Talk:History of Korea

Misrepresentation of source

In User:Eddal's recent edit, he cited Park Yu-ha in The New York Times 2015 as stating that "there is no objective evidence the Japanese treated Korean prostitutes working at comfort stations for the Japanese like 'sex slaves'." I chose to focus on this source because it is the most recent and reputable source in the edit, which also includes original research nominally cited to a 1926 book by a British admirer of Japanese imperialism. Ignoring the fact that Park's views are not exactly mainstream, the cited source patently fails to support the language that Eddal attributed to her—namely, that all of the Korean "comfort women" were willing "prostitutes," none were coerced in any way, and "there is no objective evidence the Japanese treated Korean prostitutes working at comfort stations for the Japanese like 'sex slaves'." Here is what the source actually says:

In her book, she emphasized that it was profiteering Korean collaborators, as well as private Japanese recruiters, who forced or lured women into the "comfort stations," where life included both rape and prostitution. There is no evidence, she wrote, that the Japanese government was officially involved in, and therefore legally responsible for, coercing Korean women.

Although often brutalized in a "slavelike condition" in their brothels, Ms. Park added, the women from the Japanese colonies of Korea and Taiwan were also treated as citizens of the empire and were expected to consider their service patriotic. They forged a "comradelike relationship" with the Japanese soldiers and sometimes fell in love with them, she wrote. She cited cases where Japanese soldiers took loving care of sick women and even returned those who did not want to become prostitutes. ... "Korean comfort women were victims, but they were also collaborators as people from a colony," Ms. Park wrote in one of the redacted sentences in her book.

In other words, Park draws a distinction between "women rounded up as spoils of battle in conquered territories like China" and "comfort women" "from the Japanese colonies of Korea and Taiwan," emphasizing that the latter received better treatment. In her analysis, Korean women were recruited and sold by "profiteering Korean collaborators, as well as private Japanese recruiters" and "there is no evidence" that this was an official policy sanctioned by the highest levels of the Japanese government. Japanese colonialism, "patriarchal societies, statism and poverty" all played a role in creating the conditions for the "comfort women" phenomenon, and many Korean "comfort women" could be said to have been willing prostitutes given the lack of other options available to them at the time, whereas others endured "rape" and "slavelike condition[s]." Nowhere in The New York Times source, as cited by Eddal, does Park say anything like "there is no objective evidence the Japanese treated Korean prostitutes working at comfort stations for the Japanese like 'sex slaves'." Arguably, the source supports the opposite conclusion, with the caveat that conditions varied widely and so women would have had different experiences. I'm concerned that, unless Park made this statement in a different source, Eddal appears to be misrepresenting an easily-checked, reputable citation in his edit. Note that the misrepresentation does not have to be deliberate to be concerning—if Eddal honestly misunderstood "There is no evidence, she wrote, that the Japanese government was officially involved in, and therefore legally responsible for, coercing Korean women" to mean that there is no evidence of coercion at all, that still raises very serious WP:COMPETENCE concerns.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 19:54, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Neutral dating system change

Given that this is an article on ancient KOREAN history and not western history or Christian history, the dating format used should be BCE/CE (Before Common Era/Common Era). This would help promote the neutral point of view in the article as a whole. I will be making these changes in the next few days if there is no discussion on the topic.

Object, no real reason to change. MOS:ERA and MOS:STYLEVAR says we should have a reason and consensus. Korea doesn't have strong ties to BCE/CE either. Altering to a preferred form just invites future edit wars, maintain the status quo and the originally written version just like we would for an English variation. There is no strong connection either way, and official Korean government sites in English use both. Canterbury Tail talk 15:48, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree. No reason to change. Masterhatch (talk) 17:47, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Change dating system to Common Era

I will be changing the dating system on this article away from the biased, Christian based AD/BC to the common era system next week. This will bring the article into alignment with secular usage such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_India. If you object, please state why you are ok with the biased system here. Eupnevma (talk) 19:14, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Sounds like you just don't like AC BC. That's not a reason to change it. It was discussed in August. If you change it, you must get consensus here 1st otherwise it will be reverted. 19:44, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Before you go changing AC BC please read Wikipedia:Manual of Style, specifically MOS:VAR. Also, as User:Eupnevma brought this up on multiple pages, instead of hundreds of discussions regarding the changes on hundreds of different talk pages, get a conversation going here: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. Thanks! Masterhatch (talk) 21:10, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Lead length

reminder that as per MOS:LEAD, lead should be four paragraphs. I think there's some wiggle room in this article, as the history of Korea is so long, but I think with skilled thoughtful writing it should be possible to do it in four. toobigtokale (talk) 17:48, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

The Usage of Phoenicia analogy

Hi, I am not familiar with Wikipedia editing standards but I'd like to suggest a change for someone who's familiar. On this page the term "Phoenicia of East Asia" appeared twice, which is hard to understand as I have not heard of Phoenicia before. I suggest just saying what it is instead of using a somewhat obscure analogy. MichaelKim0407 (talk) 07:28, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

South - North Korean tensions

Why are tensions between the koreas? Neptune's aviation (talk) 17:56, 25 July 2024 (UTC)