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Curzon
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Curzon

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September 14th, 2006

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Korea’s Stir-Crazy Territoriality

The Japanese version of the Korean paper Joong Ang Ilbo has an article about an Okinawa prefectural web page that shows the Japanese island of Tsushima (Nagasaki Prefecture) as foreign territory. As the island is located between the border of Korea and Japan, the article assumes that Okinawa marked the island as Korean territory.

The article includes every detail about the situation that you could possibly want to know:

  • The map was created for Okinawa Prefecture’s web page titled “Okinawa’s Islands” and shows Okinawan territory in red, other Japanese territory in orange, and foreign territory in green.
  • The page was made in 2004 but only discovered by Nagasaki denizens recently, after which a complaint was issued.
  • The relevant agency of the Okinawan prefectural government removed the map and issued an apology: the map was made by a private company on contract and the mistake had not been noticed until now. Phew! International crisis averted!

I only read the Joong Ang through Google News Japan, and the paper always has peculiar stories such as this. While this type of stuff may be of interest to readers back home, for a Korean media outlet to publish this in its Japanese version, as if its somehow newsworthy, just encourages the image that Koreans are barmy over territory.

Comments to this entry

sun bin
September 15, 2006
1:06 am
barny?:)

most newspapers are barny. all blogs are barny as well.
Curzon
September 15, 2006
1:47 am
Barmy -- i.e. eccentric or daft. See definition 2 "here.":http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=barmy&x=0&y=0
The Marmot
September 15, 2006
2:01 am
While this type of stuff may be of interest to readers back home, for a Korean media outlet to publish this in its Japanese version, as if its somehow newsworthy, just encourages the image that Koreans are barmy over territory.

Perhaps so, although Yonhap also ran a report on this, and according to that report, it was Kyodo News that broke the story first that day. It seems the JoongAng and Yonhap were just regurgitating what they read, and if the JoongAng is anything like the Chosun, I'd imagine a goodly amount of the paper is translated into Japanese regardless of content simply because it's so quick and easy to do so.
The Marmot’s Hole » Territorial wackiness
September 15, 2006
2:03 am
[...] Oh, and the homepage of Okinawa Prefecture made the boo-boo of marking Tsushima Island as a “foreign territory.” The map has since been replaced, but someday 300 years from now, some Korean historian is going to cite it as proof that even Japan has historically recognized Tsushima as Korean territory. Share and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
sun bin
September 15, 2006
3:31 am
every country has one of two papers that focus on eccentric topics/niche. it is these eccentric stuff that has "news" value because people are curious. so in a way, most newpapers and blogs are eccentric in that sense.

e.g this post talks about the eccentric and daft non-main-stream(?) korean paper called Jang Ang.

Sankei is as barny as Jang Ang over territory, and that enhance such image for Japan as well. Similarly, we can find equivalents in China and many otherr countries. What I try to say is, this does not change my image of that country. They are isolated incidence and worth a laugh for the readers, and that only.
sun bin
September 15, 2006
3:33 am
i kept typing "n".....:(
sun bin
September 15, 2006
6:06 am
1. what does that red dot in taiwan strait mean?

2. as some of us probably know, okinawa is only annexed by japan fairly recently (i.e. shortly after Meiji Restoration). Okinawan people are closer to the aborignies of Taiwan and Philippinos than Japanese, genetically and linguistically. So it cannot rule out someone intentionally or subconsciuosly did that, even though there is not much talk about independence (being part of Japan makes Okinawa wealthier than, say Guam)
Mutantfrog
September 15, 2006
7:59 am
While I have no idea about the genetics of it, you are incorrent about the linguistics of Okinawa. The Okinawan (or Ryukyu-an) language is un-controversially considered to be related to the Japanese language. While it is different enough not to be a dialect, the various dialects of Okinawa collectively form a parallel but separate branch to the dialects of the main Japanese islands. I have seen it suggested that the evolution of the Okinawan language separated from that of Japanese around 1500-2000 years ago, some time before Japan was even a unified country, and certainly far enough in the distant past to make the fact irrelevant to modern claims of territoriality.
sun bin
September 15, 2006
2:59 pm
u r probably right.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryukyuan_language
Darin
September 15, 2006
3:39 pm
...The Okinawan (or Ryukyu-an) language is un-controversially considered to be related to the Japanese language. While it is different enough not to be a dialect, the various dialects of Okinawa collectively form a parallel but separate branch to the dialects of the main Japanese islands. I have seen it suggested that the evolution of the Okinawan language separated from that of Japanese around 1500-2000 years ago, some time before Japan was even a unified country, and certainly far enough in the distant past to make the fact irrelevant to modern claims of territoriality.

You're absolutely right Mutantfrog. If you've studied your ancient-Japanese in high school like any good kid would, you'll know just how similar Okinawan Japanese and Modern Japanese are. Okinawan language started to split from Kyoto Japanese around 15-20k years ago and developed on it's own route as mainland Japanese did as well.

