Friday, October 30, 2009

All right, northeast Asia, take out your textbooks and turn to the chapter on World War II

The Los Angeles Times has an article on South Korea and Japan's efforts to sit down with China and hash out a history textbook that would be satisfactory to all three:
Several politicians in South Korea and Japan have begun exploring the possibility of a joint history textbook between their nations and China. But given the lingering differences over issues ranging from past wars to current territorial claims, the proposal faces numerous hurdles.

Members of South Korea's ruling Grand National Party met informally in Seoul this month with counterparts from the majority Democratic Party of Japan. One of the main topics was whether a joint history textbook could now be developed with government cooperation.

Kang Yong-seok, a GNP lawmaker, was among the South Korean politicians who approached the Japanese.

"We [told DPJ] members that it would be very meaningful to write a common textbook," Kang said, citing a history textbook created through German-French cooperation.

"We didn't think the idea was impossible, but the countries have been unable to agree on historical matters," said DPJ member Masashi Mito. "We agreed to revisit and delve into the differences of historical perspectives and look into how realistic such a project can be."
Though the tone of the above quote is pessimistic, I think a book common to the ROK and Japan may be more within reach with Lee and Hatoyama at the respective helms of South Korea and Japan than back when South Korea's leftists and Japan's right-wing LDP were in charge.


Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, for his part, seems very sympathetic to many of the issues that were either ignored by Tokyo under LDP leadership, or were downright exacerbated by an insensitive right wing that seemed to hold up a blameless Japan in the 20th century as a historical paradigm. Japan-born Lee, on the other hand, may be a little more willing to let some issues go, and less enthusiastic about conflict-laden historical narratives that are so common on the left.

So while I think a Seoul-Tokyo book is well within reach, I'm considerably less optimistic about a Beijing-Seoul-Tokyo (let's say Beseto) book. While China might team up with South Korea on Imperial Japan's atrocities (Rape of Nanjing, comfort women, occupation brutality, war crimes during battle, human experimentation, etc.), China's leaders still officially hold (as far as I'm aware) that South Korea started the Korean War by invading the North and that the Chinese who turned the tide of war (and, incidentally, solidified the North-South division we still have today) were volunteers and not officially sent soldiers.

Good luck with that one.

Still, it would be nice if historical frictions didn't keep heating things up in the present. There are definitely some unresolved issues — the surviving comfort women who have been done wrong by both Tokyo and Seoul, as well as ownership of Tokto — most issues from the past have little direct bearing on the present. They are issues of pride, and that makes them important, perhaps, but not all-important.

Really, good luck.

Note: Comments are now closed for this post. If you have an interesting insight or question you'd like to share, feel free to email me and I'll see about squeezing it in.

45 comments:

  1. Here are the horrible pictures of what the colonial Japanese did to Koreans. Those who have heart problems and age under 18, please do not click on it.

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  2. Kushibo,

    They are issues of pride

    Fundamentally, I consider it as conscience and moral issues. Have Japanese textbook taught kids what wrong Japanese had done to other Asians and people in the world? No. All the Japanese youth I have met were so ignorant about their precedent generations’ wrong. They have only learned about Japanese were victims of A-bombs.

    It is not just a pride issue. As you know, history repeats. What Chinese and Koreans got so sick of is Japanese desperate attempt to justify their faults during colonial period. What you think will be realized in your practice.

    If Japanese do not think colonial imperial Japan was grave faults, then the same errors will be repeated in the future.

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  3. Oh and don't forget...the 20th century issues you point out are only half of the conflicts that will arise. You also have the China-Korea disagreements about old Koguryo territories as well as the issues with Balhae. And I doubt China would want to talk about the Sui-Koguryo and Tang-Koguryo conflicts in the details that the Koreans like to talk about (ie-how many casualties China suffered). It seems when I talk to educated Chinese about those wars, they always seem to be unaware of just how bad it was. And some were even taught that Korea was part of China (although I know that's probably very old news).

