Talk:Korean influence on Japanese culture

Do we need to add a mistaken opinion by a non-specialist on an issue like the impact of Korean movable type?

In my view, Etsuko Kang, though RS, is making a patently misleading indeed demonstrably incorrect assertion when she is quoted as saying what we have below. I glossed it with a more accurate account for a while, but obviously the piece is there because it backs a nationalist misperception, not because it is relevant to the historical facts. If anyone disagrees please discuss here.

Etsuko Kang claims that, "Japan's present exuberant publishing industry can be traced back to the Edo period when Korean influence was instrumental to its flourishing."In fact, the qualitative upsurge in Japanese reading, dated to around 1630 onwards, was related to the spread of woodblock printing, which, as opposed to metal-type printing of books in both Korea and Vietnamese, allowed for stable texts accessible to many because reading marks were added, that enabled Chinese style texts to be read as though they were Japanese.Nishidani (talk) 07:22, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

The text quoted above amounts to WP:SYNTHESIS. A better solution would be to drop the disputed text. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:03, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Only the part cited to Machi Senjuro was synthesis. The part about Korean influence on Japanese printing has been the subject of whole essays. Ha Woobong has contributed a number of peer reviewed studies on this very subject, and he's no nationalist either. The particular essay that I am citing came from a previous version of the article, but it's just one example of the same information.TH1980 (talk) 19:46, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I've removed this nonsense (scholastic!!!! oh really!) as well, the author clearly knows nothing of the history of printing in Japan.

According to the historian Ha Woobong, "the metal and wooden printing types taken from Korea laid the basis for the printing technology of the Edo Period in Japan and the development of scholastic learning."(Ha Woobong, "The Japanese Invasion of Korea in the 1592-1598 Period and the Exchange of Culture and Civilization Between the Two Countries," in The Foreseen and the Unforeseen in Historical Relations Between Korea and Japan, eds. Northeast Asian History Foundation (Seoul: Northeast Asian History Foundation, 2009), 228-229.)Nishidani (talk) 19:51, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Well drop a note to Ha Woobong and tell him movable metal printing was dropped as too expensive after a few decades in Japan, and the book industry thereafter used woodblocks, as had Buddhist monasteries since the 9th century in Japan, a technology developed under the Sui in China.Nishidani (talk) 20:15, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Ha Woobong wrote the following in his book "The East Asian War 1592-1598" (edited by James B. Lewis): "Metal and wood moveable types looted from Choson became catalysts for the development of printing technology and scholarship in the Edo period." This book was produced from a conference of academics at Oxford, so it's unlikely that such a great number of leading scholars would be wrong.TH1980 (talk) 22:40, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Fa fuck's sake, I could give you several specialist sources -indeed I've already supplied some - showing the uselessness of Ha Woobong's remark. You are unfamiliar with academic conferences. A paper written by someone for a scholarly conference, which is then edited into a book on the papers delivered at a conference, does not ipso facto mean that it has been endorsed by all or even any of the academics present at that conference. That is really hilarious. Just ask around. Any scholar will tell you your inference is right off the rails. Nishidani (talk) 10:18, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

I should add that James B. Lewis says that Ha Woo Bong "has led modern research on Choson-era relations with Japan through his own work." Ha Woo Bong is pretty much the leading expert on this subject. I'll add also that you made yet another mistake in your edits, stating that Hyeja was from Baekje when he was actually from the Korean kingdom of Goguryo.TH1980 (talk) 23:02, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Re Hyeja, it was about time, after correcting dozens of your mistakes, that I too slipped up. Indignaris quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus. As to Lewis's opinion. Who cares? Ha Woo Bong is not a specialist in print technology, fucks up obviously in dealing with that specific issue, since what he says is contradicted by historians, with no nationalist drum to beat, specializing in that area. So he's as useless here as tits on a bull.Nishidani (talk) 14:12, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

I think the comment telling TH1980 to "drop a note to Ha Woobong" is not sensible here. It shouldn't be up to TH1980 to change the consensus of the leading scholars. Wikipedia editors just report the consensus of scholars, rather than calling academics to get them to change their minds. I think the best source to use for this is the essay written by Ha Woo Bong from the book edited by James Lewis, rather than Robert Tarbell Oliver's older work.CurtisNaito (talk) 22:43, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

I think that the real problem is that Nishidani has been using generic works about the history of technology, whereas specialist works specifically dealing with Korea-Japan relations, like Etsuko Kang and Ha Woo Bong, all refer to the great influence of Korean printing on Japan. Nishidani could rebut these scholars without resorting to original research if he could find a source specifically stating that Ha Woo Bong and Etsuko Kang are wrong about this.TH1980 (talk) 01:19, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

There's no problem with using non-specialist sources in some cases, but I guess here the specialist sources you have been citing are ideal. Ha Woobong's viewpoint does appear to represent the mainstream views of historians, so it certainly should be included, but personally I have no problem with adding in a rebuttal as well. It might be okay to use non-specialist sources for the rebuttal. If necessary, we could always try a request for comment in order to seek more opinions on how to include the information and/or rebuttal.CurtisNaito (talk) 01:52, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

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Rhee, Aikens, Choi, and Ro

This source should probably be removed. I've added some 'alert readers' intro section giving several sources which describe the intense cultural nationalism infusing these Korean debates, a mirror image of one used to get in Japan, and this source shows a totally uncritical approach to the results of Japanese scholarship. Suffice it to compare how Farris reports the same data: he is used, talks of 'assuming', and does not cite uncritically reports in primary sources as though we owed them credence. The error made throughout is, for example, to note similarities between a peninsula hoe, or pottery in some region of ancient Korea and those in Japan, and then introduce it as 'immigrant peoples' exported. Well, not all cultural diffusion comes by one way 'immigration', and until the status of late Yayoi/Kofun relations with peninsular tribal aggregations is clarified, we just don't know who did what, whether things were imported, or immigrants introduced them, or whether old ethno-tribal links were maintained between constituent groups in Yamato and the Korean peninsular and lie behind these transfers.Nishidani (talk) 13:16, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

This article was published in a peer reviewed academic journal and was written by a team of qualified scholars. If you are going to reject it entirely, you are going to need a very reliable source clearly stating that this article is "nationalist". There are two ways to solve this. Either we can just put "according to Rhee, Aikens, Choi, and Ro" in front of anything you dispute, or better yet we can just go to the reliable sources noticeboard and get a definitive ruling. However, you need to be careful to not engage in original research. If a peer reviewed academic journal says something, it needs to be refuted by a reliable source, not just your own hunch.

I get the impression you just really don't like the word "Korean". You seem to think that Farris is a better source, but you strangely deleted the part about "Korean ovens" even though Farris says, "The discovery that Japan's first ovens in northern Kyushu and the Kinai are associated with early stoneware also lends support to the idea of Korean origin. In the eighth and ninth centuries, these appliances were so closely associated with southern Korea that the Japanese called them Korean ovens." Using the word "Korean" is in accordance with all the reliable sources cited, including Farris. You added in Totman here, but he says "in cooler regions of the northeast" open-hearth arrangements prevailed, not "the Japanese continued to prefer employing open-hearth ovens". How did you get "The Japanese" from "cooler regions of the northeast"?TH1980 (talk) 17:52, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't like nationalists, period, esp. when that infantile form of thinking drifts into scholarship. It's not limited to these articles either. Farris on this is nuanced, whereas your source isn't: it translates everything in Japanese sources discussing peninsular similarities into the form 'Korean immigrants', which proves that the authors are pushing a nationalist POV. The impression one gets from their spin is that a poor underdeveloped Japan suddenly started to spurt into growth and civilization when 'Korean' immigrants arrived. The modern consensus is that from 200 CE onwards, local Kinai-Kyushu chieftains had extensive links with southern peninsular peoples, they were perhaps linked tribally, that they were allied for some centuries in their interests with peninsular groups in Gaya and Baekje against Goguryeo and Silla, that they were sufficiently strong to dispatch several military expeditions to reinforce their peninsular tribal allies in the south, and successive defeats eventually drove refugees from those kingdoms to sanctuary in Japan/Yamato.

I took out "Korean ovens" because that is a misleading translation of karakamado (韓竈). It's easily to be mislead by 韓, which became one of the terms for 'Korea' as a whole. Karakamado at a glance appear to be a rare term, attested in the Engishiki centuries later, where 'kara' (韓) in Old Japanese almost certainly referred to the southern peninsular area controlled by the Gaya confederacy (Kaya/Kara:伽耶/加羅), and where a different language from those used in the north of the Korean peninsula, and one related to Japonic, (Gaya language) may have been spoken. That is what Farris is alluding to Kara (southern peninsula). To speak of 'Korean' at this time as a unified cultural, ethnic, national reality is, as Hyung Il Pai's very good recent book argues, an anachronism, and that is why 'peninsular (Korean)' must be the default term, since it means we are talking of a geographic locus, not a unified nation-state (and I would add that a more objective approach would be to replace 'Japanese' with Kinai/Kyushu/Yamato likewise, as the context suggests, since a unified Japanese state wasn't achieved that early either). The anachronism, with all of its nationalist flavor, survives in Rhee, Aikens, Choi, and Ro. How that got past peer-review is a mystery. You are correct that it was thus published, but, I stick by my point, that everything we use it for should be cross-confirmed by more scholarly sources.Nishidani (talk) 21:12, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

No doubt some Chinese nationalist or two will start playing with Korean articles and showing that 99% of the 'Korean' culture which makes up, for Korean nationalists, Japanese culture, actually came to Korea from China,a and we will then have to erase this and retitle it Chinese influence on the Korean and Japanese Cultures. I.e. what you are doing here, can be done with equal force on Korean culture, since ultimately, China invented virtually all of the material, artistic, literary, architectural basis for civilization in the Far East, and for a millennium, the periphery tinkered.Nishidani (talk) 21:21, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

The point is that we stick to the information and topics of reliable sources. An article on "Chinese influence on the Korean and Japanese Cultures" maybe could be written, but it would require sources about that subject. This article exists because there are reliable sources like "Ancient Japan's Korean Connection" by Farris, or "Korean Contributions to Agriculture, Technology, and State Formation in Japan", as well as sections of books by Mikiso Hane and Chai-Shin Yu expressly titled "Korean influence on Japanese culture". These sources deal with Korean influence on Japanese culture specifically, not "Chinese influence on the Korean and Japanese Cultures", which is a different subject.

We are supposed to be avoiding original research. Farris says that "Korean oven" is the most suitable translation of kamado. Perhaps you personally prefer a different translation, but on Wikipedia we should stick with Farris' translation. If you prefer, we can put "according to Farris" in front of the translation. You may not personally agree that, "a poor underdeveloped Japan suddenly started to spurt into growth and civilization when Korean immigrants arrived." (And that's not really what the source says anyway...) But it doesn't matter, because when a team of scholars produces a peer-reviewed study saying something, we should just report on that, not find out if your own research produces a different conclusion.

