MUST READ!!!
If you haven’t read it yet, click on over NOW to Michael’s post on the origins of Korea’s ideology of “racial purity.”
What’s kind of interesting is that despite its origins on the far right, the discourse of racial purity has enjoyed no less popularity on the far left.
21 Comments
So many of the so-called leftists in Korea share that National Socialist mindset with their brothers in Norkland.
Yes, that really distinguishes them from the sort of internationalist, non-racist hard left in most Western nations.
Well, you don’t hear Swedish socialists going on about pure Viking blood….
maybe cause the Vikings were the ones spreading their seed…
Hell, I admit that I have been carrying on like my Viking forebears — but at Marmot’s Hole we prefer the scientific term “slipped a sperm.”
HA! HA! Slipped a sperm!
Now if we could only get some pure Karyan maidens to donate their eggs….
Strangely enough I am working with a bunch of Scandinavians at the moment and they are all very nationalistic about their respective countries.
They are very proud of the fact that they raped and pillaged most of north western europe. The way they describe it makes it sound like a series of drunken nights out.
As I wrote before, I believe this “danilminjok” idea was implanted by the Japanese. Before their occupation, Korea was totally immersed in Chinese culture/political system/commerce/human interaction (etiquette).
I am sure some Koreans spoke fluent Chinese; the father of YiSungye(the king who started Chosun dynasty) served as a Chinese official. I think Yi may have been a Chinese. There is “Yi” surname among the Chinese.
Many Koreans (Yangbans) spent their entire life studying Chinese characters. Writing and Reading. Reading Chinese books were the only way to know anything. Any knowledge worth knowing came from these Chinese books, which were the internet of their day.
To tear Koreans away from this Chinese immersion, the Japanese after taking over Korea, set up their own school system in Korea, teaching in Japanese only. All school-age children were told to attend, even though some Yangban’s children did not. In that school, the Japanese taught that Koreans are “danilminjok” like they are. They insisted that Koreans were distinct in genetic makeup from the Chinese and had unique cultural development separate from China. Both assertions are blatant lies developed to sever Korean-Chinese connection. The Japanese drill this idea to Korean heads for thirty five years.
The Japanese have left. However, Koreans still cling to these lies. Pure-blooded Koreans? If you ask a Korean, how to distinguish a pure-blooded Korean from a Chinese or a Japanese, he would go mum. There is no way. However, some Koreans who never traveled outside Korea (frogs in a pond)will insist that Koreans look different. If you take a picture from Chinese TV news broadcast and show it to a Korean, he will not be able to tell the national origin by looking at facial features or physical feature. Only way to tell them apart from Koreans is to look at clothing and surroundings.
I am not pro-Chinese. I am glad that Koreans have moved out from the Chinese sphere of influence. However, I think this “danilminjok” idea is of the Japanese origin.
Baduk: Until the 1850s, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and plenty of other Asian kingdoms were “pro-China” and followed a variation of the Chinese model of everything from urban planning to systems of government. That all of these nations and others ended their infatuation with the middle Kingdom in the 19th century was a direct result of its decline in both hard and soft power and the rise of Western power, which brought with it technology, trade, and power. China simply had nothing to offer.
Hey, Baduk,
How do you do on the test at the top of this link (maybe I saw it here first)? Can you tell the difference between C, J, andK?:
http://www.alllooksame.com/
Hey, Pyotr.
Great, great, great site. All Koreans should take this test. I got 50% correct. An average score. The test should include Mongolians. What some Koreans believe to be “Korean” features are actually Mongolian features.
Again I am right about this “danilminjok” bullshit. Koreans cannot tell Koreans from the Chinese and the Japanese.
Koreans look the same as these people. We are all from the same dough. DNA testings have proven the same. When more DNA testings are done, we may find some interesting facts about Korean roots.
Wouldn’t it be funny if all Jeju Island Koreans came from Mongolia (Mongols grew horses in Jeju to invade Japan. They could have killed off the inhabitants.)?
Wow, Baduk.
I never knew that the concept of “Danilminjok” was hammered into us by the Japanese occupation government. Is this true, Baduk?
