Category: Links

Treacherous Acts of Naming By The South Korean Puppets

As often as I can, I check the DPRK’s Korean Central News Service for a bit of news from the other side. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to learn about things like the “disgusting farce” of the “traitorous acts” reported today:

Pyongyang, April 22 (KCNA) — A spokesman for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland issued a statement on Friday to denounce the pro-U.S. ultra-right organizations in south Korea for staging such a ridiculous farce as giving bosses of the U.S. ruling machines in south Korea including the U.S. ambassador Korean names. The south Korea-U.S. “Alliance Friendship Society” in March named U.S. Ambassador in Seoul Vershbow “Pak Po U” in the hope that he would be an eternal friend who regards south-Korea U.S. alliance as a jewel.

The former U.S. 8th army commander in south Korea who finished his service on April 11 was named “Kim Han Su” in the hope that he would always defend “south Korea-U.S. alliance”, the U.S. 7th air force commander “Kim Ung Bi” in the meaning that he is a hero flying in the sky, Laporte, U.S. forces commander in south Korea who went back home in February, “Ra Po Thae” in the hope that he would play a role of a jewel in the south Korea-U.S. alliance.

The statement noted that this disgusting farce cannot be construed otherwise than despicable rowdyism staged by pro-U.S. flunkeyists and mentally deranged guys keen to prolong their dirty remaining days by clinging to the coattails of the aggressors, utterly indifferent to the misfortune the Koreans have undergone. Such traitorous acts to serve the U.S. will bring nothing but a catastrophic war disaster to the Korean nation, the statement notes, warning that south Korea can never be safe nor the Korean nation live in peace as long as pro-U.S. traitorous group such as the GNP and the “friendship society” are at large.

Here are two articles from South Korea on the naming. Seriously, though, I think giving Vershbow a name with “treasure friend” (寶友) isn’t all that strange, but I have to say it does near the realm of the farcical when you give someone the name close to being “protector of Korea” (“korea protect” 韓守). Also, according to the Joongang Daily, General Campbell seems to be under the impression that they named him the protector of Korean freedom: “What a tremendous honor to have the Korean name that means great defender of freedom on the Korean Peninsula.” If you wanted to squeeze the name for all its worth, the most you could get was that he was the protector of Korean gold or metal (金).

Asian History Carnival 2

Welcome to the 2nd bi-monthly Asian History Carnival. Thanks to those who offered submissions to the carnival. I think we have an excellent spread of region and time period but my choices reflect the range of submissions I received for inclusion and the limits of my own online reading. Remember, if you feel your region was neglected or that excellent postings went unmentioned, consider nominating them for the next carnival, to be held February 2nd, 2006. If you are interested in hosting the next asian history carnival, please contact me at konrad [at] lawson.net. We will post information on the next hosting at the carnival’s homepage as soon as we have a host.

And now for the postings:
Continue reading Asian History Carnival 2

Picture Page

I have a very disorganized collection of pictures from my travels that I have linked to in various older postings. They are floating around online but not much fun to hunt down without looking through the archives of this blog as well as over at my homepage. For convenience, I will be keeping links to the various online pictures in one central place:

Muninn Picture Page

All pictures are available for use under a Creative Commons license.

Google Maps Japan

The street map searching feature works for Japan now! Here, for example is the street map of Lucky House where I lived for most of my almost two years in Japan 2002-2004 (My Waseda friend Andrew is now living there). It even shows many of the convenience stores I came to know so well… Unfortunatley the satellite picture for just this particular section is horrible, but since great satellite images of nearby areas are available perhaps this will get better. Of course, lots of similar mapping sites in Japanese but great to see Google add this with its convenient live scrolling feature.

NOTE: In case anyone was wondering, Dokto/Takeshima is not included in the Japan collection of street maps (even islands without roads have their names conveniently labelled) which seems to imply Google is siding with Korea on this one. However, the “Northern Territories” above Hokkaido, which are disputed with Russia, are labeled, though no roads are shown for them. If there emerges any uproar from Japan or Russia regarding this, can you imagine if Google were to try to include China and Taiwan in its global mapping scheme, or any of the many other disputed territories on the planet? UPDATE: I should really add, however, that Google probably just took whatever maps were supplied to them by the (presumably) Japanese company which provided them and thus we shouldn’t read any kind of thought out “google policy” into this. However, I think it serves to show the difficulty in providing maps services with global audiences. We may see the appearance of National Geographic-style “disputed” labels eventually.