Bob Chen of globalvoicesonline.org has an interesting post on the case of an Ewha professor who is of the opinion that “Chinese mythology mainly originated from Korea”. Needless to say, the trolls have indulged themselves over this nonsense as per the observation of one commenter at an asiafinest.com forum
it (Chinese quote in post) says that a Korean professor named Zheng Zaishu of Ehwa University suggested that the Chinese mythology mainly originated from Korea. His theory was based on the fact that many gods mentioned in Chinese mythology Legends of Mountains and Seas could be found in Goguryeo frescos.Below the text, the websites furthermore attached a list that numerated the controversies on culture between China and Korea from 2005 to now, including those on Dragon Boat Festival, the origin of printing (one of the 4 great inventions of China) and traditional Chinese medicine which the Koreans supposedly claims as they are Korean.
Soon, Chinese internet lit up like Christmas Tree. For example, at 163.com there were more than 3000 angry replies to Professor Zheng Zaishu in matter of minutes. More than half of the replies had something bad to say about Korea as a country, that it was a self-contempt that tried to seek comfort in self-deception and that Korea was stealing culture from its neighbor China. There were numerous comments and insults concerning plastic surgery and general disdain for Koreans. . In a survey by 163.com, 1960 people vote the option that Korea is a “small country with provincial people”, while 1244 people think “we Chinese had better rescue our culture rather than to dispute with others”.
6 Comments
So is there really a Zheng Ziashu at Ewha? Whatever the Korean equivalent of those characters are.
How much if any does the Chinese invention of printing take credit for innovations made in Korea?
A 10 month old article and forum post?
+1 thread necromancy
Speaking of trolling, it looks like we’ve got a flamewar raging here.
How do they get all this information about Korean scholars claiming Chinese works theirs?
If only they could be more interested in other stuff happening in Korea.
Flamewar? I don’t see any flamewar. Does R.Elgin even speak Chinese, or does he just have a fetish?
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) covers a wide variety of classical and modernized medical practices, from herbs to acupuncture, massage therapy, pulse reading, etc. Just as the Japanese developed Keiraku Chiryo & Kampo from TCM, TCM itself developed from medical practices of the ancient world. Parts of Chinese Herbal Medicine probably evolved from Ayurveda medicine of ancient India. It’d be dumb to assume that our ancestors didn’t travel, and medicine was probably a good trade item.