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sojusucks
Joined: 31 May 2008
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 Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 1:31 am Post subject: Dokdo ... again |
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From the Korea Herald: http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/
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A group of lawmakers yesterday proposed designating "Dokdo Day" in a bid to enhance Korea's sovereignty over the easternmost islets which are at the center of a diplomatic dispute with Japan.
Seventy-eight legislators submitted a bipartisan petition to set Oct. 25 as a national day to commemorate the nation's formal declaration in 1990 that the rocky islets belong to Korea. It was signed by more than 59,000 people.
The proposal was made a day before the 63rd anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japan's colonial rule from 1910-45.
The government yesterday launched a new institute to study history, geography and international relations related to the group of tiny islets in the East Sea.
The Dokdo Research Institute is also responsible for education, public relations activities and various promotional events at home and abroad. It is led by Kim Hyun-soo, an international law professor of Inha University.
President Lee Myung-bak asked the institute to play a central role in promoting Korea's ownership of Dokdo in the international community.
He met with Kim, the institute's advisers and other scholars and experts at Cheong Wa Dae after the opening ceremony.
Lee reiterated his resolve to deal with Japan's persistent challenge to Korea's sovereignty, most recently in its school education guidelines.
"Dokdo is clearly part of our territory in terms of history and international law. As protecting the national territory is a constitutional duty of a president, I will continue to tackle the Dokdo problem sternly and cool-headedly," he was quoted as saying during the meeting.
"We need to deal with the issue from a more strategic and longer-term perspective. It is important to forge favorable international opinions through more active public diplomacy, in which the institute should play a central role," the president said.
The eight-member research body is affiliated with the state-run Northeast Asian History Foundation. It will increase its staff to 23 in the future.
Its establishment was first proposed late last month at the peak of the latest diplomatic row with Japan.
Dokdo, consisting of two main outcroppings and 33 smaller rocks, has long been a sore spot in ties between the two neighbors.
The dispute was rekindled when Tokyo stated the islets belong to it in its guideline for school teachers in mid-July.
Korea has suffered a setback after the U.S. Board on Geographic Names changed its classification of Dokdo from Korea's territory to "undesignated sovereignty."
Seoul managed to persuade Washington to cancel the rewrite, just before U.S. President George W. Bush's visit to Seoul early this month.
Participants in the meeting at Cheong Wa Dae included a Korean professor in the United States who first informed the Seoul government of the USBGA's change of the status of Dokdo.
During the meeting, the experts laid out various proposals including the establishment of a comprehensive database on Dokdo and special education for young Koreans traveling abroad.
By Hwang Jang-jin
([email protected]) |
But seriously, how does "Dokdo Day ... enhance Korea's sovereignty over the easternmost islets." Any descent lawyer will point out that this holiday was recently created as a political statement. Now, if the day had existed 20 years ago, that would be a different story. Perhaps this is an effort to win future legal battles.
I also saw the shirts that were mentioned on this thread: http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?p=1755394.
I guess Koreans want foreigners to buy into the hype too. I would rather not pick a side in this debate, especially while in Korea. |
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sojusucks
Joined: 31 May 2008
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| Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 1:41 am Post subject: |
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And here it is yet again...
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DOKDO, North Gyeongsang Province -- A group of 180 Koreans, mostly students and geography teachers, reached the Dokdo islets in the East Sea yesterday as part of an educational program sponsored by a state-funded foundation.
The Northeast Asia History Foundation and the Korea Maritime University hosted the three-day "Dokdo camp" to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Republic of Korea today. The event comes as Koreans have strongly refuted Japan's recent move to include its sovereignty claim over Dokdo in its new textbook guidelines.
Middle and high school students from 14 municipal or provincial governments across the nation, their geography teachers, KMU students and members of the press went aboard the KMU training ship "Hanbada" on Wednesday in Busan.
"We have not been active enough about Dokdo so far," said Choi Byung-chul, president of the nationwide association of geography teachers.
"The Dokdo camp has become a great opportunity for students to learn more and be proud of Dokdo."
The camp onboard the 6,000-ton Hanbada consisted of special lectures on Dokdo, a quiz show and creative activities such as making clay or cardboard models of the islets.
The 180 passengers and crew members also watched the sun rise behind the Dokdo islets yesterday morning.
Eighteen students from racially mixed families also participated in the Dokdo camp.
