Are these from the real Korean textbook?
Recently, there are quite a number of posts about Korean history textbook come up in the Chinese BBSs. Most of the posts show the similar list of pictures. See the links below and the pictures taken from the BBSs in the bottom.
http://cn.bbs.yahoo.com/message/read_funny_741345.html
http://bbs.military.china.com/jsp/pub/staticFile/htmls/2006/10/1011/5893993_page0.html
http://www.fyjs.cn/bbs/read.php?tid=81274
http://military.club.china.com/jsp/pub/staticFile/htmls/2006/12/1011/6848404_page0.html
http://free.21cn.com/forum/bbsMessageList.act?currentPage=1&bbsThreadId=1528356
http://bbs.wenxin8.com/read.php?tid=87621
http://bbs.military.china.com/jsp/pub/staticFile/htmls/2006/10/1011/5893993_page0.html
http://bbs6.news.163.com/board/rep2.jsp?b=zhongri&i=982873
In 2005, South Korea successfully got Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage proclamation for its Gangneung Danoje Festival (Dano Festival) from UNESCO. The Dano Festival falls on the same day of the the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival. Many Chinese believe the Dano Festival comes from the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival, therefore they accuse Korean of stealing the title of that heritage from China.
This time someone dug out a Korean history textbook, scanned and posted on the Chinese BBSs. These historical maps, which show ancient Korean had occupied big part of the Chinese territory, are completely different from what Chinese learn in the schools. This inevitably spurred some uproars on Chinese BBSs. They’re bashing Korean for distorting the history and trying to steal Chinese land.
What intriguing me is, one of my Korean friend told me that she had never seen such a Korean history textbook in Korean.
I am not in a position to verify the validity of the history here. I see the problem of cross-cultural communication again in these posts.
The information of these posts may be wrong, but none of the Chinese is able/willing to verify this troll. The animosity to Korean is seeded by these posts on the China side, while people in Korean have no clue of what is happening.
Can anyone tell me these are real Korean history textbook? If it is, what is the book talking about?
I hope Korean can join the conversation.
If there is a fight, let’s fight on the net. By all means, a web war is better than any real war.
I just showed the first map to my Korean-educated wife and asked her, “What’s this orange territory?” “Ancient Korea,” she replied in an instant.
There are historians in Korea that make claims such as these—one of the books is by the former vice-chancelor of Daejeon National University, while the others are by historian Oh Jae-seong—but such claims are not widely accepted within the Korean historical community (as the Korean consulate in Shanghai explained when those maps first became news in China in May of last year). In fact, Koreans are much more concerned with what many consider to be creative map-making in Chinese textbooks (both in the PRC and the ROC)—see here and here.
PS: Just to clarify, I’m not Korean.
Hahha.
People on the net may be so bored that they seem to wanna make another on-line war.
The above books are not Korean textbooks. If it’s an official textbook, it has the title “교과서”.
Anyway, it is sure to be eccentric people, including Koreans. I’m Korean and don’t know the territory images.
The map is from a book published by some marginal extremist group of ultra-nationalist amateur historians. Very few people in Korea (and nearly nobody in the professional community) would consider their wild claims seriously. Needless to say, nothing like it is to be found in Korean textbooks. There are some nationalist distortions in the textbooks, but on much, much smaller scale. =LANKOV=
RE: Dano versus Duanwu
The holidays fall on the same day and thus it is possible that Dano has its origins in Duanwu, but the holidays are celebrated very differently. No reason why China cannot also petition to have UNESCO recognize Duanwu as an intangible cultural heritage.
She learned it in school?
Or she could have just read the text on the map.
ah, I can’t read Korean, so I have no idea of what those posts are talking about.
I am sure that there are some gaps between Korean and Chinese history textbooks, but I doubt the gaps are as huge as those maps show.
It will be interesting if someone can make a comparison of the textbooks between the two sides, with the accurate information of cause. It can greatly help both sides understand each other better.
Great! You are another Korean backing my friends idea .
Thanks for the information.
I will translate the comments into Chinese and post to Chinese BBSs. Hope I can get some good feedback from Chinese.
Many Chinese think China lost the ownership to the title of Dragon Boat Festival after Korean won the UNESCO’s proclamation for its Dano Festival.
Jackie,
I’ve been doing some digging and have more information on these images.
The second image, a book with a yellow cover, is of a book published in 2002 by a retired history professor. The poor-quality color maps (notice that the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido seems to be missing) may have been created by the author, Professor Lim. All of the other black-and-white images http://bbs.news.163.com/mil/968958,52.html ) circulating around Chinese websites are from several books or maps published by the same author, historian Oh Jaesung. The materials were published many years ago, not recently, and one of the images looks doctored.