Then, it brings me to question certain things about our Korean past…Koguryo in particular. That nation was surely not of one race. Baekjae also comes to mind. They weren’t of one race, either, if you count the Japanese, who were under significant control to come to their aid in Korea by a number of 100000, and suffer 50% casualties for a lost cause, basically. Shilla. Were they Danilminjok? Hmm. Legend has it that a queen from India came by boat, and I think the Kims and Huhs are both children of this Indian queen and a Korean noble. Kind of amusing when you watch Koreans acting racist against ethnic Indian/Pakistani foreign workers doing hard labor in South Korea.
But, Baduk, I am still doubtful. Doesn’t Korea hammer the concept of Danilminjok itself by claiming that we all came from Dan Goon? But, then the idea of Koguryo bothers me about that, because Koguryo had the territory that most resembled where Dan Goon would have been located or ruled.
” I think it’s worth thinking about. I know, I know – for those of you who accuse me of being just being purposely controversial for the sake of being so – guilty as charged. Here’s my cynical little adaptation of the original German national anthem:
Hanguk, Hanguk über alles,
über alles in der Welt,
wenn es stets zu Schutz und Trutze
brüderlich zusammenhält.
Von der Tonghae bis an Baekdusan,
von der Manju bis an Tokdo,
Hanguk, Hanguk über alles,
über alles in der Welt! ”
/ Author’s mind is twisted but entertaining. But, those pictures speak louder, way louder. If those Koreans are stupid enough to do something like that, they deserve the consequences.
anyone mind teaching me how to quote with better contrast ?
ah yes, because mixed race kids are bullied at school and expats are called big nose waeguk-noms, korea is a fascist nation akin to nazi germany. that must be some fine shit he must be smoking there.
i posit that that the effects of hollywood movies, with all its stereotypes, do far, far more to influence koreans attitude about blacks in the current time than a couple of obscure, early 20th century korean nationalists that many koreans dont even know about or the nazy, quasi-fascist origins of the aegukka!
anyone mind teaching me how to quote with better contrast ? you mean like that?
They are very proud of the fact that they raped and pillaged most of north western europe. The way they describe it makes it sound like a series of drunken nights out.
isn’t that basically what it was?
BlueJives, as always, doesn’t get it and once again attributes to me things I didn’t say and sets up the straw man to knock him down:
“ah yes, because mixed race kids are bullied at school and expats are called big nose waeguk-noms, korea is a fascist nation akin to nazi germany. that must be some fine shit he must be smoking there.
i posit that that the effects of hollywood movies, with all its stereotypes, do far, far more to influence koreans attitude about blacks in the current time than a couple of obscure, early 20th century korean nationalists that many koreans dont even know about or the nazy, quasi-fascist origins of the aegukka!”
No. If you read what I said, I said that Yi Pom Sok made no bones about studying fascist youth groups to come up with his idea of “danilminjok.” These old Korean nationalists didn’t even try to hide this stuff. The concepts he and Shin Chaeho came up with are taught in Korean textbooks. How many Korean Guksa and Doduk textbooks have you read, BlueJives? Do you have the collected works of Shin Chaeho?
I SAID that these two guys – Shin Chaeho is recognized and taught in Korea as the founder of Korean nationalist historiography and Yi Pom Sok’s concepts are still cornerstones of official state ideology – have had direct influence on Koreans’ perceptions of self and identity. Oh, their ideas are only taught as canon in Ministry-approved textbooks and repeated as fact in state propaganda.
And in this post, I wasn’t talking about blacks per se as much as talking about the origins of these ideas. Yes, Hollywood movies do influence Koreans’ thinking a lot, but to call the clearly influential ties linking Korean national ideology back to European ideas as akin to “smoking” something – do the research then, BlueJives.
If you did, you’d know that Shin Chaeho is certainly not “obscure” and someone that Koreans “don’t know about.” And in the case of Yi Pom Sok, you don’t have to know his name to understand his ideas when they’re taught from elementary school through high school. Are you really this dense, dude?
Yes. He really is.
Yi Pom Sok’s concepts are still cornerstones of official state ideology – have had direct influence on Koreans’ perceptions of self and identity.
I dont know about that but I do know that the US Occupational Forces directly funded and trained a right-wing paramilitary organization called the Korea National Youth League, under the leadership of Yi Bum Suk. This was a armed instrument of a police state designed to terrorize and kill any dissenters, invariably labelled as Communists, to the chosen puppet government of Rhee Syngman set up by the US in the period just before the outbreak of the Korean War.
But, of course, you werent going to mention this crucial historical fact because it’s just a bit too distracting from your Facist Origins of Korean Racial Consciousness thesis.