Participants in ��Dokdo camp�� pose aboard a ship in the waters off the Dokdo islets in the East Sea yesterday.
It was an especially unique experience for 15-year-old Kim Ryu-myung who defected from North Korea with his family five years ago. "I did not even know that Dokdo existed when I was in North Korea because we never learned about the geography of South Korea," said Kim, a student of Keumok Middle School in southwestern Seoul.
"I first learned about Dokdo two years ago after seeing a poster on the islets and was impressed by South Korean students' ideas expressed on the internet regarding Dokdo."
Kim said he will talk about his experience to his family and 10 other boys who also defected from the North and currently live nearby.
A Japanese national, Ykitsbu Okamoto, who teaches Japanese language at Wonhwa Girls' Middle School, also took part in the Dokdo camp.
Okamoto said his principal recommended he join the trip.
Currently using his Korean name Oh Sang-jin, the Japanese national said he did not know much about Dokdo before coming to Korea in 2005.
"I was rather taken aback by the Koreans' great devotion to Dokdo," Okamoto said. "I still do not understand why Dokdo is Korean territory but I want to understand."
It seemed Okamoto should be careful with his words on board the ship because everyone else strongly believed Dokdo is Korean territory.
"I am simply overwhelmed to see Dokdo and the beautiful sunrise," said Chung Han-sol, 16-year-old student of Youngduk High School in North Geongsang Province.
"I will come back to Dokdo with my family and show them this."
Currently, four people are registered as residents of Dokdo.
Fisherman Kim Sung-do and his wife Kim Shin-yeol have lived on the remote islet since 1991. They live in a fishermen's shelter, which was built by the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries in 1997.
Lighthouse keeper Hur Won-shin became a Dokdo resident this year.
Poet Pyun Boo-kyung also signed herself up as a Dokdo resident although she currently lives in Goyang in the northern outskirts of Seoul.
"I plan to move into Dokdo as soon as the official living conditions allow me to," Pyun said.
"According to the government, the shelter has to be expanded to accommodate another household (Pyun)."
Pyun said she wants to move into Dokdo to help it become a peaceful fishing village.
At present, she is registered as a member of fisherman Kim's household, but she is demanding the government register her separate household in Dokdo. She commutes between Dokdo and her home in Goyang.
The poet is a well-known activist dedicated to resolving the Dokdo issue. She filed a civil appeal to the government after the 2003 Typhoon Maemie destroyed the fishermen shelter.
"I want to live in this island for the rest of my life and become a founder of the 'Dokdo Pyun' clan," the poet said. "The approval process to let me live here as an independent household is quite difficult for now, but I will not give up my dream."
Nobody else lives on the remote islets apart from temporarily stationed South Korean Coast Guards.
Korean schools have bolstered history education on Dokdo in a bid to raise the students' awareness in the wake of Japan's continued attempts to claim the islets as its own territory.
According to Jun Sung-bin, geography teacher at Hanyoung Foreign Language High School in Seoul, visiting Dokdo and Uleungdo would be an invaluable experience for the students who will protect Dokdo over the next several decades.
The 95 students and 44 teachers from 19 schools boarded Hanbada around 3 p.m. on Wednesday.
After lectures on safety onboard and what Koreans can do to protect Dokdo, the students made models of the islets using various materials.
Students also sang songs with revised lyrics to express their love of Dokdo.
"I developed a special devotion for Dokdo as I joined a school club dedicated to Dokdo," said 17-year-old Park Kyung-sook, who sang a pop song with revised lyrics.
The 180 passengers and crew members watched the sun rise over Dokdo yesterday morning as the ship neared the remote islets, about 217 kilometers off the eastern coast of Korea.
"Due to capricious weather here, one can see the sunrise on only about 40 days per year," explained a KMA student who served as a crew member of Hanbada.
Later yesterday, the passengers landed in Uleung Island, about 87 kilometers west from Dokdo.
Uleung Island, in Uleung County, North Gyeongsang Province, is the nearest big town from Dokdo.
About 10,000 Koreans are currently registered as residents of the Uleung Island.
The students explored the Dokdo Museum, Dokdo observatory and the famous Nari basin.
About five students of the Uleung Middle School including Lim Geun-soo, a native of the island, had also boarded the Hanbada from Busan.
