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Gollywog
Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Location: Debussy's brain
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 Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 10:44 pm Post subject: Cleaning up on the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute |
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http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/03/20/nyregion/20islands.1-500.jpg
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March 21, 2009
On City�s Plastic Bags, an Old and Distant Dispute
By KAREEM FAHIM
The islands began appearing last fall, detailed in pleasing shades of blue on the plastic bags that drape the city�s dry cleaning. Busy New Yorkers fetching their shirts might have glanced at the picture � of an ocean and a rocky isle � and taken it for a travel ad, perhaps for an Italian island like Capri, or Phuket in Thailand.
Those who looked closer saw a manifesto.
�Dokdo Island is Korean territory,� the ad declared. �The Japanese government must acknowledge this fact.�
To understand the message on the bag is to go back more than a century, to the beginning of an emotional land dispute between Japan and Korea.
The conflict is over a cluster of barely inhabitable islets and reefs in the sea between the countries � called Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan � and much more, especially the legacy of Japan�s colonial occupation of Korea.
Foreign arguments like these often persist in New York City, where more than a third of the population is foreign-born and memories of home are kept close, from soccer allegiances to shared experiences of oppression. While some of those conflicts regularly make headlines in the city, others, like the tug of war over the islets are barely noticed.
That is, until last year, when Chang-Duck Jeon, president of the Korean Dry Cleaners Association, assumed the role of publicist: He ordered 250,000 �Dokdo bags� from a South Korean manufacturer and solicited orders from the approximately 3,000 Korean-owned dry cleaners in the city. About 100 of them ended up stocking the bags.
�It was a way to speak out,� Mr. Jeon reasoned. �What�s ours is ours.� |
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/21/nyregion/21islands.html
What, exactly, do they really think they are going to accomplish by putting pictures of Dokdo/Takeshima on dry cleaning covers? In New York City? Why not do this in, say, Tokyo?
But, hey, it's a free country. You can say whatever you want.
(Got a better headline for this post?)
Last edited by Gollywog on Sat Mar 21, 2009 3:28 am; edited 1 time in total |
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traxxe
Joined: 21 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 12:49 am Post subject: |
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I've said it before and I'll say it again: Give Dokdo/Takeshima to North Korea.
They can use the fish and resources more than both South Korea and Japan. This way Koreans win because Koreans still have the island. Japanese win because they say they did a humane thing and gave it to the north out of kindness.
Unfortunately, South Koreans hear this and for whatever reason apparently 'North Koreans' don't really count as Koreans in terms of ownership of Dokdo. It kind of sickens me... actually. They are full of double-talk but really South Korea wants it for itself and the North doesn't have any claim to it in their eyes. When in reality they have equal claim and the North has greater need.
For that reason... I say give Takeshima to Japan. |
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Pojogae
Joined: 30 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 1:04 am Post subject: Re: Cleaning up the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute |
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| Gollywog wrote: |
That is, until last year, when Chang-Duck Jeon, president of the Korean Dry Cleaners Association, assumed the role of publicist: He ordered 250,000 �Dokdo bags� from a South Korean manufacturer and solicited orders from the approximately 3,000 Korean-owned dry cleaners in the city. About 100 of them ended up stocking the bags. |
Only 100 out of 3000 cooperated?
Can we infer from this that 29 out of every 30 Koreans emigrate to get away from tedious nationalist chest thumping? |
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Ilsanman
Joined: 15 Aug 2003
Location: Bucheon, Korea
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| Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 1:56 am Post subject: |
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| Maybe he was asking for a lot of money for the bags. |
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Gollywog
Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Location: Debussy's brain
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| Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 3:30 am Post subject: |
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Ilsanman wrote:
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| Maybe he was asking for a lot of money for the bags. |
Ah ha!
He was trying to clean up on the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute. |
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tanklor1
Joined: 13 Jun 2006
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| Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 5:52 am Post subject: |
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| It's Irish. |
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