They are NOT textbooks and the maps and views of history published in these books is scoffed at by mainstream historians and as I mentioned before and as you can see from updated images at Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/62177820@N00 ), official Korean history textbooks show very different maps from this period.
Thank you very much for taking the time to spread the word amongst your Chinese friends.
BTW, why do Chinese think they “lost ownership” of Duanwu? Has China even tried to obtain UNESCO recognition?
The link to Flickr didn’t work, so I’ll try again with links to each image:
Map of Balhae and Shilla from the 2002 high school history textbook approved by the Ministry of Education: http://www.flickr.com/photos/62177820@N00/363662212/
Tang Dynasty era map of NE China and the Korean peninsula from the same textbook:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/62177820@N00/363662204/
Although you cannot read Korean, you can see from the color-coding on the maps that Korean history books do not claim Siberia or eastern China as part of Korean history.
And below is a link to a map image from a 1952 school atlas, labeled in Korean and Chinese:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/62177820@N00/363555347/
The sixth image in this series ( http://bbs.news.163.com/mil/968958,52.html )looks like it has been altered from the original. Notice how the first two Korean kingdoms, Goguryo (gaoguli) and Baekjae (baiji) are printed in Chinese characters only while the third kingdom, Shilla, is printed in Hangeul only. In the middle of the cover the publisher is identified in mixed Korean and Chinese as Korea People’s History Research Association while at the bottom is the original name all in Chinese characters, the same name that appears on most of the images. I googled the name and all of the results linked to Chinese website posts on this issue. The Korean historian author, Oh Jaesung, is alive, but the publisher appears not to exist anymore.
这也是从端午节被韩国申遗起，民间对韩国情绪的一个反应。不知道博主看过这个帖子没有，韩国人居然说汉字是韩国人发明的，如此的偷窃行为，遭各国人民的斥责=，=（网址：http://www.chinalanguage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=293&sid=727daff0b592c8c01718c4516df2ffd1
）。其实对韩国不用那么紧张，我们是大国子民，心里清楚怎么回事就行了。
Regardless of what some people may argue. The opinion that China sprung from then loins of the Great Korean Empire is commonplace in Korea.
The Korean self image is that all great things sprung from the Korean penninsula and then went to China.
Are you from occidentalism.org? ^^
As if you name you as ‘Korean”, you are not Korean if you are not Korean.
I hope to see SHahakuchi. I like the person. 🙂
We koreans were and are not taught with the above maps. I was born and taught in Korea.
I love Chinese culture.
How about this poem?
http://eroom.korea.com/eroom/default.aspx?bid=wonwinwin&pid=180831
( my previous blog)
This is one of my favorite. I could recite quite a number of Li Bai’s poems before. And we were required to do so in school.
Hi Sonagi,
Thanks for digging out all these details. They are very helpful.
Talking about the Dano Festival’s Masterpieces proclamation, I think it has something do with how UNESCO approve the list.
Korea got the proclamation for its Dano Festival. Does it mean Chinese Duanwu Festival lose its chance in getting the Masterpieces proclamation? I have no idea.
Many Chinese think that after Korea claimed the Dono Festival as its heritage and recognized by the UNESCO, the world would believe Korean, not Chinese, invented the Duanwu Festival.
See the link provided by lora below. It is another bigger dispute on the net about who invented the Chinese character.
I will post these pictures on Chinese BBSs too.
On the same post(http://bbs.news.163.com/mil/968958,52.html), a Chinese said it was a conspiracy of Japanese to provoke Chinese and Korean. See the quoted Chinese text below.
He said, some ppl purposely posted faked maps on Chinese BBSs, and at the same time, they played the same trick on the Korean BBSs, posting maps which claimed Korea’s territory as part of China.
In this way, they got Chinese and Korean netizen fight with each other, so that Japanese could take advantage from these fights.
xyhyjun
积分:211
称号:二年级学生
在线:2897分钟
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真是搞笑,这样的图也有人信?
这些图分明是别有用心的人伪造用来离间中韩关系的?