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  4. @Peter Kim:

    What do South Korean textbooks teach children about North Korean concentration camps and forced repatriations and executions of refugees? I will never understand why Koreans as a nation are more outraged by Japanese atrocities that occurred more than 60 years ago than by atrocities that continue today under a regime partially funded by the South.

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  5. sonagi92:

    What do South Korean textbooks teach children about North Korean concentration camps and forced repatriations and executions of refugees?

    In Korean history textbooks, the atrocities committed by communists are honestly described. Since I was elementary school, I had been taught enough about how horrible North Korean regime is. After Kim Daejung administration, it is true that the message got weakened. But still textbook presents what really have occurred since Korean War between South and North Korea. And the truth about North Korea is daily reported through news media.

    I will never understand why Koreans as a nation are more outraged by Japanese atrocities that occurred more than 60 years ago than by atrocities that continue today under a regime partially funded by the South.

    Even after the WWII, Japanese did not honestly recognize their faults and often offended Chinese and Korean by justifying and glorifying the Imperial Japan. Why Japan cannot clean up the dirty past and restart the relationship with neighbor countries? If Germany had tried to justify Nazism, I am sure other European countries would have gotten upset. Don’t you think so?

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  6. I don't see this happening for a long time if they ever want China to sign on. The CCP needs their ultra-nationalist version of history cause that's how they keep power. Theres no more iron rice bowl. The new contract is about rallying behind the CCP because they are the only ones who can right the wrongs from the century of humilation. The CCP needs its version of events.

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  7. Sonagi,

    It's an odd part of human nature that remembers cruelties done by outsiders better than cruelties done within the family...

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  8. Edward:

    It's an odd part of human nature that remembers cruelties done by outsiders better than cruelties done within the family...

    I agree with you. If you ask Koreans about the former president Park Jeonghee’s dictatorship and Japanese colonialism, I am pretty sure absolute majority of them will say the former was a lot better than the latter.

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  9. If a German publicly praises Hitler in Germany, he will be treated as a crazy man. In Japan, politicians proudly pay an annual visit to the Yasukuni shrine of war criminals.

    I think it is related to the deified status of Japanese emperor. Even though the emperor Hirohito should have to assume the ultimate responsibility for the colonialism, he was immune to any punishment, because emperor in Japan was treated like a god.

    And the exoneration of Japanese emperor, I assume, have led to the justification of the crimes that had occurred under his rule, because any criticism on colonialism would ultimately result in asking the responsibility of the Japanese emperor.

    So it was almost impossible to have active discussions on cleaning up the dirty past.

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  10. Peter Kim wrote:
    Fundamentally, I consider it as conscience and moral issues. Have Japanese textbook taught kids what wrong Japanese had done to other Asians and people in the world? No.

    You are wrong on that score, Peter. As I wrote here in 2005, the problem was several right-wing textbooks that sought to buck Japan's general trend toward frank discussion of past Imperial Japanese wrongdoings:

    Japan’s aggressions have NOT been omitted from Japan’s textbooks. Including these in detail is part of the Good Neighbors policy of Japanese education (the result, in part, of Korea and others complaining about white-washed textbooks in the past).

    The uproar over the textbooks since 2001 has been because right-wing publishing agencies are trying to REMOVE some of these or water them down. The uproar over various politicians comes from Japanese, too, because they KNOW that “Japan never invaded Korea” is a falsehood.


    And lest you think I'm taking the Japanese side on this because you think I'm on the take from a "Japanese right wing related organization," as you have blatantly accused me of elsewhere, go and Google kushibo+Japanese+textbooks and see what you find.

    All the Japanese youth I have met were so ignorant about their precedent generations’ wrong. They have only learned about Japanese were victims of A-bombs.

    Have you been to Japan, Peter? The Peace Memorial at Hiroshima, which I visited for the second time this past summer, lays out the blame and atrocities committed by Imperial Japan at the very beginning, before it describes how the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unnecessary and inhumane.

