about 2 months ago, i wrote a post in which i stated that the koreans had won the imjin war. sperwer wrote to tell me i was living in a world of fantasy. i’ve been meaning to address his comment so here it is:
as far as i know, there are only two books about the imjin wars written in english. one is written by samuel hawley and the other is written by stephen turnbull. here are two brief reviews of turnbill’s book:
From Library Journal:
After unifying Japan by force, in 1592 Hideyoshi Toyotomi (1536-98) attempted to establish an empire in East Asia. The conquest of China was his ultimate objective, but Korea had to be subdued first. Instead, it proved an insuperable obstacle to Hideyoshi’s imperial fantasy. Turnbull’s lively and lavishly illustrated history of the failed invasion brightly illuminates the world of late 16th-century warfare in East Asia. After reeling under the initial Japanese attacks, Korean regular and irregular forces, aided by armies from Ming China, eventually turned the Japanese back, but the invasion did not end until Hideyoshi’s death in 1598. Skillfully piecing together contemporary accounts from Japanese and Korean sources, the author provides a vivid and horrifying picture of the strategy, tactics, and technology of Japanese warfare. Brutality was the norm, and hand-to-hand combat produced butchery rivaling the worst of modern wars. In Kyoto a single burial mound holds the sliced-off noses of 30,000 Korean and Chinese victims of Japanese slaughter. Absorbing and accessible, Turnbull’s book will interest general readers and belongs in public as well as college libraries.
Steven I. Levine, Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Lib.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
By the end of the sixteenth century the Samurai, Japanese warrior-nobles, had taken total control of their domestic territory. Their unforgiving militarism needed a new foe to conquer: the target was China, the route to victory through Korea. But the Koreans were no pushover. It was a hard fought and, in the end, an unsuccessful campaign, the only time in their 1,500 year history that the Samurai had attacked another country. The Koreans drove them off. Retribution was inevitable. The Samurai returned in 1597 to wreak vengeance and terrible, wanton havoc on the Koreans in a war of unbelievable savagery. This book is the most complete account of those two invasions yet written, researched from forgotten archives in Japan and Korea and written by the world’s most acclaimed historian of the Samurai period, the English Oriental specialist Dr Stephen Turnbull. This is a book that all followers of Samurai history will not be able to resist. It fabulously includes extracts from contemporary Japanese field diaries not seen even in Japan for over 400 years.
Anyone want to adopt a cat (or two)? All shots, very friendly, great with kids, litterbox trained, neutered, not declawed, all around great cats. But we are leaving the country and cannot take them with us.
I guess to depends on your definition of “won” pawi.
From wikipedia:
In addition to the human losses, Korea suffered tremendous cultural, economic, and infrastructural damage, including a large reduction in the amount of arable land,[1] destruction and confiscation of significant artworks, artifacts, and historical documents, and abductions of artisans and technicians.[2] The heavy financial burden placed on China by the war adversely affected its military capabilities and contributed to the fall of the Ming Dynasty and the rise of the Qing Dynasty.[3] On the other hand, Japan flourished.
To the extent that you could say the U.S has “lost” in Iraq if they withdraw next year, I guess you could say the same about the Japanese in the “imjin” wars. They projected military power, wrought significant havoc, and when the going got tough, withdrew. Considering the 30,000 noses etc, I know which side I would have liked to have been on.
The other thing you’re ignoring is the fact of Chinese aid.
…the Ming Emperor sent a large force in January 1593 under two generals, Song Yingchang and Li Rusong. The salvage army had a prescribed strength of 100,000, made up of 42,000 from five northern military districts and a contingent of 3,000 soldiers proficient in the use of firearms from South China. The Ming army was also well armed with artillery pieces.
In February 1593, a large combined force of Chinese and Korean soldiers attacked Pyongyang and drove the Japanese into eastward retreat. Li Rusong personally led a pursuit with over 20,000 strong troops, along with a small force of Koreans, but was halted near Pyokje by the sally of a large Japanese formation.
In late February, Li ordered a raid into the Japanese rear and burned several hundred thousand koku of military rice supply, forcing the Japanese invading army to retreat from Seoul due to the prospect of food shortage.
These engagements ended the first phase of the war, and peace negotiations followed.
So China sent 100,000 soldiers along with a small force of Koreans
I think it’s fair to say that Korea ran a small-scale Resistance, ala the French in WW2, and that it was the alies who in fact cause the invaders to retreat.
hoju_saram, the same could be said about the Brits. London was bombed out, so many young men died that generations of women were ensured of a future of being old maids. The British empire faded within fifty years from the mighty “the sun never sets on the British empire” to being a permanent fourth rate national power. The Soviets won too, but the suffering, the sheer suffering made it a sham–eh? Austria lost but pretty much was spared the worst of it. The Union won against the South in a war of attrition– did they not?
Imjin wars were purely defensive in nature; that is, rather than a conflict of interest between two nations leading to warfare, it was an invasion of Korea by Japan. Since the whole point of war was to repel the invaders rather than organize a counter-attack to the Japanese Isles, your statistics on civilian casualties, cultural destructions, infrastructure loss, etc. are mute and a bit misleading.
Also, the objective of war for Japan was to establish a gateway into China. This was not achieved. Therefore, Japan lost the imjin war. You could argue that the victory was a Pyrrhic victory, which would be more accurate.
On your second point, the page you quote have Korean forces at 40,000 (plus 22,600 local resistance) and Chinese forces at 150,000. Undoubtedly Chinese forces played a crucial part in the war, but comparing it to the French resistance & the Allies (100,000+ vs. 16,000,000 U.S. + ??,000,000 USSR, + ?,000,000 U.K) is a bit ridiculous.
Also, your quote tells us that 20,000 Chinese soldiers and a small Korean forces made the push in the front, not 100,000 & a “small force of Koreans”
And finally, you’re completely ignoring the naval warfare.
korea (and china) was successful at driving out the japanese but the japanese didnt leave the country empty handed. they totally destroyed korea and robbed her blind. after the “defeat,” japan flourished quite nicely while chosun became slave country to chinese for 400 years until they became slave country for japan in 1910. if u think about it, korea’s victory wasnt much of a victory.
You reference the dust-jacket hype/blurb and a couple of informational (as opposed to critical) reviews of one of two books - neither of which you apparently have actually read. The book you note, moreover, is a “coffee-table book”, and the most that the reviews say is:
Korean regular and irregular forces, aided by armies from Ming China, eventually turned the Japanese back
and
The Koreans fought with the courage of desperation and eventually repelled two invading armies with the help of Chinese troops, rugged terrain, worse weather, and the naval superiority of Admiral Yi Sun-sin,
And you conclude that “Korea” “won” the Imjin War.
Well, Japan certainly didn’t achieve its objective — which was to conquer China; Korea was just to be a passageway, staging ground and logistics (food, fodder and strong backs) base.
But if you read the books, it’s clear that the dispositive considerations in Japan’s failure were, first, Hideyoshi’s error in not supplying his forces from Japan, but expecting them to “live off the land”; and, second, Chinese intervention.
Koreans put up an occasionally spirited and, in the case of Yin Sun-sin, a tactically-inspired, defense, but one which was ineffectual overall.
And as others have already noted, Korea was materially devastated by its inability to defend itself. Other scholars have estimated that Korea still hadn’t recovered from the Imjin War 250 years later.
If you think that’s “winning”, you ought to get together for drinks with the sorts who subscribe to the “we had to destroy the village to save it” creed.
The winner of the Imjin War — if there was one — was first, China, which avoided having to fight the Japanese on their home field - although, as also noted above, the effort of fighting the war in Korea nonetheless fatally weakened the ruling dynasty and, second, Togukawa Ieyesu, the stage for whose ascension as Shogun after Hideyoshi’s death was set by the effect of the Imjin War on Japan.
you want to say Korea never recovered from the Imjin War?
I think I’ll agree. Although there was the additional burden of wars with the Manchus and the increased tax to the Chinese, but if you’d like to say that
I’d say, Korea has at least 500 years of reasons to have bad feelings towards Japan. It started with Imjin and ended with the colonization.
Some even say the Korean War itself can be blamed to Japan. Their rape trail of evacuation, being raped by the natives, left a strange two front vacuum for US and Russia. I’ll have to think about that one.
Korea could have recovered on its own if they embraced Gwang Hae and Jung Yak Yong. Avoiding war with the Manchus and they may have opened up and got an early start like Japan.
On #10. China and Japan both had regime changes with more wars after the war.
by your logic, is that winning the war for them?
Well — I mentioned myself that both had regime changes, so no. China (as distinct from the Ming dynasty) nevertheless “won” in my estimation because they prevented the Japanese from reaching China and limited the immediate devastation to its buffer state, Korea.
