Talk:Korea

Please see the List of Korea-related topics (1-K, L-Z) for a complete list of Wikipedia articles on Korean topics.
For Korean spelling and formatting guidelines, please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Korean).
There is also a notice board for Korea-related topics.

This page on the country is woefully inadequate.danielcboyer|Daniel C. Boyer]]

There's also a korean Wikipedia. http://ko.wikipedia.org soax

Following the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II, Korea was liberated.

It wasn't liberated. It was just conquered by different countries. Sounds much like Soviet "liberation" of Warsaw and Berlin. Taw 14:00 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

I changed the above slightly. What war broke out in 1950? Are the two Korea's still seperate countries? (I think so, but geography is hardly my strongsuit). I think some attention should be given to the current economical position of Korea. (or perhaps split up in North and South Korea?? Same for issues like religion, education, you name it. This needs work.

kh7 19:14 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)

Bluelake August 5, 2003: I notice someone is having a fit when it comes to romanization. It looks like most everything that was written into the "official" romanized system by one person was changed to the old M-R system by another. Personally, for some things I like the old M-R system (i.e. well-known words, such as family and place names), but many others look better, IMO, with the "newer" system (i.e. 'Hanja', instead of 'Hancha').

It is not the point but I don't think "Hancha" conforms to the standard M-R system. As far as I know, a nonaspirated initial consonant after a vowel, -n, -m, -ng or -l is spelled the voiced counterpart if there is. --Nanshu

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Korean) soax

Historical question, see the mention of the 1945 Cairo meeting, but have also seen a "Cairo Joint Communique" references (one place from google) in 1943. Is this a typo on their part, or another Cairo meeting?
-- ~ender 2003-09-05 13:40:MST

2nd reference: http://www.history.navy.mil/books/field/ch1d.htm (google cache) "By 1943, however, American thinking with regard to Korea had advanced to the point of contemplating that liberation from Japan would be followed by an international trusteeship. The communiqué of the Cairo Conference promised Korean independence "in due course," and both at Yalta and at Moscow discussion of the trusteeship idea resulted in apparent general agreement."
-- ~ender 2003-09-07 04:31:MST

I reverted a heavily biased edit by User:172.192.49.113. Tuf-Kat 06:14, Sep 5, 2003 (UTC)

172.194.4.175, please read NPOV. You can't describe Japan's rule as inhumane exploitation; instead, explain who think it was so and why, and who disagrees and why. Tuf-Kat 06:28, Sep 5, 2003 (UTC)

I've just reverted changes by User:172.192.102.200 for the same reasons as above diwiki 10:44, 14 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Splitting of Korea

"During the night of the August 10th and early hours of August 11, Col. Charles H. Bonesteel, Chief of the Policy Section, US Army Operations Division, and Lt. Col. Dean Rusk, later to become assistant secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs 1947-1960; Secretary of State 1961-1969 and the main architect of the Vietnam War, formulated General Order No. 1. James Bymes, US Secretary of State in 1945, instructed the young colonels to draw up a line "as far north as possible". The colonels were unable to find a detailed map of Korea and ended up using a small wall map of the Far East. Lt. Col. Rusk's fingers found the 38th parallel on the tiny map."
"Stalin named his price. His wish list included splitting Korea at the 38th Parallel, Sakhalin's southern half, the Kurile islands, preeminence in Manchuria, Port Arthur, and free use of the Chinese railroads. Stalin promised to enter the war in two or three months after the German surrender. The division of Korea was not entirely original. Similar proposals for Russian sphere of influence in the North, and a Japanese sphere in the South, had been called for during the last years of the tottering dynasty nearly a half-century ago."

So it seems funny that everyone is surprised when Russians accept the 38th as a division point. What is amazing is that Russians pull back at that point to behind the 38th parallel.