Also, the background section is really poorly cited. The first three sentences have no citations at all and since none of the information from the first three sentences are contained in the section's first citation, it looks like all the information in the whole section is cited to the batch of sources stuck onto the section's final sentence. Moreover, the books cited have little or nothing to do with Korean influence on Japanese culture. Henry Em, for instance, doesn't seem to mention even one single historical influence Korea had on Japan anywhere in his book about modern Korean historiography. I don't see why we should fill the article with so many sources that have nothing to do with the actual subject of the article.TH1980 (talk) 12:26, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

You're the last person on Wikipedia to be claiming work done by others is 'really poorly cited'. Citation of mediocre sources is the hallmark of your editing here, and if you look at the article's development, what has happened is that you have constantly dumped in material that other editors have had to review and source correctly. In fact my working hypothesis is that your lazy tossing in of 'stuff' you google up without understanding what its status is in Japanese studies, is meant by now as a prod to get serious editors who actually know the subject professionally, to fix it, and thereby, since you can't write a GA article, get them to do so by fixing your errors with technical precision.

The first three sentences all come directly from the main works cited at the end of the article. All of the works deal with the competing nationalisms of Japan and Korea over how to interpret the connections between the Korean peninsula cultures and ancient Japan. Once you actually start reading those sources, you will grasp their pertinence, i.e., that the whole argument of cultural 'debt' emerges out of clashing nationalisms. As I said, by the same token, anyone could write an article showing that 95% of the culture of Korea came from China, and all of that in turn went to Japan. To erase the Chinese source, and then push the idea that 'Korean' culture made the germinal, pervasive impact on 'Japanese' culture is to promote the middle man and not the producer as artificer of genius for what then the end 'consumer' is said to have appropriated illegitimately as the product of his autochthonous genius. Even the language is borrowed, so when Korean scholars talk of danil minjok (a unitary race (of pure blood lines)) they are just using a native calque on the Japanese coinage 単一民族, tan'itsu minzoku. Chinese Han sources speak constantly of the 'immigration' of large fluxes of 'Chinese' into Korea in much of the latter's formative early period: one of the functions of the commandaries at Lelang, Xuantu and elsewhere (cf.Four Commanderies of Han) was to Sinicize the area with immigrants from Yan and Qi. To show that no one is immune to this nonsense, the same game the Korean POV pushing uses with Japan in your source is deployed by Chinese cultural nationalists against Korea, and Japan. Examine Cho-yun Hsu's recent China: A New Cultural History, Columbia University Press, 2012 p.248. That is WP:RS, it is reliably published, passed peer-review, and yet is tainted with silly stuff, just like your source, highlighting China's key ethnic contribution to the rise of Japan by selective use of material without a command of the relevant scholarly literature on that material.

During Japan's Yayoi period (ca.500 BCE-300CE), many Chinese immigrated to Japan, primarily settling in the Kyushu area. According to a Japanese legend, a descendant of Qin Shihuangdi (秦始皇), Gong Yujun, led a group of Chinese across Korea to settle in Japan. They were known as "people of Qin" (Qinren). Another son of the Han emperor Lingdi, Azhi Shizhy, is also said to have led some Han Chinese to settle in Japan. They were known as the "new Han people" (xin Hanren). To this day, some Japanese still have the surnames Qin and Wu and call themselves Qinren and Wuren. Significantly, Kyushu was the starting point for many Japanese missions to China, and the emissaries were for the most part from Kyushu. Thus it is likely that Chinese immigration to Kyushu was a spur to Japanese visits to China. Politically, China's relations with all of these East Asian nations came under the investiture system, while culturally, it was a case of them imitating Chinese ways. The same was true of the industrial arts, though each country developed its own special characteristics. For example, the Koreans excelled in weaving cotton and the Japanese in metallurgy.'

There you have it, that is how an American emeritus Chinese scholar, when writing for a Chinese audience, writes up the immigration story. He appears to be referring to the Hata (秦氏):Old Jap. Pata clan's ostensible ancestor 弓月君 Old Jap:Yutukï nö kimi, which, the translators, all experts, fucked up in their transliteration, since that should be Gong Yuejun, not Gong Yujun (shades of Farris!). So how do our Korean nationalists in the paper you want to use spin the mentions of the Hata/Pata immigrant group which the Chinese scholar argues came from China (a 815 CE source in Japanese the Shinsen Shō(sei)jiroku:新撰姓氏録) records the legend that the Hata claimed descent from the Chinese emperor Qin Shihuangdi, and there are several theories about this Hata clan. For Cho-yun Hsu the Hata are one of numerous Chinese tribes which immigrated and spurred the growth of Japan. For Rhee, Aikens, Choi, and Ro they were all Korean and spurred the growth of early Japan.

In the meantime, the Hata clan, a powerful elite class from the Uljin area of ancient Shilla (sic), settled in the Kyoto area around A.D. 450 after Shilla came under Koguryo control. Soon, as part of the Yamato ruling elite, the Hata family organized Korean immigrant communities, particularly those of Kaya, for industrial production needed by the Yamato court

Pure nationalism, and the selective use of one Japanese source. They have completely screwed up, if they ever actually looked at it, the Japanese original source, which says that in the year 283

是歳。弓月君自百濟來歸。因以奏之曰。臣領己國之人夫百廿縣而歸化。然因新羅人之拒。皆留加羅國爰遣葛城襲津彦。而召弓月之人夫於加羅。然經三年而襲津彦不來焉 (Iwanami ed.vol.1 p.361)

I.e. your guys hazard the guess that the 283 date is 'around 450', that Yutukï nö kimi came from Silla when the source says he was from Baekje, and even give the modern Korean district name, how they pinned that down we don't know. Paekje was Silla's enemy, and the text states that Yutukï nö kimi's potential immigrants were stranded in the Gaya confederacy (Kara:加羅) (Note again 'kara' as in karakamado), and blocked by Silla. The Japanese text has them offering their allegiance to the Emperor, and asking the Japanese to get their stranded countrymen over to Japan, with 3 years passing and the emissary failing to get them over until a Japanese military force confronted Silla and secured Yutukï nö kimi's people passage, making out the Japanese organized the immigration of Paekje peoples from Kara to Yamato. Korean scholars have them organizing this immigration on their own. The 'industrial production needed by the Yamato court turns out in the source to be a gift of silkwares the Hata chieftain offered to the court of Emperor Yuryaku (471 CE in the old chronology) after they fell out of favour. (NS vol.1 p.493)..etc.etc.etc.

The Hata like other immigrant clans are extensively analysed with numerous theories about their origins, in Japanese scholarship. They ignore these different views, and focus only on the way they might spin one specific interpretation (by Suzuki) to Korea's credit. What the Korean nationalists you cite are doing is ignoring the whole intricate differentiations of tribal groups in the Korean peninsula, including extensive numbers of settled Han-Chinese groups, who were allied to, or enemies of, the Yamato kingdom, some of whom had deep family links with Yamato clans going back centuries, and calling them all 'Koreans' in a period in which they were engaged in destroying one another, and often as not, calling on help from Yamato, or, if defeated, fleeing there as refugees.

This ideological table-turning (Chinese, Korean, Japanese, whatever) is methodologically jejune, infantile, and the irony is that imperial Japan's ideological manias about themselves being the creative 'elder brothers' for Korea's development is just reversed in Korea's post-colonial world. The prejudice remains intact, only it the seminal locus of civilization is switched to Korea, imagined falsely to be a united cultural 'race'. Much of the article Korean ethnic nationalism could be translated, with suitable historical adjustments, into Japanese to describe prewar Japanese ethnic nationalism, and its long aftermath down to recent times. And it is all utterly tedious, whatever nation spouts this master race crap to vindicate its superiority over its neighbours.Nishidani (talk) 16:22, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

If anyone needs evidence your knowledge of Japanese is next to zero, take this edit of yours, writing:

Farris states that the word kamado can be translated into English as "Korean oven".'

He doesn't say that (p.87) and couldn't say that, since the word kamado cannot be translated as "Korean oven". kamado etymologically means 'cooking place'. Nishidani (talk) 18:35, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

A lot of the above seems more like soapboxing than commenting on article content. If you want, you can say in the article that the Hata clan might have been of Chinese descent, but I don't think that Cho-yun Hsu should be used as a source here. Cho just says, "According to a Japanese legend", and he doesn't mention the pertinent details about the Hata clan being known for their skill at silk weaving or the date that the migration occurred. The addition you made to the article on sewing only cites the Nihon Shoki, which is a primary source and should not be used here. As for the date that the Hata clan came to Japan, there are lots of sources that agree with the article by Rhee and others which state that the clan came around 450 (and were Korean). For instance, "Kyoto: A Cultural and Literary History" says the clan arrived in Japan "in the fifth century". That is what the secondary sources say. On Wikipedia, you can't try to refute secondary sources using your own interpretation of a primary source like the Nihon Shoki. And yes, I should have written "kara kamado", rather than abbreviating it. The kamado used in Japan were known as "Korean ovens".TH1980 (talk) 19:59, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Reread what I wrote. You haven't understood anything. You don't know the subject, and therefore you can't evaluate what you are reading. You like your source, and the fact I have provided details which show it spins just one story of many, makes no impression on you. The Japanese chronicle of ancestries of 815 CE says the Hata were of Chinese origin? Crap! You have a Korean source that says they were 'Korean', and indeed were from Silla, and you want that in even in the face of the primary Japanese source, the Nihobnshoki, which says they came from Baekje! In other words, you are a one-eyed POV pushing editor who ignores everything in primary or secondary sources that contradicts what your Korean nationalist source declares. You shouldn't be on Wikipedia.

You've just given another proof you can't evaluate if what you read is tenable, obviously because you don't know anything about Asian, Korean or Japanese history. Before the date the Hata founder Yutukï nö kimi came to Japan, - you're dead certain it was 450 CE asd your Korean source affirms. They were skilled in silk weaving, fine. But the 三國志's section on Japan (倭人傳) predates the supposed date for the Hata by 2 centuries, and describes the Japanese as capable of weaving and spinning 'fine linen and silk fabrics'. The Chinese source in 250CE says the Japanese were skilled weavers of silk. The later source say the Hata also were skilled weavers of silk, and came 2 centuries later. And some idiot then wrote on the page:'Silk weaving took off in Japan from the fifth century onward as a result of new technology brought from Korea.' without asking themselves how 'silk weaving' took off in Japan in the fifth century with the Hata, when the Chinese voyagers report Japanese were making fine silk 2 and a half centuries earlier.Nishidani (talk) 21:27, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

I advise that we just cite it as being Farris' opinion. I think we agree that Farris is a reliable source, and he says unequivocally that the Hata were "peninsular". Farris then mentions, "Japan's foremost expert on ancient cloth believes that the production of fine-figured silk twill increased markedly after the fifth century. He links this growth with the other technological improvements that came from Korea at the same time."CurtisNaito (talk) 21:43, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

As it is, I don't think very much evidence had been presented of the unreliability of the Asian Perspectives article. Just because it uses the phrase "Korean immigrants" to describe some of the toraijin, just like almost all reliable sources do, does not mean that a peer reviewed article like this one is somehow biased. If it is necessary though, I would support bringing the article to the reliable sources noticeboard to get confirmation.

Incidentally, I recent read the New History Textbook, which is generally regarded as being a Japanese nationalist work. However, it did pass inspection by the Ministry of Education, so it couldn't have any major errors. At any rate, this textbook says on page 51 that the Hata clan were of Korean origin and came to Japan in the fifth century. It just goes to show that in Japan even those of nationalist leaning, plus Japan's own government, acknowledge that the Hata clan were likely of Korean descent.

