Seo Kyoung-duk — who’d be a tragic figure if his story wasn’t just so damned funny — got another ad published in a major US paper, this time the NYT:
Taken from his homepage.
Oh my. How all those Jews and Chinese in New York let that one get through is anyone’s guess.
I like the inclusion of China’s Shandong Peninsula into Baekje, too. Can’t wait to see how the Chinese respond.
What’s next for Seo, you ask? Well, he plans to get an ad in TIME or Newsweek promoting the Korean position on Baekdusan, sometime later this year.
45 Comments
Where’s this guy get the money to take out these ads in ‘major newspapers’? Anyhow, good luck to Mr. Seo in convincing New Yorkers everywhere that Goguryeo was both ridiculously big as well as ‘Korean.’
and for his next trick, Seo Kyoung-duk will build a time machine to find a place in the space-time continuum where someone outside of Korea gives a crap.
and the machine will be powered by Jew tears!
and many of the parts built with Chinese child labor!
i like how Mr. Seo took the time to put in Dokdo on his Goguryeo map. Take that you japs!!!
Oh brother…
The ad does not help with a “peaceful and prosperous Northeast Asia.”
It represents very dubious interpretations of history. Most historians (including many of the more serious Korean ones) would not interpret vague historical passages to the kind of territory expansion indicated in the map above.
Most nationalistic Koreans will point to Koguryo’s size in various parts of it’s history as a source of pride. However, the best evidence we have (primarily in Tang court histories and the Samguk Sagi) would indicate that all three Korean kingdoms had about the equal population of about 4 to 3.5 million individuals. This means that as large as Koguryo’s land mass may have been, much of this land was difficult to farm. Baekje had the bread basket that is the present day Cholla province and Silla had the Han River valley, another bread basket. Koguryo’s population was concentrated in the Pyongyang area and along the Tumen and Yalu river valleys as well as the Liaodong peninsula.
That ad is so for the benefit of the Korean public…
Wonder why Seo marked the “West Sea” as the “Yellow Sea”?
Somebody please photoshop the word “Jushin” onto the graph and add some Yonsama pics.
Seo is a ‘fucktard,’ not funny and definitely tragic.
I don’t really see the point of reasserting, once a upon a time, we kicked your ass,
when since 668 AD, we chose ELECTIVELY to kiss China’s ass forever, until the Japanese came in and told us,
Stop kissing China’s ass. It’s time for you to kiss my ass. That lasted an effective 50-60 years or so.
Then, the US came in, mainly to counter communism in East Asia. Best foreign influence to date.
We Koreans even have history books full of half truths, and documentations written at least 300-500 years after the events took place to glorify our decision to kiss China’s ass.
It’s a wonder to me that Shilla Korea has elected to burn and destroy all records of Goguryo and Baekjae, while China’s history books contains records of past kingdoms pretty much intact, unified or divided kingdoms and what not. Truly, truly, a shame.
This reassertion at this point will cause
1/ a dick fight with China, Japan.
and it proves that NY Times will do anything if the
1/ price is right.
In reality, almost all non-Han tribes in East Asia had at least one good chance to invade deep into China proper.
PRC is making too big a deal of it, because ROK has miraculously in the age of 2008, managed not to be part of PRC’s version of China proper.
Everyone’s Chinese ! Be sinicized ! Money brings us together !
this ad is not for Koreans. It’s aimed towards non-Koreans, who apparently don’t even care.
correction: graph -> map
The only non-Koreans likely to care are on this site and even then it’s hard to care about it.
After all, Lyndon LaRouche bought full-page ads in the NYT for years. So has Kim Jong-il. They’re meaningless.
You would think that the bigger they make Goguryeo, and the more it extends into traditional Chinese territory, the easier it becomes for China to claim it as a Chinese state by virtue of its Geographical location.
i agree that they’re pretty meaningless because i almost always skip over these kinds of things. but yet, some people will actually read the crap and that’s why i say:
BRAVO, MR SEO!!! HIGH FIVE, PLEASE!
the chinese spread disinformation about koguryeo, why can’t a korean do the same?
i wish i could put out such an ad though i would be more subtle and informative, and would have left out the baekche shit.
#13: Exactly. I can just see the ever-dwindling readers of that dying rag studying that ad carefully over their morning lattes and coming to the conclusion that China has a right to all of North Korea.
“this ad is not for Koreans. It’s aimed towards non-Koreans, who apparently don’t even care.”
On the surface, it appears to be so, but…Who thinks this is a newsworthy story? The American media or the Korean media? The South Korean, obviously. Ipso facto, the ad will reach more South Koreans than Americans.
the guy is an idiot and does more harm than good. people like him, and there’s many, are so shallow and narrow minded, they don’t see the consequences of their action. seriously, what if some japanese bought ads with a map that showed korea as part of japan because, well, japan did once occupy korea. idiot!