Also, at the outbreak of the Korean War, Russia abstained from the UN Security Council vote on sending forces to Korea (they probably would have vetoed the US initiative if they had voted). --Sewing 15:46, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)

For your information, 東方禮儀之國 doesn't mean "The country of noble etiquette in Far East Asia". 東方 (eastward) doesn't mean "Far East Asia", but "the place to the east of China". 禮儀 is completely different from what we think "noble etiquette" is. It is the set of Confucian protocols. So 東方禮儀之國 actually means "the country which keeps Chinese customs well located to the east of China". --Nanshu 01:47, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)

In addition to Chinese customs, there are Korean customs as well. 禮儀 might be better translated as "rules of ceremony" (according to my Cantonese-English dictionary), or perhaps more loosely, "ceremonial observance(s)." And 東方 strictly means "eastern direction" or "eastern region": it only means "east of China" in a Chinese (or Sino-Korean) context. Thus, a more accurate translation would be: "The country of ceremonial observances located to the east [of China]."
--Sewing 15:46, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)

"ceremonial observances" lacks the nuance 禮儀 has. It is the dogmatic set of Confucian forms, followed merely for the sake of procedure. A procotol which does not conform to Confucianism isn't 禮儀 even if it is courteous. --Nanshu 01:09, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

For your information, Nanshu, the definition of the term 東方禮儀之國 makes no explicit mention of China or any of its traditional rules of ettiquette. In fact, the term ;禮儀 simply means "manners", not "manners of China". Obviously, you derived your own biased meaning of ;禮儀 from the word 東方, but even that doesn't serve as an excuse. 東方 refers to what Westerners usually call the "Far East", not the "region east of China". Combine that with ;禮儀;之國 and you get the definition "the Far Eastern country that upholds manners of ettiquette". Seriously, Nanshu, stop trying to infer strange implications from simple Chinese and get on with studying your kanzi (or hanja, as we call it here in Korea)

Shouldn't we have a summary of the history of Korea here and have the full version on the seperate pages only? I'm thinking about the Japanese colony bit in particular, but the history of Korea in general. diwiki 10:20, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hello, everyone: I have added information to the pages Transportation_in_South_Korea and Hanja. I have also added short articles for some smaller cities (Mokpo, Gunsan, Pohang) abd added text to some other Korea-related pages (for example, Seoul). There are some typos which I will have to fix, but later; I'm also in the process of adding Hangeul & Hanja glosses to the Korean words I added.

I have also begun adding articles for some important railway lines and freeways, but I think I will probably follow Nanshu's example and add "Line" after the name of the railway line or "Expressway" after the name of the expressway to the article titles, to help clear things up.

Sewing 25 Sept 2003

I have added a page on the traditional Eight Provinces of the Yi Dynasty. Its main feature is a table giving provincial names in English, Hangeul, and Hanja; dialects; regional "nicknames" (e.g., Yeongdong); and modern administrative divisions. There is a link to it from the Korea page. Sewing 15:49, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

This country needs an entry on culture! Maybe someone can copy together a bit from South Korea and North Korea? There's a shared past... DiruWiki 16:20, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

You mean a paragraph on this page, or a separate page? Anyhow, I agree: music, dance, masks, ceramics, clothing, etc.... There could be one overview article or page, with links to separate pages on each of these topics. --Sewing 17:18, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I've done Culture of South Korea and today found Music of Korea (which wasn't linked to Korea at all...) If someone just copied bits and pieces, I think we'd have a good start. I haven't the time right now... DiruWiki 20:24, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The Culture of South Korea page looks great!--But I renamed it Culture of Korea, since I think the article applies equally to both North and South. Keep up the good work... --Sewing 03:58, 5 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Great work from your side! DiruWiki 22:17, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Thanks. Like you, I have discovered a lot of excellent articles written by different people (Korean War, Korean Buddhism) that aren't linked to from anywhere. So that's why I'm trying to focus on the List of Korea-related topics now. I also want to standardize the article titles for kings and queens, so today I created lists of the kings and queens of Silla and Goguryeo --Sewing 22:25, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Wait a sec, it doesn`t make sense for there to be an article entitled "Culture of North Korea" but not one called "Culture of South Korea". Either the "Culture of North Korea" article must be removed as well, or both pages need to be restored as before. Or perhaps a new article called "Culture of South Korea" could be created to describe cultural aspects not shared by the North? --Ce garcon 03:23, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I added the List of Japanese Governoers-generals, altough it must be corrected yet. Because of the bioraphies of these persons.--Egon