Th1980 is right that the books in the background section don't really deal with Korean influence on Japanese culture, but I guess the books do at least deal with Korea and Japan. The citations do need work because you can't cite so many sentences at the beginning of a paragraph to a citation only mentioned at the end of the paragraph placed after several other unrelated citations. However, there is one line in the background section ("the role of Korean peninsular peoples in the transmission of Sinic culture was underplayed") which is repeated at the end of the article. Maybe the whole "background" section should be moved into a section dealing with historiography in general.CurtisNaito (talk) 21:16, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Whaddya mean? The New History textbook passed inspection by the Ministry of Eudcation and therefore couldn't have any major errors. It's rife with errors, and the Ministry of Education in Japan virtually waged war on Ienaga Saburō and wrecked his scholarly career - a fucking magnificent editor of the Nihon Shoki, because they disliked his historical textbooks. The New History textbook 'was approved by the Ministry of Education in 2001, and caused a huge controversy in Japan, China and Korea. A large number of Japanese historians and educators protested against the content of New History Textbook and its treatment of Japanese wartime activities.' That sort of shit can never be cited in any responsible article for facts, because what is factual is always spun for a political effect. If you can't see that, you're way out of your depth here.Nishidani (talk) 22:05, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Textbook examinations in Japan screen out factual errors, but are not as good with correcting omissions. The edition of the New History Textbook I was using was passed by the Ministry of Education just last year, but not before many corrections were made. We can just cite Farris' opinion as evidence that the Hata were of Korean origin. My only point was that, in Japan at least, even staunch nationalists admit that the Hata were Korean.CurtisNaito (talk) 22:08, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Okay, so you don't understand that the Japanese textbook industry is governed politically, and the 'facts' are embedded in narratives that, in the choice of language, and selective presentation of interpretative perspectives while repressing others, push a nationalist line. You can't use em. They're just examples of nationalist pathology.

Farris? Did you read the above? The primary Japanese sources conflict: some say they were Baekje people, snd some say they were of Chinese descent (Qi). It's very fucking simple. Why single out Farris, or anyone? Hundreds of scholars have written on this, and several theories exist. Look at the Japanese article on the Hata for a very brief snippet of the controversies. They certainly weren't 'Korean' in the sense of having a Korean national identity, as our POV pushers wish to make out. The whole Baekje-Yamato connection was mediated through the Gaya confederacy, so you have a very complex linguistic, tribal set of realities there that only quite sophisticated historians write about. It doesn't get into textbooks, or in the tripe dished out by nationalists.Nishidani (talk) 22:26, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Oh, up to now I thought we were in agreement that Farris was a reliable source. Do you also dispute Farris' reliability, because we could take his book to the reliability sources noticeboard if need be. If you do think he is a decent scholar though, why would you object to including the Korean origin of the Hata clan as Farris' view? Even if it isn't the only opinion, Farris' opinion should be worth including in some form. Of course, we can't cite the primary sources in this article. I think that we should include different opinions from secondary sources.CurtisNaito (talk) 22:31, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Okay fine then, I'll rephrase it as Farris' opinion. If I understand Nishidani correctly, he wants more historians represented and not just Farris alone. Still, I'll start with Farris and we'll move on from there.TH1980 (talk) 01:33, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Population

Compare:

During this new period of Japanese history, the Yayoi period, the forms of intensive agriculture and animal husbandry practiced in Korea were adopted in Japan, first in Kyushu which is closest to the Korean peninsula and soon all across Japan. The result was a major explosion in the Japanese population from 75,000 people in 400 BC to over five million by 250 AD.

with

We cited population estimates for 800 BCE of about 76,000 people and for O CE of some 595,000, nearly an eightfold increase in 800 years with the bulk of that growth occurring from the Kinai vicinity westward. During the next 700 years, as agriculture spread, the human population would grow even faster, expanding some ninefold to an estimated 5,400,000 people in 700 CE. Increase at such a rapid rate surely reflected the increased fecundity that a more reliable food supply permitted, but it also reflected the long-sustained in-migration of mainlanders.' Totman p.61

Totman says from 800BCE to O CE there was an eightfold growth 800 years. In the next 700 years there is a ninefold increase. Where Totman has Japan with 5,400,000 in 700 CE, the Korean source is trumpeting virtually that same figure in 250 CE (over 5,000,000), 4 and a half centuries earlier, meaning that Japanese population must have stagnated for that long period of massive agricultural growth. This is plainly crazy. The figures simply jar with one another. And when you have such a massive discrepancy in sources, you can't pick one you like, and push it as a fact on Wikipedia.Nishidani (talk) 18:59, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

This can be re-added. I see where the problem is. The article actually says that the population increased to 5,400,000 "during the Kofun period". Since the Kofun period started around 250 AD, I guess at some point the article came to say that instead, but the figure of five million+ was referring to events that took place at some point in time before the end of the period.CurtisNaito (talk) 20:59, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

I get this population problem with POV pushers on articles ranging from the Fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the population of Judea,etc. to the Ashkenazi population of Europe in 1500, to articles like this. The ranges in competent literature are significantly vast to disallow anyone from using one source and claiming it is true. In history, you only have theories, you rarely have facts. As to the point you made, I can cite other estimates which make those c onflicting figures even more rubbery. We don't fucking know. All we can do is respect the variety of interpretations in sources, which [User:TH1980|TH1980]] systematically refuses to do, in pushing everything in a borderline and distinctly nationist source as though it were the real McCoitus for his orgasmic Korean origins of everything in Japan POV.Nishidani (talk) 21:33, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

We can deal with potential bias by sticking to the views of reliable sources. In general we can discuss which sources to include and which to exclude, but I think peer reviewed academic articles like the one cited here should get an automatic pass unless you know of a reliable source explicitly refuting the article itself.CurtisNaito (talk) 21:37, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

No. The Chinese book got a peer-reviewed pass, and it fucked up. I showed with just one of dozens of examples, above, where the four authors fucked up comprehensively, and even in peer-reviewed papers, if you fuck up, that means the process broke down, as often happens, and one can't knowingly quote material than is skewed as that bit about the Hata is. Nishidani (talk) 21:58, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, do you think we should take the article to the reliable sources noticeboard then? How do you really know when a peer reviewed source by a group of distinguished scholars messes up? The same information was in other sources too, so a lot of scholars must have messed up. In cases of disputes between scholars, Wikipedians shouldn't really take sides. Rather than guessing which peer reviewed sources messed up, and which got it right, I think personally that we're better off including both perspectives in the article.CurtisNaito (talk) 22:03, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Also, if we need different sources for Korean culture being adopted "first in Kyushu". We might be able to use Satoru Nakazono's essay in "Coexistence and Cultural Transformation in East Asia" or possibly "Ancient Jomon of Japan" by Junko Habu, which seem to report on similar facts. I still think that the Asian Perspectives article is the best source for this, but Nakazono does note, "It can be considered that the Yayoi period was established as a result of the Jomon people in West Kyushu striking up a relationship with the remote Korean peninsula through their strategy to selectively acquire its cultural elements... There is also an enticing hypothesis that in the final stage of the process of this Jomon-Yayoi transition, the West Kyushu people changed their ethnic identity from that of Jomon people into Korean peninsula people..." According to Habu, "By the Final Jomon period, continuing influences from the Mumun culture of the Korean peninsula began to alter various aspects of the Jomon culture in western Japan. Material culture, including stylistic characteristics of pottery, shows strong influences from the Mumun culture... Rice paddy fields and dolmens, both of which are hallmarks of the Mumun culture, appeared in northern Kyushu."CurtisNaito (talk) 04:33, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Those aren't specialist sources on Korean influence on Japan, but I could add them in if no one else has a problem with it.TH1980 (talk) 00:44, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Removing sentence sourced to Hyung Il Pai

"For Hyung Il Pai, there was no clear Korean and Japanese national distinction as for the period around the 4th century CE., and that archaeological and material similarities between the two cannot be explained in terms of domination or conquest."

This sentence should be removed. Firstly, because it says that "there was no clear Korean and Japanese national distinction as for the period around the 4th century CE", which is a strange thing to say at the beginning of a section on the Jomon-Yayoi transition. This transition took place possibly around 300 BC, many hundreds of years before the 4th century. Granted, the Jomon-Yayoi transition did ultimately narrow the ethnic distinction people Japanese and Korean peoples, but that was a gradual process. I don't think that we should mention events so far after the transition at the very beginning of the section. Secondly, it says "archaeological and material similarities between the two cannot be explained in terms of domination or conquest." However, what Pai actually says is, "similarities in the later Korean Kobun and the Japanese Kofun can no longer be explained solely by theories focusing on domination or conquest." This refers to events of the Kofun Period, which was also after the Jomon-Yayoi transition. The fact that neither Korea nor Japan conquered one another during the Kofun period is not relevant to the Jomon-Yayoi transition. Some other information on the Kofun period has also been added to this section, which fits better in subsequent sections.CurtisNaito (talk) 20:52, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

The point is one source is not the reliable source. Everything I've checked makes the raw assertions of the Korean authors highly slanted nationalistically. They systematically exclude every counter thesis. So unless the editor or editors start trying to respect WP:NPOV, by studying the elements of ancient Japanese and Korean history in all of their complexity, we are going to get nonsense, nationalistic cant, and it is rather pointless asking that people like myself and a few others stand by and rush it to fix the POV biasing day in day out till the great ambition of getting a GA credit emerges.Nishidani (talk) 21:55, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

That is simply fixed by pushing it down the page, which I have done, and you reverted.Nishidani (talk) 21:23, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

You also deleted other parts without explanation in the same edit. Also, I'm not so sure about the part reading, "archaeological and material similarities between the two cannot be explained in terms of domination or conquest". Pai is only referring to the kofun in that sentence, and I don't know if we should assume that he's referring to all archaeological and material similarities.CurtisNaito (talk) 21:33, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Because the other editor is, is for me, notoriously incompetent and is deploying a source that simplifies very complex issues by saying every innovation in Japan is 'Korean', I'd expect other editors to exercise judgement and care and work out things on the talk page because nationalist spinning on these subjects is a minefield. Take the armory section. Well, there are good arguments that some types of arms uncovered in the Korean peninsular were of Yamato design. How you take this depends on the way you read the presence of Yamato forces in Korean battles for 2 centuries. Read just to cite one example this tidbit on one such controversy in Gina Barnes's recent book, State Formation in Korea: Emerging Elites, Routledge, 2013 pp-77ff., for example, and compare it to the spin of our article.Unless there is some sophisticated understanding that every item is controversial, and surrounded by contending claims, you will yet sheer POV pushing.Nishidani (talk) 21:50, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, I understand, but we can resolve this simply by adding in new sources explaining other perspectives. Takehiko Matsugi, a professor of archeology at Okayama University, said in an article in the Yomiuri Shimbun that the Japanese armor uncovered in the Korean peninsula was the armor of Japanese soldiers sent by their government to fight on the side of a state in Korea. Maybe it's not mentioned in this Wikipedia article because it's a issue of general Korea-Japan relations and not specifically Korean influence on Japan. However, you can try adding this information into the article if you think it belongs. Basically, we're all in this together and we have to edit together.CurtisNaito (talk) 21:58, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

