Via The Korea Times: You know this is the sort of thing that is going to get some attention over here. A history textbook used for SAT prep in the United States misidentifies the Silla Kingdom (57 B.C.E.-935 C.E.) as Korea’s first kingdom while ignoring the Goguryeo Kingdom (37 B.C.E.-668 C.E.).
A South Korean civic group considers the slight more than a mere error in fact-checking. “This is in line with China’s attempt to remove Gojoseon and Goguryeo from the history of Korea. It confirms China’s global strategy for making it happen,” said Park Ki-tae of something called the Voluntary Agency Network of Korea.
Some scholars in China claim that the Goguryeo (located in what is today North Korea and Northeastern China) was founded by a “Chinese” ethnic minority group–meaning the minority group originated in what is today China–and thus the Gogureyeo is really a “Chinese” kingdom. You can imagine how this goes over in Seoul and Korean high school textbooks have been one of many fronts in this war. (As well as figure skaters and telenovelas–go figure.) You can read more about this here and here.
Mr. Park here seems to be jumping at some pretty faint shadows, but I’m sure we haven’t heard the last salvo in the ongoing China-Korea history row.
2 responses so far ↓
1 無名 - wu ming // May 24, 2007 at 9:23 pm
ah, but what they’re really leaving out is that zhu meng 朱蒙, the founder of goguryeo was born out of an egg, fully grown, was driven out of his old home by a mob of superstitious townspeople, and only made it to the spot where he founded goguryeo after being carried across a great river by a bunch of sympathetic fish and turtles.
yes, i’ve been translating some weird stuff recently.
i’m surprised the chinese haven’t gone a step further, and just claim (as they do in the song-era peice i’m reading) that korea was founded by jizi 箕子, an ex-shang general enfoeffed by the zhou.
2 花崗齋之愚公 // May 24, 2007 at 9:39 pm
The Shang Dynasty connection gets brought up as well. It’s a messy business where national pride is at stake and–per usual over here–historical research seems to have little to do with it.
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