I have reverted non-NPOV changes. Kokiri 20:47, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

History

I have moved the history bit to their own article and summarized the bits here. Kokiri 21:24, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Can we please stop adding to the history bit? There is a seperate article (History of Korea) to cater for the details. It's a question of balance. Kokiri 09:04, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I definitely agree. Four or five short paragraphs at most would be enough on this article. I would do the summary, but I'm sure it would be remagnified (leading to pointless duplication of more detailed content elsewhere) unless we put a notice on the article itself to stop adding to the history. Iceager 03:10, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

OK, I've done my best to summarise (although I feel I should go farther). I've added a notice to dissuade people from lengthening the section; I don't know how effective/appropriate that is. --Iceager 05:54, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I am making this request for any korean out there. First, you know the idea of Um/Yang and how it governs eastern medicine.

Well, there is only a page about chinese medicine and yin yang if someone could write a similar article about korean medicine, I would be very appreciative

Traditional_Chinese_Medicine maybe call it Traditional_Korean_Medicine

Hfastedge 16:41, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I am wondering if there is anyone here who reads Korean and is interested in politics who could help me understand the Korean election statistics at the Chosun Ilbo website (http://www.chosun.com/politics/elections.html)? Please drop me a line if you can help. Adam 00:13, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This section is self-contradictory:

The publication technique of movable type was invented in Korea in 1232 (although already invented about 200 years before in China by Bi Sheng, where it was not very successful, it can be assumed that it was invented in Korea analogically)

If it was invented elsewhere, how can it be assumed "analogically" that moveable printing was "re-invented" in Korea in 1232? This part needs re-writing to be fair and accurate to Mr Bi Sheng. Mandel 12:14, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

I have already made the change. Mandel 10:39, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Korea Page in Korean WikiPedia.

I edited the link for making better connection to Korea in Korean Page, ko:한국. Somebody made the link to the page of Korean Penninsular in ko.wikipedia.org, so, I corrected the link. It is to manage consistency of translation from Korea to the word in Korean. --RomanPark

Korea vs Korean Peninsula

I see that currently, Korean Peninsula redirects to Korea. I would argue that since these are not the same thing, there should be two separate articles (cf. Scandinavia vs Scandinavian Peninsula). Historically, "Korea" has neither been confined to the Korean peninsula with the current boundaries (the rivers Yalu and Tumen) nor has there been a complete absence of "non-Korean" elements on the Korean peninsula (eg. the Jurchens, traditionally regarded as "foreign" from the Korean point of view). I suggest that most of the content her be preserved and a new article created at Korean Peninsula focusing on the geographical entity, and I will work on this unless there is a compelling argument against it. --Iceager 08:51, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I say go for it. You are quite right: the country (countries) and peninsula are two different things, and it's just a convenient gloss to treat them as one. It's just so much work teasing apart articles (Just about as hard as merging two articles, I suppose!), so you're on your own.... --Sewing 19:45, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've created a separate Korean Peninsula page and modified the Korea article. I'm too lazy to do more work, but hopefully, invisible Wiki forces will carry on what I've started. --Iceager 03:52, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Nice start. Kokiri 22:34, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Japan

There are quite a few links to Japan in Korean topics that actually mean Empire of Japan. (I'm guilty of many of these links.) Just bear the existence of this article in mind when linking... Kokiri 22:34, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Disambiguation

I think "Korea" should be a disambiguation page with one link to the peninsula, one to the Republic of Korea, and one to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Juppiter 18:40, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Flag