Japan didn’t “win”, because it did not achieve its war aims. However, despite losing a significant number of men, including a sizable number of elite samurai, they did carry away a lot of loot and people that contributed to their own development. Perhaps more importantly, they so devastated Korea and weakened China that they effectively neutralized their only significant potential enemies for generations, thus freeing themselves to concentrate on internal development. As you note, a lot of violence accompanied that development in the immediate aftermath of the Imjin War, as Tokugawa moved to consolidate political control, but that was all internal.
Korea’s subsequent confrontation with the Manchus was relatively inconsequential; it was a brief blitzkrieg in which Korea quickly bent over (and then tried to maintain some semblance of national dignity by anointing themselves the only true believers in Confucian orthodoxy — and if you have the regard for Jung Yag Yong that you seem to have, you knew where that got Korea).
Yeah, I think (North) Vietnam won the Vietnam war; but that doesn’t mean that the Imjin War was won by Korea (certainly not in the chauvinistic sense in which Pow Pow wants to make that claim). The North Vietnamese won the Vietnam War because they accomplished their aim of a unified Vietnam under their control; the Imjin War was won by the Chinese, and Korea incidentally benefited in the sense that its national existence thereby was preserved. A lot of Korean “han” and chauvinism can be directly traced, I think, to the fact that Korea hasn’t been able to successfully defended itself against any challenge to its national existence for a very, very, very long time and has suffered one after another humiliation in that regard since Goryeo succumbed to the Mongols. That’s why Pow Pow is so desparate to assert that Korea won Imjin.
I saw the movie,”Sicko”, and I believe Michael Moore has something there. With his “big” size brain, something came out logical.
With all civilized country going to National Health Care, the US has to catch up to the rest of the world and come up with a National Health Care Network.
Yes, I am talking about health care system run by bureaucrats and heavily subsidized by the government.
Why not?
Military system has been run by the same condition and the US has the best military in the world.
Why not health care system?
All those politicians who advocated “efficient” capitalist system might have been paid by drug companies, HMOs and insurance companies.
When insurance companies make record profits, one must really think about who is benefitting from the present situation.
Chosun was not an independent country. It was a name given to a region belonging to China.
Lee Sungye who changed the name of the region to Chosun was a wang, a regional administrator.
China imposed rules to Chosun. When a new administor is chosen, it must be reported to the Chinese Emperor and had to be approved. More importantly, if a member of Chosun province, move out of the territory by 100 miles, he would be executed.
China strictly controlled the amount of military power Chosun can have. When Imjin War broke out, it was war between Japan and China. Chosun was the first province of China Japan attacked.
People of Chosun served the Chinese Emperor. There was no separate identity as Korea. Everybody knew they were Chinese.
The true identity movement started with DaeWonGun, the only ruler imprisoned by the Chinese. DaeWon wanted Koreans to have separate identity from the Chinese. He closed off the borders (this could mean that prior to Daewon many have freely travelled to China despite the official order) and declared Korea to be separate people from the Chinese.
When Japan took over Korea, their education system emphasized “Korean identity”. They may have fixed up all official documents and historical records to show Korea to have had separate history. The Japanese are good at fixing records to prop up their side of argument.
Ergo, Korea did not win Imjin War. The Chinese did.
I have a question about the meaning of the word “mainstreaming.”
I do proofreading for a government office in Korea. I was recently given a report to check called “Mainstreaming Labor Issues into National Agendas.” I don’t understand the meaning of “mainstreaming” in either the title or in the text. Non-native English speakers have not been able to explain the meaning to me, either.
Can anyone explain the meaning of the word, please?
I looked for “mainstreaming” online and found it used to refer to special education or gender issues.
There was one site, from France, that used “mainstreaming” to refer to economic issues. I couldn’t make heads or tails of the meaning there, either.
100 Li is not 100 miles. I think it may be 10 miles.
Isn’t it strange that Chosun imposed this rule? Very different from Goryeo time when Jangbogo supposedly have ruled the seas.
This rule made Koreans to be virtual prisoners of the peninsula. Why would Koreans impose this type of restriction on themselves? Because the caste system of Yanban and Ssangnom? To prevent Ssangnom to escape to other countries?
Then, why not restrict only Ssangnom? Yangban class should be allowed to travel outside of the country. It doesn’t make sense.
I believe this restriction is imposed by the Chinese and carried out by Lee Sungye(who was a Chinese assigned to be the ruler of Chosun province).
Chosun was a part of China, in all official capacity. And, I believe most Chosunite were happy to be a part of the Great Chinese Empire.
To answer Whitey’s question, “to mainstream” is to put something specialized or marginalized into a broader context. The current trend in North American public school education is to mainstream special ed and ESL students. This means the kids spend most of the day in the regular classroom, rather than being isolated with other SPED and ESL kids in a separate class.
“Mainstreaming Labor Issues Into National Agendas” seems to communicate an intention to move labor closer to the political center in order to gain broader appeal and integrate labor solidly into the major political parties. Without seeing the phrase in context, I can only guess based on my understanding of the word and my knowledge of Korean unions.
At the time of Imjin War, about 40 % of the Chosun population were slaves. The Koreans are taught the royal palace was burned down by the Japanese Samurai. The real arsonists were the Korean slaves who wanted to destroy documents vindicating each slave ownership. If Hideyoshi had won the war, the Korean slaves would not have to wait another 300 years to be liberated by Japan.
Hideyoshi took away many Korean potters. When Chosun established friendly relations with the new Tokugawa regime, one of the agendas the two countries talked about was how to treat the Korean potters in Japan.Tokugawa agreed to send them back to Korea. However, most of the potters refused to return to Korea. That is because skilled craftmen were far more socially respected and well off in Japan than in Korea.
Talking about unfairness of the caste system in attempt to “water down” the damages Imjin war had done is quite foolish. For one, caste system at the time was an extremely common system of social organization throughout the world (whether it be in the forms of Confucian manner, or in the forms of feudalism). And for another, such view of history (supposing that invading a country with an unfair social system (in the eyes of the modern-day ethics, no less) is somehow liberating and justified) is a pretext well-associated with that of an imperialistic mindset (and therefore not fit in our current discussion where we can all agree that imperialism is not desirable).
Point of clarification, wjk, Hideyoshi and Tokugawa actually abolished slavery in Japan. However, it was a very contemporary development in comparison to the Imjin war, and saying that Imjin war was good because it freed the Korean slaves is as a mistaken historical analysis as saying that Civil War was meant to free the African slaves in the South.
Baduk, tribute to Chinese dynasty was a common form of diplomacy, rather than an allegiance of undying loyalty to the emperor by its mere districts. It would be as foolish as saying that Japan was ruled by Koreans (as technically, some of the provinces have paid the Korean kings tributes). Also, I am not aware of any “approval” process of Korean kings by the Chinese emperors. And it would be an outlandish claims to say that Koreans thought of themselves as Chinese.
A correction in my analogy. It would be better to use the case of justifying Sherman’s total war policy by saying that it was the freed African slaves who caused civilian damages.
Whitey: “mainstreaming” is bureaucratic jargon. It’s being misused in that title, and they probably mean “incorporating” or similar, although the lure of the thesaurus is strong for some Koreans and plain or apposite English is usually rejected.
“Former Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak, the front-running opposition presidential aspirant in December’s election, proposed Monday creating a “Manhattan-like” island near the border with North Korea and building an inter-Korean industrial park there to ease military tension.”
Lee the bulldozer, ostensibly a conservative, proposes an island to isolate N.K. workers even more than Kaesong does and give more money to the nork regime. Brilliant.
I posted some info about medical services in Seoul’s Ichon-Dong on another thread, which one commenter thought should go here as well. If you need some medical care, I hope you can get some use out of it:
GeumGang Asan Hospital is located Seoul’s Ichon-Dong, and they’re pretty good for basic medical needs. Like most other hospitals that I’ve used throughout Korea, they have a sort of ‘we’re all in this together’ approach to medicine, so that patients are often treated in semi-private areas. Also, if you have a medical problem requiring in-patient care, you’ll be thrown into a room with the nattering nabobs of the nongjang, so I wouldn’t recommend them for that. But they’re competent, have English-speaking medical-staff, and have been quite friendly to me when I’ve used their services. Cost-wise, how much you might end up paying will depend on what services you require, but for things like inoculations and treatment for minor medical problems, my bill rarely rises over KRW25,000, all up.