Genetically, the Okinawan people are Japanese as well. They're a the closest people to the 縔žÃ¦”“”¡Ã¤ÂºÂº (Jomon-jin) which are the prehistoric Japanese of all the modern Japanese families. (However something that would counter that, or make it appear to be just a coincidence is the thought that people came to Okinawa on a giant land bridge from China -- The Okinawan islands are not volcanic, did not appear from an earthquake, but are in fact nothing but coral so it's possible that there was once more coral that went all the way to the Chinese mainland.) They are part of the Old-Mongoloid (as are the Japanese) family, have similar genetics to the various types of Japanese including the Ainu. They also have similarities with South-Eastern Chinese and Koreans which can partially be attributed to the trading done with China, Korea and Japan since as long as boats made it possible.

Okinawan people are closer to the aborignies of Taiwan and Philippinos than Japanese, genetically and linguistically.

=Mutantfrog says 'no'=

u r probably right.

Why make such a claim if you know so little about it a simple glance on wikipedia is enough to prove you wrong, sun bin?
sun bin
September 15, 2006
7:12 pm
I did not want to digress, but since you asked for this.

1st, it is theory, not conclusive.

2nd, there have been different claims.

this is from the same entry of wiki
---
The Okinawan language is only 71% lexically similar to Tokyo Japanese[citation needed]. Even the southernmost Japanese dialect (Kagoshima dialect) is only 72% lexically similar to the northernmost Ryukyuan language (Amami). The Kagoshima dialect of Japanese, however, is 80% lexically similar to Tokyo Japanese. Other Ryukyuan languages such as Miyako, Yaeyama, and Yonaguni are even further from Tokyo Japanese.

Since the beginning of World War II, most Mainland Japanese, and even many Ryukyuans, have regarded the Ryukyuan languages as a dialect or group of dialects of Japanese. Experts, however, regard them as separate languages.
---

This is another wiki entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian_languages

"It has also been proposed that Japanese may be a distant relative of the Austronesian language family. The evidence for this is slight, and many linguists think it is more likely that Japanese was instead influenced by Austronesian languages, perhaps by an Austronesian substratum. Those who propose this scenario suggest that the Austronesian family once covered the islands to the north of Formosa (western Japanese areas such as the Ryukyu Islands and Kyushu) as well as to the south."

---

Genetically, you are right that the spectrum is continuous and ryukyu mix with all its neighbors. But if you are willing to go as far as Ainu, here is some of the genetic studies, which show what Ainu, Rykyu have in common -- in fact, also with Melanesian, aborigine Taiwanese, Korean, Han Chinese, etc. That is probably the genetic similarities you talk about. I would be surprice if you find a common gene between Ainu and Ryukyo and mainland japanese, that isn't shared by also the Korean and Chinese.
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/journal/issues/v64n1/980634/980634.tb2.html?erFrom=6429271143681448791Guest
Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace
September 16, 2006
3:19 pm
More interesting to me was Sun Bin's query about the red dot in the Taiwan Strait - any ideas???
Mutantfrog
September 17, 2006
12:18 am
The red dot seems to be in the area of the Penghu islands, aka the Pescadores. They're very nice, here's some photos I took while I was there. No idea why they would be covered by a giant red dot, although perhaps they are too tiny to show up on the map at all without the dot. Sure, you could say that they are contested between Taiwan and China, but no more than Taiwan itself is.
sun bin
September 17, 2006
2:12 am
penghu seems to be just south of that red dot. but this is not a very professionally made map...so, maybe MF is right.

someone highlighted tsushima with a red circle, i wonder red means something in the legion? and the dot is just a very small circle?
Darin
September 17, 2006
4:18 pm
I assuming the red circle was added by Curzon.

As for the Taipei dot, notice how Japanese land is drawn very detailed, and the rest is rather half-assed. I'm guessing the Taipei dot is just half-assed because it's not meant to be such a detailed map of anything but Okinawa really.

Look closely and you'll notice Tsushima is drawn in great detail like the rest of Japan. Someone probably just used a large select lasso, selected Japanese territory first, colored it, and then half-assed the rest and in this half-assing mistakenly got Tsushima as well.
Mutantfrog Travelogue » Blog Archive » Asian History Carnival
September 19, 2006
2:13 am
[...] While there was a miniscule controversy over a poorly drawn map on the Okinwana prefectural website showing Tsushima, an island which is actually part of Nagasaki prefecture, as foreign territory, the current major fad in East Asian territorial disputes has to be over Koguryo, an ancient kingdom on the Korean penninsula that ceased existing in the year 668, after being defeated and absorbed by the rival Silla kingdom, with plenty of help from Tang China. One might think that disputes over the borders of Koguryo would have ended back then, but sadly things are not that simple. [...]