In scholarship, you don't start with bad sources, and then add good sources. You review the dozen or two relevant sources, weigh what they are saying of the topic, see how the various arguments shape up in peer-reviews, if there is a consensus remark or two, and write up the synthesis of the state of the art. You do not proceed as this fellow is, plunking in 'stuff' and waiting for it to be fine-tuned. Well, fuck it. This place has always been a circus, and I'll be buggered if I'm going to clown round wasting my time. I let it run to seed for some months, in the meantime hoping the POV push is noticed and sanctioned, and fix it with anyone else willing to roll up their sleeves and actually apply the state of the art histories of these three entities (Gina Barnes is a good point to start from) to the article. Nishidani (talk) 22:15, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, Rhee et al. do claim to be synthesizing the scholarly consensus in some areas. They note near the start of the article, "We have found considerable scholarly consensus among Korean and Japanese archaeologists and historians on many significant points..." However, in areas of disagreement over reliability of sources, I see two options. Firstly, take the sources to the reliable sources noticeboard. Secondly, find a disputed line of text and send it to request for comment. Do you want to try one of those, and if so, which one? Concerning sentences cited to the Asian Perspectives article of Rhee et al., I think we could send some of them to request for comment to gain consensus. What about that?CurtisNaito (talk) 22:21, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Sewing

For the section on sewing, is there another source for this than the Nihon Shoki? I don't know if I agree that the Nihon Shoki is necessarily a primary source, but given its age I would ideally use a newer source if possible.CurtisNaito (talk) 21:30, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

You can get it in Aston's translation, but if you need a secondary source, then Pageant of Japanese Art: Textiles and lacquer, Tokyo Kokutitsu Hakubutsukan, Tōto Bunka Co. Tokyo 1952 p.3 Nishidani (talk) 21:39, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I'll just go ahead and put this source in.TH1980 (talk) 01:34, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Rhee et al.

Rhee, Song-Nai, Aikens, C. Melvin, Choi, Sung-Rak, and Ro, Hyuk-Jin, "Korean Contributions to Agriculture, Technology, and State Formation in Japan". Asian Perspectives, Fall 2007. Is used to source over one third of this article. That is WP:Undue for a substantial article.

• I have noted that it has a nationalist line
• that it makes some pretty simple mistakes in its presentation of ancient materials
• while being useful.

• While I accept that it qualifies as RS, this overreliance on a text that has its problems poses WP:NPOV issues. The solution I propose is that (a) a wiki article should not source 30% of its controversial claims to one such source and therefore (b) the use of that source should be controlled by finding scholarly sources that corroborate each claim. Until that is done, this will prove to be a serious objection to any promotion of the article.Nishidani (talk) 16:34, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do. Since you have a copy of the article, you probably realize that it already cites all its claims to good scholarship, albeit scholarship written in foreign languages. You disagree with it personally, but your refutation above used primary sources to call into question a peer reviewed article. Original research in other words. The article did say near the beginning that most of its arguments represented areas of scholarly agreement, so I'm sure that none of it is overly "controversial". I'll bring it down to 15% before nominating.TH1980 (talk) 20:17, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

We still haven't actually found a reliable source stating that the article is "nationalist". Since you "accept that it qualifies as RS", I think we should only replace it if another reliable, secondary source contradicts it. One can't accept it as a reliable source, but still insist that it can't be cited unless all the information in the Wikipedia article is redundantly cited to two works saying the same thing. However it would in theory be easy to find scholarly sources corroborating it because, as noted, it includes good citations. Maybe we could compromise and aim for 20%.CurtisNaito (talk) 20:36, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Go away. You are boring and incapable of reading either policy or scholarship. It is quite pointless addressing me, since you cannot understand my replies.

TH1980 (I admire your tenacity and attempt to at least respond to somed serious issues) I don't disagree with it personally. I actually found it stimulating. It is just so selective and spun that it cannot be used alone. I'll give you another example, regarding Yoshinogari:

It contains an internal precinct, also moated and palisaded, that shelters a rich elite cemetery and arge public buildings, and elsewhere the site gives evidence of Songguk-ni-type residences, protected storehouses, bronze artifacts, bronze-working technology, dolmen burials, and pottery of specifically Mumun type, among much other evidence of Korean antecedents. Yoshinogari is unquestionably a community of the Songguk-ni type, which was widely established throughout southern Korea in later Mumun/Bronze Age times. From its abundance of archaeological data, Nishitani (1989: 127-132) has become convinced that "ancient Korea and its technology were greatly involved in the birth of Yoshinogari as well as in the process of tate formation in the Saga Plains."pp.431-2

Well what that Nishitani thinks is fine as a POV. What they don't say is that the tamped-earth structure of the burial mounds at that site is quite similar to the Chinese commandary methods at Lelang in northern Korea. What they have done is fished for a Japanese source that corroborates their 'Korean' theory, and ignored all the scholarship that points to a more complex reality, in this case Chinese structures in Korea. That is one of dozens of examples of selective skewing of Japanese scholarship there. Nishidani (talk) 21:06, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

I'll put it down as Nishitani's opinion, but it's still not proof of bias in the article. The article agreed with a major Japanese scholar, who's no Korean nationalist, and both cited and quoted him properly. The article basically said at the beginning that it was attempting to distill the scholarly consensus, not comprehensively list every point of view in existence.TH1980 (talk) 02:17, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Since I saw a request to comment on the source at WT:KOREA, here is my view. It is likely that the article cited has a Korean POV, due to being written by Koreans, but no scholarship is truly objective, and nobody seems to be disputing it is generally reliable (it has been published in English in a peer-reviewed outlet). I don't think WP:UNDUE applies here (at best, we could talk about Template:Onesource, but since the article is used only for a third of the content, I do not think even this applies here). If anyone wants to see this reference removed, they need to show that it has been criticized by other scholars (ie. shown to be controversial). If some claims it is making are dubious/disputed, then equally reliable sources need to presented, so we can note differing POVs in the text. At present, I do not see any arguments that would justify tagging this article or reference with POV/RS tags. As for promoting this article, this is a bigger topic that seems to be off topic to this very discussion. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:47, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

No one is arguing for its removal. I'm arguing that, given that Melvin Aikens has no knowledge of Japanese sources, the lead Korean writer had a post before retiring in a minor private Christian university in Oregan, and the other two Korean scholars have 'affiliations' (undefined) with minor, one private, Korean universities, using it requires care, if only because in the few points I had the time to check in detail (see above), they got things wrong, or selectively cited a Japanese scholars while ignoring the fact that other Japanese, prob. Korean and Western scholars (like Gina Barnes) would dispute that conclusion. That, as you can see, is decided nationalistic POV pushing. Given its publication venue, it scrapes by. Given its blinkered nationalistic use of Japanese sources, and the fact that it references a third of the article, it is a fair request, one recognized by the main editor here, that what it is cited from those sources finds confirmation in less ideologically fixated archaeological scholarship.Nishidani (talk) 12:36, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

You said, "This source should probably be removed." You were arguing for removal less than a month ago. Piotrus' statement "If anyone wants to see this reference removed, they need to show that it has been criticized by other scholars" is true. Avoid original research. Three users agree that the Rhee et al. article can be cited without corroboration unless clearly refuted by another reliable source. If Barnes disagrees that the Yoshinogari site shows Korean influence, then tell me in what book Barnes says this and we'll cite it as well. Having said all this, did you notice that I already reduced Rhee et al. from 30% to 7% of the article's citations? Piotrus said that WP:UNDUE doesn't even apply to 30%, so no one can complain about the current 7%.TH1980 (talk) 16:27, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Piotrus's remarks were addressed to anyone who wants the article removed. I wrote above:'While I accept that it qualifies as RS, this overreliance on a text that has its problems poses WP:NPOV issues.' He noted that as well. 'If some claims it is making are dubious/disputed, then equally reliable sources need to presented, so we can note differing POVs in the text.' Much is dubious, as put. When I have tagged it thus, the tags are removed on various pretexts. The most devastating thing you have done is to remove all of the links to the books I added. They survive on the single pages cited, at times (I can remember providing page links to several sources here that have disappeared), but when I did an FA article, I retained all links in the bibliography, so any reader, by pressing on the book link can explore those sources widely. By removing them from the bibliography you have denied the editors what they had earlier. Most of the books without book links have to be taken on trust, which the talk pages would suggest is something not warranted.Nishidani (talk) 19:10, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Piotrus said, "I do not see any arguments that would justify tagging this article or reference with POV/RS tags". He said, "'If some claims it is making are dubious/disputed, then equally reliable sources need to presented". If Rhee et al's claims are disputed by reliable sources, okay. However, make sure that you tell me the reliable sources that dispute Rhee et al. Otherwise, it might just be your opinion. You say that Barnes does not believe that Yoshinogari shows Korean influence. Okay, what's the book and what's the page number? I sometimes use Google Books links, but other times I don't, because sometimes link rot kicks in over time and sometimes other users don't have full access to the same page numbers anyway. Anyone who does have access to the right pages can go on Google Books and check them themselves. However, I didn't ultimately delete any of your Google Books links. I wanted to create a standardized list of citations using the same bibliographic format, and so I put all the Google Books links in the citation list. Anyone who clicks a citation number can immediately check Google Books for easy verification (if they have access). If for some reason you want the links repeated way down in the bibliography as well, I will do that, but I don't think it's a big deal.TH1980 (talk) 19:52, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm sick and tired of doing other people's homework here, usually because it is then ignored. It should take you a few seconds to google that information, since Gina Barnes is one of the foremost scholars in this field. As to Rhee and Co. what is their citation index in scholarship over the last 9 years?Nishidani (talk) 20:10, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Look who is citing Rhee et al. as a reliable source![1] Gina Barnes! Barnes also cites other works by Song-nai Rhee in that book. If Wikipedia has to exercise such great caution in citing Rhee, then obviously Wikipedia has far higher standards than even Gina Barnes, said to be "one of the foremost scholars in this field"… What's more, Tadashi Nishitani advocates this theory, and he is cited in many books. Okay, I did find a book by Gina Barnes mentioning the Chinese influence on Yoshinogari, but I didn't see where it refuted the Korean influence. Just because China influenced the site doesn't mean Korea did not. But okay, to end this now, I'll insert the Barnes reference.TH1980 (talk) 23:04, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

In what context is Rhee et al. cited in Barnes (no preview in GBooks)? And if you have access to other sources, why rely so heavily on one? Is that not evidence alone that the article fails on comprehensiveness? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:29, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