最近网特活动比较猖獗,他们不断离间中国和周边友好国家的关系,把中国人对倭人的愤怒转移到其他国家,这些人无非以下伎俩:
一、最近各大论坛上不断有倭国制造的假文件、假地图，称韩国要吞并ZG；
二、PS某某韩国商店有辱华文字的照片，说韩人如何瞧不起zg人；
三、在韩国论坛中依样画葫芦，伪造张贴一些中国把朝鲜划入版图的照片，或重提远征高丽的事，挑起一些韩国”愤愤”的不满,然后又把韩国论坛上韩国”愤愤”的不满的话语放到我们论坛上，说韩国人是如何骂中国人的。
韩国人支持自己民族工业，不买日车，在独岛问题和日本对着干，在历史问题上，韩国仍对日本不依不饶，我们为什么要狠韩国人，韩国人是我们的榜样，我们应当把韩国人作为最新密的朋友。
当然，中韩进入蜜月期的话，倭国就坐不住了，这就是为什么倭奸如此热衷于挑拨中韩关系的原因。
大家要紧惕，不要被倭人当枪使，对某些网奸的企图要坚决回击。不要说伤害中韩感情的话。殊不知，你们骂韩国人的话又会被网奸添油加醋放到韩国论坛，然后说中国网民如何如何反韩！！最后倭人不可告人的秘密就达到了。
现在问题是我们不知道这些图是不是真的。
I’ll change the above link of mine to this http://www.law4u.net/tech/board.php?board=winnie&command=body&no=12
With this link, I , too, have this link of yours in my part. 🙂
Though I don’t like acohol beverage, this poem is one of nmy favorite, too.
The Chinese commenter was observant to notice that the maps did not look official. From most of the comments I’ve read, it seems that most Chinese netizens are laughing off any Korean historical claims to China. I see that my Flickr images have gotten a few views, presumably from your blog. Please feel free to link to the images if you post on this topic at other blogs/BBSes.
BTW, are you living in China or elsewhere? I spent four happy years in beautiful Qingdao before coming back to the States. I can read and write Chinese, but my computer can only read it, not write, or I’d leave you a note in 中文. 🙂
The books are real, and the authors are still alive. The yellow-covered book, Korean History by Lim Gyu-taek, is available at Korea’s largest bookseller, but the works by Oh Jaesung are untraceable on the internet, which means they are probably out of print.
The yellow book was published in 2002 and seems to be based on claims and “evidence” presented in earlier books by Oh Jaesung.
The images are “real” in that Korean academics made them, but they are not official, not textbooks, and differ greatly from the maps found in old and current textbooks: (http://www.flickr.com/photos/62177820@N00/ )
I like the “reply to this comment” embedded comment format. It is more convenient than scrolling back to read the original comment.
Wow! So you know both Chinese and Korean? Amazing. I know Chinese is a very difficult language to learn for many foreigners.
QingDao is a very nice city. I have some friends from there. You may like this post,
http://bbs.military.china.com/jsp/pub/staticFile/htmls/2007/1/1011/7263473_page0.html
The NJStar is a very good writing system for English Windows OS. You can have a try if you are using Windows.
I am living in Singapore. 不过我经常回中国。:)
那么我应该说这些图不是真的韩国历史教科书。
That is correct. This morning I uploaded some maps from the 2002 Korean high school world history textbook. Among them are maps of some Chinese dynasties, including one map showing the Tang Dynasty’s cultural influence on its Asian neighbors. The borders will differ from Chinese maps because both China and Korea claim Goguryo as their own. Interestingly, Goguryo is marked as a kingdom on Korean maps, but the name does not appear on any of the maps in the 2004 printing of the Chinese Ministry of Education 7th Grade Chinese History Textbook. The territory itself is simply included as part of some other Chinese kingdom or dynasty.
BTW, I collect textbooks because I am a school teacher.
Thank you for the link. It was an interesting experience for me to move to Qingdao after so many years in Korea. The large Korean presence was familiar to me. I learned some Chinese while in Korea, but since I am more fluent in Korean, I went to Korean beauty shops and other businesses at first because it was easier to communicate.
Because I was an American who had lived in Korea, both Chinese and Koreans were sometimes frank in telling their opinions of each other to me. Cultural differences and misunderstandings can arise even between neighbors. I also realized that a lot of prejudice comes from economic differences. Some Koreans, just like some Westerners, look down on China because it is less developed than Korea. Some Chinese regard both Koreans and Westerners as arrogant.
I visited Singapore several times while I was living in Korea. I really miss eating at the Hawkers’ centers!
Where is your hometown/home province in China?
Claims that Koreans invented Chinese characters are ridiculous and not accepted by any Korean I know. Every single book on Korean history and culture that I’ve ever read has clearly acknowledged that Chinese characters were developed in China and used by Koreans for centuries before they invented their own script.
Dr. Lankov and Sonagi,
As a Korean citizen who is unusually attached to his patria in this rootless age of ours, I appreciate that you two are doing a yeoman’s work in defending the sanity of the contemporary Korean historical consciousness. Nor am I surprised by your attempt to inject some perspective here, for you two are both among the most balanced and rational commenters in the Korean Blogsophere–where rationality is often an orphan. But I cannot in good conscience agree with the seeming thrust of your message.