I don't really know what to do with the flag. It is not an official flag of either country. But it is a widely recognized symbol used at international sporting events. So I put it in the "Korea in sporting events" section, which is near the top of the page. -Sewing - talk 15:16, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

4.23.83.100

Please discuss here your changes. They violate the Wikipedia principle of NPOV, and take every opportunity to attack Japan. --Golbez 07:16, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

I think the most recent edit, Attribuitating the queen's death to Miura isn't anywhere near conclusive enough to state that as fact... The only source I can find for a direct allegation all leads back to an opinon article in korean times in 2001: Byong-Kuk Kim, Assassination of Empress Myongsong (Opinion), Korea Times, Dec. 28, 2001 http://www.hankooki.com/kt_op/200112/t2001122817121248110.htm (if someone can read Korean). Everything else mainly cites this and are radically pro korean places... I can't find any neutral historians citing it(I do find netural historians citing it as alledlgy though)

Apparntly the murders were put on trial too, but Japanese Imperalist history is rather difficult to find truthfullness in, so yes... just putting these facts out.

The assasination of the Queen

Don't want to weigh into the changing the page just yet but am aware of the following:

Motive: The Queen wanted to be friendly with the Russians to keep the Japanese honest.
Opportunity: Miura was a former senior army general and was the Japanese Government's representative in Korea and he directed a group of military attaches.
Aftermath: Miura and his assasins were tried in Japan and acquitted in a sham trial.

IMHO, it is very clear the Japanese Government authorised the assasination. PockyChoc 21:43, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

... I don't even need to reply to you... Miura was never tried in any type of miltiary court, just the assasins if you are going to follow me around disputing everything I say, at least bother to reasearch stuff.

Possible copyright violation?

Tyler111 has added a number of images to this page originally from http://www.lifeinkorea.com// , I have reported these (seeming) copyright violations.　--Ce garcon 14:56, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Enough.

I've had enough of singlehandedly policing an article on a subject I'm not too familiar with; I just know poor additions when I see them. Someone else, see if the anon's additions are valid. They don't seem gramatically okay, but he'll just readd them (PIECE BY PIECE) if I revert them, and he has a history of never listening to comments of talk, so hey. Taking this off my watch list, it's someone else's problem now. --Golbez 07:18, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Korea geo stub image

I've just added an image to the Template:Korea-geo-stub, featuring a map and the yin/yang. Basically the image is the map superimposed on a slightly rotated yin-yang in such way that the red area almost exactly coincides with north korea and the blue with South Korea. I realise that any image relating to the whole Korean peninsula is likely to be a diplomatically thorny item, so can I ask regular posters to this topic (especially any Koreans) to check that the image is not "culturally insensitive". if it is, then please feel free to change it before it causes any offence! (please either comment here or on my talk page) Grutness|^hello? Missing image
Grutness.jpg

07:11, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Weird

Is any of the informations on Bai-dal, the Mongols, and the Huns verified to be relevent? 68.72.124.166 22:15, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The Go-Joseon part of the article probably has a lot of myths. 68.72.124.166 22:18, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- Did the Koreans really originate from Lake Baikal? 68.72.124.166 22:20, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There was a program on A&E or history channel on TV about it, but alot of the info is with the Mongolians and Koreans who acknowledge they are related cause of history, food, language, sports, etc.

There is biological evidence that Koreans, Mongols, and Huns (present day Hungarians) came from the same race. Also, the fact that Koreans have relatively less flat nose and longer eyes show that they lived in northern areas, whether it be Lake Baikal or other regions. In addition, please cite any evidence if you want to debunk something. It is very unacceptable to call historically accepted facts as "weird," "myths," and so on.

Joseon Dynasty Material

I've moved a considerable amount of historial material on Korea to a sub-page of this Talk page. Perhaps someone will find time to work it up into a reasonable History section.

