up. You’re making a laughing stock of our nation.
So why don’t you sell my country at once? That’ll give me a ground to kill you.
Anyone want to write a book about the East Sea? I bet you could sell 50 million copies.
Mizar5, just saw your comment. The reservoir of gas hydrates hasn\’t been fully explored partly because of the islets dispute and partly from the economics of drilling. Ironically, if Japan and Korea explored the area together it would hugely bring down expenses.
Sure this came later than the patriotic hysteria over the rocks, but it\’s still a potential resource.
Katz: “So why don’t you sell my country at once? That’ll give me a ground to kill you.”
Katz, why don’t you grow up and learn what it means to relate to others without that shrill childish inferiority complex?
zMichael: “Mizar5, just saw your comment. The reservoir of gas hydrates hasn’t been fully explored partly because of the islets dispute and partly from the economics of drilling. Ironically, if Japan and Korea explored the area together it would hugely bring down expenses. Sure this came later than the patriotic hysteria over the rocks, but it’s still a potential resource.”
Yes, Michael, that’s pretty much what I said but the greatest reserve in Dokdo is a different kind of gas altogether - anti-Japanese ferver. There are over 2000 islands in our nation, any of which could have even greater natural reserves but none of which provide the precious resource of an escape valve for the infamous Korean mass hysteria.
“Anyone want to write a book about the East Sea? I bet you could sell 50 million copies.”
Doubtful the entire population of our nation would buy such a book (48,422,644 as of July 2005). We are not known to be avid book readers.
In fact numerous books have been written about the East Sea. I have included a small list below. All are about the Sea East of the Americas, which we have now decided to rename the East Sea in deference to ourselves:
The Atlantic: A History of an Ocean
by Leonard Outhwaite
Photographic Guide to the Marine Mammals of the North Atlantic, Carl Christian Kinze,
Sponges of the North East Atlantic,
RWM van Soest, B Picton and C Morrow
Facing the Ocean - The Atlantic and its Peoples, Barry Cunliffe
The Ecology of Atlantic Shorelines
Mark D Bertness
The whole idea of insisting on ‘East Sea’ is little short of idiocy. Why not the ‘Sea of Korea’ for cripes sake? At least there’s some sense in that.
It’s December 16th…why am I viewing what appears to be a cached home page from the 12th? (The page is coming from the server, not a local copy on my machine….)
Welcome to the Time Warp!
…And I can see the most recent (post-12th) articles on the December 2005 archives page (not on the main page), the peramalink, comments link, and links from the “Recent Comments” sidebar are all broken….
But I can comment on this old post with no problem! Very strange indeed.
Okay, the main page is up to date again, but the permalinks/comment links for recent articles are still broken….
The whole idea of insisting on ‘East Sea’ is little short of idiocy. Why not the ‘Sea of Korea’ for cripes sake? At least there’s some sense in that.
There is a stronger historical basis for “Sea of Korea” than “East Sea” (considering the greater number of maps that say “Sea of Korea” in some capacity compared to “East Sea”).
But trying to get Japan to go along with “Sea of Korea” would have been about as impossible getting Korean nationalists to go along with “Sea of Japan.”
On the other hand, “East Sea” (as in east of the Asian continent) is supposed to be a more palatable compromise.
kushibo, are koreans willing to call it sea of korea? I dont see many koreans willing to call the sea of japan the sea of korea. dont try and pin it on the japanese.
Calling the sea of japan the east sea is not a compremise.
Katz-Let me say something about you foreigners who live in my country and still are disposed to betray my country. Die, all of you! Seek another home.
Katz, plese read what kushbo has to say before you think that all foreingers are indepenant thinkers. Kushibo thinks, acts, and beats women, like any korean. Plese, let him stay, we dont want him.
Kushibo-just kidding, we know you like men and not women.