It looks to me like Gina Barnes cites Rhee et al. in two places concerning archeological finds in Korea. Barnes' book covers archeology in East Asia, including Korea, and it isn't specifically about Korean influence on Japan. I have recently gained access to a lot of books online and at the local university. It's hard to learn the ins and outs of Wikipedia, but I've kept tabs on this Wikipedia article and listened to other editors long enough to know that other users in the past expressed concern about original research. All the information from Rhee et al. is contained in other sources. I recently replaced most of the citations to Rhee et al. with other books containing the same information, so I know this is true. However, if this Wikipedia article had used hundreds of general works on Korean history or Asian archeology, and just cited the brief mentions contained in each of them about Korean influence in Japan, would that be original research? Possibly. What I found after Rhee et al. was first added in the Wikipedia article was that Rhee et al. is not an academic article about Japanese or Korean history that happens to contain some references to Korean influence on Japan. It is an academic article specifically about Korean influence of Japanese culture. Rhee et al. cites hundreds of books and articles that happen to mention Korean influence on Japan incidentally, though most of them are not on that topic specifically. In other words, Rhee et al. seems to have already done all the research for us. Rhee et al. (and Farris' book as well) is very comprehensive for the time range it covers (prehistory to the eighth century). Therefore, the Wikipedia article will be comprehensive as long as we do one of two things - (1.) Cite Rhee et al. (my preference if possible) or (2.) Cite other sources that contain the same information as Rhee et al.TH1980 (talk) 02:53, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Gina Barnes used that paper twice for some images. The whole thrust of her 2 books is to undercut the ethnic nationalism of Chinse, Korean and Japanese nationalist scholarship. I asked you to give the scholarly citational status for the last decade of Rhee's paper. I can find it mentioned in footnotes in 2 area-specialist texts. So, do some work, and tell us what its citational status is. This is the measure of whether its thesis (as opposed to its drawings of pottery types in Japan and Korea) is taken seriously or not.Nishidani (talk) 09:59, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps I should clarify what OR refers to. 1. Research that you have done, and not the work of a recognized publication. 2. Significant research made using sources directly related to the event, an example would be doing an article on Christianity based solely on the bible. 3. Research done by somebody that has not been published in a recognized publication, for example a blog post. Everything that uses a recognized publication is considered to be scholarly research, the question then becomes, is the source reliable (this is rather vague so let me elaborate slightly; is there obvious bias, obviously poor or incorrect information which is checked by looking at the sources that the article uses, etc), do other sources agree or disagree with it (if one source says A and three other sources say B, then state both and note that B is more heavily favoured to A), etc. These things can take a while, the larger the scope of an article the harder it is to fact check everything in it but its what we strive for. Mr rnddude (talk) 02:25, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

• TH1980, we have issues regarding WP:WEIGHT and contradictory sources. For example, Moveable type. We know that moveable type was introduced around the year 1600. The sources the ukiyo-e article uses, though, emphasize that woodlblock printing remained the primary means of printing throughout the Edo period, and that moveable type remained fringe. I can't access page 329 of Ha's book on GBooks to compare what it says. The text as presented gives the impression that moveable type became the primary printing technology of the Edo period. How do you plan on resolving this? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:45, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Ha Woobong and Etsuko Kang both wrote about the influence of moveable type from Korea. Soho Tokutomi also mentioned its importance. This may not be contradictory with other sources. Woodblock printing was important, and so was moveable type. We don't need to change the section. If you do want to modify the section, Nishidani suggested above that we add a sort of rebuttal to the standard view by citing Machi Senjuro's essay. I'm willing to go along with that, and both Nishidani and CurtisNaito accepted it, so three editors have accepted it. If we follow Mr rnddude's guidelines, it wouldn't be original research either.

If you want to modify the text in other ways using Ha's essay, here's an excerpt:

"Moveable metal type was one of the first objects to be plundered during the Imjin Waeran. It is said that the commander-in-chief of the Japanese army during the 1597 invasion, Ukita Hideie (1573–1655), raided the Office of Government Publication type foundry in Kyongbok Palace, took away 200,000 metal characters, printing devices, and Korean and Chinese books and presented all these to Hideyoshi. Aside from metal type, the Japanese commanders also stole Choson wooden types that were mainly used in Buddhist temples. Wooden type was later used to print Kobun kokyo in 1593 and Mogyu (the eighth-century Mengqiu , a collection of anecdotes in poetry form that acted as a primer for children) in 1596. Moreover, the famous Nanki Library, a library in the domain of Kii, one of the Gosanke of the Tokugawa clan, was founded owing to Choson moveable copper type and type made as copies of the same. After a number of unsuccessful attempts, success was finally achieved with the first, moveable metal-type publication of Daizo ichiranshu in eleven volumes in 1615 and the Gunsho chiyo in fifty volumes in 1616. These were accomplished with moveable copper type taken from Choson and Japanese moveable copper type cast after 1605. By the mid seventeenth century, publications using moveable copper type became more prevalent. In these ways, metal and wood moveable types looted from Choson became catalysts for the development of printing technology and scholarship in the Edo period."TH1980 (talk) 04:13, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

You mean Nishidani has brought this up before? Sounds pretty serious to me. My understanding is that woodblock printing was the dominant form of printing in Japan until the Meiji period. The text in this article implies the opposite. For instance—and this is literally the first source I came across when I searched for "Japan movable type" in GBooks—this source states "the movable type technology of the early seventeenth century fell into disuse", then revived under Chinese influence, but the revival was with wooden type. The book is called The Book in Japan—I'm sure some careful research using sources like this can sort these problems out. The text as written must be dealt with. Let's see some care put into it this time. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:38, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

In Volume 4 of the Cambridge History of Japan pp. 726–727: "As publishing became increasingly a commercial enterprise, the more economical method of printing from woodblocks, used in Japan for at least six hundred years, soon replaced movable type. Of the five hundred works known to have been printed between 1593 and 1625, 80 percent were printed by movable type, but movable type accounted for less than 20 percent of the printing occurring during the next quarter-century, and for virtually none after 1650." Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:43, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Just a note on that for your personal interest, now that I've reread this whole thread in sequence. This was spun as 'Japan's entire book production', which is WP:OR from the excellent Donald Shively. Shively didn't note that 20% of the known metal type books in that specific period (400) a quarter came from the Jesuit printing press. We can't note it either. Since the two pieces of data are not connected in the literature as far as I am aware.Nishidani (talk) 17:02, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Here's Totman in Early Modern Japan: "From the 1630s on, the use of movable type declined. Printers increasingly employed blocks for the complete production of literary works, whether classics or newly written prose or poetry, and by the 1650s blocks had completely displaced movable type." Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:49, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

It's utterly pointless. Spend volumes of virtual ink, succeed in making a valid point and by POV creep over multiple edits, they will just sneak back the crap. One example.

We once had what follows below, which I had to write because both editors were insisting on introducing counterfactual information sourced to Ha Woo Bong, and when I objected, also to Etsuko Hae-Jin Kang. Respectable scholars make serious mistakes, and when they evidently do, touching areas beyond their competence I argued, they should not be cited. So I wrote:

The first moveable type printing, for the production of Christian, Chinese and Japanese books, was introduced from Europe, when the Jesuits itroduced a Western movable type printing-press in Nagasaki, Japan in 1590, worked by two Japanese friars who had learnt type-casting in Portugal. Moveable type printing, invented in China in the 11th. century, developed from clay to ceramic, and then bronze copper-tin alloy based movable type presses. Further refinements of the technology were achieved in Korea. Toyotomi Hideyoshi brought over to Japan Korean print technicians and their fonts in 1593 as part of his booty during his failed invasion of that peninsular (1592-1595). That same year, a Korean printing press with movable type was sent as a present for the Japanese Emperor Go-Yōzei. The emperor commanded that it be used to print an edition of the Confucian Classic of Filial Piety:孝経. Four years later in 1597, apparently due to difficulties encountered in casting metal, a Japanese version of the Korean printing press was built with wooden instead of metal type, and in 1599 this press was used to print the first part of the Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan). Etsuko Kang claims that, "Japan's present exuberant publishing industry can be traced back to the Edo period when Korean influence was instrumental to its flourishing."In fact, the qualitative upsurge in Japanese reading, dated to around 1630 onwards, was related to the spread of woodblock printing, which, as opposed to metal-type printing of books in both Korean and Vietnamese, allowed for stable texts accessible to many because reading marks were added, that enabled Chinese style texts to be read as though they were Japanese.

I wrote this because insistent attempts were being made to edit in a demonstrably false claim, which had two RS that just happened to show a total ignorance of the scholarship on Edo book production in Japan, about which the 2 scholars have no familiarity.

I noted this on the talk page.I.e.Etsuko Hae-Jin Kang and Ha Woo Bong, "War and Cultural Exchange", in The East Asian War, 1592–1598, eds. James B. Lewis. New York: Routledge, 2015, fucked up completely by making the absurd suggestion Korean metal work had a germinal value for Japanese Edo printing. Several specialist histories of Edo printing show the old claim is nonsense.

I even went so far as to undo my own work, on the understanding that this theory was false however sourced and its presence on the page demanded a contextual correction. So I even even took out the evidence I added to show the assertions were in defiance of the Japanese scholarship on the history of printing. I’ll take out the real facts, if the bullshit counter facts are left out. That was a compromise. It was ignored.

What did our editors do? They restored Ha Woo Bong (河宇鳳 of Chonbuk National University)'s silly remark by edit creep: it was smuggled in again by our 2 POV pushers, without the corrective material that shows it is a wrong claim. So now we have this boiled down version

At the start of the invasion in 1592 Korean books and book printing technology were one of Japan's top priorities for looting, especially metal moveable type. One commander alone, Ukita Hideie, is said to have had 200,000 printing types and books removed from Korea's Gyeongbokgung Palace. The printing types remained in use in Japan for many decades and the books were numerous enough to fill many libraries.According to the historian Ha Woo Bong, "metal and wood moveable types looted from Choson became catalysts for the development of printing technology and scholarship in the Edo period."

Ha Woo Bong’s assertion is crap, but reinserted because it claims Japan’s printing industry was catalyzed by Korean technology. Japan’s printing technology discarded Korean metal type as too expensive and awkward and reverted to its traditional wood block technology, and it was this decision which profoundly altered the production of books in Japan.

All of the hard work put into clarifying his unreliability on this has been removed. I made a compromise edit: don't put in that crap by Ha Woo Bong and I'll take out the extra material I added on the real history of Edo printing. No deal. They leaped at my removal of the total context I had added, and just restored the Ha Woo Bong claim, which is contradicted in all specialist sources.

