What are they teaching the children?

I think it's normal act in Chinese or Koreans school...My history teacher also tought me to hate the Japanese...I did hate them wen I was small...but eventually when I grow up...I start to see that not all the Japanese are bad....I believe these kids will realize it too...anyway, the Korean n Chinese taught their children to hate the Japanese....n the Japanese tried to cover it..so I think all is guilty, Japan hiding the truth and Chinese and Korean teaching bad things...

anyway, May I ask...Y Korean is 'n' and Japanese & Chinese is 'ese'?? I always wandering y...^^

I honestly think Koreans are usually kind to Japanese visitors and my Japanese friends (who're staying in Korea currently or visited) agreed to it ,but its true that these anti Japan mood makes them(Japanese people ) to feel uneasy about Korea and Korean people.

Infromation quality on Gourd's forum ?

A very logical distinction that many individuals either as outsiders or even insiders tend to confuse is the clear cut dichotomy between this pair;


The personal perspective regards the two individuals' particular relationship and history of transactions at all levels. The realtionship can range from friendly, trusting, supportive to hostile, doubting, destructive all depending on how one has treated the other in thoughts, words, and actions, and vice versa. The same principle should apply to the national (not 'nationalistic') relationship as well; they are independent relationships with their own track records.

I personally think Gourd has amassed an interesting collection of Korean cultural phenomenon without resorting to any rigorous method. At least he could have tried to decipher some Korean writing before posting any of his opinions. Obviously seen from his many, many misinformed comments, I can only regret the loose approach with which Gourd added fuel to what can only be described as a vicious cycle of lies and retaliations, both symbolic actions that the uninitiated can hardly comment on with any precision. The following sequence is what the thread seem to represent in analogy. One can substitute Tokdo claims to Fusousha textbook with little change in meaning in above illustration of Gourd's evil cycle.

1) The historical misrepresentation as seen in 扶桑社 Fusosha Publishing's junior high history book leading to...

2) Legitimately angered Korean teachers who illegimately went over the line of propriety to engender hatred instead of balanced historical analysis to...

3) junior high students some of whom bought the emotional response literally and transferred that to some strong propaganda pieces which...

4) some of the mindless teachers and school administrators, town officials, and populist politicans thought cool to post on the wall of the local subway station (not all over Seoul...the location Gourd gave 'all over the country' was totally off... that ignorant gourd !) which attracted the attention of likewise unsophisticated Korea watchers like Gourd who...

5) made two long series of ignorant threads full of such pictures of low taste with the biased commentaries of Gourd himself (if it was a guy)...

6) angering Japanese readers, some of whom would respond by saying, "Fusousha textbook did nothing wrong.... they did well to misrepresent Japan's past regarding its rape of Korea, China, etc. !"...

7) with the result that 14 Japanese school districts out of 47 support the 扶桑社 Fusosha textbook, and 10 go ahead to choose the Fushousha textbook for the next school year...

8) further angering Korean history teachers....

9) Thus, the evil cycle continues. That uninformed Gourd really needs to verify the Korean in ALL the photos before he can continue to post his ignorant comments. After reading some, quite a few of the so-called 'propaganda' posters come out clean and legitimate, or at least understandable in context.

I might add that some junior high schoolers are also watching the news, not only Korean but also CNN, BBC, and other less 'nationalist' sources. Who is Gourd to say that all the 'Japan-bashing propaganda' was orchestrated by the teachers? Is he calling Korean junior high school students fools? He doesn't sound that well-informed himself.

窶氾?铠赞 said:

I think it's normal act in Chinese or Koreans school...My history teacher also tought me to hate the Japanese...I did hate them wen I was small...but eventually when I grow up...I start to see that not all the Japanese are bad....I believe these kids will realize it too...anyway, the Korean n Chinese taught their children to hate the Japanese....n the Japanese tried to cover it..so I think all is guilty, Japan hiding the truth and Chinese and Korean teaching bad things...

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So well said, member 梁铠赞. (How do you romanize your id ? In Mandarin or another Chinese langauge ?)

May I ask...Y Korean is 'n' and Japanese & Chinese is 'ese'?? I always wandering y...^^

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Good question of English: how are the words for country in the noun, in the adjective, the people, and the language related ?