There are many clinics in the area, and the HanGang Shopping Center has the largest concentration of them. Staff in these clinics likewise speak English, are very competent, and are friendly. Prices are even lower: I’ve gone to clinics there for allergy-related problems and basic medical treatment, and many times (with my national insurance card) it’s only been KRW4,000-5,000 per visit! Like every other clinic I’ve been to, they all write prescriptions for 2-3 days and ask you to come back (perhaps, as some say, in order to charge the national insurance scheme yet again). Whenever I go, the place is always filled with Korean-American families, which suggests to me that I’ve come to the right place for factors such as quality care and affordability.
Don’t worry about what Lee said. He is just BSing. He will scrap the idea as soon as he gets elected.
Lee is a Christian, an elder in Korean church, and so far he has shown anti-Communist attitude.
He has not met Kim Jongil while Park Gunhey has met Kim Ilsung and had a nice photo-op. I do not think Lee will meet with KJI in near future. It is my guess that Lee despises Kims, both Kim Jongil and Kim Daejung.
While Park Gunhey, as the daughter of a dictator, has nearly no chance of becoming next president, Lee may win and bring the regime change. That is with the condition that so-called “X-file” does not become public.
Heck, even with money,women and evil deeds, Korean people may want the regime change so bad that they may still vote for Lee. I wrote the regime change instead of the presidential election because in Korea every election amounts to total change in government, very much like regime change.
“Also, I am not aware of any “approval” process of Korean kings by the Chinese emperors. “
I recall seeing Korean historical drama scenes in which approval from Qing was sought prior to the selection of the crown prince. I could not find independent verification of this online, but I can’t see why Korean dramas would make up a detail like this.
Sprewer, the Manchus are not Chinese. Now they are, but back then they weren’t sinicized.
Chinese lost pretty much their whole country to foreign invaders, the Manchus, after the Imjin War. How can you say they won anything?
I think it’s fair to say the Imjin War tipped Ming China over to their graves.
The Manchus conquering Ming China is the equivalent of the Normans taking over Britain, Scotland, and Ireland.
Sure, now they are English, British, or what not, but those people were foreign invaders. More French than anything to start with.
Chosun won the war, because it kept its land and regime and stopped the Japanese for another couple hundred years.
I don’t think Ming China won. Ming China toppled over much the same way Sui China toppled over after warring in the peninsula. Except Ming was conquered for good for 500 years by a foreign barbarian tribe, whom they didn’t respect one iota.
Whitey, regarding “mainstreaming”. I agree 100% with Michael. It is a garbage word, created from a noun which has no meaning or any meaning one might put to it. If possible, I would not use such a word.
This dog can detect when the woman is going to faint and alerts her so that she can sit down to keep from passing out. It also helps with the laundry and is trained to pass a credit card to the cashier if the woman is too weak to do so.
RE: mainstreaming
It is a perfectly fine word in the field of K-12 education. It has a specific and clear meaning understood by all educators.
<blockquote>Lee the bulldozer, ostensibly a conservative, proposes an island to isolate N.K. workers even more than Kaesong does and give more money to the nork regime. Brilliant.</blockquote>
And yet I’ll bet y’all a case of beer we’re going to see commenters (and maybe one of the posters :-)) claim that a GNP government is going to take a very different approach to NK. Brilliant.
Korean people are mandating that new administration by Lee will break from Kim DaeJung’s “engagement” philosophy with the North Korea.
South Koreans are sending them rice, electricity, fuel and money(KumGang and GaeSong). What more NKs will ask? Cars, Apartments in KangNam and women?
What more?
SKs are mad. Mad as hell. They are not going to take this any more. Many want a clean breakup with NKs and new administration will reduce the contact with NKs.
Lee may pull out of Gaesong and stop GumKang trips. He may stop rice and fuel shipments.
I think 100 Korean li is 40 miles - the Chinese and Japanese measures are different. 3,000 li is 1200 miles and that sounds about the length of the Korean Peninsula diagonally from the far Northeast to Mokpo.
#38, At least there is a chance that a “conservative” will not be as blind to NK’s faults as the last two regimes have been. Hope springs eternal . . .
“Chosun was not an independent country. It was a name given to a region belonging to China.”
–Baduk
1. If Korea were merely a region of China, than Korea would not have had to pay tribute to the Chinese emperors. Region’s don’t pay tribute. However, tributary states–with an emphasis on the word “states” do.
Baduk, my friend, you’re over-zealous. Please learn to use your brain. Don’t be so quick to criticize Korea that you end up contradicting yourself. Your comments usually aren’t so boneheaded. I can only surmise that you’re trolling.
“If Hideyoshi had won the war, the Korean slaves would not have to wait another 300 years to be liberated by Japan.”
–Tocchin
2. Tocchin, I can only surmise that you are not Japanese. You don’t know anything about Japanese society. Japan could not have liberated slaves in Korea because Japan itself at the time still had slaves.
Yeah, sure, slavery was “abolished” by certain shgunates, but when a person works without pay, does it really matter what they are called?
In fact, I’d say it is Japan that needs to be liberated by Korea. Japan, to this day, still has people it mentions as Burakunin–the equivalent of untouchables in India. Korea, on the other hand, outmouded the concept of Cheonmin long ago.
Tocchin, please learn some Japanese history.
3. Who won the Imjin War?
As someone already said, the Manchus won the war. Korea lost the protection of a strong and valuable ally. Japan gained certain Korean and Chinese technology, but retained its status as the backwater of Asia for centuries until it began culturally emulating the west.
Yes, it is mostly wishful thinking to expect the GNP would be harsher than Roh on NK, since just last month his gov’t told NK it wouldn’t be getting any rice until Pyongyang got moving on the Feb 13 six party agreement. Of course, if the GNP wins the presidency and does do that much, many (esp foreign) observers will try to say that the GNP is taking a different approach to the Norks than that of KDJ, the Rohmeister, etc.
“Japan gained certain Korean and Chinese technology,but retained its status as the backwater of Asia for centuries until it began culturally emulating the west.”
YoungRocco2
Wonder why the conviction of Kim Seung-youn, the chairman of Hanwha Group wasn’t a front page story. The major player in this whole mess is convicted to prison and it only gets a paragraph buried in the Korean Times? hmmm…
Thanks Sonagi, R.Elgin, and Michael for the answers about “mainstreaming.”
I will file between “hub” and “ubiquitous” in my Korean jargon file.
The funny thing is that a Korean guy in my office told me “Everyone at that ministry understands what it means.” “That’s nice, but native speakers don’t,” I was tempted to reply.
I appreciated post #29 about Ichon medical options. I have been looking for better clinic and hospital choices.
By the way, Ichon is a nice area. It has a laidback, relaxed vibe that doesn’t exist too many other places in frantic/dynamic Seoul. The main drag has some good burger places to eat, and one can stroll down the street without threat of getting pushed out of the way.
I would say if you are looking to chill, go to Samchung-dong, 가로수길 (between Apkujeong and Sinsa stations), and Ichon.
Chinese lost pretty much their whole country to foreign invaders, the Manchus, after the Imjin War. How can you say they won anything?
The Ming fell to the Manchus but that was nearly fifty years after the Imjin War. So, yes, Chinese ultimately paid a price for its victory in the Imjin War; but that doesn’t change the fact that it won the Imjin War by defeating the enemy at hand before it even reached China.
And, again, Chosun benefited from the Chinese victory, in the sense of retaining its territorial integrity and political autonomy; but again, Korea was then, as in so many other instances, the beneficiary of someone else’s blood and treasure and not, despite its contributions to its own defense, the architect or the creator of its own (relative)independence. It didn’t win anything by its own force of arms and it’s political myopia of course led to its being ripe pickings for Hideyoshi just as it later did for the Meiji.
‘reviews of one of two books - neither of which you apparently have actually read. The book you note, moreover, is a “coffee-table book”’
well, first, i’ve read hawley’s book and the other is on the way. coffee table book? does that mean the contents therein are not factual? and do tell us what YOUR sources are. still further, who are you? have you published a book about the imjin war? are you a respected scholar? nope and nope. the author of this ‘coffee table’ book appears to be a respected authority on midieval japan. your credentials other than being an expert at denigrating koreans are….?
‘Korean regular and irregular forces, aided by armies from Ming China, eventually turned the Japanese back
and
The Koreans fought with the courage of desperation and eventually repelled two invading armies with the help of Chinese troops, rugged terrain, worse weather, and the naval superiority of Admiral Yi Sun-sin,
And you conclude that “Korea” “won” the Imjin War.’ sperwer
well, what else is one to conclude? listen, the world you live in only exists for you. you can expand the definition of ‘win’ to include the aftermath but that’s not what we do here in the real world. can you imagine? we’d have to re wirte the history books to say that germany and japan won ww2 since they went on to become two of the wealthiest nations on earth. we’d have to write that vietnam lost because it was left devastted, communist, and broke. fortuantely, we don’t have to do any of that because that’s not how we define winning a WAR. korea won the imjin war and such a statement is supported by the two books i’ve referenced.