It's an attritional war by these two. No amount of correction has altered the fundamental POV thrust they are designing, and no amount of technical remonstration here will change their approach.Nishidani (talk) 10:06, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Jesus Christ, so this isn't mere laziness or incompetence. This alone should get them TBANned. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:57, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

That's only one example. There are numerous other instances of the same malpractice. One brings scholarship to bear on a poorly sourced assertion, and somehow it disappears as they continually readjust the text over weeks. Nishidani (talk) 13:10, 30 June 2016

Most of that text, like the original sentence about moveable type printing being brought by the Jesuits, was already in the article before Nishidani or I had edited it and was never discussed on the talk page. Because topics like the Jesuits were not about Korea, I didn’t realize, at the time that I was adding in citations, that its removal would be controversial. However, Nishidani was the one who removed citations to Machi Senjuro.[2] Just deleting everything wasn't really a compromise, especially since most users who commented eventually favored inclusion. Actually, nothing in the shortened version of the text, and nothing in Ha Woo Bong's essay, necessarily contradicts the woodblock printing theory. The shortened version of the text merely speaks of moveable type printing as a "catalyst" that " remained in use in Japan for many decades". Indeed, the time period from 1593 to 1625 (from Curly Turkey's Cambridge History citation) was a period of decades when almost all printing was done by moveable type prior to the rise of woodblock printing. The above statements were true. The problem is that the talk page, which allows us to explain ourselves, was not utilized sufficiently. I obviously was not trying to engage in any "attrition", and I don't think anyone else was either, so I shouldn't be accused of that. I just did not realize the reason behind including the material that was not directly related to Korean influence. Nishidani was not the one who added the large majority of that material, and I did not see any specific reasons on the talk page from whoever did. I will now revise this section as suggested to me on this talk page, so please take a look at my new edit for yourself.TH1980 (talk) 16:10, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

It took me 3 months to convince you to remove the claim made by Ha Woobong which you entered back in April and refused to budge on, was false. I calculate that with this stalling, my trawling back to remind you of everything you retained against consensus and or elided by whimsy, would mean several further years of negotiation. You don't understand anything I said above. 'nothing . .necessarily contradicts the woodblock printing theory'. It's not a fucking 'theory'. What was added disproved the old claim still in braindead passages of books you cite, that Korean metal type changed the landscape of Japanese printing. It didn't. I'm not going to comment any further. Nishidani (talk) 16:20, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

The quote by Ha Woo Bong was not false. I told you above, there's no contradiction in saying that moveable type printing was the catalyst of Japanese printing for decades, and saying that later woodblock printing became more popular. I did understand what you said. The more important question is what do you think about the new section on printing? Can you suggest any further ideas for this particular section or a new idea pertaining to a different topic? Discussions do not need to take years, though I do recall IJethrobot once reminding me that building a Wikipedia article is a long and time-consuming process. I guess that's natural for Wikipedia. I want to keep making steady progress, so what do you think the next step should be concerning article content?TH1980 (talk) 18:49, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Oh, just a closing note then. I will place before anyone who reviews this for any kind of approval the following remark, a just criticism of Japanese ethnonationalist scholarship of several decades ago:

'Thus, in (Japanese) colonial scholarship, all artistic, cultural and technological changes were attributed to new arrivals and conquests by successive superior races who imposed their lifestyles and government on the Korean peninsula.'Hyung Il Pai, Constructing "Korean" Origins: A Critical Review of Archaeology, Historiography, and Racial Myth in Korean State-formation Theories, Harvard Univ Asia Center, 2000 p.52

And suggest they observe that the whole structure of this cherry-picked decontextualized article merely inverts the vices of Japanese colonial scholarship on Korea to Korea's advantage by creating an article which gives the naïve reader the impression that:

'all artistic, cultural and technological changes were attributed to new arrivals and conquests successively by a superior Korean race who imposed their lifestyles and government on the Japanese archipelago.'

See? You've recycled the imperial Japanese model of cultural conquest developed down to the end of WW2, and made it into the cultural imperial Korean model of the conquest of Japanese history, which emerged as an understandable, if equally stupid, form of ideological retaliation among Korean scholars after WW2. Goodbye till then. Nishidani (talk) 20:20, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

It can't be that bad. Piotrus said, "I do not see any arguments that would justify tagging this article... with POV/RS tags". Besides, it's cited to good scholarship, so I can't be blamed for what the scholars say. If you have time, tell me what you think about the new printing section, and I'm open to suggestions on how to reduce the alleged bias in the article. You or I can institute any necessary fixes now, or we can do it "before anyone who reviews this".TH1980 (talk) 22:25, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

That was before any of the above showed up. Piotrus, do you still believe that? After all, we've now demonstrated the extent to which these guys have distorted the "Printing" section—not just screwing up, but surreptitiously restoring a version that was already demonstrated to be false. Repeat for each paragraph of the article. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:02, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

The only thing that I reinserted was the Ha Woo Bong quote. Other users thought that adding it was fine, and I personally don't see how it was factually incorrect. At worst maybe it gave a misleading impression to some readers, but it wasn't actually untrue. If you know of any factually incorrect information in the article, you could start by telling me about it. For instance, what do you think about the section on printing as it is currently written?TH1980 (talk) 02:07, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

It seems to confrm better to the story as I understand it, but it also raises the question of why it's even in an article titled "Korean influence on Japanese culture". Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:11, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

The same applies, to cite at least one other example, for the philosophy/neo-Confucian section. The structure of this repeated problem is

A source is found for a wild claim (Japanese Neo-Confucianism is taken from Korean Confucian scholars/Edo printing boomed because of Korean metal-type)

One laboriously sets forth the technical literature of recent scholarship which has dismissed the claim.

A tinkering compromise is pushed in, which retains the outdated claim via attribution etc.

I.e. Japan has this or that debt to Koreas starts as a fact, is pulled to pieces, and ends up as an attribution in old or surpassed scholarship, where it is no longer, literally, an influence, but a byway in the history of impressions of an influence.

The fact is, where scholarship has disowned the exaggerated claims there is no longer any justification for retaining them.Nishidani (talk) 21:40, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

There are several other examples of this. Korean peninsula cultures played a very notable role in early Japanese history, and it is a pity to see the page utterly fails to make a neutral, infinitely more detailed, and scholarly synthesis of the scholarship on that. It's irredeemable.Nishidani (talk) 21:40, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm glad that we were able to fix the printing section. Obviously, there is a large body of research, including dozens of reliable sources, alleging at least some degree of Korean influence on Japanese printing and Confucianism. When reliable sources contradict, we can't use "I like it/don't like it" as our criteria for inclusion. The most recent sources cited in those section do affirm Korean influence on Japanese Confucianism and other areas, so there's no dividing line between scholarly opinion before and after some individuals ended up calling the original theories into question. Maybe later a consensus will emerge, but we don't have one now. For now, let's acknowledge the debate and mention both sides.TH1980 (talk) 23:09, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

First, let me say I am impressed by the quality and level of the discussion; I see editors disagreeing - but doing so in the quality fashion, citing sources and debating them, with no personal attacks or such (at least that I can easily see). As I just commented in another discussion where in essence some editors ganged up on another, well, it is a pleasant change. Anyway, I have skimmed over the arguments here, and here are my two cents: it is sadly not our job to say, in text, whether a scholarship piece is bad or good. We can refrain from using some, if there is a consensus here on its quality. Otherwise, the best we can do is to note the contradiction, ex. "Smith (2000) says A, but Kim (2001) says B". If possible to do so in neutral fashion, and backed up by reliable sources on Korean and Japanese historiography, a note on their opposing POVs may be appropriate (some form of saying that Japanese and Korean scholars sadly refuse to acknowledge that either culture was influenced by another, and are pretty nationalistic about their own culture's superiority when compared to the other - but again, this has to be neutrally worded, and be relevant to the discussion). In general, what I would suggest is to be wary of academic works by Fooian scholars publishned in Fooian journals with predominantly Fooian reviewers, as they are likely to be biased. But again, we cannot discard them - we can just try to assign them less due weight when compared to more international scholarship, and provide cautious attributions and warnings (label Korean and Japanese scholar's work, for example, etc.). PS. I hope nobody reads my work as trying to discrediting Korean or Japanese scholar works - I am just saying they have an axe to grind, something that is not unique to them - in fact is very similar to my more familiar areas of Polish-German-Lithuanian-Russian POV. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:04, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Moving forward

The printing issue seems to have been resolved, but I am still interested in eliminating any defects in this article, so I am soliciting recommendations from all users. I want to discuss the question: what specific steps can be taken to improve this article? I will be proactive in making the article better and hope that other users will be as well.TH1980 (talk) 23:09, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

The printing section issue, for one, wasn't resolved. All that emerged was that a claim was made of a major impact; this was shown to be untrue. You wittled it down to book looting. I showed how bizarre that looked. So you reintroduced what you had eradicated, which still makes no sense, because it does not measure up to the criterion of influence. These points were made, and you did not grasp their import, and now have convinced yourself we have consensus. We don't. That this ongoing mess was foreseen and predicted in the debate over deletion has been confirmed consistently in the editing history ever since, which shows how intrinsically unstable the page is. Imaginatorium is quite correct. It's a pity, but that comes of not being amenable to an intelligent neutral approach to a hot-button topic, by a failure to see the nationalist point-scoring that has contaminated this subject for a century. Japan, and then China, devastated the magnificent achievements of the early Choson civilization, but that is no excuse for this kind of retaliation, in 2016.Nishidani (talk) 10:16, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Well, the citations that are now in the article do mention the books and moveable type from Korea as being part of "cultural exchange" from Korea to Japan. Do you agree that Marceau is a reliable source, because, upon checking his essay, he clearly notes that Korean moveable type was one of "two overseas sources [that] combined to stimulate the development of domestic printing technology." Do you not call that influence? Are you proposing a change to this section or are you proposing that the entire section on printing be deleted?CurtisNaito (talk) 10:29, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

I think the article should be left alone. Wikipedia is full of crap, and I am not a deletionist. It won't get past GA, because the two editors controlling the page are not amenable to close analysis of sources, the relevant scholarship and rational compromise with other editors, several of whom have disappeared out of sheer exasperation. They compromise at the very last moment, and the resulting fix is, as in the printing and neo-Confucian sections, ridiculous. I'm sure, in competent hands, that something eventually might be made of this material, but to attempt to fix it in the present environment is only a recipe for nightmares.Nishidani (talk) 10:36, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

It won't get past GA—yeah, it will, if History of Japan could. Seriously, lots of unforgiveable horsehsit gets through—the Bicholim conflict made it to GA. These guys are just going to keep nomming it til it gets through—just as CurtisNaito re-nommed History of Japan twelve minutes after it was delisted. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:55, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

I won't lose any sleep if it does. It's ironic, that the only good items added to the page are those that have been corrective of the primary bullshit, by editors who argued and argue for deletion, or editors who think it should never be nominated for GA. So if the two whose POV pushing has made working here a nightmare do seek, and manage to obtain, some obscure glory by 'renomming' it will be an award earned by parasitism.Nishidani (talk) 12:02, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

The comment about "parasitism" was not appropriate here. All Wikipedia articles are built through collaboration. I've added most of the citations that are currently in the article and fixed plenty of your edits. However, almost no Wikipedia member makes an article single-handedly. I do not agree that "the article should be left alone". That will not help anything. If the article really does have major problems, it likely has smaller problems as well. Tell me in concrete terms the changes you want to see, starting perhaps with the smaller issues, and we can gradually improve the article from there.TH1980 (talk) 21:20, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

The most concrete problem is that you refuse to sufficiently familiarize yourself with the literature on the subject. This is far from the first time you've been told, and the problems it causes have been demonstrated in great detail here and elsewhere. We've come to expect nothing more than that you will ignore it—again—and bury the discussion—again. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:15, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

You told me yourself recently that you are "not familiar with the sources". You can see from all the new information I have added to the article that I am familiar with the sources. The overwhelming majority of the article was not cited until I fixed it up with CurtisNaito and others, and it was only after I fixed the article up that it's class was upgraded. I know that my edits are fine, but even so I have still tried to compromise with others and have worked cooperatively with other editors. However, if my edits really are not up to your standards, then you can build the article up to GA status yourself. I will not stop you. However, if you do not have time for that project, then you can either help me do it, or just let me do me do it myself with whoever is willing to work cooperatively with me.TH1980 (talk) 00:36, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