    Just the other day I watched Letters from Iwo Jima, a Clint Eastwood and Steven Spielberg pic, with a twenty-something Japanese friend who was completely aware of all such issues.

    I have taken Japanese on tours of Seoul in the 1990s and 2000s, and some were surprised at how much damage Japan did to Korea, but even before then, they were aware that the occupation was brutal.

    Methinks you're creating a strawman. Who are these "Japanese youth [you've] met" and in what context are you meeting them?

    It is not just a pride issue. As you know, history repeats. What Chinese and Koreans got so sick of is Japanese desperate attempt to justify their faults during colonial period. What you think will be realized in your practice.

    You say "Japanese" as if it's all Japanese. Do all Koreans think alike? Do all Americans? If not, then why would all Japanese? You are making the mistake of taking the actions of the Japanese right-wing — and I wholeheartedly agree it is a very big problem — and smearing all of Japan and all Japanese with it.

    If Japanese do not think colonial imperial Japan was grave faults, then the same errors will be repeated in the future.

    If you change that to right-wing Japanese thinking that, then yes, I completely agree with your assessment. In fact, I've argued that kind of thing many times. Yasukuni Shrine, which I have visited, including the Yushukan Museum on its grounds that it is set up and run by the Yasukuni shrinekeepers, lays out that version of events, and it is very disturbing that leaders like Koizumi, this guy, and then-Air Force chief Toshio Tamogami have to pander to such people or, worse, enthusiastically subscribe to their ideas.

    [By the way, Peter, if you're still convinced that I'm a plant for a right-wing Japanese organization, Google kushibo+Yasukuni or kushibo+Yushukan.]

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  11. LastNameKim, you're right, those earlier Koguryŏ-related issues would also create perhaps an insurmountable obstacle. To be honest, I wasn't even thinking beyond the modern period (commonly defined as northeast Asia's forced opening to the West in the mid-19th century) when I wrote this.

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  12. Sonagi wrote:
    I will never understand why Koreans as a nation are more outraged by Japanese atrocities that occurred more than 60 years ago than by atrocities that continue today under a regime partially funded by the South.

    Sonagi, "Koreans as a nation"? You know as well as I that using Japan as a hot-button issue is a favorite tactic of Japan's chinboista "progressive" left, which would never come out and willingly bash North Korea.

    And Peter is right that the atrocities of the North have for decades been laid out in spades by South Korean textbooks. South Korean atrocities, only recently.

    There's also something to be said about tolerating bullsh¡t (still have those swear filters at work, Sonagi? That ¡ is for you.^^) from Beijing and Pyongyang, who remain ideological enemies regardless of increased economic activity, whereas Japan is supposedly an ally in other ways.

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  13. Notdeadyetblog, I think you're spot on about the CCP and its version of events. I've ranted about that before, but it's amazing how many people have gotten it in their minds that the Chinese authorities are just like South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, or the US.

    The riots during the torch relay was a wake-up call, I hope (some of my Chinese grad student neighbors here at the uni were downright scary to talk with during that time, and I myself had to hold back some very seething emotions).

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  14. It's also interesting to state that more Russians died by Stalin's hand than via Hitler... but Russians are nostalgic for Stalin...

    Again, human nature.

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  15. "You know as well as I that using Japan as a hot-button issue is a favorite tactic of Japan's chinboista "progressive" left, which would never come out and willingly bash North Korea. "

    You're right. I do.

    "And Peter is right that the atrocities of the North have for decades been laid out in spades by South Korean textbooks. South Korean atrocities, only recently. "

    Is he? Textbook content on North Korea used to detail atrocities, but I recall from news stories that recent editing has toned down, removed, and altered information that shows North Korea unfavorably. I have a few elementary school textbooks from the 80s, and almost every sentence written about North Korea is negative. I have both elementary and secondary books from 2000 or 2001. I flipped through a high school book on Korean history last night, and couldn't find anything on North Korea, period, other than a few short passages on the division of the peninsula and war. I will look through my book boxes for other history textbooks this weekend. I do NOT believe that textbooks published in this decade provide much information about North Korean atrocities.