‘Koreans put up an occasionally spirited and, in the case of Yin Sun-sin, a tactically-inspired, defense, but one which was ineffectual overall.’ sperwer
according to who? you? hawley spends quite a bit of time discussing yi sun shin. if the admiral’s actions were ineffectual, then, why the hell would the author spend so much time on them? perhaps, he thinks decimating the enitre japanese navy was significant. your comment about living off the land was the very reason the japanese needed to open a supply route by sea. yi sun shin ensured that that was not to be thereby dealing one of three three death blows to the invading japanese. ineffectual? according to who? you? let’s keep in mind your history here of slamming koreans every which way at every which turn.
‘A lot of Korean “han” and chauvinism can be directly traced, I think, to the fact that Korea hasn’t been able to successfully defended itself against any challenge to its national existence for a very, very, very long time and has suffered one after another humiliation in that regard since Goryeo succumbed to the Mongols. That’s why Pow Pow is so desparate to assert that Korea won Imjin.’ sperwer
your take and my take on korea’s history are very different. i look at it in a very simple way; koreans are still here, aren’t they? i suppose you could respond by repeating that koreans ‘never successfully defended themselves’ and thus, have nothing to be proud of, but that would be how you look at the world, now, isn’t it? korea’s still here. that’s how i look at the world.
i look at it in a very simple way; koreans are still here, aren’t they? i suppose you could respond by repeating that koreans ‘never successfully defended themselves’ and thus, have nothing to be proud of, but that would be how you look at the world, now, isn’t it? korea’s still here. that’s how i look at the world.
The pond scum in the lake surrounding Kyeonghoe-ru is still there, and so are the cockroaches in Jongno. Did they win the Imjin War, too? Somehow I don’t think your co-ethno-chauvinists would be flattered by your peculiar sense of accomplishment.
I’d be glad that you’ve at least read Hawley if you had learned anything; but apparently you haven’t. I assumed you hadn’t read it, because you neither cited any statement from Hawley to the effect that “Korea” “won”, nor compiled any evidence from the book in support of a reasoned argument in support of that claim.
Ditto for for Turnbull, whose book is good, just not exactly first-rate scholarship (which I’m sure Turnbull would cheerily admit, since his purpose was not to produce an academic monograph.)
The only support that you adduce for your thesis are a couple of PR blurbs that happen to mention Korea in the same sentence with China winning the war.
My argument, which I won’t repeat, which is based on the facts related in detail in Hawley’s book and Turnbull’s and others, is that China won the Imjin war. Unlike your cockroach theory of survival, my position is - contrary to your misrepresentation - independent of what happened later. China won because it defeated the Japanese, whose aim remember was to invade and conquer China - Korea was just to have been a passageway, much as it had been for the Mongols when they, with prodigious amounts of Korean assistance, tried to invade Japan - and did so without suffering any homeland collateral damage.
I didn’t say that Yi Sun Sin’s actions were ineffectual, but that on balance the total of Korea’s efforts to repel the Japanese were; the decisive factors were Hideyoshi’s decision not to provision his troops and the Chinese.
If you think Korea has anything to be proud of in being so weak and militarily ineffective as to have permitted Japan to ruin the country and then be saved from annihilation only by virtue of Chinese intervention, I’ll leave you to wallow in YOUR Han-sty. (My ethnic cohort doesn’t go in for the complex of onanistic group self-pity, self-loathing and self-aggrandizement on which you seem to thrive - let alone the exhibitionist display thereof).
well, at least Koreans are still Koreans. Relative to the Manchus. And you’re still ultimately viewing the Qing-Ming war as a civil war. It clearly was not.
I still think Korea won.
The Koreans lost their starter in the 1st inning without getting an out, and they lost their best position player for the season during the game, but it’s still a win in the books.
You say Korea never recovered, and in a sense yes. But did you know that one Chosun king was actually preparing to invade China after the Manchu wars? I think it was Young Jo’s grandson, Jeong Jo, but I’m not certain for sure. As usual, SaDaeBu’s got in the way, and it was quickly scrapped to the bones after Jeong Jo’s early death. I think it was him, but I’m not certain. He had plans to discontinue tributary to Qing, opening up to the outside, accepting Catholics, and invading Qing, but almost all of his plans went no where. Thanks to SaDaeBu.
Actually, I can’t think of another case of an Empire tanking itself to foreign invasion after getting involved in a buffer zone war.
Maybe Russia in Serbia, then tanking into a real civil war from the communists, but that’s about all I can muster up.
‘I assumed you hadn’t read it, because you neither cited any statement from Hawley to the effect that “Korea” “won”, nor compiled any evidence from the book in support of a reasoned argument in support of that claim.’
please provide statement from hawley’s book that korea lost and china won. i don’t remember reading that. i see you do, so where is it? just a lie, i’d say. please also provide statement from turnbull.
‘I’ll leave you to wallow in YOUR Han-sty. (My ethnic cohort doesn’t go in for the complex of onanistic group self-pity, self-loathing and self-aggrandizement on which you seem to thrive - let alone the exhibitionist display thereof’ sperwer
wow, you’re impressive. you’re also one pissed off cat. maybe you and blueballs should hook up. again, what is the source of your han? don’t tell me you don’t got that. you got plenty.
‘Ditto for for Turnbull, whose book is good, just not exactly first-rate scholarship…’ sperwer
you mean, you use the ‘coffee table’ book as a source? you just got done shitting on said source. lol.
‘The only support that you adduce for your thesis are a couple of PR blurbs that happen to mention Korea in the same sentence with China winning the war.’
the only support you’ve given is your opinion. that’s the same thing as those two blurbs written by folks who’ve read the book. unlike you, they conclude korea won. why is that? i can only note that the authors of those blurbs don’t have a history of denigrating koreans like you do.
Oranckay, Lee is applying his pyramid-building solutions to inter-Korean relations, where they don’t work any better than the canal will help the S.K. economy.
You’re probably right about how the GNP will fare no better vis a vis the North. Hope you’ll share that case of beer
Just a rumor from a source. I’ll let you know the source later if it’s legit. But for now the rumor is……
“On June 26, the U.S. House of Representatives, Foreign Affairs Committee passed House Resolution 121, demanding a formal apology from Japan over the sexual exploitation of young women in Asia during World War II. The committee demanded the passing of this resolution on the grounds that Japan was inadequate in acknowledging their past military atrocities. Just having passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee by a vote of 39-2, the resolution is now awaiting full House action….”
would you call World War I and World War II a civil war?
I mean, I met this German American who claims that the Irish are just Germans who got kicked out of Germany.
And everyone knows where Anglo Saxon and even Jutes, Normans came from.
I even had an English guy tell me that the current British monarchy are Germans in their roots. They supposedly changed their names to Windsor from some other name right before or after World War 1.
Now, that, I could stretch nonsensically to a civil war.
Manchus and Han Chinese. Their roots are completely different. Maybe the Manchus can be German tribes and the Han Chinese Slavic tribes, would you call that an internal war at the year of 1600 or so?
Korea News via Google
59 Comments
First!
about 2 months ago, i wrote a post in which i stated that the koreans had won the imjin war. sperwer wrote to tell me i was living in a world of fantasy. i’ve been meaning to address his comment so here it is:
as far as i know, there are only two books about the imjin wars written in english. one is written by samuel hawley and the other is written by stephen turnbull. here are two brief reviews of turnbill’s book:
From Library Journal:
After unifying Japan by force, in 1592 Hideyoshi Toyotomi (1536-98) attempted to establish an empire in East Asia. The conquest of China was his ultimate objective, but Korea had to be subdued first. Instead, it proved an insuperable obstacle to Hideyoshi’s imperial fantasy. Turnbull’s lively and lavishly illustrated history of the failed invasion brightly illuminates the world of late 16th-century warfare in East Asia. After reeling under the initial Japanese attacks, Korean regular and irregular forces, aided by armies from Ming China, eventually turned the Japanese back, but the invasion did not end until Hideyoshi’s death in 1598. Skillfully piecing together contemporary accounts from Japanese and Korean sources, the author provides a vivid and horrifying picture of the strategy, tactics, and technology of Japanese warfare. Brutality was the norm, and hand-to-hand combat produced butchery rivaling the worst of modern wars. In Kyoto a single burial mound holds the sliced-off noses of 30,000 Korean and Chinese victims of Japanese slaughter. Absorbing and accessible, Turnbull’s book will interest general readers and belongs in public as well as college libraries.