Namely, I object to your seeming effort to simply dismiss these outrageous Korean historical claims on China as rantings of a lunatic fringe. There is a point at which a well-meaning defense transmogrifies into an unreflective apology that refuses to believe that Rome is indeed burning. May I be as bold as to even say, to reverse Burke’s elegant formula, sometimes our helper is our adversary? For instance, speaking from my own intellectual background in political philosophy, the one-sided apology of Nietzsche as purely an aesthete to counter the fascist accusations by Walter Kauffman (or the attempt to portray Leo Strauss as an ordinary “liberal” rather than the father of neoconservatism by his legion of defenders) have distorted Nietzsche as much as corrected pernicious misperceptions of him.
And likewise, the fact of the matter is this: There is a serious disconnect between the South Korean public historical consciousness and what most impartial scholars posit as Korean history. Moreover, much of that disconnect does involve the size and power of ancient Korean kingdoms of Gojoseon or Koguryo. While it is true that no textbook (as far as I know) claim that the Chinese heartland used to be Korean, such a belief is ubiquitous in the popular culture. I have certainly encountered numerous Korean students living abroad who believe it and blame Chinese chroniclers and their Korean sycophants for distorting the true Korean history.
In fact, as I have written elsewhere, such a view is the standard view among Korean television historical dramas. In “Yeon Gaesomun,” perhaps the most anticipated and costliest Korean historical drama of all-time, it is explicitly said that China was Korean land in the time of Gojoseon. And in the context of the drama, this is advanced as a historical fact, not fiction. Likewise, in an upcoming drama about Dangun, the putative mythic founder of Gojoseon, Dangun’s territory supposedly spanned from Tibet to Sakhalin. And online Korean historical fora are absolutely replete with a similar historical understanding.
So we do have a serious problem in the South Korean historical consciousness or imagination. And we don’t need Hegel nor Kojeve to tell us that, at least in East Asia, history often commingles with reality to produce an ugly brew between nations. So I propose that we talk about addressing this problem rather than intoning that it doesn’t exist.
Linked evidence, please. Thanks.
Most of the world’s six billion inhabitants couldn’t name a single UNESCO heritage. Just because of Dan and Duanwu fall on the same day is no reason why Duanwu could not be recognized. It is a very big festival with colorful traditions. Frankly, if UNESCO recognition means so much, why doesn’t the Chinese government file a petition? You can’t succeed if you don’t try.
Sonagi,
Since you’ve carried this debate over to the Marmot, I will respond there.
Sonagi,
I’ve responded to you at the Marmot (as you’ve seen), but I’d strongly encourage you to watch at least the first few episodes of “Yeon Gaesomun.” In fact, I would be very interested as to whether this drama airs in China, and if so, how the incessant claims of Gojoseon’s ownership of China will be translated in Chinese (or if it will be translated). Though it’s still early in the drama, my understanding is that, contrary to the Tang records, the drama will depict Yeon chasing Tang Taizong deep into Chinese territory, certainly past the Bejijing region.
那书就是韩国一个退休老头写的YY书。
历史从来关系到现在。韩国对高句丽的争夺，其实也是为了谋夺东北三省的土地正名。高句丽在中国历史上只是一个被唐和新罗灭族了的一个少数民族，在中国的教科书上甚至都不提及的。韩国想争夺高句丽，无非是为谋夺东三省的土地张目。高句丽不是高丽，和南北朝鲜没关系。朝鲜起源于半岛上的三韩，其中一个还是来自中国，高丽王朝的创建者王建可是汉人父亲在新罗生的混血儿的后裔。
上面有人还说到韩剧，像《朱蒙》《渊盖苏文》这些韩剧如果能作为历史的证明就更可笑了，韩国人净找些这样的证据，自己编剧，自己拍，自己爽。韩国人目前就看这些东西洗脑，韩剧可是受政府大力扶持的，也可见韩国政府的态度。一方面，加强民族感才能让韩国在大国之间立足，另一方面，这对于韩国来说其实是很危险的。《渊盖苏文》居然敢拍出箭射唐太宗眼睛的镜头，史上可没记载天可汗是独眼龙。嘲笑与仇恨的小种子是埋下了，不过目前政府压而不发，媒体上对韩国也是一片歌颂之词，毕竟美日是工作重点嘛，还顾不上韩国这边的小事。韩国如果像日本那样能够正确认识自己，那才是真正可敬的对手。
On the same post(http://bbs.news.163.com/mil/968958,52.html), a Chinese said it was a conspiracy of Japanese to provoke Chinese and Korean. See the quoted Chinese text below.