    If anyone has links to webpages on Korean secondary school curricula and textbook content, I'd love to see them.

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  19. Edward,

    It's also interesting to state that more Russians died by Stalin's hand than via Hitler... but Russians are nostalgic for Stalin... Again, human nature.

    In the case of Korea, I would say Japanese colonial period was a lot more severe and harsh than Park Jeonghee's dictatorship period.

    And I would say the Korean War and the resulting confrontation between South and North was as much severe as Japanese colonial era.

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  21. Kushibo,

    Methinks you're creating a strawman. Who are these "Japanese youth [you've] met" and in what context are you meeting them?

    I met Japanese Youth Franciscans in Seoul in 1996 and I visited Tokyo and Yokohama and talked with them one year later. After visiting Korea Independence museum, Matsumoto, one of the Japanese youth said that she did not know how horrible the Japanese occupation of Korea was. And when I visited Tokyo in 1997, a Japanese Catholic said he knew the issues but he did not think the colonialism was so bad thing to Korea. The truth is, I think, most Japanese do not care about colonial period.

    You say "Japanese" as if it's all Japanese. Do all Koreans think alike? Do all Americans? If not, then why would all Japanese? You are making the mistake of taking the actions of the Japanese right-wing — and I wholeheartedly agree it is a very big problem — and smearing all of Japan and all Japanese with it.

    Is there sound criticism against colonialism prevailing in Japan as in Germany? Yes, the most blame should go to the right wing politicians. And who elected those right wing politicians? And what does it meant that those textbooks got approval from Japanese government?

    By the way, as you advised to me, I google searched “Kushibo”, I found this: Kushibo Phenomenon

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  22. Now I wonder if "Kushibo" is the same person with "Sonagi92".

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  23. Bloggers Robert Koehler, Jon of GI Korea, and Joshua Stanton know my real name and city of residence. Joshua actually phoned me at home once.

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  24. Sonagi92:

    I am sorry if I was mistaken. But it is quite strange coincidence that the person who solely defended Kushibo at "Kushibo phenomenon" was "Sonagi". And many bloggers claimed "Kushibo" was the same person with "Sonagi".

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  25. I just clicked on that Kushibo Phenomenon link and reread the comment thread. I didn't defend Kushibo's use of a sock. I did, like TMH blogger Robert Koehler and blogger/K-blog commenter Sunbin, think other K-bloggers and commentesr overreacted, so no, I wasn't the only one who "defended" Kushibo. Moreover, the blogger who wrote the post at CA assured conspiracy theorists that Kushibo and I are different people.

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  26. Sonagi92:

    So you are saying that "Sonagi92" = "Sonagi", right?

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  28. And here is a bizarre dialogue between Kushibo and Sonagi.  They seem to be an  identical person.

    I feel bad for you, Kushibo. You are so lonely person that you make multiple IDs and self-talk on your own blog.

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  29. I've had a busy morning, so I hadn't yet replied to the various comments left on my blog since last night, but since Sonagi is now taking up a discussion with Peter over the links he provided, I'm going to say a few things.

    First, the topic here is Northeast Asia textbooks, not allegations that I post using various socks. Peter, in a very narrow window of time you have accused me of being on the payroll of right-wing Japanese organizations and now you're taking up this cause. It's terribly ironic that you would take this up against me when the source is someone, if you were to read their blog carefully, whose views you would find terribly vile.

    It's only a matter of convenience that you have chosen to accept this at face value, because it allows you to dismiss me, someone who has challenged your cherished views on a matter you hold dear (i.e., An Chunggŭn).