Steven I. Levine, Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Lib.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist:
The seven years of late-sixteenth-century warfare between Japan and Korea that arose from Shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s effort to conquer the Korean peninsula hadn’t been adequately chronicled for Western readers. Thanks to a leading Western authority on Japanese warfare in the samurai era, now it has been. The Japanese had the edge in firepower, discipline, and (initially) numbers. The Koreans fought with the courage of desperation and eventually repelled two invading armies with the help of Chinese troops, rugged terrain, worse weather, and the naval superiority of Admiral Yi Sun-sin, an outstanding sea warrior. Admiral Yi may not have built the first ironclad warship, but he certainly deserves his status as, Turnbull says, “Korea’s greatest hero.” The war devastated Korea, decimated the samurai class (to the eventual benefit of Shogun Tokugawa), and cast a shadow over relations between the two countries from that day to this. Impeccably researched, lavishly illustrated, clearly written for the general reader, as outstanding on its subject as it is unique. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
now here’s the description from the jacket cover:
By the end of the sixteenth century the Samurai, Japanese warrior-nobles, had taken total control of their domestic territory. Their unforgiving militarism needed a new foe to conquer: the target was China, the route to victory through Korea. But the Koreans were no pushover. It was a hard fought and, in the end, an unsuccessful campaign, the only time in their 1,500 year history that the Samurai had attacked another country. The Koreans drove them off. Retribution was inevitable. The Samurai returned in 1597 to wreak vengeance and terrible, wanton havoc on the Koreans in a war of unbelievable savagery. This book is the most complete account of those two invasions yet written, researched from forgotten archives in Japan and Korea and written by the world’s most acclaimed historian of the Samurai period, the English Oriental specialist Dr Stephen Turnbull. This is a book that all followers of Samurai history will not be able to resist. It fabulously includes extracts from contemporary Japanese field diaries not seen even in Japan for over 400 years.
********
well, sperwer, it looks like i’m in good company.
the koreans won the imjin war.
Anyone want to adopt a cat (or two)? All shots, very friendly, great with kids, litterbox trained, neutered, not declawed, all around great cats. But we are leaving the country and cannot take them with us.
I guess to depends on your definition of “won” pawi.
From wikipedia:
In addition to the human losses, Korea suffered tremendous cultural, economic, and infrastructural damage, including a large reduction in the amount of arable land,[1] destruction and confiscation of significant artworks, artifacts, and historical documents, and abductions of artisans and technicians.[2] The heavy financial burden placed on China by the war adversely affected its military capabilities and contributed to the fall of the Ming Dynasty and the rise of the Qing Dynasty.[3] On the other hand, Japan flourished.
To the extent that you could say the U.S has “lost” in Iraq if they withdraw next year, I guess you could say the same about the Japanese in the “imjin” wars. They projected military power, wrought significant havoc, and when the going got tough, withdrew. Considering the 30,000 noses etc, I know which side I would have liked to have been on.
The other thing you’re ignoring is the fact of Chinese aid.
…the Ming Emperor sent a large force in January 1593 under two generals, Song Yingchang and Li Rusong. The salvage army had a prescribed strength of 100,000, made up of 42,000 from five northern military districts and a contingent of 3,000 soldiers proficient in the use of firearms from South China. The Ming army was also well armed with artillery pieces.
In February 1593, a large combined force of Chinese and Korean soldiers attacked Pyongyang and drove the Japanese into eastward retreat. Li Rusong personally led a pursuit with over 20,000 strong troops, along with a small force of Koreans, but was halted near Pyokje by the sally of a large Japanese formation.
In late February, Li ordered a raid into the Japanese rear and burned several hundred thousand koku of military rice supply, forcing the Japanese invading army to retreat from Seoul due to the prospect of food shortage.
These engagements ended the first phase of the war, and peace negotiations followed.
So China sent 100,000 soldiers along with a small force of Koreans
In Other words, China saved Korea’s bacon.
I think it’s fair to say that Korea ran a small-scale Resistance, ala the French in WW2, and that it was the alies who in fact cause the invaders to retreat.
hoju_saram, the same could be said about the Brits. London was bombed out, so many young men died that generations of women were ensured of a future of being old maids. The British empire faded within fifty years from the mighty “the sun never sets on the British empire” to being a permanent fourth rate national power. The Soviets won too, but the suffering, the sheer suffering made it a sham–eh? Austria lost but pretty much was spared the worst of it. The Union won against the South in a war of attrition– did they not?
@ hoju_saram
Imjin wars were purely defensive in nature; that is, rather than a conflict of interest between two nations leading to warfare, it was an invasion of Korea by Japan. Since the whole point of war was to repel the invaders rather than organize a counter-attack to the Japanese Isles, your statistics on civilian casualties, cultural destructions, infrastructure loss, etc. are mute and a bit misleading.
Also, the objective of war for Japan was to establish a gateway into China. This was not achieved. Therefore, Japan lost the imjin war. You could argue that the victory was a Pyrrhic victory, which would be more accurate.
On your second point, the page you quote have Korean forces at 40,000 (plus 22,600 local resistance) and Chinese forces at 150,000. Undoubtedly Chinese forces played a crucial part in the war, but comparing it to the French resistance & the Allies (100,000+ vs. 16,000,000 U.S. + ??,000,000 USSR, + ?,000,000 U.K) is a bit ridiculous.
Also, your quote tells us that 20,000 Chinese soldiers and a small Korean forces made the push in the front, not 100,000 & a “small force of Koreans”
And finally, you’re completely ignoring the naval warfare.
korea (and china) was successful at driving out the japanese but the japanese didnt leave the country empty handed. they totally destroyed korea and robbed her blind. after the “defeat,” japan flourished quite nicely while chosun became slave country to chinese for 400 years until they became slave country for japan in 1910. if u think about it, korea’s victory wasnt much of a victory.
Huh?
You reference the dust-jacket hype/blurb and a couple of informational (as opposed to critical) reviews of one of two books - neither of which you apparently have actually read. The book you note, moreover, is a “coffee-table book”, and the most that the reviews say is:
and
And you conclude that “Korea” “won” the Imjin War.
Well, Japan certainly didn’t achieve its objective — which was to conquer China; Korea was just to be a passageway, staging ground and logistics (food, fodder and strong backs) base.
But if you read the books, it’s clear that the dispositive considerations in Japan’s failure were, first, Hideyoshi’s error in not supplying his forces from Japan, but expecting them to “live off the land”; and, second, Chinese intervention.
Koreans put up an occasionally spirited and, in the case of Yin Sun-sin, a tactically-inspired, defense, but one which was ineffectual overall.
And as others have already noted, Korea was materially devastated by its inability to defend itself. Other scholars have estimated that Korea still hadn’t recovered from the Imjin War 250 years later.
If you think that’s “winning”, you ought to get together for drinks with the sorts who subscribe to the “we had to destroy the village to save it” creed.
The winner of the Imjin War — if there was one — was first, China, which avoided having to fight the Japanese on their home field - although, as also noted above, the effort of fighting the war in Korea nonetheless fatally weakened the ruling dynasty and, second, Togukawa Ieyesu, the stage for whose ascension as Shogun after Hideyoshi’s death was set by the effect of the Imjin War on Japan.
On #10. China and Japan both had regime changes with more wars after the war.
by your logic, is that winning the war for them?
did vietnam win the vietnam war? If you say yes, Korea won the Imjin war.
you want to say Korea never recovered from the Imjin War?
I think I’ll agree. Although there was the additional burden of wars with the Manchus and the increased tax to the Chinese, but if you’d like to say that
I’d say, Korea has at least 500 years of reasons to have bad feelings towards Japan. It started with Imjin and ended with the colonization.
Some even say the Korean War itself can be blamed to Japan. Their rape trail of evacuation, being raped by the natives, left a strange two front vacuum for US and Russia. I’ll have to think about that one.
Korea could have recovered on its own if they embraced Gwang Hae and Jung Yak Yong. Avoiding war with the Manchus and they may have opened up and got an early start like Japan.
Well — I mentioned myself that both had regime changes, so no. China (as distinct from the Ming dynasty) nevertheless “won” in my estimation because they prevented the Japanese from reaching China and limited the immediate devastation to its buffer state, Korea.
Japan didn’t “win”, because it did not achieve its war aims. However, despite losing a significant number of men, including a sizable number of elite samurai, they did carry away a lot of loot and people that contributed to their own development. Perhaps more importantly, they so devastated Korea and weakened China that they effectively neutralized their only significant potential enemies for generations, thus freeing themselves to concentrate on internal development. As you note, a lot of violence accompanied that development in the immediate aftermath of the Imjin War, as Tokugawa moved to consolidate political control, but that was all internal.