It appears that certain country-ethinic names (let's call them class A) prefer the -n, -er suffix for the adjective while others (let's call them class B) prefer the -ese, -sh, -c, -ch suffix. The adjective forms are usually reused for signifiying the people (individual, collective), and the language. Examples would be;

class A:
adjective---.a person---the people--the language
X----------.a X--------Xs---------.X
Korean-----.a Korean--.Koreans----.Korean
Asian-------an Asian---Asians------not applicable
German-----a German--Germans----German
Martian-----a Martian--Martians----*Martian

class B:
adjective---.a person-------the people----the language
X-----------a X------------the X---------X
Chinese-----a Chinese------the Chinese---Chinese
Japanese---.a Japanese----.the Japanese-.Japanese
English------an Englishman--the English----English

There are exceptions such as Denmark, Danish, and Danes; Norway, Norwegian, and Norse; Arabia (not a country), Arabian, Arabic, and Arab.

Nevertheless, the general pattern appears to account for most words related to country, adjective, people, and language. I'm not sure, but class A words seem to follow the Germanic pattern of word formation, whereas class B words are those of Latinate words or Latin neologisms.

edit: Underlined guess was totally off... the distinction between Germanic and Latinate may work for -er, -ic, -ish vs. -n, -ese; but even that is not quite accurate either.

Well, my ID is indeed my Chinese name....I born with it...but I can only write it 6 or 7 years ago...^^ bcause my country dun allow any Chinese language taught in school...

In Mandarin
梁=Liang (my family name)
铠=kai かい (means armor..In Jap read as yoroi)
赞=zan ちゆん(in here it means Pride In Jap read as san)

thx for the explanation about the Korean 'n' Chinese 'ese', and Japanese 'ese'^^

Asahi-TV send it on the air.
contents were...

According to the Asahi-TV gathered data,
In Korea, children attend special classes called "契機授業/geiki-class".
These classes of "geiki-class" are left to the teachers.
Those posters were drawn in a geiki class.
Asahi-TV staff tried to interview about the school of posters incident, but the school refused to be interviewed.
Children are being taught political and philosophical matters by teachers.
A guidance book that the nationwide school personnel labour union made, says
guide children like these.

• The powerful nation might provoke the war.
• The policy of a strong attitude of the U.S. government toward North Korea is a core obstacle that obstructs our racial reconciliation.

Inuyasha-the-kid said:

谁需要宽容未来? 教他们仇恨年轻人并且我们能然后有比 较坏的型。什么这个世界需要, 不是。我不可能相信这些所谓" 老 师" 做着这。这些小孩甚而可能不懂得为什么他们必须仇恨日本。 非常可悲!

I am only speaking Chinese on the forms now, sorry English speakers

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Boy, but to my knowledge, your "Chinese" paragraph was very, very likely translated from the previous post by an automatic translator. I'm the one here who speaks Chinese as a native language. PM me if you wanna learn some Chinese, but please don't ruin the beautiful language like this.

@lexico:

Thank you for sharing your in-depth knowledge with us!

Another question of English:

Is "-ese" a symbol of being disdained? (Maybe a weird question, but I've been confused by this for a long time)

innerfire said:

Another question of English:

Is "-ese" a symbol of being disdained? (Maybe a weird question but I've been confused by this for a long time)

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No, I don't think it's a weird question; in fact no question is a weird question.

I think it can be further divided into two parts.

1) sociolinguistics of -ese words

This is a previous post by member Sylvain on the English use of "chick" for a female person. I think the same principle would apply to ethnonymns ending in -ese as to any other ethnonym.

Sylvain said:

It really is a problem of sociolinguistics. Socioeconomical status, ethnic background, depth of relationship, etc. will have an effect on the way you use certain words. Depending on the group your hanging out with, even some words deemed offensive might be ok...It depends on who you're saying it to.

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I would say, on the most part, there is nothing negative about words ending in -ese; there are other words, all referring to a foreign place, that end in -ese that are neutral. I could also comment that, nevertheless, if enough people used it in a condescending manner, there will arise emotional reactions due to the context associated with it, as can be seen in the case of the usage of "Oriental" for an Asian person which has become a very politically incorrect term due to the historical association.("Oriental is Pejorative?" "Oriental or Asian?" and "Oriental: Why is it Offensive?" but there are more on this forum.) As for the usage of Maltese, Viennese, Pekinese (Beijinger), Japanese, Vietnamese, etc., there is no disdain except if the speaker has said it in a disdainful manner.

