Japan and Korea by Masako HARA |
What do you have in your mind about Korea ?
Do you have positive impressions or negative ones ?
I myself used not to be caught up in Korean culture and the language itself nor to take a big fancy to Korea.
As soon as I knew about Koreana last November, I've focused my attention on Japanese history.
According to Professor Tatehiko Hayasi at Tokai University, the reason why we've looked down on Koreans has its deep root from ancient time.
There was a battle between the Allied forces of Shiragi and Kudara. Kudara was supported by Japanese in Korea but Kudara was lost in battle at Hakusukinoue in 663.
Then a lot of people in Kudara emigrated to Japan.
Nearly all of them were well-educated and cultured, so some of them worked as members of Imperial Court.
In 682, Emperor Temmu ordered his men to write a book on Japanese history which is later called NIHON SHOKI.
It took around 40 years for them to finish their work in720. During that time many people from Kudara and theirdecendants participated in editing and in writing the book.
There they put feeling of retaliation on Shiragi.
Many pieces of evidence tells us clearly that "NIHON SHOKI"
was written by Kudara people in Japan.
First thing is that they used Kanji which have many strokes in Chinese characters.
Secondly, the sentences were highly stylized by their way compared with another official histry book "KOJIKI" completed in 712.
The hatred of Kudara people was concentrated only towardShiragi in the beginning, but later when Japanese read NIHON SHOKI, they felt animosity toward the whole Korean people.
Kudara people really paid off their old deep-seated grudge in NIHON SHOKI.
In the Edo period the infiltration of dispising Korea reached common people's level through scholars of ancient Japanese thought and culture and of Shinto which is Japanese original religion.
In Meiji period, Japanese had inferiority complex about Western countries and its cultures.
It was so natural for Japanese (Asians) to ignore the nationalism of Korea and mistreated Korean people so that Japanese feel much more secure and greater.
I've told you some reasons why our sad history started.
Last but no the least, the most important thing is that it hasn't ended yet.
Thank you for listening to my speech.
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The part those people were involved in "Nihon Shoki" publishing was a new realization to me. Interesting!