Korea’s subsequent confrontation with the Manchus was relatively inconsequential; it was a brief blitzkrieg in which Korea quickly bent over (and then tried to maintain some semblance of national dignity by anointing themselves the only true believers in Confucian orthodoxy — and if you have the regard for Jung Yag Yong that you seem to have, you knew where that got Korea).
Yeah, I think (North) Vietnam won the Vietnam war; but that doesn’t mean that the Imjin War was won by Korea (certainly not in the chauvinistic sense in which Pow Pow wants to make that claim). The North Vietnamese won the Vietnam War because they accomplished their aim of a unified Vietnam under their control; the Imjin War was won by the Chinese, and Korea incidentally benefited in the sense that its national existence thereby was preserved. A lot of Korean “han” and chauvinism can be directly traced, I think, to the fact that Korea hasn’t been able to successfully defended itself against any challenge to its national existence for a very, very, very long time and has suffered one after another humiliation in that regard since Goryeo succumbed to the Mongols. That’s why Pow Pow is so desparate to assert that Korea won Imjin.
‘Pow Pow….’
grow up, sperwer. learn to discuss without having a tantrum.
Can ‘El Chino’ win in Japan?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6247586.stm
I saw the movie,”Sicko”, and I believe Michael Moore has something there. With his “big” size brain, something came out logical.
With all civilized country going to National Health Care, the US has to catch up to the rest of the world and come up with a National Health Care Network.
Yes, I am talking about health care system run by bureaucrats and heavily subsidized by the government.
Why not?
Military system has been run by the same condition and the US has the best military in the world.
Why not health care system?
All those politicians who advocated “efficient” capitalist system might have been paid by drug companies, HMOs and insurance companies.
When insurance companies make record profits, one must really think about who is benefitting from the present situation.
Chosun was not an independent country. It was a name given to a region belonging to China.
Lee Sungye who changed the name of the region to Chosun was a wang, a regional administrator.
China imposed rules to Chosun. When a new administor is chosen, it must be reported to the Chinese Emperor and had to be approved. More importantly, if a member of Chosun province, move out of the territory by 100 miles, he would be executed.
China strictly controlled the amount of military power Chosun can have. When Imjin War broke out, it was war between Japan and China. Chosun was the first province of China Japan attacked.
People of Chosun served the Chinese Emperor. There was no separate identity as Korea. Everybody knew they were Chinese.
The true identity movement started with DaeWonGun, the only ruler imprisoned by the Chinese. DaeWon wanted Koreans to have separate identity from the Chinese. He closed off the borders (this could mean that prior to Daewon many have freely travelled to China despite the official order) and declared Korea to be separate people from the Chinese.
When Japan took over Korea, their education system emphasized “Korean identity”. They may have fixed up all official documents and historical records to show Korea to have had separate history. The Japanese are good at fixing records to prop up their side of argument.
Ergo, Korea did not win Imjin War. The Chinese did.
I have a question about the meaning of the word “mainstreaming.”
I do proofreading for a government office in Korea. I was recently given a report to check called “Mainstreaming Labor Issues into National Agendas.” I don’t understand the meaning of “mainstreaming” in either the title or in the text. Non-native English speakers have not been able to explain the meaning to me, either.
Can anyone explain the meaning of the word, please?
I looked for “mainstreaming” online and found it used to refer to special education or gender issues.
There was one site, from France, that used “mainstreaming” to refer to economic issues. I couldn’t make heads or tails of the meaning there, either.
100 Li is not 100 miles. I think it may be 10 miles.
Isn’t it strange that Chosun imposed this rule? Very different from Goryeo time when Jangbogo supposedly have ruled the seas.
This rule made Koreans to be virtual prisoners of the peninsula. Why would Koreans impose this type of restriction on themselves? Because the caste system of Yanban and Ssangnom? To prevent Ssangnom to escape to other countries?
Then, why not restrict only Ssangnom? Yangban class should be allowed to travel outside of the country. It doesn’t make sense.
I believe this restriction is imposed by the Chinese and carried out by Lee Sungye(who was a Chinese assigned to be the ruler of Chosun province).
Chosun was a part of China, in all official capacity. And, I believe most Chosunite were happy to be a part of the Great Chinese Empire.
North Koreans still are.
To answer Whitey’s question, “to mainstream” is to put something specialized or marginalized into a broader context. The current trend in North American public school education is to mainstream special ed and ESL students. This means the kids spend most of the day in the regular classroom, rather than being isolated with other SPED and ESL kids in a separate class.
“Mainstreaming Labor Issues Into National Agendas” seems to communicate an intention to move labor closer to the political center in order to gain broader appeal and integrate labor solidly into the major political parties. Without seeing the phrase in context, I can only guess based on my understanding of the word and my knowledge of Korean unions.
At the time of Imjin War, about 40 % of the Chosun population were slaves. The Koreans are taught the royal palace was burned down by the Japanese Samurai. The real arsonists were the Korean slaves who wanted to destroy documents vindicating each slave ownership. If Hideyoshi had won the war, the Korean slaves would not have to wait another 300 years to be liberated by Japan.
so they could be Japanese slaves, right?
Exactly what did Hideyoshi do with the Koreans he captured, again?
Make them nobles?
Fuck it, man.
Japan modernized Korea during colonization, and that was the main reason for taking Korea, blah, blah, blah.
All that shit was concentrated in North Korea, and most of it all destroyed during the Korean War.
Juche World is very modern. Nice job.
Africa and India became very super modernized thanks to colonization. Fuck it, Japan.
Hideyoshi took away many Korean potters. When Chosun established friendly relations with the new Tokugawa regime, one of the agendas the two countries talked about was how to treat the Korean potters in Japan.Tokugawa agreed to send them back to Korea. However, most of the potters refused to return to Korea. That is because skilled craftmen were far more socially respected and well off in Japan than in Korea.
Talking about unfairness of the caste system in attempt to “water down” the damages Imjin war had done is quite foolish. For one, caste system at the time was an extremely common system of social organization throughout the world (whether it be in the forms of Confucian manner, or in the forms of feudalism). And for another, such view of history (supposing that invading a country with an unfair social system (in the eyes of the modern-day ethics, no less) is somehow liberating and justified) is a pretext well-associated with that of an imperialistic mindset (and therefore not fit in our current discussion where we can all agree that imperialism is not desirable).
Point of clarification, wjk, Hideyoshi and Tokugawa actually abolished slavery in Japan. However, it was a very contemporary development in comparison to the Imjin war, and saying that Imjin war was good because it freed the Korean slaves is as a mistaken historical analysis as saying that Civil War was meant to free the African slaves in the South.
Baduk, tribute to Chinese dynasty was a common form of diplomacy, rather than an allegiance of undying loyalty to the emperor by its mere districts. It would be as foolish as saying that Japan was ruled by Koreans (as technically, some of the provinces have paid the Korean kings tributes). Also, I am not aware of any “approval” process of Korean kings by the Chinese emperors. And it would be an outlandish claims to say that Koreans thought of themselves as Chinese.
A correction in my analogy. It would be better to use the case of justifying Sherman’s total war policy by saying that it was the freed African slaves who caused civilian damages.
Whitey: “mainstreaming” is bureaucratic jargon. It’s being misused in that title, and they probably mean “incorporating” or similar, although the lure of the thesaurus is strong for some Koreans and plain or apposite English is usually rejected.
Did anyone else see this? It was mentioned on OneFreeKorea:
“Front running GNP presidential hopeful suggests another inter-Korean industrial complex”
“Former Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak, the front-running opposition presidential aspirant in December’s election, proposed Monday creating a “Manhattan-like” island near the border with North Korea and building an inter-Korean industrial park there to ease military tension.”
Lee the bulldozer, ostensibly a conservative, proposes an island to isolate N.K. workers even more than Kaesong does and give more money to the nork regime. Brilliant.
I posted some info about medical services in Seoul’s Ichon-Dong on another thread, which one commenter thought should go here as well. If you need some medical care, I hope you can get some use out of it:
GeumGang Asan Hospital is located Seoul’s Ichon-Dong, and they’re pretty good for basic medical needs. Like most other hospitals that I’ve used throughout Korea, they have a sort of ‘we’re all in this together’ approach to medicine, so that patients are often treated in semi-private areas. Also, if you have a medical problem requiring in-patient care, you’ll be thrown into a room with the nattering nabobs of the nongjang, so I wouldn’t recommend them for that. But they’re competent, have English-speaking medical-staff, and have been quite friendly to me when I’ve used their services. Cost-wise, how much you might end up paying will depend on what services you require, but for things like inoculations and treatment for minor medical problems, my bill rarely rises over KRW25,000, all up.
