Japan's colonial rule of Korea not fact, says city education board head

Saturday 28th June, 09:17 AM JST

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lipscombe at 08:42 AM JST - 30th June

Kim wansop eh? just one person's view as all historians work is. is it true because it's in a book? is it true because the head of education says so? what makes something 'true' is collective identical belief of many many people who experienced something, not the opinions of one person.
RepublicofTexas at 10:35 AM JST - 30th June

that is simply not true! give it another couple of decades and it will be but currently a large percentage of the population are in their late 70s and 80s.

sorry I meant fewer and fewer

But also, the mayor of Tokyo IS a right wing radical in many ways
nigelboy at 11:11 AM JST - 30th June

Kim wansop eh? just one person's view as all historians work is. is it true because it's in a book? is it true because the head of education says so? what makes something 'true' is collective identical belief of many many people who experienced something, not the opinions of one person.

I believe Seiharinokaze quoted another book.

「生活者の日本統治時代 Seikatsusha No Nihon Tochi Jidai」by O-Seonfa 呉善花

Interesting to note that O-Seonfa was initially refused entry to Korea on the charges of "anti-Korea activist". Kind of sums up the climate in Korea and how it's difficult to write anything contradicting the Korea's view of the annexation.

http://sankei.jp.msn.com/world/korea/071009/kor0710091654001-n1.htm

Also, in 2005, Korea enacted a law whereby kins of so-called Japan's collaborators can have their assets confiscated by the government.

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%A6%AA%E6%97%A5%E5%8F%8D%E6%B0%91%E6%97%8F%E8%A1%8C%E7%82%BA%E8%80%85%E8%B2%A1%E7%94%A3%E3%81%AE%E5%9B%BD%E5%AE%B6%E5%B8%B0%E5%B1%9E%E3%81%AB%E9%96%A2%E3%81%99%E3%82%8B%E7%89%B9%E5%88%A5%E6%B3%95#cite_note-7
Seiharinokaze at 07:26 PM JST - 30th June

And another. Professor Yi Yonfung of Seoul University shares similar view. He said that the aim of Japan's rule of Korea was not exploitation/plunder of Korea but a build-up of a country equipped with the same social system and foundation as those of Japan to be annexed to Japan eternally.

Britain for example, he argued, did not establish industry in its colonies by exporting factories, capital goods and social overhead capital; the western imperialism generally exploited raw materials in the colonies. It's a quite natural form of imperialism for them since their aim was, as opposed to that of Japan, not the eternal annexation of the colonies. Britain invested in and ran a stock company by the name of India. Their mercantile investment was of the kind that they could quit anytime they wanted. It was the original form of imperialism. Whereas the relation between Japan and colonized Korea was not understandable in such a conventional framework. As Korea was fairly akin to Japan geographically, culturally and racially, Japan tried to make one Big Japan.

http://news.hankooki.com/lpage/society/200404/h2004042215231045850.htm http://kamomiya.ddo.jp/Souko/C03/I_Yonfun/QandA.htm
lipscombe at 11:28 PM JST - 30th June

Kim wansop eh? just one person's view as all historians work is. is it true because it's in a book? is it true because the head of education says so? what makes something 'true' is collective identical belief of many many people who experienced something, not the opinions of one person who didn't
tako10 at 11:56 PM JST - 30th June

I guess people in poor countryside places such as Yamaguchi-ken may share “collective identical belief” coming from their experience that Zainichi Korean’s lives in big cities were better off then theirs.
minkaboo at 05:13 AM JST - 1st July

Seiharinokaze:

"By reading about the name-change policy by Japan at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sōshi-kaimei, I'm sorry I cannot verify that name-change to Japanese names was compulsory...Wasn't it rather the ethos of the time that chose or urged Japanese-style names? Please check if Korean people were really forbidden to speak in Korean language in their everyday life. Knowing the history will cool you a little bit."

To answer your question, no Koreans did not give a rat's ass for Japanese names. Rather, we were forced to take on Japanese names and the Korean language banned under threat of death or being jailed. Pointing out that you're re-writing your history, having me tell you what your history is --that cools me a bit more. Thank you for allowing me to locate this page that confirms all that my parents said. According to the reference that you pointed out, "In this period, the Imperial Japanese Army often discriminated, tortured, plundered, raped, summary executed and mass murdered innocent Koreans without a valid reason[1]." If you'd like to learn about your history, read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KoreaunderJapanese_rule

Let me guess, you're going to fabricate with some theory that says just the opposite, right?

As for the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea that you mentioned, I'm familiar with it. This is all public information to those in Korea, as I grew-up in New York and I still know about it. It seems clear to me that you have a big problem with your history. It is a huge burden, isn't it?

I do feel sorry for the new generation of Japanese who bear the brunt of your grandparents' crimes. But they feel the backlash because these denials continue to make headlines and then outright lies from ordinary citizens make me sick to my stomach. It makes me feel that Japanese are more interested in re-writing their history rather than to try to correct their past. To understand the past from the victims' point-of-view rather than your own point-of-view is the first step to correcting the past.
minkaboo at 05:32 AM JST - 1st July

Seiharnokaze,

You really think that there's a split on how Koreans might've viewed the Japanese colonization today?

"Major cultural genocides and war crimes done by the Japanese include forced sex slavery and kidnapping of young Korean girls and women for the Japanese army[2], human experiments on live Koreans[3], burying of live Koreans[4], burning down of Korean villages[5], banning of the Korean language and religions[6], complete censorship of media, unfair confiscation of land, food and cultural assets, forced name changes and Imperial education, which led to a strong rise in anti-Japanese sentiment and Korean nationalism, still persistent to this date in both South Korea and North Korea.[7][8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KoreaunderJapanese_rule
nigelboy at 11:12 AM JST - 1st July

BTW, as you might've guessed I'm a Korean descent raised and living in the United States. Yes, I know my history as some of you don't seem to know. So, why don't you order some books online and educate yourselves?