    To make matters simple, I'm going to state a few things. First, after my comment here, this matter is closed as far as you are concerned on this blog, Peter. You can comment all you want on my blogs, but you are henceforth going to dispense with personal attacks on me, including accusations that I am taking money from any organization or that I am using "socks." To make this as clear as I can, I do not use socks. I do not comment on K-blogs except as this userid. I am not the physical person who has been writing as Nora Sumi Park (or any combination of that name). I am not the physical person who has been writing as Sonagi (or any combination of that name). Were I, for whatever reason, compelled to write using a different userid than this, I would make sure that the owner of that blog knew exactly who I am. I have chosen, in general, to simply ignore such public accusations, just as I have done with other ad hominem attacks on me or my character that have sprouted from online forums. This policy is based on similar personal attacks I've faced stretching back to the 1990s. I have no obligation to respond to people whom I don't know personally who have been engineering — through email hacking, attempts at blackmail, getting my blog shut down, and other methods — a well-orchestrated smear campaign because I have offended them and/or their views. I have openly and frankly discussed such online attacks with all people whom I know outside the blog (which is a lot of K-blog people) who had bothered to ask me about it in private, but if people want to believe an accusation filled with inaccurate premises and conclusions that they are not clever enough to see through, then that is their problem not mine. Only when it crosses the line of physical or other threats to my person — which it has — would I make an attempt to deal with it, but that attempt would be offline, not online.

    If you have a problem with what I write, go ahead and deal with that.

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  31. Kushibo,

    To make this as clear as I can, I do not use socks. I do not comment on K-blogs except as this userid. I am not the physical person who has been writing as Nora Sumi Park (or any combination of that name).

    I am sorry Kushibo, I found this too.

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  32. Peter, setting aside the irony that you just posted the same comment as BPKim before realizing your mistake and then deleting it, you should go and conduct a Google search of that same string of words elsewhere.

    That hundreds, possibly thousands of blogs were inundated with a fake kushibo admitting to be Nora is precisely why my blog was flagged by Blogspot in August 2006 as a spambot and I could not post or leave comments even on my own blog for several weeks. I have saved the screen grab from that time:

    This blog has been locked by Blogger's spam-prevention robots. You will not be able to publish your posts, but you will be able to save them as drafts.

    Save your post as a draft or click here for more about what's going on and how to get your blog unlocked.


    Peter, if you are someone interested in these issues who stumbled across my blog by accident, then you're demonstrating yourself to be clever enough to find little things like this but not clever enough to properly interpret them. I'm also holding out the possibility that you are the latest incarnation of "Emily," but your writing style is quite different from hers, even if the eventual intent here is the same.

    Peter, again, I welcome you participating in discussions about things like Korean history and Japanese relations and what-not, but you have already been warned. Anymore of these accusations or "gotcha" stuff, and you will be banned from this site. That's something I don't want to do, so don't put me in a situation where I have no choice.

    (And just to save you the temptation when you eventually find it, here is the Sonagi Consortium blog I'd started four years ago, a complete coincidence, though people looking for a conspiracy theory find it a little difficult to swallow.)

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  33. I coincidentally found the strange information on you, because you told me to google search your name. I did not mean to digress from the discussion.

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  34. Correction: I told you to Google my name in conjunction with several issues, namely kushibo+Japanese+textbooks and kushibo+Yasukuni or kushibo+Yushukan, and then see what you find in relation to those issues, since you have accused me of being a paid Japanese right-wing hack with anti-Korean views.

    Did you even bother doing that?

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  35. It was too long to type them all. So I just typed "Kushibo". And I apologize suspecting you working for Japanese right wing organization. I simply asked you if you are working for it (I later deleted the question some hours later).

    I thought you were (part) Japanese because of your name. It just sounds like Japanese: くしぼ. And at least your views on Ahn is identical to the Japanese right wing’s.

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  36. Didn't I read this post a year ago, and the year before that?

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  37. Hey, this string of comments is funny (and off the topic). BTW, Kushibo, I've seen that old posting of the "Kushibo phenomenon" and the thing about Nora Park. Actually, I really did think it was concluded that you were using that Nora Park "sock", but I always wondered why it was such a big deal? I think many bloggers use more than one ID and I just wrote it off as it wasn't a big deal. But if you're saying that it really wasn't you and people were trying to sabotage your credentials, then that fact is even scarier than somebody using a fake ID/sock (I think "sock" is a strange term).