"I have visited Dokdo only twice before," 14-year-old Lim said. "I feel different this time. I will always remind myself of how Japan tried to distort the truth and always remember Dokdo."
Students in four groups issued a "Dokdo statement" yesterday evening.
"We wrote a letter addressed to President Lee Myung-bak, calling for systematic countermeasures against right-wing Japanese politicians who are trying to make Dokdo their territory," said 12-year-old Oh Tae-hoon, first-year student from Cheonan Middle School in South Chungcheong Province.
Thirteen-year-old Kim Dae-hye from Wonhwa Girls' Middle School in Daegu, said her team named "Fly to the Dokdo" urged the government to set up a separate department for Dokdo.
By Kim So-hyun |
The Dokdo Research Institute seems to be doing a great job.
Okamoto, a Japanese national, "said his principal recommended he join participate in propaganda to promote our schools as the best environments for studying English?
Okamato, who had to use his Korean name, Oh Sang-jin, stated that he "should be careful with his words on board the ship because everyone else strongly believed Dokdo is Korean territory." This sounds familiar. The Korean view is the correct perspective and everyone with a dissenting opinion should have their behavior "corrected" -- I am commenting upon a statement made by Kim Hong-su that appeared in an article by Bart Schaneman (http://media.daum.net/foreign/englishnews/view.html?cateid=1047&newsid=20080805091019661&cp=koreaherald; this article originally appeared in The Korea Herald).
I know many Koreans but I would only share my true feelings with only a couple of them for fear of "corrective behavior." Perhaps its the seemingly non-acceptance of differing perspectives that caused a number of foreigners to develop a negative impression of Korea, not to mention that this probably contributed to many foreigners thinking that Korea is not truely globalized. |
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sojusucks
Joined: 31 May 2008
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| Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 2:08 am Post subject: |
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From The Korea Herald: (http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/)
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In North America, the number of professors and students engaged in the field of Korean studies in North America has grown steadily in the past decades. Despite the impressive growth, Korean studies has a long way to go, a leading Korean studies scholar said yesterday.
"At my university of UCLA, for example, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures has grown from twelve faculty, five lecturers, and no Koreanists when I first arrived some two decades ago, to twenty-six faculty, twenty lecturers, and six tenured or tenure-track Koreanists today," said Robert Buswell, professor of University of California, Los Angeles, at a forum held at a hotel in Seoul yesterday.
Buswell, who called himself "Koreanist," was recently elected as president of the Association of Asian Studies (AAS), the first ever appointment for a Korean studies researcher in the influential organization's 67-year history.
Buswell said that Asian Studies is beginning to become mainstreamed in academe in ways that studies of America's European heritage were until the current generation. "Indeed, most of my colleagues on campus will readily admit that Korean Studies has become the flagship division of the department, a position that is unrivaled in other American department of Asian Studies," he said.
While traditionally strong programs in French, German, and Russian are in deep decline, UCLA's enrollments in Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Hindi, and Tagalog are the largest of any university in the country, he said.
Robert Buswell, president of the U.S.-based Association of Asian Studies, gives a lecture on the challenges facing Korean studies at a forum hosted by Korea Foundation yesterday.
But there is a lingering issue. Although the number of Koreanists active in American academic field has gone up noticeably over the last two decades, it still remains far below the comparative figures for scholars of China and Japan. In the Association for Asian Studies, for example, there are about 6,700 members, 42 percent of whom study China. Trailing right behind are those who study Northeast Asia (Japan and Korea, 33 percent). Buswell estimated that the number of scholars whose primary focus of research is Korea is only about 400, or a little over 5 percent of total membership.
The situation is similar on campus. For all the steady growth of the field, it is still difficult to find a university with more than two or three Korea specialists on the faculty.
"Even at the large research universities, where much of the expansion has occurred, Korea remains seriously underrepresented," Buswell said.
As for the future-oriented issues, Buswell said those in the Korean studies should figure out ways to recruit new students into the field and help those who have already made a personal commitment to the field to establish themselves.
"We must try to ensure that the field of Korean Studies reaches out to a clientele that is at least broadly representative of the American population as a whole, perhaps through a creative rethinking of what affirmative action might mean for Asian Studies in an American academic context," he said.
One of the key issues to be resolve is the Korean studies trend that prefers the modern period to the pre-modern era, a development that should be dealt with seriously, he said. Modern topics such as the Korean economic miracle and the Korean Wave are worthy enough to warrant academic attention, but Koreanist researchers should not ignore the study of pre-modern Korea, which provides essential context to modern and contemporary developments.