Historical material from Joseon Dynasty

Disputed

(Resolved) Age of the written language: 500/5000 years

I noticed that 128.54.199.233 recently changed the age of the written language from 5,000 years to 500 years. I want to assume good faith and not say this is vandalism, but sources such as this one (http://www.declan-software.com/korean.htm#Hangul) suggest that the written language is indeed about 5,000 years old. Could someone with more knowledge of Korea verify this for me? --Death phoenix 15:00, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The standard Korean written language used in modern times (Hangul) was commissioned in the early 15th century (about 1440), so it is around 560 years old. Before Korea developed its own written language, Koreans used Chinese characters to write their language. It's also interesting to note that Chinese characters still enjoy limited usage in Korean texts (such as the newspaper), however for most writing in Korean, Hangul is used. Zonath 16:21, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, having re-read this part of the article, it would probably make more sense and be more accurate to say something about Korea's history recording back to 5000 years. The age of the language seems to have little or nothing to do with the content of the rest of the paragraph. Zonath 17:15, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Crap, my own link apparently traces the written language back approximately 1500-2000 years, not 5000 years as I originally stated. Also, this link (http://www.learnkorean.com/whanja/hclassindex.asp) suggests that Hanja (based on the Chinese language) was introduced to Korea some two thousand years ago. Were there other written forms of the Korean language used before this time? I was thinking of perhaps explaining that Hangul has been around since 500 years ago, but the Korean written language being (2000/5000) years old. --Death phoenix 05:07, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That's a moot point. Looks like User:Ce garcon solved the problem simply by replacing that entire text with "The", and I think he's right. The statement in dispute was an aside message anyways, so it's the right correction to make. I wish he'd have posted something in this discussion, though. --Death phoenix 15:16, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Surely an error?

I find it curious that the Soviet Union was sending out archeological expeditions "in the 1800s", time travel? ;) Seriously, I have little knowledge on this subject and the article is structured in such a way that I hesitate to tamper with it, but it seems clear that the Soviet Union wasn't doing very much of anything in the 1800s.

Bowmen?

The people of Go-Joseon are referred to as the eastern bowmen in historical text.

This single sentence is hopelessly erroneous. It is a hard job to point out all errors. This time, I explain why the term "eastern bowmen" is wrong.

First of all, the character/word 夷 has no such meaning. Look it up in a Chinese dictionary. Tz'u-yüan 辭源 would be nice for checking historical usages. Tz'u-yüan includes awfully rare usages, but we cannot find the meaning of bowmen among 14 meanings of yi. As far as we know, there is no document uses 夷 in the sense of bowmen.

The Korean claim would be based on an old theory about the grapheme of yi. Shuowen Jiezi by Xu Shen states 从大从弓. Xu Shen thought that the grapheme of 夷 followed 大 and 弓. But this does not conform to its meaning: 平也. His theory on the graphic form does not mean that 夷 stands for a big arrow, bowmen or any other meaning related to archery. Actually, researches on oracle script and bronzeware script lead a different theory.

The prototype of the current grapheme of yi can be traced back to seal script (Xu Shen dealt with seal script characters). But the forms of yi in oracle script and bronzeware script are different. They are identical with those of shi 尸 (corpse). They do not look like an big arrow but a side view of sitting posture. In addition 夷衾 (quilt covering a corpse), 夷槃 (plate on which a corpse is put) and other words indicate that 夷 was interchangeable with 尸. Bronzeware script literature contains 東夷, 南夷, 東南夷, 淮夷, 夷人 and other uses of yi, but they are all corpse-style graphemes.

There are several approaches to studying Chinese characters. One of those methods is the idea of word family. Inspired by Karlgren, Todo Akiyasu classified Chinese characters into word families. He grouped 夷 together with 矢, 屍, 指, 視, 低, and 弟, and considered that the common meaning of this word family is "straight and short" or "low". His theory conform to the fact that southern people are generally shorter in height than northern people. Actually, 東南夷 and 淮夷 were semi-fishery people who lived in modern-day Shandong and Jiangsu. This would be unacceptable to Koreans who believe they are tall.

