I have a question about The Immortal Yi Soon Shin

[kinoeugene]

ID said:

also, don't forget that Japan was an independent nation. Korea was seen as nothing more than China's baby. Japan, was ruled by intelligent military leaders,while Korea was run by greedy officials, and corrupted advisors.

First of all, korea is also independent nation in 16th century. They had their own king, order of law and thier own border. It's true that korea was under the influence of china, almost all of the middle and east asian nations (including japan) was in the same situation until 19th century.
"China's baby" can be applied to the most of the asian countries in 16th century. It is the way of diplomatic relations between china and other contries.

japan is island(apart from the continent) and there was no power of king in japan at that time because of the power games among local generals for centuries).
After toyotomi hideyosi's triumph, he could build strong centralized authoritarian rule, but because of the long civil wars, there was no enough foods, resources and stuffs. So japan required trade to korea(Chosun), but korea accepted that requirement partly. Then there was little riots in the trade port in korea by the japanese before the Japanese Invasion of Korea in 1592. And then finally the cruel age of the war came.

If you get some historical info about the political system of Chosun Dynasty, it's hard to say "greedy officials, and corrupted advisors" so easily.

This isn't "offence" thing , i just want to say what i know and understand about korean history.

[chinohillscalif]

ID, no Korean will deny that those greedy and corrupted officials and their power games made Joseon weaker and weaker until Joseon was annexed by Japan in 1910. Meanwhile, Japan in the 16th century was finally reunified and they embraced western technologies, such as portuguese firarms and invaded Joseon as you know.

If you call Korea "nothing more than China's baby" because Joseon paid tributes to China and Japan did not, I would like you to know that paying tribute to China is the only way foriegn countries in Asia were allowed to trade with China, Middle Nation, those days. No tribute, no trade with China. While I am not dismissing China's influence over Korea, I don't think it is fair to call Korea " nothing more than China's baby"

[ID]

chinohillscalif said:

ID, no Korean will deny that those greedy and corrupted officials and their power games made Joseon weaker and weaker until Joseon was annexed by Japan in 1910. Meanwhile, Japan in the 16th century was finally reunified and they embraced western technologies, such as portuguese firarms and invaded Joseon as you know.

If you call Korea "nothing more than China's baby" because Joseon paid tributes to China and Japan did not, I would like you to know that paying tribute to China is the only way foriegn countries in Asia were allowed to trade with China, Middle Nation, those days. No tribute, no trade with China. While I am not dismissing China's influence over Korea, I don't think it is fair to call Korea " nothing more than China's baby"

I didn't mean that Korea is under China's control. What I meant was that was how the world percieved it. you saw how the Ming navy treated the Chosun, after they saved their lives. "was seen as China's underling" {I edited it to sound better.}


note to self: maybe I should just back down. me stupid american, know nothing

[skinz]

The statement wasn't entirely wrong. From seeing historical dramas, there seems to be a lot of corruption in the korean government. But the japanese government also had corruption in it also.(The battle at sekigahara didn't start out of peaceful times)


VIB is mostly informative in these type of topic. Hopefully she'll see this and give us her insights on this issue.

or sushigirl/Christy Kim?

Or should we go back on topic?

[kinoeugene offline]

skinz said:

From seeing historical dramas, there seems to be a lot of corruption in the korean government.

I think that corruption thing can help the script writers to make drama scripts.
In peaceful age, there were no materails like wars, actions, spectacles for interesting drama.

[Soju]

JP said:

His first wife was removed, due to purely political scheming (she represented the old regime, even though the king & her loved each other).

Was this the same Queen we saw at the beginning of Jang-geum?

[chinohillscalif]

ID, guess what, I misread your message. Instead of "Korea is seen as....." which you originally wrote, I thought you wrote "Korea is ...." My bad and I am very sorry about that.

[chinohillscalif]

Was this the same Queen we saw at the beginning of Jang-geum?

I think you are talking about King Yeon-sangun's mother. I think "Dae Jang Geum" shows that King Yeon-sangun went crazy after he found out how his mother died and started revenging, killing a lot of people, but he really had the flawed character much earlier in his life.

The International Channel is currently showing " Ladies of the Palace (Women's World) without subtitles. It was #2 show in Korea when Emperor Wang Guhn was #1 show. It shows how a women named Nanjeong and Queen Myungjeong (Queen you see in DJG, King Jeongjong's 3rd wife) controlled Joseon for 20 years and how a reformer named Cho Kwnagjo was removed. FYI, King Jeongjong's second wife died just 7 days after she gave a birth to the eventual Crown Prince who becomes King Injong, and who dies just in 8 months after he becomes King. Queen Meongjeong's son becomes King Munjong at the age of 12. You saw very little of those in DJG as well. So while Jang Geum was cooking (fiction) and practicing medicine in the palace, amazing political fights and schemings were happening at the same time.