He said, some ppl purposely posted faked maps on Chinese BBSs, and at the same time, they played the same trick on the Korean BBSs, posting maps which claimed Korea’s territory as part of China.
In this way, they got Chinese and Korean netizen fight with each other, so that Japanese could take advantage from these fights.
xyhyjun
积分:211
称号:二年级学生
在线:2897分钟
发表:7篇
个人信息
真是搞笑,这样的图也有人信?
这些图分明是别有用心的人伪造用来离间中韩关系的?
最近网特活动比较猖獗,他们不断离间中国和周边友好国家的关系,把中国人对倭人的愤怒转移到其他国家,这些人无非以下伎俩:
一、最近各大论坛上不断有倭国制造的假文件、假地图，称韩国要吞并ZG；
二、PS某某韩国商店有辱华文字的照片，说韩人如何瞧不起zg人；
三、在韩国论坛中依样画葫芦，伪造张贴一些中国把朝鲜划入版图的照片，或重提远征高丽的事，挑起一些韩国”愤愤”的不满,然后又把韩国论坛上韩国”愤愤”的不满的话语放到我们论坛上，说韩国人是如何骂中国人的。
韩国人支持自己民族工业，不买日车，在独岛问题和日本对着干，在历史问题上，韩国仍对日本不依不饶，我们为什么要狠韩国人，韩国人是我们的榜样，我们应当把韩国人作为最新密的朋友。
当然，中韩进入蜜月期的话，倭国就坐不住了，这就是为什么倭奸如此热衷于挑拨中韩关系的原因。
大家要紧惕，不要被倭人当枪使，对某些网奸的企图要坚决回击。不要说伤害中韩感情的话。殊不知，你们骂韩国人的话又会被网奸添油加醋放到韩国论坛，然后说中国网民如何如何反韩！！最后倭人不可告人的秘密就达到了。
You have a very interesting way to learn a new language. I wish you could be my English teacher. Then my English class would not be so boring.
>>a lot of prejudice comes from economic differences.
Exactly, you can see that happens within the Chinese community also.
Did you try Laksha while you were in S’pore. 🙂
I am from Zhaoqing. A beautiful, small town of Guangdong. The Pearl River runs across the city, and its northern part is the Star Lake. I used to swim in the lake in summer.
Yes, the maps you uploaded helps me better understand how Korean think. Those are really valuable information to many Chinese.
Few Chinese really know how UNESCO proclamation works. Can we get one for the Duanwu Festival? Or Should Chinese government file a petition?
Chinese netizens just keep bashing Korean for stealing Chinese heritage on this.
I think it will be better if someone can explain the UNESCO Masterpieces clearly in a simple way. I don’t think the UNESCO Masterpieces is working in a exclusive way. But I don’t have complete information on hand.
Iora,
我想Won Joon Choe先生引用《朱蒙》《渊盖苏文》这些韩剧的意思是反映韩国民间的一些想法和历史认识。
应该说差不多每个民族都会有类似“可笑的幻想“。我记得我以前上历史课的时候，讲到元朝，历史老师还激动地介绍了忽必烈曾经打到波罗的海。她还给我们在世界地图上大致的画了个范围，把欧洲的一部分也包括进去了，说，那就是中国元朝的版图。这个不是偶然的，到今天我们还不时在网上看到类似的论述，有的还引经据典的，说得头头是道。虽然这些都不是在教科书里，但活在很多老百姓的脑子里，没事的时候还常拿出来瞎侃一下。相信有的国人还真当回事的。
你可以读韩文吗？有兴趣一起把Marmot和这里的讨论介绍到中国的网站吗？
“高句丽不是高丽，”
Yes, Koreans and foreigners familiar with Korean history recognize these two distinct kingdoms, which existed at different times.
“和南北朝鲜没关系”
WHAT!!! Look at a map. The kingdom of Goguryo included about 2/3 of the Korean peninsula as well as most of Manchuria and part of Siberia. The descendants of Goguryo live in northeastern China and northern Korea, so both countries can legitimately claim Goguryo as part of their history.
“应该说差不多每个民族都会有类似“可笑的幻想“。”
Having read history books written in English, Korean, and Chinese, I agree with you.
“韩国人目前就看这些东西洗脑”
See Jacky’s comment:
“应该说差不多每个民族都会有类似“可笑的幻想“。”
Every country has people who’ve been brainwashed by nationalism in schools and the media, including my country and yours.