Korean Job Discussion Forums

[TheUrbanMyth]

[fermentation]

Lol. A thread about what to name a sea turns into a pissing contest of who was worse between Nazis and Imperial Japan. Figures.

[sml7285]

Well if it weren't for the constant twists, turns and face-palm moments, would anyone really come back to these forums after finding out basic information about Korea?

[Modernist]

My God, how ridiculous has this thread become?

I think maps and geography are quite fascinating, so I was all set to post about maps and geographic names. Then I read the thread and it's descended into 'was Imperial Japan somehow WORSE than Nazi Germany?'!

Thanks, madoka and company. Appreciate how you hijacked an interesting topic.

For the record, how about admitting the obvious, both state actors acted horribly in distinctive ways. Personally I think that the industrialized, planned, mass extermination of an ethnic population based entirely on prejudice trumps anything attributed to the Japanese. And for pure death count no one is ever going to top Stalin's Russia, either. The Japanese did bad stuff, but as far as I can tell from the history, it was basically the typical bad stuff that came along with empire-building of the era. Do you really think it was, in the aggregate, any worse than what the French or Belgians did in Africa, for example? When you justify your territorial expansion on the grounds of being superior to the natives, and thus bringing 'light to the barbarians' so to speak, the chauvinism implicit to that mindset seeps into everyone involved, from frontline soldiers to imported merchants to bureaucrats to scientists. Condescension begets disgust, which begets dehumanization, which is a fertile environment for atrocities to occur. It happened in so many places. Why do the Koreans imagine themselves to have been uniquely exposed to its effects?

Oh, right. I forgot for a moment. Nothing that has happened to Korea ever has any parallel elsewhere. Korea is special. Sorry.

On the matter of the Sea of Japan, I think it's one more example of how rooted in victimhood the Korean identity remains. They so badly need to hold the martyr role. Poor little Korea being pushed around by the big bad Japanese! Everything was fine, everyone called it 'the Sea of Corea' [!] but then those nasty Japanese came and messed everything up! 'They stopped us from filing the name!' Pathetic. Pitiful. How can this country have accomplished so much and yet still cling to things like this?

Why can't they just acknowledge that the late Joseon Dynasty, like the late Qing in China, was a sorry, wretched excuse for a government. Its stupid, isolationist, backwards-looking policies laid the groundwork, opened the door and set the table for the Japanese to arrive, especially when they could plainly see the effects of the Meiji reforms on the Japanese state, culture and military. A country that refused to modernize, at that time in history, had to expect to be dominated one way or another by a country that DID modernize.

I've also yet to hear any response to the early post here that noted that the Japanese islands separate the nominal sea in question from the Pacific Ocean. Without Japan, there would be no sea, as stated. From a logical geographic perspective, the current name is the only sensible one.

[northway]

[dairyairy]

I thought this thread was about an exhibition of maps at a museum in Suwon? Was I wrong? Do some posters have an axe to grind?

[Nismo]

[everything-is-everything]

the 7th post on this thread by The Grumpy Senator really started the show

[transmogrifier]

Welcome to Daves, where a thread about maps can devolve into a heated argument about whether the Japanese or Nazis were worse, all in order to either downplay or exaggerate the Korea experience.

[Steelrails]

This argument will end when Putin yawns and decides to throw around some neo-Soviet weight to distract from domestic pressure.

"This is Sea of the Motherland!!! In Sea of Motherland water swims in you!"

Didn't we learn anything from the Bosnian War and the breakup of Yugoslavia? If Russia is good at anything, its getting everyone to fall in line and stop squabbling. "You think Croats are bad news? Russian Bear is coming! Give each other big furry hug."

[TheUrbanMyth]