Korean..... history? ...... oh and thanks David :)

In an effort to keep fresh with academic research and to keep out of the trap of working 7 hours a day and spending the rest of my time on the internet or boozing I've started studying korean language and, more recently, culture and history. To that effect I purchased a book called "A Review of Korean History" by Han Young Woo (한영우). The actual research and chapters have so far been interesting but his introduction of Korean history (running over 40 pages) is downright shocking for someone educated in western methods.

For example, the entire thing seems little more than an attempt to compare Korea with both China and Japan (always favourably of course). He makes several mentions of "distortions of Korean history" though fails to name any individuals who have done this. His introduction has several lines such as: "Korean people..... developed their own culture that was different from the Chinese culture, but envied by the Chinese people" or "as China became unified and grew in to a civilized country during the Tang" (the Tang dynasty started c. 600AD, AFTER the Han dynasty and 800 years after unification) or, and this is my favourite "Japan's cultural thirst was not so severe when a great number of Korean exiles entered there during the Three Kingdom's period" (During a paragraph on how Japan's isolation gave them a cultural thirst that forced them to attack Korea or request and receive Korean envoys).

The author of this work is Professor Emeritus at Seoul National University (one of the big 3 universities in Korea, akin to a Harvard or Oxford but in the Korean language). Yet this introduction would not pass muster in a first year history class at a community college in Canada. Now I should point out that when he gets past his introduction and in to the actual history he is well researched and actually very imformative, but it's shocking and quite scary that this sort of petty nationalism can be treated as serious work anywhere (I've skipped the quotes describing the "naturally optimistic character" of the Korean people as they are long winded and I can't be bothered to copy them down). It's also sad that he must go to such pains to put down Japan and China whenever possible in order to promote Korea, instead of just relaying an account of Korean history. Finally, at the end of his 40 page introduction he has a section discussing how history must be viewed objectively and not have any bias infused in to it..... I guess that translation of objective = Japan sucks.

On a totally unrelated topic, my friend David gave my blog a bit of press time. David was an old co-worker of mine at SEI and also a friend and good bloke (props to the Aussie:).David also has a blog, staypuff.net and actually his blog was one of the reasons I started doing mine (I remember reading an old one where his two new co-workers, a young Cnadian couple had just shown up. He had invited them out but they were going down to Ulsan to visit friends. Well those co-workers were Kris and Miranda and that friend was me :P. It's kinda neat to read it from that perspective and I'd imagine it's even more fun to read your own past in that way). Anyway he's in Beijing now and his blog also makes a great read for anyone interested in life in China. Thanks David :)