Another big challenge is competition with China and Japan researchers, he said. "The Korean studies field in the United States also must continue to find ways to respond to the behemoths that are Chinese and Japanese Studies," Buswell said. To minimize negative effects, he suggested there should be broader regional approaches as a way of subverting narrow nationalist studies.
"By taking a regional approach, we will in fact be foregrounding the importance of Korea within East Asia. In my own field of Buddhist studies, for example, scholars have commonly looked at the movement of religion and culture across boundaries, rather than solely within the narrow confines of single states," he said.
Buswell stressed the active role of Korean studies scholars: "We must continue to publish new and innovative works of scholarship, reach out to a wider scholarly and public audience with our findings, and develop a new generation of scholars to carry the mantle of the field," he said.
By Yang Sung-jin |
Well, Korea is in the top 15 world economies. I believe that a past article in The Korea Herald stated that Korea's ranking dropped from 12th to 13th. I don't have the article in front of me but I am fairly sure that those are the numbers.
Who knows, maybe English-speaking countries will soon offer Korean as a wide-spread language option. Check out this site: http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/november/worldlanguages.htm (You have to scroll down a ways). Apparently, 67 million people speak Korean as a first language. For comparison, Mardarin is spoken as a first language by 873 million people, and 340 million people speak English as a first language.
If Korea can become an economic power-house or become better at sharing Korean culture with the world, then I think that more people will want to learn Korean. Think of it like this: many people have a preferred store or stores at which they like to shop. The same is true with countries and traveling. Korea, please make the world more familiar with you if you want more visitors. If they don't do this, then I guess they don't want foreigners here, i.e. not an important national concern (yeah, who wants tourism-generated revenue anyway) |
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Neil
Joined: 02 Jan 2004
Location: Tokyo
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| Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 2:08 am Post subject: |
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| I bet the Japanese teacher needed a fair few stiff drinks after getting back from that jolly sounding cruise. |
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sojusucks
Joined: 31 May 2008
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| Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 2:09 am Post subject: |
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| At least he can buy Asahi beer here (a Japanese brand). |
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Guri Guy
Joined: 07 Sep 2003
Location: Bamboo Island
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| Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 9:06 pm Post subject: |
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I was wondering when they were going to make "Dokdo-day".
Question answered.
I am curious to how this fits into South Korea's low key approach though.
The more they scream and shout the more attention they get. The more attention they get, the more people release the seagull stained rocks are in dispute.
Anyway, this is just another attempt to rally nationalists and provide a smokescreen for an incompetent government.
I hope I get the day off anyway. That would make up for Arbor day being canceled. |
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ytuque
Joined: 29 Jan 2008
Location: I drink therefore I am!
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| Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 9:43 pm Post subject: |
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Get your Dokdo t-shirts at Dunkin Donuts for 3000 won! Unfortunately, they are only for munchkins, Korean size S & M.
Last edited by ytuque on Thu Aug 14, 2008 11:01 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Guri Guy
Joined: 07 Sep 2003
Location: Bamboo Island
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| Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 9:53 pm Post subject: |
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Listening to Koreans chant "Dokdo Uri Ddang" is like S&M 
It's amusing and torturous at the same time. |
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Ilsanman
Joined: 15 Aug 2003
Location: Bucheon, Korea
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| Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 11:50 pm Post subject: |
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If they give me a day off of work that day, I'll support the Korean side. It's more than Japan has ever done for me.
They only formally incoroprated it in 1990? Japan incorporated it in 1905 or so. Japan wins!!! But I sitll want another national holiday. |
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wylies99
Joined: 13 May 2006
Location: I'm one cool cat!
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Guri Guy
Joined: 07 Sep 2003
Location: Bamboo Island
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| Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 7:03 am Post subject: |
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You just need Dokdo socks, pants and hats and you'll have a full wardrobe.  |
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TexasPete
Joined: 24 May 2006
Location: Koreatown
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| Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 5:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Well it's nice to see the K-law makers can cross the aisle for something as BS as Dokdo. I wonder if any Koreans have tried getting married on Dokdo. The Rev. Sun Moon should try one of those mass weddings on it though i doubt you could fit for than a few hundred souls on those desolate rocks. |
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