I have brought several aspects of yi that break the Korean bowmen theory. Lastly, I examine the term Dongyi 東夷. Dongyi corresponds to 南蛮, 西戎 and 北狄, but it was from the end of the Warring States Period to the early Han Dynasty that barbarians got associated with fixed directions. Before that, 西夷, 南夷 and 東南夷 were also used. And it was after the Han Dynasty that Dongyi came to refer to people in Manchuria, Korea and Japan. It's a terrible joke to treat Dongyi as a concrete ethnic group that came into existence in mythological times. --Nanshu 12:24, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Considering that most Chinese scholars before 2000 thought the same as the Koreans too, your conclusion doesn't make sense at all. by Bezant

To begin with, which era are you talking about? --Nanshu 13:49, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Additional links

I think the "Culture" section must include links to "Korean language" and "Culture of Korea." In my opinion, these links have more details. --Hychu

Yello!

Hello. - 68.23.104.69

There exists archaeological and paleolithic evidence that people were living in the land we now call Korea 40,000 years ago. Bronze age culture, introduced around the 10th century BC at the latest, catalysed early state formation. The first precursor Korean nation called Han-gook (also pronounced Whan-gook) was founded in 7,197 BC originating from Lake Baikal of Siberia and lasted more than 3000 years. As the ice melted Koreans would disperse deeper into the peninsula. The nation of Bai-dal arises after Han-gook then is followed by Go-Joseon. King Chi Wu of Bai-dal was called the "Red Devil" by his enemies because he wore red armor in battle. Even to this day the "Red Devil" King is referenced in Korean pop culture. Eventually, Go-Joseon (Which means "Land of the morning calm") the most important and powerful of these early states was established, and its foundation is highly symbolic holding sentimental value for many Koreans even to this day. According to mythology, all Koreans share the Tan-gun (founder of Go-Joseon) bloodline and are descendants of the gods. After a couple thousand of years, Go-Joseon fell to the Chinese Han Dynasty in 108 BC. Go-Joseon disintegrates to become northern Buyo and later became Goguryeo which is firmly established by the 1st century. The Han established commanderies in the conquered territories as control over the territories switched back and forth from the Han of China, Buyo/Goguryeo of Korea, and then to the Yen of China. The longest lived Chinese incursion would last until Goguryeo destoryed the Chinese controlled territory Lolang (Nangnang) in 313 AD in southern Manchuria.

Doesn't this make perfect sense? - 06:04, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No. -- Visviva 00:35, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Obvious POV

I removed a lot of text from the 'demographics' section, of which this would be probably the most inflammatory example:

Unfortunately Korean society has yet to face it's one dark side and rather slanders Japanese politicians. Some scholars argue that Korea has lost all moral claims due to the massacres committed by Korean soldiers in Vietnam and the immoral treatment of minorities at home.

I'm also wondering why the Demographics of South Korea page lists the ethnic Chinese population at 100,000 while the CIA factbook lists it at only about 20,000. Since there are no sources listed on those pages, I went with the CIA factbook figures.

--Zonath 13:10, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)

Another block of text that just seems very wrong:

The nation uses vibrant colors for its festivities which is said to be due to Mongolian influences. It is common to see bright hues of pink, yellow, and green on objects and material that is particular to the Korean style and fashion. Actually, this colourful style is a rather recent developement. Some of the colour schemes have even been invented to create some kind of "tradition" that looks different from Japanese and Chinese styles. Family ties are an important aspect of familial relations, not excluding relations involving business as well. Bowing is a custom that is proper and expected among Koreans as a way of greeting one another. Koreans tend to move around at a fast pace, their values are somewhat based on feudalistic and authoritarian ideas that are falsely claimed to be "Confucian" in nature. That is why many Koreans appear to be less talkative than normal. They also use gestures at most when appropriate. The Korean body language looks somewhat aggressive compared to Japanese or traditional Chinese behaviour. Korean cuisine is marked by its traditional dish called kimchi (see Korean cuisine) which uses an innovative and unique process of preserving vegetables by fermentation, developed before electric refrigeration existed. Basically it is the same dish as the German Sauerkraut with one difference: A striking feature of its cuisine is the prominence of hot and spicy pepper and garlic that many foreigners learn to appreciate, even acquiring a taste for this specialty.

