Re: Koelle, he's lost his credibility a while ago and his vivid imaginations no longer warrant debate. However, I saw these pictures yesterday. These are part of the 1% of South Korea that is still religiously Confucian. He doesn't seem to understand that high culture in Asia was centered in Northeast Asia and I'm not doubting Vietnams regional power in the past (or future, which looks likely in Southeast Asia), but that's Southeast Asia, an area not of Northeast Asian "High Culture." Look where Beijing is on the map and how the southern chinese (Cantonese) became assimilated.
This site has pictures of contemporary Neo-Confucian followers (those in the tradition of the Chosun dynasty)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1641104/posts
Crazy how up to these days, there are people out there who still go to study classical neo-Confucian texts on a religious level.
Re: Veterannewbie
That's an excellent point that China ceded Taiwan over to Japan (which means that it did control Taiwan), but consider that the Chinese themselves considered Taiwan to be an island composed of "minority people distinct from the Han Chinese." Basically, what I'm saying is that claims that since time immemorial China has had a presence on Taiwan is just flat out untrue - illustrating Chinese revisionism. If you consider the length in which mainland China actually governed Taiwan, it stands at a few decades (It was controlled by a european nation earlier).
Re: Oda
The unique thing about both Korea and Japan is that these two countries are the only countries in East Asia that don't have a significant Chinese minority (there's 50,000 Chinese amongst South Korea's ~50 million) and this says something I believe about the strength of Korea and Japan's culture. Also, you'll notice on university campuses that Korean and Japanese students are very ethnocentric compared to other Asian exchange (and Asian-American) students.
However, with those points now ceded Oda, consider the history of large influxes of new people into the Korean peninsula. With the exception of the mongol invasion, there have been no waves of people that have moved onto the peninsula for about at least two millenia.
Where did those Chinese in Japan come from? And what about the Polynesian influences? This along with Japan's convenient geography (cut off pretty much from the rest of Asia, remember Okinawa and Hokkaido are relatively recent conquests) is what separates Japanese civilization from Korean civilization and while those that began the Yamato Civilization were ethnically-Korean and culturally from the area in southwestern South Korea (Baekjae), it is at this point that Japanese civilization arose, and which lends credence to the claim that "Koreans" (those that lived in Korea at the time and are ethnically the same as Koreans today) that started Japanese civilization. As to what significance this holds, I do not know, but this is the predominant view of Western scholars. Koreans tend to exaggerate this into meaning something a whole lot more.
With respect to anything that happened afterwards, those "Koreans" were no longer "Korean" as soon as they became influenced by the people that already lived there, the languages spoken there, and the culture of the area (although historical documentation does show that those from Western Japan began a slow conquest over the rest of Japan) One of the toughest things facing East Asian countries is defining nationality by some criteria other than race.
While a quarter of Japan's population may be genetically indistinguishable from Koreans, Japan has historically stood at the end of the "Southern" migration route which comes from Burma upto Southeastern China to Japan. A lot of speculation has been abound in the Japanese media lately concerning Burmese people who "look" Japanese. At the same time, in Korea, emphasis on racial origin is placed on Mongolians (those who look Korean, but are a bit darker) and those that belong to the Altaic family of languages (Hungarian, Finnish, Mongolian, Manchurian) that lied at the end of the "Northern" migration route. I once taught English to a Korean who majored in Hungarian and Japanese. He says Hungarian also has honorific verb suffixes and I was surprised.
Koreans are on average taller than the Japanese by quite a margin (Mongolians & Manchurians are also very tall). In fact, the tallest man in the world is a North Korean basketball player and the racial epithet for Japanese people literally means "Pig legs" (short). While some Japanese may be ethnically Korean, the corresponding number for those in Korea who are ethnically "Japanese" are very low.
This site has pictures of contemporary Neo-Confucian followers (those in the tradition of the Chosun dynasty)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1641104/posts
Crazy how up to these days, there are people out there who still go to study classical neo-Confucian texts on a religious level.
Re: Veterannewbie
That's an excellent point that China ceded Taiwan over to Japan (which means that it did control Taiwan), but consider that the Chinese themselves considered Taiwan to be an island composed of "minority people distinct from the Han Chinese." Basically, what I'm saying is that claims that since time immemorial China has had a presence on Taiwan is just flat out untrue - illustrating Chinese revisionism. If you consider the length in which mainland China actually governed Taiwan, it stands at a few decades (It was controlled by a european nation earlier).
Re: Oda
The unique thing about both Korea and Japan is that these two countries are the only countries in East Asia that don't have a significant Chinese minority (there's 50,000 Chinese amongst South Korea's ~50 million) and this says something I believe about the strength of Korea and Japan's culture. Also, you'll notice on university campuses that Korean and Japanese students are very ethnocentric compared to other Asian exchange (and Asian-American) students.
However, with those points now ceded Oda, consider the history of large influxes of new people into the Korean peninsula. With the exception of the mongol invasion, there have been no waves of people that have moved onto the peninsula for about at least two millenia.
Where did those Chinese in Japan come from? And what about the Polynesian influences? This along with Japan's convenient geography (cut off pretty much from the rest of Asia, remember Okinawa and Hokkaido are relatively recent conquests) is what separates Japanese civilization from Korean civilization and while those that began the Yamato Civilization were ethnically-Korean and culturally from the area in southwestern South Korea (Baekjae), it is at this point that Japanese civilization arose, and which lends credence to the claim that "Koreans" (those that lived in Korea at the time and are ethnically the same as Koreans today) that started Japanese civilization. As to what significance this holds, I do not know, but this is the predominant view of Western scholars. Koreans tend to exaggerate this into meaning something a whole lot more.
With respect to anything that happened afterwards, those "Koreans" were no longer "Korean" as soon as they became influenced by the people that already lived there, the languages spoken there, and the culture of the area (although historical documentation does show that those from Western Japan began a slow conquest over the rest of Japan) One of the toughest things facing East Asian countries is defining nationality by some criteria other than race.
While a quarter of Japan's population may be genetically indistinguishable from Koreans, Japan has historically stood at the end of the "Southern" migration route which comes from Burma upto Southeastern China to Japan. A lot of speculation has been abound in the Japanese media lately concerning Burmese people who "look" Japanese. At the same time, in Korea, emphasis on racial origin is placed on Mongolians (those who look Korean, but are a bit darker) and those that belong to the Altaic family of languages (Hungarian, Finnish, Mongolian, Manchurian) that lied at the end of the "Northern" migration route. I once taught English to a Korean who majored in Hungarian and Japanese. He says Hungarian also has honorific verb suffixes and I was surprised.
Koreans are on average taller than the Japanese by quite a margin (Mongolians & Manchurians are also very tall). In fact, the tallest man in the world is a North Korean basketball player and the racial epithet for Japanese people literally means "Pig legs" (short). While some Japanese may be ethnically Korean, the corresponding number for those in Korea who are ethnically "Japanese" are very low.
, referring to peoples of Southern China who were largely conquered by the North under the Qin Dynasty. The Vietnamese are considered as belonging to the Yue. The current name of the country, Vietnam, is derived from Nam Việt (南越