Bad move. It will just invite retaliations with no good results. Just wait til the Chinese netizens get a hold of this. Korea bashings like Christmas tree lights. It’s already bad enough for Koreans in China without manufacturing more shit. Why can’t some people think?
Gee, I thought the Japan Times was bad for running celebratory pages in honor of the national days for any and every country, no matter how rank. This past week it was Iran national day, so we were treated to a smiling Ahmadinejad and a full page faux article, much of it gushing on Iran’s peaceful nuclear [weapons] program. Oh and that there aren’t any [more] queers. I am not making this up.
@#19:
The Korea Times and Korea Herald do the same thing. A favorite headline is “Korea and (insert country name here) cement economic ties.” About the only two countries that didn’t get glowing text tributes were the US and Japan. China has probably joined the Axis of Evil by now.
“About the only two countries that didn’t get glowing text tributes were the US and Japan.”
I may be misinformed, but doesn’t the country being honored buy the coverage?
I don’t know how many historians are in this blog, but Seo’s map of Koguryo, as indicated before, is grossly inaccurate. However, it’s roughly accurate with the borders of the Liao (Khitan) Dynasty of the 11th century.
So, any word yet on how many people who read the New York Times (or the comics in the NYT, anyhow) could actually find the modern nation of South Korea on a map (much less the mythically-inflated historical kingdom of Goguryeo?)
No. The specials are a vehicle for corporate advertising. For example, in a supplement on Libya, there will be a ‘news’ story about Daewoo buildng apartments in Tripoli next to a Daewoo ad.
And I should make clear that supplements are published for Japan and the US, too, on occasion of national holidays and visits by leaders, but as I said, news stories in these supplements are not written in a fawning tone.
Man, that site is insane. I’d feel better about mocking if these opinions weren’t so widely held here. I wonder if the “Sea of Korea” movement will pick up steam anytime soon.
#23 zonath
Most of the American HS students cannot even find MEXICO and CANADA on maps correctly. Korea? Ain’t dat somewheres nixt to Chahnah or Hawaii or somethin’ like dat?
I think there needs to be a group of Koreans who take up a NYT or Wapo one pager to apologize for Seo…
what do you mean Wang Kon?
This was instigated by the PRC, calling your name sake’s regime of legitimacy purely Chinese. Did you know they Chinese even say that Wang Gun and Lee Seung Gyae are Chinese?
It’s just a fucking ad. Who cares?
@wjk
It’s just like how the existence of Michael Moore does not justify the existence of Ann Coulter. Or how Keith Olbermann’s existence can’t justify Bill O’Reilly’s. I can go on forever, but I’m in a class at the moment.
I love the way the people of Goguryeo, respected the future Russian borders that probably weren’t marked out until the late 1800s early 1900s during the Russo-Japanese War.
oopsy…looks like seo should have spent some of the money on adding server bandwidth.
#31, the map above shows Goguryeo cutting into what is now Russian territory, right up to Vladivostok.
A very bad attempt. Seo should have focused on criticizing the Chinese government, pointing out to its historical distortions in general.
And the second paragraph is a total piece of crap. For a properous and peaceful Northeast Asia, China needs to be contained and kept in a little corner where it can’t suffer grievances upon its neighbors.
# 29,
There are ways of fighting battles without shooting one self in the foot.
Posting one page ads in major publications with bad history does more harm then good…
This Seo has passion, but he doesn’t have credibility and to win the Koguryo debate, the world will listen to the side with the most credibility.
Hummm…. I used the word “world” when I really meant “a neutral party.”
That presumes the world will listen at all. It won’t.
People may read this crap, but only Koreans will care about it. That’s how it always is and will continue to be. most people could give a shit about Korea. Why should they care?
The touch of including music from Pachabel’s (oops, I meant to say Park E Bell’s) on the http://www.forthenextgeneration.com/ website was touching. The fact that it was played on traditional Korean instruments proves that it was originally written in Korea.
Every time I see a map like the second one Marmot linked to I wonder whether Mongolians will issue maps claiming ownership over their old empire. Why let Korean cranks have all the fun?
Note that I can’t see Seo’s map. Seo’s site is either down right now or really, really blocked in China — I can’t even see it with a proxy.
#40 - It’s not working for me in the US, either… So I’m guessing either a DNS attack or else the site exceeded its bandwidth.
# 37,
Again, I meant to say “neutral party.”
#31, so who owns the thin strip of coastal land on the far north east?
Not exact..but similar to the Russian borders of today.
Did the people of Goguryeo decide to occupy land much further north but leave coastal and warmer land in the east with abundance of seafood to a more powerful tribe/group of Siberians/ancient japanese?
In fairness, why is it that some land disputes draw more attention among Americans than others? Why do we care more about Kosovo than Koguryeo?
#44 - Bombs exploding over the land dispute tend to draw the attention a bit more than the circle-jerk of academic name-calling and newspaper ads that seem to be the course for stuff like Goguryeo and Dokdo.