No, you've demonstrated time and again that you are not familiar with the sources, which is why these problems have arisen in the first place. Also, given the months of disruption you and CN caused at History of Japan, nobody here is about to believe that you're going to "allow" any of us to improve the article ourselves. Oh, look—you're burying the discussion again. Same pattern as always—keep burying the conversation into we all give up, and then pretend our silence is "consensus" and renominate. I guess we'll see you at ANI again in a couple of months. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:22, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

Uh-uh. All the stuff I wrote above about this discussion being civil? This thread is heading in a very bad direction and I strongly encourage editors involved to refactor their comments. Discuss the content, not other editors. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:10, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Piotrus—'twould be nice, but unfortunately we're dealing with behavioural problems going back at least three years and spanning several articles. One of the editors has been blocked twice for these behavioural problems. These problems have to be kept front and centre, as they are why progress has been so exasperatingly slow. Did you skip the part about how TH1980 simply reinserted the bit about printing that had been causing so much debate? That's a behaviour pattern. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:20, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

It was not clear. What would be, would be diffs or quotes and links to sections showing consensus for removal of given content, and a diff showing it was restored. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:48, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

I had thought that there was consensus to include the material in some form (three users seemed to agree), but even if I did misread the situation, I titled this section "moving forward" in the hopes that we could think less about the past and more about improvements to the current version of the article. In accordance with your advice, I will make sure to discuss only article content from now on. Also, if you have any good ideas on how to improve the article's current content, please do not hesitate to either edit the article yourself, or else to post your suggestion on this talk page for further discussion.TH1980 (talk) 18:09, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

I think the problem with this "article" is much more fundamental. It reads like a bizarre shopping list, with no coherent theme. Of course there was massive influence from Korea on Japan, but this influence is spread over 2000+ years, and every field of human existence. Imagine why there is no WP article titled "French influence on English culture", not to mention "Chinese influence on Japanese culture" (see the GA review). Just to take a specific example: the section titled Science, medicine, and math starts with one sentence about sending "soothsayers, doctors, and calendrical scholars" in 553, then there is a jump of more than 1000 years ... (oh, no, it doesn't; that was a typo). Well anyway, I think that really the article should be deleted; the GA nomination was obviously absurd, because it would need a somewhat longer lead to summarise what it is about, and it is difficult to do that for a shopping list. Imaginatorium (talk) 08:39, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

I see that the GA review does mention a Chinese influence on Korean culture article, which seems to be a sort of corollary to this one. I agree that the lead ought to be longer though.CurtisNaito (talk) 08:59, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Oh, right, so there is. But Chinese influence on Korean culture is a similar sort of shopping list. What would you write to summarize a shopping list? Imaginatorium (talk) 09:15, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

The failed deletion review also mentioned Spanish influence on Filipino culture and Olmec influences on Mesoamerican cultures. As for the intro, my advice is that we focus on mentioning the article's five constituent components: "Prehistoric contacts and the Jomon-Yayoi transition", "Korean peninsular influences on ancient and classical Japan", "Artistic influence", "Cultural transfers during Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea", and "Historiography". I advise that we include a summary or a few examples of each of these topics.CurtisNaito (talk) 09:24, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Though I'm satisfied with the structure of the article myself, just to throw out the idea, there are some similar articles structured outright as lists such as the featured article List of Chinese inventions.CurtisNaito (talk) 09:28, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

I added an expanded introduction. I am still taking requests from any users on how to improve the article.TH1980 (talk) 21:03, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Request: take a few months off to thoroughly familiarize yourself with the literature. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:23, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

I am familiar with the sources. I've added more academic sources to the article than any single user. You told me that you are not familiar with the sources. However, for the purposes of this part of the talk page, all that I want to know is: do you know of any problems with the current article's content? If you don't know of any, there's no need to post further in this part of the talk page. Let's keep the discussion on track.TH1980 (talk) 13:57, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

Seconded. Any response to this should focus on sources, not on anyone's POVs or their presumed knowledge of something or lack of thereof. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:10, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

I am really not sure what is the best strategy for this article. I just removed the sentence: "Japan's capital between 710 and 784 was Nara, a Korean word meaning 'country'." -- which is true, in that there is a word nara in modern Korean*, but then, there is a language in Eritrea called Nara, and a river in Russia called Nara. Read the discussion about the etymology of Nara: this is just one fringe theory, which should not be taken out of context, as though significant... By "not sure", I mean that the article is so frankly ridiculous, that it will not confuse anyone with a brain, and it might be better to let the shopping list expand indefinitely, to keep it that way, rather than trying to make it reasonable. Imaginatorium (talk) 11:07, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

• Just on that, which you often see, the OKorean form may in turn reflect a Koguryo borrowing of a Han period Chinese dialect spoken in the northern Chinese commanderies, like Lelang. Whatever, it was transmitted somehow to Old Japanese as the word for their capital. Nishidani (talk) 13:17, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

I know that you have favored deleting the article altogether in the past. Any user can open a deletion review to see if there is consensus for deletion, but as long as there is consensus to keep the article, there should be some guidelines we can use to improve the content. As for Nara, I did notice from the main article that there are several theories, but the source I cited for it was added to the article by Nishidani[3], so I supposed that the source at least was good enough. I'm fine with removal, but my own view, after listening to other users, is now similar to the opinion that Piotrus' explained above. "it is sadly not our job to say, in text, whether a scholarship piece is bad or good. We can refrain from using some, if there is a consensus here on its quality. Otherwise, the best we can do is to note the contradiction… we cannot discard them - we can just try to assign them less due weight". Therefore, when a reliable source makes a claim of Korean influence, we'll keep it in the article, but if there are also alternative theories denying Korean influence in other reliable sources, we'll add those as well alongside the original claim. The same thing is done in the Nara article, it mentions each claim equally. I've read most of the available literature on Korean influence on Japanese culture, and I don't think that this article is likely to expand a great deal further. I think that it already covers the great majority of the claims currently in existence. If you still favor deletion, I suppose you could open a deletion review, but as long as the article still exists, I think we can keep it manageable and neutral using Piotrus' standard. I appreciate your comments on this matter.TH1980 (talk) 14:03, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

The source was added by me, yes, in a long section,Background which alerted readers that all that follows is to be read as part of a highly controversial century-long set of arguments. The first ploy was to eject it from the page - that didn't work. The next step was to bury it at the very bottom under a different title Historiography, where probably it won't be read, and which of course is misleading. The third point was to pick out of it the fact that 奈良/乃樂 prob is of peninsula origin, a peninsula word mind you probably of Chinese origin. If you wanted a historiography of the question, it would be several times longer than this page. Ultimately this has never been a collegial effort, because those who have tried to contribute have invariably found that the final form is insistently that either you or the other chap decide on. And that's why it's pointless helping out.Nishidani (talk) 14:50, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

I never tried to delete the background from the article. I moved it to the bottom because it was noted that parts of what you inserted at the top of the article were almost exact repeats of sentences and viewpoints already long since included at the bottom of the article. At the time I never heard you object. A historiography section was a good way to express modern views on old events, so, chronologically, I put it all at the bottom to sum the situation up. Do you want that whole section moved to the top instead? Actually, I don't think a single citation that you inserted into the article is not still in the article, and I have always taken your advice into account, like when I deleted most of the citations to Rhee et al. Obviously, everyone has an equal say on what gets to stay in the article, and it seems to me that your contributions have all been maintained. Thus, there's no reason why you shouldn't put forward additional suggestions for discussion, like perhaps your ideas on how to include the etymology of Nara in the article, if you have any more such suggestions.TH1980 (talk) 18:10, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

The idea that Nara comes from the modern Korean nara, somehow, is at best a fringe theory. (In fact most of the theories look like something noted by a dictionary-scanner.) In any event, even if by the wildest chance the name Nara was somehow derived from Korean, this really is not an influence on "Government and administration", unless you are just determined to list every conceivable link of any sort. That is why the article (already) reads like a shopping list. It does not read like a real essay, just a collage of pasted factoids. Imaginatorium (talk) 18:31, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Some of the scholarship is structured in a similar way though. For example, have you read William Wayne Farris's "Sacred Texts and Buried Treasures"? It is structured in the same way as this article, going through all Korean influences on Japanese weaponry, government, weaving, etc., section by section. If you are arguing for deletion of the article, then a deletion review is the place for that. If you are not arguing for deletion of the article, then we just need suggestions on how the existing material can be presented more clearly.TH1980 (talk) 18:58, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

I was addressing the issue of the claim of "Korean influence on Government etc" in the etymology of Nara. I have not read Farris's book, and doubt if I will; I do not claim to be an expert in this field at all, but I can detect the noise of grinding axes. For a start, the first section about prehistoric transfer of rice growing has surely nothing to do with "Korea" or "Japan": it is the transfer from China, down the peninsula, and across the archipelago. Imagine if an article on "French influence on English culture" had stuff about prehistoric movements of people like the beaker folk, or the creators of Stonehenge. There are lots of bits of shared Celtic culture across Britanny and Great Britain, but it would be quite anacronistic to title them as above. So perhaps that section should be removed from this article, to something about Japanese prehistory. For example. Imaginatorium (talk) 19:36, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

I do not feel that we should eliminate it altogether. The "Korean" role in the Jomon-Yayoi transition in Japan is dealt with extensively in the peer reviewed essay entitled "Korean Contributions to Agriculture, Technology, and State Formation in Japan". Farris' book mentions the immigration of ancient Korean peninsular peoples in the chapter entitled "Ancient Japan's Korean Connection". Satoru Nakazono described the Jomon-Yayoi transition as a period "characterized by the systematic introduction of Korean peninsula culture". It was more Mumun culture than Chinese culture that was being transferred to Japan. Considering all the scholars emphasizing the role of Korea, I do not feel we should delete it. Do you think that maybe the section can instead be rephrased for neutrality? Is there some other way we can include the opinions of these scholars, like Nakazono and Farris, while maintaining neutrality?TH1980 (talk) 21:13, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Just as Yayoi pottery is found in Korea, in some sites abundantly. All of these evaluations for the prehistoric period depend on how you read or conjecture the flow and refluxes of populations (of varied kinds) from the peninsula into Kyushu, and back, for there was undoubtedly reverse migration which brought back to peninsular Korea what had been developed in Japan (Mumun pottery neck burnishing etc). That large nos. of peninsular people moved to the Japanese archipelago, developed a culture there, and retained links with peninsula tribes is obvious. But if, as the Chinese and Japanese annals assert, Wa held significant parts of the peninsula for long periods, the reverse flow indicated by pottery renders this one-way model jejunely simplistic.Nishidani (talk) 19:57, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Are you possibly suggesting that we add in the theory that Japan ruled southern Korea for a time as "Mimana Nihonfu"? I was not sure if it was within the scope of the article, so I have not mentioned it yet. However, it is mentioned in Rhee et al. (though they personally disagree with it).TH1980 (talk) 21:13, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

No, I'm not suggesting that. That is a theory, not an established fact. My point throughout is that for the early period there are no 'Koreans' as there are no 'Japanese' since we are dealing with diverse ethnic groups defined geographically, not nationally. People of Baekje descent lines in Japan would have differed from those of Silla, or Koguryo descent, and each immigrant group would have had different influences on Yamato policy, regarding the geopolitical developments in the peninsular. Baekje was an important source for Japanese Buddhism because Baekje strove to adopt many Chinese institutions to cultivate the patronage and military-diplomatic power of the Chinese empire against Silla and Koguryo, for example. So, case by case, you aren't talking about 'Korean' influence, since Korea (like Japan) was a congeries of power centres of varying ethnic units.