[ID]

Guest-kinoeugene said:

I think that corruption thing can help the script writers to make drama scripts.
In peaceful age, there were no materails like wars, actions, spectacles for interesting drama.

nope. this is something you can't escape. In every nation, in every culture, there has been corruption. Every nation/culture had it's dark ages, that it would like to wipe away.

[kinoeugene]

hey~ID

I didn't mean there was no corruption thing in korea.
As you mentioned, there has been corruption in every nation/culture. Even these days....hugh....
However, there was peaceful time, too. But usually they didn't make a historical drama about that peaceful time. I think because there's not enough materials for dramatical show. And the corruption thing can make the main-role seem like a very good person compared with some bad guys who make the corruption. And for this, script writers might inflate the corruption. This is my conspiracy theory. ;D

happy holidays~

[kinoeugene offline]

well...i just saw the "be polite in the board" discussion thread in the Genenral board.
i really hope i didn't hurt anyone's feeling....
and if someone in this board felt bad, i'm very sorry about that.
(i hope i might oversense about 'be polite' thing..hehe... )
I really love this board.... ;D

take care~

[velvet inkbrush of YiSoonShin]

here i go...

unfortunately, korea's nickname as the "hermit kingdom" explains one of the two main reasons why Korea has been so trodden on in history and the modern era. the closed door policy towards foreigners and an extremely xenophobic attitude (I think korea has a 98% homogenous population) they set themselves up for their own downfall. had they like the japanese embraced new technologies from the west, they would have been better equipped to deal with powers like the japanese on more even ground. however, because they chose to stick to their ways, ultimately when the europeans came through during the 19th century and forced their way in, Chosun soldiers were helpless to stop them. between their unwillingness to open their minds to outsiders, the constant bickering within those in power that is a constant theme in korean history would have prevented any progress in self-strengthening even with the aide of technology. a house divided cannot stand after all...

sadly, corruption in the korean government is still going strong. but instead of a weak king or corrupt officials, we now have corrupt politicians bankrolled by big business while the common man barely has enough to make a living and the few honest men that exist try to make some sort of a difference for the better but to no avail (kind of like the story of Yi Soon Shin - hint hint - a little political editorial by the writers perhaps)

poor admiral yi. he gave up his life in service to his country and what did they do after he saved it? the same old thing they always did.

sigh

[Hachiman Taro]

generaldu said:

Japan's rapid industrialization is unique in the world though. They nearly surpassed their "teachers" and were it not for the military code breakers and the caginess and heroism of the U.S. Navy at Coral Sea and Midway we'd all be playing to a different script right now.

Now, I wouldn't go so far to say that they were within a hair's breadth of defeating us in the Pacific. Yes, there were certain breaks that proved decisive at Midway, Coral Sea, and Guadalcanal and the Pacific War was very hard fought, but, if you look at the big picture of the Pacific war, the only thing that was really in doubt was how long it would take to defeat the Japanese and how many lives would be lost in the process. In other words, even if we had lost at Midway we still would have won the war, eventually. Remember, that as pig headed as their military government (not all that different from Hideyoshi's mentality before invading Korea) was they had no illusions that they could conquer and invade the U.S.--their initial military strike against us was designed to disable our military might so that we didn't get in the way of their plans to take over much of Asia. I think in many ways the unrealistic designs of the the Japanese military government going into WWII were very similar to Hideyoshi's delusion that he could easily conquer China (via Korea). In 1592 Hideyoshi sorely underestimated the size (geographically), and combined might of Ming China and Korea, let alone the genius of Yi Soon Shin, just as in 1941 Tojo didn't truly realize the military strength of the U.S.

[Hachiman Taro]

velvet said:

here i go...

unfortunately, korea's nickname as the "hermit kingdom" explains one of the two main reasons why Korea has been so trodden on in history and the modern era. the closed door policy towards foreigners and an extremely xenophobic attitude (I think korea has a 98% homogenous population) they set themselves up for their own downfall. had they like the japanese embraced new technologies from the west, they would have been better equipped to deal with powers like the japanese on more even ground. however, because they chose to stick to their ways, ultimately when the europeans came through during the 19th century and forced their way in, Chosun soldiers were helpless to stop them. between their unwillingness to open their minds to outsiders, the constant bickering within those in power that is a constant theme in korean history would have prevented any progress in self-strengthening even with the aide of technology. a house divided cannot stand after all...