Added a disputed flag to the culture section. Someone please cite sources on:

the 'recent development' of Korean use of color in order to contrast to Japan/China
feudalistic and authoritarian values under the guise of confucianism (sounds like bias as is)
koreans less talkative than 'normal' as a result of the above -- speculation
kimchi being the 'result of a unique process' or 'basically the same as saukraut'

I'll rewrite this section myself in the next couple days if nobody else steps up.

--Zonath 14:04, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)

Cleaned up the culture section to be more non-POV. I left the disputed flag up, since I was unable to find references (well, other than personal experience) for some of it. Somone review my work and clean it up, since I tend to get sloppy at times.

--Zonath 11:18, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

I've removed the following recent addition as POV:

Koreans view national sporting events with a myopic fanaticism, mostly due to an acute cultural inferiority complex. During the 2002 Football World Cup, nearly 60 years after their liberation from the Japanese, the decision was made to change the English spelling of the name of their country, so that banners naming the co-hosts of the event would list "Corea" before Japan. Following the death of two Korean girls who stepped in front of a US Army vehicle halfway through the world cup, the expected massive protests were delayed until after the Korean team lost to Turkey in the third place match.

There's some (presumably) factual content, so maybe someone more skillful and patient than I am can salvage something from it . -Rholton 03:44, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

Ack... Well, the whole name thing is just a bold-faced lie, since Korea actually negotiated the precedence of names to the World Cup way in advance of the event (both Japan and Korea agreed that Korea's name would come first in the official name of the event -- in exchange, Japan got to host the final game.) The 'Corea' spelling was promoted because French is generally considered the international language of football, and the name of the country is 'Corea' in French -- none of which has anything to do with the official name of the event itself, which was the '2002 FIFA Korea/Japan World Cup' -- notice the lack of a 'c' anywhere in the names of the countries. The fanaticism thing: True from a certain perspective (Soccer fans -- in other words, just about everyone in Korea -- went crazy during the World Cup), but not really relevant to the article as a whole. Sure, Koreans tend to care a lot more about sports in which their country typically does well, but that's true about just about culture. After all, how many Americans really care enough about rugby to give it a second thought? The whole 'acute cultural inferiority complex' thing doesn't even deserve a response. I'm not sure when the middle schooler incident happened, so won't comment on it, but still don't see how it's relevant. I say let's just bury this paragraph, since there's little to redeem it, and what little there is in it that is true is hardly worth mentioning. --Zonath 05:56, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

History Section needs to be summarized

Anyone want to summarize the history section? It has gotten quite long, and there is already a quite good, fairly extensive article on the history of Korea. --Zonath 17:46, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

!

Template:Korea infobox

?

What is this?

why the last change?

The last user took out the phrase 'and Asia as a whole'. why was this done? Much of asia still resents Japan for many things done during WWII. True, while most of 'asia' doesn't resent Japan, but most of east asia does. I don't see why this part was removed. It would have been better if it was just changed.

any thoughts?

Democratic in the Marxist usage of the word?

Perhaps the article should say that the DPRK is Democratic in the Stalinist usage of the word, where Democracy is only a pantomime, and rather than being representative of the people, government is controlled by the politburo or the highest echelons of the ruling party.

This state of affairs and government is hardly "Marxist", rather is the telltale sign of the so-called socialist governments of the XX Century, of which the DPRK is a sad and terrifying reminder. But again, not so for the Marxist justifications of their policies and excesses (that have themselves little to do with Marxism proper), but for the abuses of its ruling classes, bent on preserving their privileged status quo.

--Agurza 15:54, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

11,000 x-pats

Considering how xenophobic Koreans as a whole are, 11,000 could be considered a lot of x-pats. It is all a matter of perspective. Of course in reality, 11,000 is not 'very large'.