The article would have been impeccably neutral, subject to no litigation, and written much more cooperatively had it been entitled: Cultural flows between the Korean peninsular and the Japanese Archepelago.

The third point is that the lead correctly states:'Korean influence on Japanese culture refers to the impact of continental Asian influences transmitted through or originating in the Korean Peninsula on Japanese institutions, culture, language and society. ' Concretely this means, for editors, that the article needs considerable expansion on the Chinese and Indian impacts. Let me illustrate, Fennollosa's outworn opinion on the Tamamushi shrine's statuary is highlighted, merely because in 1912 he used the word 'Corean'. The modern scholarship is far more complex, since much of that has Sui Dynasty characteristics. The only reason this indifferent opinion is retained is because it says 'Corean'. Like much of the superficial stuff here, it's barrel-scraping to get the nationalistic reading over, a 'nationalistic' slant that is completely ill-focused, because we are dealing, for the most part with a general East Asian system of cultural and technological flows that are not ethnic or national.Nishidani (talk) 10:29, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

This article does not neglect influence that ultimately came from China and India through Korea. There is an entire section on Buddhism, and the article clearly says, "many of the ideas and technologies which filtered into Japan from Korea were originally Chinese". The book by Beatrix von Ragué (who is not nationalist) emphasized the Korean influence on Tamamushi Shrine, but I will add a sentence on the Chinese influence on Tamamushi Shrine later. What concerns me about the rest of what you are saying is the element of original research. Most of the sources just call it "Korean influence", and they all refer only to Korean influence on Japan, not vice-versa. I do not understand why we should adopt a title at variance with the scholarship. For instance, I know that you have read William Wayne Farris' book, which you must know is not nationalist at all, but the relevant chapter in his book is titled "Ancient Japan's Korean Connection". Can you name any article or book chapter named something like, "The Ancient Japanese Archipelago's Mutual Cultural Flows with the Korean Peninsula"? But alright, what about the title of "Cultural flows from the Korean peninsula to the Japanese Archipelago". This title uses some usual terms like "Japanese Archipelago" when all the sources just call it "Japan", but this title at least reflects the scope of the article and the scholarship, which concerns Korean transfers to Japan. What do you think?TH1980 (talk) 15:05, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

What you call 'original research' means knowledge of the subject matter, as opposed to googling tidbits à la 'Korea'+influence'+'Japan'.Nishidani (talk) 15:26, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

I just checked Beatrix von Ragué. Nowhere in the German original, somewhat dated (1967), does she aappear to write anything to justify what is written here, namely 'is decorated with a uniquely Korean inlay composed of the wings of tamamushi beetles.[71]. See Beatrix von Ragué, Geschichte der japanischen Lackkunst, Walter de Gruyter, 1967 pp.3,5. You'd better cite the whole passage you have in the English version given in the bibliography.Nishidani (talk) 17:38, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I will provide a direct quote in the article. Von Rague says that, "the technique of tamamushi inlay is evidently native to Korea."TH1980 (talk) 20:24, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

So you see my problem with this editing. Through the talk pages I have noted this several times. Had I, for one, not checked the German original, the prior travesty of paraphrase would have been taken on trust you've adjusted, but you should never have tried to misrepresent it in the first place. This has happened all too often to make me feel comfortable with the formatting that doesn't allow all editors to click on each ref note and immediately have the source page on which it was based visible for verification (I did this for an FA article once).Nishidani (talk) 20:45, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Here is the whole discussion in her original text:

Bei der Entstehung der buddhistischen Kunst und Kultur Japans waren zunächst Koreaner und Chinesen als Vermittler und Lehrer tätig, die ältesten Werke hochentwickelter Lackkunst in Japan sind sicherlich von ihnen oder unter ihrem unmittelbaren Einfluß geschaffen worden.

Das früheste erhaltene Beispiel ist der berühmte Tamamushi-Schrein im Hōryū-ji, wohl um die Mitte des 7. Jahrhunderts entstanden. . .So schön und wichtig dieser Schrein auch ist, so wenig kann man ihn jedoch als typisch japanisch bezeichnen, ja nicht einmal mit Sicherheit als japanische Arbeit überhaupt. Der Stil der figürlichen Malerei und der Landschaftsformen erinnert an chinesische Bilder der Ost-Wei- und Nord-Ch’i-Zeit (534-550 bzw.550.577), und noch enger sind die Beziehungen zu Korea. Dort sind bei Ausgrabungen zahlreiche mit Tamamushi-Flügeln unterlegte Metallarbeiten gefunden worden, vor allem in dem sogenannten Goldkronengrab in Kyônju (Südost-Koreas), das aus den 5.-6 Jahrhundert stammt. …Auch in Gräben des koreanischen Kokuryō-Reiches (37 v.Chr.-668 n.Chr.) sind Metall-Zierbeschläge mit dieser Verwendung von Tamamushi-Flügeln gefunden worden, es handelt sich also bei Tamamushi-Einlagen offensichtlich um eine in Korea beheimatete Technik. In Japan gibt es außer dem Tamamushi-Schrein kein weiteres Beispeil dieser Dekorationsweise. Einige dekoirative Elemente innerhalb der Malerei des Schreins weisen ebenfalls nach Korea.

Nun bedeuten all diese Hinweise auf Korea nicht, daß der Tamamushi-Schrein in Korea entstanden sein müßte – sein Material, Hinoki-Holz, spricht sogar für Japan. Aber die Beziehungen zwischen beiden Ländern waren damals eng. . Wahrscheinlich ist es richtig, den Tamamushi-Schrein in den Stralungsbereich koreanischer Kunst in Japan zu rücken, sei es, daß er von Koreanern selbst dort hergesellt wurde, sei es, daß Japaner ihn in Anlehnung an koreanische Arbeiten schufen. Er ist das älteste Werk wirklicher Lackkunst, das in Japan erhalten und vermutlich auch dort entstanden ist.pp.3,5

So, even the compromise edit you make drops all of the carefully nuanced extended argument von Ragué makes, and therefore is inadequate. This is not a good sign, so you'd better write out the whole passage in the English version, which I don't have, and let other editors examine it and make the edit. Nishidani (talk) 20:53, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

One thing I can add to this is that I have an article from the Asahi Shimbun, quoting a number of leading scholars, which points out that very little has ever been written concerning cultural transfers from Japan to Korea in ancient and medieval times. However, the Asahi article does state that there are three examples of reverse flow: ceremonial bronze objects, keyhole shaped burial mounds, and, during the Tokugawa period, some forms of pottery. This is the only source I know of, outside of twentieth century events, specifically on Japanese cultural transfers to Korea, and it could only find three things. Whatever title we choose, it should not be bidirectional, because right now scholars have simply not written enough to make that subject possible. My compromise proposal is Korean peninsular influence on Japan.CurtisNaito (talk) 15:47, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

CurtisNaito, you should add that source into the article whenever you have time in order to provide balance. Nishidani, since there were at least three ways in which Japanese culture came to Korea in this period, I've changed my mind and decided that I could support the title of "Cultural flows between the Korean peninsular and the Japanese Archepelago" in order to end the title controversy for good. But first, Nishidani, what do you think about the titles "Korean peninsular influence on Japan" or "Cultural flows from the Korean peninsula to the Japanese Archipelago"? Is "Cultural flows between the Korean peninsular and the Japanese Archepelago" the only title that you will accept, or do you think one of these two proposals might also work as alternatives?TH1980 (talk) 20:20, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

I could provisionally accept those modifications to my proposal. It all depends on the way other parties who have worked this page consider our reflections. The only reason I formulated my version is that, though peninsular flows were mainly one way, it seems quite clear from the use of the Baekje annals, and the frontier role of the Gaya confederacy, that the clans and tribes that ended up going east, retained ties with their peninsular families (the norm in history), and that there was some form of consistent international to-and-froing involved for a few centuries. I have always been a strong proponent of the key role these peninsular elements had in the formation of the early Japanese state. It's not a difficult position. It is obvious. I start getting my hackles up whenever this is reformulated nationalistically (everything came from Korea, etc.) Take the tamamushi inlay - you have that earlier in Korea, but the motif of lacquered insect inlay goes way back, centuries, to China). Nishidani (talk) 20:30, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Article moved.

Well, unless you want to name the article Korean influence (based on Chinese culture) on Japanese culture. It seems the best choice. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 10:56, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Following that move, I've realized that a lot of the article's wording will require changing to reflect the new title. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to leave that until tomorrow. Well...unless someone else wants to take on that little task. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 12:38, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

I think the scope of the article refers in particular to culture and technology going through Korea. I have mentioned an alternative suggestion above, so let's talk about that first, or else possibly open a formal move discussion.TH1980 (talk) 15:06, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Right now we are actively discussing three possible titles: "Korean peninsular influence on Japan", "Cultural flows between the Korean peninsular and the Japanese Archepelago", and "Cultural flows from the Korean peninsula to the Japanese Archipelago".TH1980 (talk) 20:21, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Why is it only focused on Korean influence, when a large amount of the Korean culture originated in China? Surely, focusing on the entire Asian mainland would make a much better article? (well, unless the desire is to have yet another POV filled article, made purely for the purpose of pushing a "Korea is awesome, Japan sucks" style article) Spacecowboy420 (talk) 06:04, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

The influence of the entire Asian mainland is a legitimate subject, but an article on Korean influence would eventually have to be spun off from it, because there's enough information on Korean influence alone to fill an entire article. If you check some of the main sources that are used in this Wikipedia article, they include some lengthy treatments of this subject. To give just two examples, the book by historian William Wayne Farris includes a chapter almost seventy pages long entitled "Ancient Japan's Korean Connection" dealing exclusively and in great detail with Korean influence on Japan, not Chinese or Indian. Similarly, the essay in Asian Perspectives, entitled "Korean Contributions to Agriculture, Technology, and State Formation in Japan", spends fifty pages explaining the unique contributions of Koreans to Japan. Both these sources note that the cultural influence of Korea on Japan in particular is now recognized as an important field of study. Another Wikipedia article could be created to deal with Korea, China, and India all in one, but there's definitely far more than enough scholarly material available to write an article like this one on Korean influence alone.

The problem is that some of the cited sources just call Koreans of the premodern period "Koreans" whereas other sources call them "Korean peninsular people". That's the reason why there is some controversy now over the title. As TH1980 mentions, three different users have proposed the following three alternative titles: Korean peninsular influence on Japan, Cultural flows between the Korean peninsula and the Japanese Archipelago, and Cultural flows from the Korean peninsula to the Japanese Archipelago. Do you like any of those? Some users seem willing to go with any of them, so we might be getting close to a consensus on one of them. I prefer Korean peninsular influence on Japan partly because it's the shortest.CurtisNaito (talk) 06:27, 6 July 2016 (UTC)