sadly, corruption in the korean government is still going strong. but instead of a weak king or corrupt officials, we now have corrupt politicians bankrolled by big business while the common man barely has enough to make a living and the few honest men that exist try to make some sort of a difference for the better but to no avail (kind of like the story of Yi Soon Shin - hint hint - a little political editorial by the writers perhaps)

poor admiral yi. he gave up his life in service to his country and what did they do after he saved it? the same old thing they always did.

sigh

Actually, Korea was not alone as the "Hermit Kingdom". Japan isolated itself in a big way for 250 years of the Tokugawa reign (1615-1868). It could be argued that no nation in the world was so isolated during this time. They fell steadily behind Europe and (later) the United States as those years went by. Perhaps the key to the modernization of Japan following the Meiji Restoration in 1868 was the nature of the transition (during the Restoration and the fall of the Tokugawa) itself. Japan was a powder keg with many hard headed rival factions, and at their door were numerous foreign countries waiting for the opportunity to carve the nation up for themselves. One wrong move could have resulted in a bloody civil war which would have left Japan even more vulnerable to being sliced up as territory of various foreign nations. The fact the both the Restoration and the negotiations with various outside nations proceeded skillfully and without undue bloodshed (there was some, but not nearly s much as their could have been) is probably the biggest reason for the rapid modernization of Japan and their strength as a nation in the years that have followed. The fall of the Tokugawa and the Restoration is sort of an unglamorous time for those readers of Japanese history who like grand battles and the like, but I believe it is the critical period of Japanese history that gave birth to the modern Japanese nation. There is a historical drama set in this time on Japanese television that is running right now on SF area Japanese TV (Ch. 26). This series is called Shinsengumi. More than other series to date it seems to shed some light on just how complicated the situation was. I have however of late grown a bit impatient with what I thought was a bit too much purposeless killing and not enough showing of big picture thinking of some of the main players (perhaps also because the folks that seemed most appealing to me so far, weren't the protagonists featured in the show). Consequently I'm now 4 episodes behind there and need to watch my tapes this week to catch up (always got preempted by AOW, and now YSS, because those shows are more fun to watch). In any case, I think Japan was within a gunshot or two of going down the same road as Korea as of the 1860's.

[generaldu]

Guest-Hachiman said:

Now, I wouldn't go so far to say that they were within a hair's breadth of defeating us in the Pacific. Yes, there were certain breaks that proved decisive at Midway, Coral Sea, and Guadalcanal and the Pacific War was very hard fought, but, if you look at the big picture of the Pacific war, the only thing that was really in doubt was how long it would take to defeat the Japanese and how many lives would be lost in the process. In other words, even if we had lost at Midway we still would have won the war, eventually. Remember, that as pig headed as their military government (not all that different from Hideyoshi's mentality before invading Korea) was they had no illusions that they could conquer and invade the U.S.--their initial military strike against us was designed to disable our military might so that we didn't get in the way of their plans to take over much of Asia. I think in many ways the unrealistic designs of the the Japanese military government going into WWII were very similar to Hideyoshi's delusion that he could easily conquer China (via Korea). In 1592 Hideyoshi sorely underestimated the size (geographically), and combined might of Ming China and Korea, let alone the genius of Yi Soon Shin, just as in 1941 Tojo didn't truly realize the military strength of the U.S.

If the Japanese had destroyed the fuel tanks at Pearl Harbor (which they easily could have) and managed to sink another couple of the mere handful of Pacific Fleet Aircraft Carriers that we possessed in the first year of the war it is conceivable that the U. S. would have had to consider an armistice and (at least temporarily) ceded our Far East possessions to the Japanese.

Just with these two differences in the circumstances, the Japanese would have had uncontested movement throughout the Pacific and would even have been able to stage hit and run terror raids on the west coast.

Remember, MacArthur's bumbling in the Phillipines had cost the U. S. tens of thousands of troops along with the islands themselves. If this shocking defeat had been coupled with demonstration raids on the west coast America would have had to come to some hard pragmatic choices. We had been strongly isolationist before this and who knows what political movements would have developed.

Analagously, we should remember the effect the fifteen plane Doolittle Raid had on the psyche's of the Japanese.

Our code breaking and the resultant nimble handing of the Pacific fleet in the first few months bought the U.S. some time to gear up industrially and it also attrited the Japanese Navy , which was designed for a knock-out punch, not a long war. If the Japanese had scored the significant victories they needed things would have been different. Also facing war with Germany, the U.S. would have had to face a far more dangerous reality than it did in the first half of 1942.