There are many clinics in the area, and the HanGang Shopping Center has the largest concentration of them. Staff in these clinics likewise speak English, are very competent, and are friendly. Prices are even lower: I’ve gone to clinics there for allergy-related problems and basic medical treatment, and many times (with my national insurance card) it’s only been KRW4,000-5,000 per visit! Like every other clinic I’ve been to, they all write prescriptions for 2-3 days and ask you to come back (perhaps, as some say, in order to charge the national insurance scheme yet again). Whenever I go, the place is always filled with Korean-American families, which suggests to me that I’ve come to the right place for factors such as quality care and affordability.
Rage Boy:
http://www.snappedshot.com/arc.....style.html
I’d be pissed off all the time too if I had to follow that Dark Ages religion….
Bonus pic: “The effects of cocaine on Dutch agriculture”
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/5313
bumfromkorea,
Here are some references about Korean kings getting permission from the Chinese Emperor when they decided on succession.
http://www.etimesnet.com/Servi.....inkID=6002
http://kdaq.empas.com/koreandb.....y03_01.htm
http://www.phpschool.com/gnubo.....;page=2738
http://lion.inchon.ac.kr/~youn....._number=87
http://www.mju.ac.kr/eps2/main.....?idx=61508
I hope you can read Korean. The following article written by someone else represents my thoughts exactly.
http://www.damool.net/scp/boar.....amp;ikno=5
michael,
Don’t worry about what Lee said. He is just BSing. He will scrap the idea as soon as he gets elected.
Lee is a Christian, an elder in Korean church, and so far he has shown anti-Communist attitude.
He has not met Kim Jongil while Park Gunhey has met Kim Ilsung and had a nice photo-op. I do not think Lee will meet with KJI in near future. It is my guess that Lee despises Kims, both Kim Jongil and Kim Daejung.
While Park Gunhey, as the daughter of a dictator, has nearly no chance of becoming next president, Lee may win and bring the regime change. That is with the condition that so-called “X-file” does not become public.
Heck, even with money,women and evil deeds, Korean people may want the regime change so bad that they may still vote for Lee. I wrote the regime change instead of the presidential election because in Korea every election amounts to total change in government, very much like regime change.
“Also, I am not aware of any “approval” process of Korean kings by the Chinese emperors. “
I recall seeing Korean historical drama scenes in which approval from Qing was sought prior to the selection of the crown prince. I could not find independent verification of this online, but I can’t see why Korean dramas would make up a detail like this.
I agree with Baduk on the 100 Li is equal to 10 miles (need to check though - don’t have my notes with me.)
Sprewer, the Manchus are not Chinese. Now they are, but back then they weren’t sinicized.
Chinese lost pretty much their whole country to foreign invaders, the Manchus, after the Imjin War. How can you say they won anything?
I think it’s fair to say the Imjin War tipped Ming China over to their graves.
The Manchus conquering Ming China is the equivalent of the Normans taking over Britain, Scotland, and Ireland.
Sure, now they are English, British, or what not, but those people were foreign invaders. More French than anything to start with.
Chosun won the war, because it kept its land and regime and stopped the Japanese for another couple hundred years.
I don’t think Ming China won. Ming China toppled over much the same way Sui China toppled over after warring in the peninsula. Except Ming was conquered for good for 500 years by a foreign barbarian tribe, whom they didn’t respect one iota.
Whitey, regarding “mainstreaming”. I agree 100% with Michael. It is a garbage word, created from a noun which has no meaning or any meaning one might put to it. If possible, I would not use such a word.
Below is a link to a story about an amazing guide dog who assists a woman with a heart defect that causes her to faint on a daily basis:
http://www.boston.com/news/loc.....lifesaver/
This dog can detect when the woman is going to faint and alerts her so that she can sit down to keep from passing out. It also helps with the laundry and is trained to pass a credit card to the cashier if the woman is too weak to do so.
RE: mainstreaming
It is a perfectly fine word in the field of K-12 education. It has a specific and clear meaning understood by all educators.
From above:
<blockquote>Lee the bulldozer, ostensibly a conservative, proposes an island to isolate N.K. workers even more than Kaesong does and give more money to the nork regime. Brilliant.</blockquote>
And yet I’ll bet y’all a case of beer we’re going to see commenters (and maybe one of the posters :-)) claim that a GNP government is going to take a very different approach to NK. Brilliant.
Korean people are mandating that new administration by Lee will break from Kim DaeJung’s “engagement” philosophy with the North Korea.
South Koreans are sending them rice, electricity, fuel and money(KumGang and GaeSong). What more NKs will ask? Cars, Apartments in KangNam and women?
What more?
SKs are mad. Mad as hell. They are not going to take this any more. Many want a clean breakup with NKs and new administration will reduce the contact with NKs.
Lee may pull out of Gaesong and stop GumKang trips. He may stop rice and fuel shipments.
Many SKs want Lee to do just that.
I think 100 Korean li is 40 miles - the Chinese and Japanese measures are different. 3,000 li is 1200 miles and that sounds about the length of the Korean Peninsula diagonally from the far Northeast to Mokpo.
#38, At least there is a chance that a “conservative” will not be as blind to NK’s faults as the last two regimes have been. Hope springs eternal . . .
“Chosun was not an independent country. It was a name given to a region belonging to China.”
–Baduk
1. If Korea were merely a region of China, than Korea would not have had to pay tribute to the Chinese emperors. Region’s don’t pay tribute. However, tributary states–with an emphasis on the word “states” do.
Baduk, my friend, you’re over-zealous. Please learn to use your brain. Don’t be so quick to criticize Korea that you end up contradicting yourself. Your comments usually aren’t so boneheaded. I can only surmise that you’re trolling.
“If Hideyoshi had won the war, the Korean slaves would not have to wait another 300 years to be liberated by Japan.”
–Tocchin
2. Tocchin, I can only surmise that you are not Japanese. You don’t know anything about Japanese society. Japan could not have liberated slaves in Korea because Japan itself at the time still had slaves.
Yeah, sure, slavery was “abolished” by certain shgunates, but when a person works without pay, does it really matter what they are called?
In fact, I’d say it is Japan that needs to be liberated by Korea. Japan, to this day, still has people it mentions as Burakunin–the equivalent of untouchables in India. Korea, on the other hand, outmouded the concept of Cheonmin long ago.
Tocchin, please learn some Japanese history.
3. Who won the Imjin War?
As someone already said, the Manchus won the war. Korea lost the protection of a strong and valuable ally. Japan gained certain Korean and Chinese technology, but retained its status as the backwater of Asia for centuries until it began culturally emulating the west.
“Hope springs eternal . . .”
Yes, it is mostly wishful thinking to expect the GNP would be harsher than Roh on NK, since just last month his gov’t told NK it wouldn’t be getting any rice until Pyongyang got moving on the Feb 13 six party agreement. Of course, if the GNP wins the presidency and does do that much, many (esp foreign) observers will try to say that the GNP is taking a different approach to the Norks than that of KDJ, the Rohmeister, etc.
“Japan gained certain Korean and Chinese technology,but retained its status as the backwater of Asia for centuries until it began culturally emulating the west.”
YoungRocco2
Wonder why the conviction of Kim Seung-youn, the chairman of Hanwha Group wasn’t a front page story. The major player in this whole mess is convicted to prison and it only gets a paragraph buried in the Korean Times? hmmm…
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/ww....._5750.html
Something tells me get out of jail free is the next roll of the dice.
Thanks Sonagi, R.Elgin, and Michael for the answers about “mainstreaming.”
I will file between “hub” and “ubiquitous” in my Korean jargon file.
The funny thing is that a Korean guy in my office told me “Everyone at that ministry understands what it means.” “That’s nice, but native speakers don’t,” I was tempted to reply.
RE: Ichon
I appreciated post #29 about Ichon medical options. I have been looking for better clinic and hospital choices.
By the way, Ichon is a nice area. It has a laidback, relaxed vibe that doesn’t exist too many other places in frantic/dynamic Seoul. The main drag has some good burger places to eat, and one can stroll down the street without threat of getting pushed out of the way.
I would say if you are looking to chill, go to Samchung-dong, 가로수길 (between Apkujeong and Sinsa stations), and Ichon.
The Ming fell to the Manchus but that was nearly fifty years after the Imjin War. So, yes, Chinese ultimately paid a price for its victory in the Imjin War; but that doesn’t change the fact that it won the Imjin War by defeating the enemy at hand before it even reached China.
And, again, Chosun benefited from the Chinese victory, in the sense of retaining its territorial integrity and political autonomy; but again, Korea was then, as in so many other instances, the beneficiary of someone else’s blood and treasure and not, despite its contributions to its own defense, the architect or the creator of its own (relative)independence. It didn’t win anything by its own force of arms and it’s political myopia of course led to its being ripe pickings for Hideyoshi just as it later did for the Meiji.