With all due respect, did you even check the footnotes on the wikipedia site that you provided?
JoeBigs at 06:55 PM JST - 1st July

To be honest who cares.......Let`s see 1910-1945......Hmmm now how long ago was that......Tick

History is written by the conquers...........

Me, the Bigs
Seiharinokaze at 10:59 PM JST - 1st July

minkaboo

What I wrote about Korean history in this news thread is basically quoted from what Koreans wrote for themselves. O-Seonfa interviewed Koreans who experienced the Japanese rule. She asked them about the creation of family name/name change too. Many of them didn't change their names through their schooldays and no one said that they were discriminated especially for it. She concluded from her research that at least there is not a fact that Japanese and Koreans in general were in discord with each other in the peninsula after the 3.1 independent movement.

Also Professor Yi Yonfun is once in a while featured by Chosun Ilbo for his historical views that dissents from traditional views. It's quite surprising, however, that such views as his are getting to be carried cool-headedly by leading newspapers.

You quoted from Wikipedia "unfair confiscation of land, food and cultural assets" among many cultural genocides and war crimes done by the Japanese. Prof. Yi said in his interview with Chosun Ilbo as follows: http://www.chosunonline.com/article/20070603000016

Question: Is it not a fact that Imperial Japan seized land by the Land Survey Project and plundered foodstuff by force?

Prof. Yi: In 1982 a lot of documents were discovered at the county office of Kimhae that were prepared during the time when the Land Survey Project was conducted. I made a research using this data and found that the government-general of the time treated fairly disputes about state-owned land. Out of 4 million 840 thousand chobus (1 chobu = about 0.99 hectare) of state-owned land nationwide, only 127 thousand chobus were left undeclared after the project. And most of the land was disposed of to Korean farmers on favorable conditions. As for taking out foodstuff from Korea to Japan, it was a commercial transaction through market. Not plunder.

Question: Then, why was Japan thought to have seized a greater part of Korean land through the process of the Land Survey Project?

Prof. Yi: Because the academic circles of South Korea have no strict judges. Advanced societies have a group of strict examiners that control the academic circles and judge on the validity of arguments. Underdeveloped societies lack such groups of examiners so that not only general people but also even scholars are not able to know what is true and what is untrue.
chardk1 at 11:40 PM JST - 1st July

One think I learned as a Korean-American living in Japan -- the Japanese are not bad people, most of them I have met are at least harmless, many are quite pleasant. But they will think what they please, there is not a lot to be done about it and it is fairly pointless as outsiders to try to persuade all of them to face unpleasant truths or facts. In fairness Japanese people are not different from most anyone else in this regard. How many Koreans really acknowledge just how backward and corrupt Chosun was before the Japanese showed up? How many Americans have thought even superficially about whether it was the right thing to do to have dropped the A-bomb on the Japanese? More to the point, people of faith, even those with heaps of secular education believe many "facts" that non-religious people find ludicrous or even laughable. But can you turn every single such instance into a personal crusade to educate people of the "truth?"

You can't force people of other nations to know the facts or to learn "correct" history. You can trust that it will catch up to their education, their academic standing in the world, etc. and that it will ultimately be a detriment to the society to insist on self-serving "facts" outside the global concensus. In fact, you can argue Japanese people are hindered in life by many of the untruths that their society perpetuates to supposedly ennoble and inspire them. For example, it does the Japanese no credit that their politicians make statements like this, because every time the Japanese insist they did nothing wrong and they don't understand why anybody thinks they did, it actually LOWERS non-Japanese opinion of the Japanese. I don't understand why this is so incomprehensible to Japanese. So I don't think Koreans should get too worked up over this stuff. What goes around comes around.
Hughgarse at 02:57 PM JST - 2nd July

‘‘There is no relation between education administration and history, and it goes against the rules to bring the subject up.

now that is a ridiculous comment!!
isthistheend at 05:43 PM JST - 2nd July

Well said chardk1. You can't change peoples thinking, in any country or century since Adam and Eve. I visited South Korea 30 years ago, befriended a Korean lady, visited her home near Seoul, and her father who lived in Japan till 22 and then returned to Korea to marry and raise his family, wife and 4 children all welcomed me to stay with them for 2 nights. They were the most generous and warm hearted people I'd ever met.

When I learned the Korean language to talk with her, she told me how much she hated the japanese for what they did to her country, and she took me to several cultural museums showing photos of the Japanese ocupation etc. How can local Japanese people think the world doesn't keep records as good as they do? My eyes were quite turned around. 30 years later, living in Tokyo, I'm sitting in a top company directors office for English conversation time 2 weeks ago, and he said the very same thing as this educational minister. It wasn't annex, Korea was part of Japan! Since I owe my present livelihood to this man and his company, I squirmed in my seat, but kept my lip buttoned. Was I going to change his mind by counterpoint? I swallowed, changed the subject in time and left without losing my job, though I was needless to say quite devastated that people, make that leaders of this nation REALLY DO believe in this way. Its not something thats on the table for debate. A mind is made up and that's that. Similar to the A-bombs dropped on Nagasaki AND Hiroshima. But I still love my country even though I have great dismay over many of its political decisions through history.
scap at 08:57 PM JST - 3rd July

I had a Korean male friend in Korea, who, about 25 years ago, showed me a big scar on his head. When I asked how he got it, he told me that when he was about 12 a Japanese policeman caught him speaking his native language and hit him over the head with a club. To me, that pretty well sums up the Japanese colonisation of Korea.