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  38. Inseoulent wrote:
    Didn't I read this post a year ago, and the year before that?

    Well, yes. Tokyo and Seoul have been talking about this kind of thing for some time. But this is the first (I think) serious effort to bring Beijing into the mix. Taipei I could understand, but bringing in Beijing is turning it into a non-starter.

    I'll be amazed if they can ever pull that off.

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  39. LastnameKim, the offline abuse I have suffered was enough to make me just say fu¢k it and forget about it. Besides, I've had real-world tragedies happening around me that just were more important. At some point, I just thought, I'm being attacked by a ruthless online ursine creature, and I might as well just play dead until it passes. Bringing it up again runs the risk of emboldening certain players to do all over again the things they did in the past. And this is really all I care to talk about it anymore.

    I will tell you, though, it is amusing to see people fall over themselves trying to figure out who I am at The Marmot's Hole when in fact none of them are me. When that does pop up, I fire off an email to The Marmot clarifying that, no, that isn't me.

    Unless I'm like the killer in that John Cusack movie, Identity, and I don't even realize that I'm online writing as sonagi, yuna, nora, or whomever. Oh, sh¡t... I'm scaring myself now.

    Anyway, discussion on that closed (and the above sentence is NOT a cryptic admission of anything).

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  40. Peter Kim wrote:
    It was too long to type them all. So I just typed "Kushibo".

    Peter Kim, that is one of the stupidest things you could say. I'm sorry for being so blunt, but that was just plain dumb.

    On my blog alone, I have put up close to two thousand posts, with probably only one or two percent of them having to do with Yasukuni. On other blogs, particularly at The Marmot's Hole, I have written dozens of times about Yasukuni, but that is among what is likely thousands more comments.

    So how do you think just Googling "kushibo" would magically transport you to posts or comments I'd written on Yasukuni Shrine or its Yushukan Museum?

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  41. Peter Kim wrote:
    And I apologize suspecting you working for Japanese right wing organization. I simply asked you if you are working for it (I later deleted the question some hours later).

    Again, I'm going to politely call you an aßßhole. Your insidious "question" is the very stuff that led to me being attacked in a pre-blog era on very similar stuff. Yes, as I've written before, I've had people try to get me fired and even made physical threats, and it wasn't even over something I'd actually written, but something they'd been told I'd written. I know who was behind this, and sometimes my less-than-Christian thoughts make me fantasize about a very, very unpleasant revenge on that person.

    Ah, but all that church stuff has infected my brain, so I don't.

    I thought you were (part) Japanese because of your name. It just sounds like Japanese: くしぼ.

    Do you speak Korean? Did you sound it out and not figure out that it means "ninety-five"? What word in Japanese did you think it means? It's not a surname of any kind.

    Do you think sonagi is Japanese, then? I could take just about any string of Korean words that don't contain  ㅇ as the lower consonant, and half of them would "sound Japanese."

    Shinaburo, hakkyo, iriwa, kaja, haja, odiga, kage, inomi mohae, musuniriya, mashisso, mashitchi, ippuda, kidokkyo, etc., etc.

    (시나브로, 학교, 이리 와, 가자, 하자, 어디 가, 가게, 이 놈이 뭐 해, 무슨 일이야, 맛있어, 맛있지, 이쁘다, 기독교)

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  42. Peter Kim wrote:
    And at least your views on Ahn is identical to the Japanese right wing’s.

    No, they are not. You are wrong on two counts. The first is that you really do not have the foggiest idea what the Japanese right wing's views are. The second is that you think anyone doubting the actions of An Chunggŭn — even if they're doing so for "pro-Korean" reasons, as I am — is automatically supporting the Japanese right wing.