Masterhatch

foreigners in korea...

I just removed an edit that i had made a couple of weeks ago. i did this because someone had copy pasted it and put it in the south korea site. After some thought, it is realised that it should have been in the south korean spot all along. It was pointless to have the same information in both the korea and south korea site, so i removed it from this one. Masterhatch

Isn't Wikipedia NPOV? East Sea vs. Sea of Japan

Isn't wikipedia NPOV? If it is, why are the references to the body of water between Korea and Japan called 'East Sea'? Calling it 'East Sea' is a POV. Calling it 'Sea of Japan' is not. The official name of the body of water is 'Sea of Japan'. If you want to dispute this, there is an entire article devoted to that. if you want to dispute this, do it at Dispute over the name of the Sea of Japan, not here. This is fact only, not point of view. I know if you click on the link 'East Sea' in this article, it takes you to the Sea of Japan page. If you enter 'East Sea' in the search it takes you to five links for East Seas around the world. I am going to change this site back to NPOV and away from POV. If you have a problem with that, take it up on the correct article at Dispute over the name of the Sea of Japan. Masterhatch

"Sea of Japan" certainly is not NPOV, as the very existence of the dispute should make clear. I have therefore taken the liberty of undoing your change. The usage in the article conformed to the Korean naming conventions, an accepted guideline on Wikipedia. Efforts have been made to change those conventions, and to reach a general consensus on the appropriate name to use, but nothing resembling a consensus has thus far been reached. See Talk:Dispute over the name of the Sea of Japan#Naming Convention. If you'd like to reopen that discussion, feel free. But don't expect it to be easy. -- Visviva 00:33, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Sea of Japan" is point of view? yes, it is point of view of the vast majority of the countries on our good green earth. "East Sea" is point of view of a vast minority of countries. In fact, you can say almost EVERY fact about ANYTHING is point of view. The point i am trying to make, and i think most wikipedia users will agree, is that we need to use the same name for all sites. Plain and simple. If we have a special name for the body of water separating Japan and Korea on all korean articles, that becomes POV and Korea-centric. I have read everything i could find on wikipedia about the dispute and i am unable to find where a vote was taken or an agreement was made. All i see is a bunch of dead-end arguments that were never finished or concluded. A vote needs to be taken with a simple question. The simple question is this:

"Should all bodies of water on Wikipedia have the same name throughout all pages as to maintain a standard and avoid country specific POV?"

Honestly, giving that disputed body of water a different name on the korean article is totally point of view...Korean point of view. Since it can be argued that ALL facts are POV (philosophically speaking), we have go with the majority to come up with an agreement. Currently, the majority of nations (and the UN) say "Sea of Japan". So, all we need now is to have an agreement on Wikipedia. Actually, I don't even think we need an agreement on Wikipedia as we already know that the majority of the world says "Sea of Japan" and an agreement made by Wikipedians becomes POV. Interesting little loop we have here, isn't it?

Visviva, I ask that you stand with me on this. Everything on wikipedia can be argued that it is POV, but we have to avoid country (or people) specific POV. A common standard thoughout must be formed with the most common POV. Masterhatch

We need a vote to standardise Wikipedia names

A vote is needed in regards to the name of the body of water that separates the Koreas and Japan. For more information, see Dispute over the name of the Sea of Japan. Here is the question, answer with 'Yes' or 'No' (feel free to add comments):

Should all bodies of water on Wikipedia have the same name throughout all pages as to maintain a standard and avoid country specific POV?"

In the event of a 'Yes' win, all bodies of water will be given the same English name and the country specific name will be put in brackets. For example "Sea of Japan" (East Sea). In the event of a 'No' win, all international articles will use the international English name and in country specific articles, it will be the Englishised name with the international name put in brackets. For example on a Korean article: "East Sea" (Sea of Japan). Enter your votes at the talk page here: Dispute over the name of the Sea of Japan. Please vote only once. Thank you, Masterhatch

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