‘reviews of one of two books - neither of which you apparently have actually read. The book you note, moreover, is a “coffee-table book”’
well, first, i’ve read hawley’s book and the other is on the way. coffee table book? does that mean the contents therein are not factual? and do tell us what YOUR sources are. still further, who are you? have you published a book about the imjin war? are you a respected scholar? nope and nope. the author of this ‘coffee table’ book appears to be a respected authority on midieval japan. your credentials other than being an expert at denigrating koreans are….?
‘Korean regular and irregular forces, aided by armies from Ming China, eventually turned the Japanese back
and
The Koreans fought with the courage of desperation and eventually repelled two invading armies with the help of Chinese troops, rugged terrain, worse weather, and the naval superiority of Admiral Yi Sun-sin,
And you conclude that “Korea” “won” the Imjin War.’ sperwer
well, what else is one to conclude? listen, the world you live in only exists for you. you can expand the definition of ‘win’ to include the aftermath but that’s not what we do here in the real world. can you imagine? we’d have to re wirte the history books to say that germany and japan won ww2 since they went on to become two of the wealthiest nations on earth. we’d have to write that vietnam lost because it was left devastted, communist, and broke. fortuantely, we don’t have to do any of that because that’s not how we define winning a WAR. korea won the imjin war and such a statement is supported by the two books i’ve referenced.
‘Koreans put up an occasionally spirited and, in the case of Yin Sun-sin, a tactically-inspired, defense, but one which was ineffectual overall.’ sperwer
according to who? you? hawley spends quite a bit of time discussing yi sun shin. if the admiral’s actions were ineffectual, then, why the hell would the author spend so much time on them? perhaps, he thinks decimating the enitre japanese navy was significant. your comment about living off the land was the very reason the japanese needed to open a supply route by sea. yi sun shin ensured that that was not to be thereby dealing one of three three death blows to the invading japanese. ineffectual? according to who? you? let’s keep in mind your history here of slamming koreans every which way at every which turn.
‘A lot of Korean “han” and chauvinism can be directly traced, I think, to the fact that Korea hasn’t been able to successfully defended itself against any challenge to its national existence for a very, very, very long time and has suffered one after another humiliation in that regard since Goryeo succumbed to the Mongols. That’s why Pow Pow is so desparate to assert that Korea won Imjin.’ sperwer
your take and my take on korea’s history are very different. i look at it in a very simple way; koreans are still here, aren’t they? i suppose you could respond by repeating that koreans ‘never successfully defended themselves’ and thus, have nothing to be proud of, but that would be how you look at the world, now, isn’t it? korea’s still here. that’s how i look at the world.
lastly, may i ask what is the source of YOUR han?
The pond scum in the lake surrounding Kyeonghoe-ru is still there, and so are the cockroaches in Jongno. Did they win the Imjin War, too? Somehow I don’t think your co-ethno-chauvinists would be flattered by your peculiar sense of accomplishment.
I’d be glad that you’ve at least read Hawley if you had learned anything; but apparently you haven’t. I assumed you hadn’t read it, because you neither cited any statement from Hawley to the effect that “Korea” “won”, nor compiled any evidence from the book in support of a reasoned argument in support of that claim.
Ditto for for Turnbull, whose book is good, just not exactly first-rate scholarship (which I’m sure Turnbull would cheerily admit, since his purpose was not to produce an academic monograph.)
The only support that you adduce for your thesis are a couple of PR blurbs that happen to mention Korea in the same sentence with China winning the war.
My argument, which I won’t repeat, which is based on the facts related in detail in Hawley’s book and Turnbull’s and others, is that China won the Imjin war. Unlike your cockroach theory of survival, my position is - contrary to your misrepresentation - independent of what happened later. China won because it defeated the Japanese, whose aim remember was to invade and conquer China - Korea was just to have been a passageway, much as it had been for the Mongols when they, with prodigious amounts of Korean assistance, tried to invade Japan - and did so without suffering any homeland collateral damage.
I didn’t say that Yi Sun Sin’s actions were ineffectual, but that on balance the total of Korea’s efforts to repel the Japanese were; the decisive factors were Hideyoshi’s decision not to provision his troops and the Chinese.
If you think Korea has anything to be proud of in being so weak and militarily ineffective as to have permitted Japan to ruin the country and then be saved from annihilation only by virtue of Chinese intervention, I’ll leave you to wallow in YOUR Han-sty. (My ethnic cohort doesn’t go in for the complex of onanistic group self-pity, self-loathing and self-aggrandizement on which you seem to thrive - let alone the exhibitionist display thereof).
well, at least Koreans are still Koreans. Relative to the Manchus. And you’re still ultimately viewing the Qing-Ming war as a civil war. It clearly was not.
I still think Korea won.
The Koreans lost their starter in the 1st inning without getting an out, and they lost their best position player for the season during the game, but it’s still a win in the books.
You say Korea never recovered, and in a sense yes. But did you know that one Chosun king was actually preparing to invade China after the Manchu wars? I think it was Young Jo’s grandson, Jeong Jo, but I’m not certain for sure. As usual, SaDaeBu’s got in the way, and it was quickly scrapped to the bones after Jeong Jo’s early death. I think it was him, but I’m not certain. He had plans to discontinue tributary to Qing, opening up to the outside, accepting Catholics, and invading Qing, but almost all of his plans went no where. Thanks to SaDaeBu.
Actually, I can’t think of another case of an Empire tanking itself to foreign invasion after getting involved in a buffer zone war.
Maybe Russia in Serbia, then tanking into a real civil war from the communists, but that’s about all I can muster up.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asi.....260264.stm
comedy.
fit for a political cartoon.
they can’t discuss the bomb, because it might strain relations with the US?
Japan has a sort of SaDaeBu complex as well, I suppose.
‘I assumed you hadn’t read it, because you neither cited any statement from Hawley to the effect that “Korea” “won”, nor compiled any evidence from the book in support of a reasoned argument in support of that claim.’
please provide statement from hawley’s book that korea lost and china won. i don’t remember reading that. i see you do, so where is it? just a lie, i’d say. please also provide statement from turnbull.
‘I’ll leave you to wallow in YOUR Han-sty. (My ethnic cohort doesn’t go in for the complex of onanistic group self-pity, self-loathing and self-aggrandizement on which you seem to thrive - let alone the exhibitionist display thereof’ sperwer
wow, you’re impressive. you’re also one pissed off cat. maybe you and blueballs should hook up. again, what is the source of your han? don’t tell me you don’t got that. you got plenty.
‘Ditto for for Turnbull, whose book is good, just not exactly first-rate scholarship…’ sperwer
you mean, you use the ‘coffee table’ book as a source? you just got done shitting on said source. lol.
‘The only support that you adduce for your thesis are a couple of PR blurbs that happen to mention Korea in the same sentence with China winning the war.’
the only support you’ve given is your opinion. that’s the same thing as those two blurbs written by folks who’ve read the book. unlike you, they conclude korea won. why is that? i can only note that the authors of those blurbs don’t have a history of denigrating koreans like you do.
‘your cochroach pride…’
are you sure you don’t have han? lol.
korea won the imjin war.
Oranckay, Lee is applying his pyramid-building solutions to inter-Korean relations, where they don’t work any better than the canal will help the S.K. economy.
You’re probably right about how the GNP will fare no better vis a vis the North. Hope you’ll share that case of beer
Just a rumor from a source. I’ll let you know the source later if it’s legit. But for now the rumor is……
“On June 26, the U.S. House of Representatives, Foreign Affairs Committee passed House Resolution 121, demanding a formal apology from Japan over the sexual exploitation of young women in Asia during World War II. The committee demanded the passing of this resolution on the grounds that Japan was inadequate in acknowledging their past military atrocities. Just having passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee by a vote of 39-2, the resolution is now awaiting full House action….”
would you call World War I and World War II a civil war?
I mean, I met this German American who claims that the Irish are just Germans who got kicked out of Germany.
And everyone knows where Anglo Saxon and even Jutes, Normans came from.
I even had an English guy tell me that the current British monarchy are Germans in their roots. They supposedly changed their names to Windsor from some other name right before or after World War 1.
Now, that, I could stretch nonsensically to a civil war.
Manchus and Han Chinese. Their roots are completely different. Maybe the Manchus can be German tribes and the Han Chinese Slavic tribes, would you call that an internal war at the year of 1600 or so?
wjk: wtf are you on about? did you forget to take your meds?
“I mean, I met this German American who claims that the Irish are just Germans who got kicked out of Germany.”
If that’s true, I’m a complete Kraut. Affectionately, your kraut-mick friend.
I’m a Kraut-Mick too! We’re very efficient drinkers.