    I've visited the Yushukan Museum at Yaskukuni Shrine, and what the Japanese right wing subscribes to is laid out in black and white right there. For some time, I've been meaning to write a post presenting some of the views I saw (I made sure to write a few things down; we couldn't take pictures). I'll try to do that sometime soon, after this big work project is finished.

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  43. Kushibo,

    So how do you think just Googling "kushibo" would magically transport you to posts or comments I'd written on Yasukuni Shrine or its Yushukan Museum?

    It is just tiring and time-consuming to type all the letters you provided. Please give me a direct link.

    I've had people try to get me fired and even made physical threats, and it wasn't even over something I'd actually written, but something they'd been told I'd written.

    Really? If there were such people, then I would say they were wrong.

    Do you think sonagi is Japanese, then?

    Then, you are saying you are "Sonagi" and "Sonagi92", right? Where is Sonagi92 now?

    You are wrong on two counts. The first is that you really do not have the foggiest idea what the Japanese right wing's views are.

    Your historicism of ignoring independence of Korea is in line with Japanese right wing's view. Ahn was no less than a terrorist in their eyes. That's why you and Matt made fun of Ahn and other Korean assassins. Their action might not be the best way to do for the independence of Korea, I do not believe they should be mocked by being compared with Cho Seunghui or Woo. That triggered my involvement in this blog.

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  44. Peter Kim wrote:
    It is just tiring and time-consuming to type all the letters you provided. Please give me a direct link.

    I don't know if you're just playing around that you're this thick, or if you really are.

    That (a) you don't understand why not typing "yasukuni" would not yield results on Yasukuni, and (b) that you would write more than ten times more letters to tell me how tiring it is to write just those eight letters (y-a-s-u-k-u-n-i), is evidence of some serious problems.

    I guess I'm accustomed to meeting people with mad Internet skills, whereas you have maddening deficiencies.

    And regarding personal attacks on me...
    Really? If there were such people, then I would say they were wrong.

    Oh, do you think?

    While you can see that the end product is a bad thing, what you fail to see is that people with your line of thinking — not just the idea that questioning An is equivalent to right-wing Japanese support, but that an ad hominem attack on someone's background or motivation is appropriate — is exactly what leads to this. These attacks were preceded by the same suggestions and insinuations as the ones you have made. So much so I have begun to suspect the possibility you may be one or more of those same people.

    Then, you are saying you are "Sonagi" and "Sonagi92", right? Where is Sonagi92 now?

    I do not know where Sonagi is, and I have already made as clear as I can the answer to the other question.

    Your historicism of ignoring independence of Korea is in line with Japanese right wing's view. Ahn was no less than a terrorist in their eyes. That's why you and Matt made fun of Ahn and other Korean assassins.

    So now I made fun of An?

    Their action might not be the best way to do for the independence of Korea,

    Not the best way to achieve it? Not only was it not a way to achieve it at all, it was foreseeably the best way to propel Korea in the opposite direction.

    I do not believe they should be mocked by being compared with Cho Seunghui or Woo. That triggered my involvement in this blog.

    When the fu¢k did I ever make a comparison with Cho Seunghui?! And who the hell is Woo?

    Clearly, one of the reasons you fail to look at my actual arguments and respond to them is that you are arguing against me as if I am someone else.

    Peter, I have cut you as much slack as I could. You have pissed me off again and again with you sheer stupidity, ignorance, and gross inability to follow an argument. You're being thrown into a state of cognitive dissonance where the things you were taught are being questioned, and you choose to respond by lashing out.

    As blog owner, I don't have to tolerate it. Since most of the rest of the Anglophones in the K-blogosphere (i.e., those who would actually type "y-a-s-u-k-u-n-i" in order to find out my views on Yasukuni if they didn't know them already) see me as a Korean apologist, not a Japanese apologist, I can ban you from my site without anybody disparaging me for what they would see as silencing a legitimate critic of my words.

    And that's what I hereby do. Good-bye, Peter Kim.

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  45. I'm doing it again, and I don't like it, but COMMENTS ARE HEREBY CLOSED on this post.

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