Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Teufelswacht]

I found the following on LanguageSquire.org forums. I thought I'd share it with those interested. If this has already been posted/discussed, I apologize for the duplication.

International business sure seems to generate a lot of angry mail. There is a highly vocal element in Korea who make life miserable for anyone using the words ��Sea of Japan�� for the waters between them and the Japanese archipelago. There are Iranian people who are exceptionally committed to reacting against the use of the word ��Farsi�� as being synonymous with the Persian language. And, true to form, the many e-mails from people of the Balkans howl that there is no Macedonian language nor a Serbo-Croatian language and insist that there are no ethnic groups other than the officailly approved ones. And, of course, there are those who demand that the only languages that exist in their country are the official languages and no mention should ever be made of other languages regardless of how many people speak them.



What amazes me is that all the vitriol is directed at what we who speak English choose to say in our own language. The impassioned demands are always accompanied by precise justifications and quote historical sources in defense of their claims. Many of these claims are flatly wrong or greatly distorted, but the level of righteous indignation cannot be lessened by the facts.



Why do Koreans care if we who speak English call that vast and stormy bit of water the Sea of Japan? Do the French get all upset about the British use of English Channel? No, of course not and they have their own name for that famous straight. Does having the Gulf of Mexico lapping at their southern doorstep bother Americans? No. Do the Australians get in a tizzy over the South China Sea or Indian Ocean? And does anyone in the English-speaking world care what someone in another language calls such things? Obviously not. And yet the very real passions are there demanding that we English speakers to effect changes.



What really floors me is the insistence that certain languages should not be mentioned. The last message I got on that subject went on at length that Serbo-Croatian isn��t a language, in spite of the hundreds of bilingual dictionaries that say otherwise and the 70,400 reference to ��Serbo-Croatian Language�� that came up in Google.



I think it is a habit of may English-speaking people to assume that what someone else does in their own home is their business and nobody else��s. If you call sugar ��sweetener�� at home, that��s your concern and not mine. I would not dream of heading over to your house and pushing a letter under the door demanding that you say sugar in your home and cease this perverse and repressive use of ��sweetener��.



Why do these people care what someone on the other side of the planet calls this island or that body of water? Why would anyone demand that an entire language be refused recognition? How can it be that people in far away places that only speak English as a second language feel the necessity and right to demand that we who speak English as our language quit our naming conventions and stop using certain nouns.



We are not used to such passions over things like what someone calls something in a another language. The American culture goes out of its way to keep from criticizing other languages and cultural standards. In certain places, the level of political correctness is so elevated that you��d best not even talk about differences between peoples or languages! Does any of this upset overseas regarding our choices make any difference? Evidently some people think so.



There is no reason to pander to extremist��s views or assume that someone with an opinion is necessarily right. I, personally, feel that those of us who speak English have no reason to change the Sea of Japan to the East Sea or whatever name the bothered Koreans prefer. However, National Geographic and the Lonely Planet publishers opted to putting both names in their publications and maps thanks to the incessant badgering they got from Koreans. The Koreans (both North and South together!) have gone to the UN to try (unsuccessfully) to get international recognition for their claims that the Sea of Japan is an offensive name and the legacy of colonial repression (which it clearly isn��t).



In this age of political correctness, it is easy for a small group of very vocal and determined people to inflict their preferences on others. The need to alter maps and change nouns seems to me to be a silly weakness on the part of marketing people too eager to please all the people all the time. If you��re trying to sell a product or service why shouldn��t you use the terms most familiar to your customers? When making a reference work, why go against what all other scholastic publications use?



I can certainly empathize with national pride or correcting historical wrongs. There are lots of terms in English that are misleading or the product of a historical misnomer. For the most part we have ceased using the term ��Indians�� in reference to the Native American peoples. They aren��t from India, so this was just silly to call them a name already in use by another peoples. But the demands on webmasters, journalists, and business owners to conform to demands from outside our English language is just nonsense. For all the passions it engenders, it would be ideal to tell foreign pressure groups to go pound sand. We don��t insist that their language change for our current political agenda. They need to be secure that in their language and in their culture everything is just fine. What English speakers or German speakers or Bantu speakers say in the privacy of their own linguistic homes is none of their business.

[tomato]

The Japanese look down their noses at the Koreans,
but the Mexicans don't look down their noses at the people in the United States.
Rather, it is the other way around.
That could be the reason that the Sea of Japan is offensive to the Koreans whereas the Gulf of Mexico is not offensive to the people in the United States.

[komtengi]

its a body of water... time to get over it.

[shakuhachi]

[some waygug-in]

The truth is that Koreans just have a thing about Japan due to the past history and everything.

I was talking to my class about life in Korea, and then I mentioned that I had to go to Japan several times to get my visa. They were curious to know my opinions of Japan compared to Korea.

You should have seen the reaction of my students when I told them that Japan was "more modern" than Korea. Of course, everyone knows this is true, but they were all miffed and were trying to find ways to make me recant what I had just said.


One student: "You need to visit Seoul, then you wouldn't think that."


I politely agreed, because I didn't want to further provoke them, but the truth is I have visited Seoul and it doesn't change my opinion one bit.

[Reflections]

I find that their is still a large 'gulf' between Korea and Japan. There is the saying that Japan is 10 years ahead of Korea. It seems to me that after travelling between the two countries, Korean culture is a 'low' form of Japanese culture. Maybe even lowest of the low....

[shakuhachi]

[mindmetoo]

I'm more mystified over the consternation Greek Macedonians have regarding the former Yugoslavia (I go slavia, we all go slavia) Macedonians calling their new nation Macedonia.

[kiwiboy_nz_99]

[peemil]

I'll call it the East Sea when they call Australia by it's name, and not Hoju.

What the hell is a Hoju?

[vlcupper]

[jajdude]

What other country is so easily offended?

[turtlepi1]