2) productive rule of morphology using -ese

As for the morphology, please refer to this 12-page article The declension of ethnonyms in English (pdf) by Kevin Tuite, Université de Montréal, where he says,

2.3.1. Type IIIa (e.g. ﾂ'Japanese'). This group is formed exclusively of ethnonyms formed by the suffix -ese of Romance origin. According to the OED,

ﾂ"-ese forms derivatives from names of countries (chiefly after Romanic prototypes), and from some foreign (never English) towns, as Milanese, Viennese, Pekinese, Cantonese. ﾂ"

For Type III ethnonyms:

(a) Singular and plural are formally identical:
A Japanese is ﾂ… / The Japanese are ﾂ… / Five Japanese are ﾂ…

(b)The /-'s/ genitive is not possible:
*The Japanese sense of humour [cp.: The Japanese sense of humor.]

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As can be seen, the -ese suffix is simply a Latinate adjectival suffix used for forming the adjectives for a large number of foreign toponyms and ethnonymns.

In conclusion, I'd say if somebody uses an -ese word in a respectful manner, there is no need to be irritated; while if there is even a hint of rudeness, you could go ahead and point out his/her unruly manners, and even punch him/her in the nose if that makes you feel better. Just make sure it was an insult, and also have a witness nearby to support your statement in court later. As far as I know, throwing a racial slur in broad daylight is considered an act of assault, but requires a witness to make it so, whereas doing the same at night is an act of assault that does not require a witness to prove it. (I'm extrapolating from my readings in Korean criminal law, but do check the local criminal law books if in doubt.) I apologise if that was not what you expected.

Thank you so much Lexico for your immediate, well-founded and also humorous reply! That's exactly what I expected!!! :box:

what they're teaching in school

I think that the propaganda that is taught in school is not necessary. Ongoing political interpretations over history, in this case especially in China, Korea, and Japan, will be an ongoing problem in the future if all three nations continue to ignore and refuse to compromise on their interpretations of what they think happened. More data sharing and cross referencing to verify what can be ascertained would be useful, as well as avoiding a tendency towards nationalism which tends to separate the parties rather than bring them to the respective table to negotiate.

You can see similar things going on in Japan, though the approach is more one of avoidance than outright lies. The difference is that students here are generally not taught to question things, and obvious deletions of key events or obvious understatements leave more questions which generally go unasked by many young people in Japan. One plus seems to be that many young Japanese do not favor war, so aggression seems to be less likely, but it remains to be seen if this will remain the case with some young Japanese losing the will to participate in the traditional economy or develop an acceptable replacement. Currently the hikikomori, neets, and freeters are beginning to multiply in Japan, and this combination will continue to poison the current society, and contribute to its downward moral spiral.

This aforementioned nationalism in Japan also contributes to a scapegoat paranoia that is played on in the government manipulated press; that of most of the problems being caused by a foreign nationals, the 'gaijin plague'. This is a common ploy used in some countries; when the economy is bad or negative aspects of the society seem to be getting worse, it is much easier to blame resident aliens for the ills of the society as they generally are a group with less rights and mentally at least, easily disposed of by many within a society where a homogenous population theory is subscribed to.

To note, these problems between China, Korea, and Japan are not new, and they will not be going away soon, as the governments in all three countries seem to make the most use of propaganda to continue a war of words.

In conjunction with the first post, Alot of pupils are generally taught to hate Germany and Japan, but that is just the curriculm though. Wht people don't realise is that Japan may have attacked America during the second world war killing mass amounts of innocent people, HOWEVER, the Americans did WORSE to Japan, and killed many many innocent people.

Alot of people 'hate' Germany for 'nazi' reasons, and Japan for the america bombing, However that was 80 years ago, they are changed now!

y0kan

Man first off:
1. This is ooold news.
2. You guys are even worse than the fellows over at JT, there needs to be more diversity, because it seems like there are just a bunch of Japan-philes,Japan Apologists, and Japanese Nationalists, but no inbetween.

Yokan said:

In conjunction with the first post, Alot of pupils are generally taught to hate Germany and Japan, but that is just the curriculm though. Wht people don't realise is that Japan may have attacked America during the second world war killing mass amounts of innocent people, HOWEVER, the Americans did WORSE to Japan, and killed many many innocent people.

Alot of people 'hate' Germany for 'nazi' reasons, and Japan for the america bombing, However that was 80 years ago, they are changed now!

y0kan

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For anyone who hates amercans:

why hate americans in general? and why say we are the spawn of all evil?
For something that could had happened not involving some of our ancestor,
you hate us all?
what ever happened in the past should be put aside and now forgotten.

apparently, those images were removed 3 days after being posted