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On the first point that's interesting if true.
But the second I believe your attribution of
motivation is incorrect. Peiping "northern peace", rather than
peking/bejing/bukgyung [Korean pronunciation of those Chinese
characters]="northern capital" was what the Chinese Nationalists dubbed the city
after they temporarily re-unified the country in the late 20's. So
anti-communist Americans made a point for a while of referring to it as
Peiping to underline their belief in the legitmacy of the Nationalists v.
the Communists, not to "denigrate China". Unless one is so far to the left
as to equate denigrating the Chinese Communists (the "people's liberators?")
with denigrating China.
Third point, consider Persian Gulf/"Arabian Gulf".
But "Arabian Gulf" likely to be confused with Arabian Sea; anyway
Persian Gulf is basically standard English; it implies no judgement about
Iran v. Arabia. Likewise the body of water of which you
speak is "dong hai" in Korean, East Sea, definitely not "il bon
hai", Japan Sea. But there is no standard English geographic term East
Sea. In fact since the Japanese word for Pacific Ocean, "tokai", is the
same Chinese characters as "dong hai" it would be even more confusing for
English speakers to start calling the Sea of Japan "East Sea".
The whole issue of old/new transliterations
of place names once rendered in Chinese characters can never imply
predjudice. Those same old characters (call them "hanmun" or "kanji" from a
Korean or Japanese perspective if you like, it doesn't make them not just the
Chinese ideographs, with perhaps minor difference in rendering) are
pronounced all different ways in Chinese dialects not to mention Korean,
Japanese and other languages of Chinese influenced cultures. So getting on
Westerners' cases for the strange mispronunciations/mistransliterations of the
past is ridiculous in general, and as for place names of battles it's what
they were called by the combatants at the time; that's a generally accepted
historical practice.
Joe
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 10:25
AM
Subject: Re: Chosin Few
Right -
It reminds me of the case of the "Yellow" Emperor
of China. An American student of the Chinese language erroneously
translated "Hwang-je" - The First Emperor. The Chinese character can
mean 'yellow', 'first', etc. depending on the context of its use.
In spite of this fact, some Westerners -
Sinophobes - still call 'chin-si-hwang-je" the 'yellow' emperor of China
- vs. "The First Emperor of China". This is their way of denigrating
China.
Dean Rusk - the dean of America's anti-China
lobby - insisted on calling Beijing - "Peiping", a Western colonial
term. That was Rusk's way of showing his contempt for things
Chinese.
"Sea of Japan" is another example. Koreans
have been calling it the "East Sea" since the days when Japan was inhabited by
a bunch of head-hunting samurais.
ysk
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002
6:50 AM
Subject: Re: Chosin Few
We had to change the name of Peking to
Bejine.
I do not understand the the issue
either..changing it back to Chanjin or whatever the correct spelling
is?
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 03, 2002
11:40 PM
Subject: Re: Chosin Few
Isn't this the same thing as the Sons of
Confederate Veterans in the Southern United States arguing
that
Bullrun 1 and 2 should be knows as First and
Second Manassas (which the South won twice).
Err... except in this case there are South
Koreans in the Chosin Few who apparently agree with the name.
Korean website explaining everything that's
been said so far in English.
No one seems offended.
Here is an article in which the Korean times
has a non-Korean writer who uses both.
The Korean Embassy doesn't edit Chosin for
Changjin...
umm...
JHK - what are all your reasons why it
needs to be changed to Changjin - and are you trying to convince
us
or just get our reactions?
I just don't understand why you are
trying to change peoples' minds on this issue.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 03, 2002
10:53 PM
Subject: Re: Chosin Few
Why would we even
consider changing it? I think the suggestion was because it might offend
some people, My answer to that is simply, if they get offended TOUGH
S--T! That's the name we chose, that's the name we want. That's the name
it will remain-live with it! Lee
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