http://english.dokdohistory.com/dokdo-history/dokdo-korean-territory.asp

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~korean/SpecialAnnouncement/DokdoIsland.pdf

Jason, yeah, most likely they don’t know. “Hot Ass” shirts on kids aren’t the signs of parents in the know.

Simon, there is actually a large sized Chinese Pinoy population. In fact many Tagalog kinship words, such as “Ate” (older sister), “Apo” (grandpa), “Impo” (grandma) are loan words from Hokkien dialect.

These are not easy words to be replaced by loan words. As close as Korean and Japanese were to Chinese, they didn’t loand kinship words from Chinese (except hyeong for male to address slightly older male). The fact these kinship loan words exists shows an intimate influence of Chinese culture to Tagalog.

Chinese merchants from Hokkien have immigrated to the Philippines since the Spanish period. Population in the Chinese quarters in Manila, Parian, at several times out numbered other populations, resulting in several massacres.

In the 1603 Chinese massacre, 20,000 Chinese in Manila refusing to convert to Hispanic names were killed. Leaving still large numbers of Chinese who did convert.

In fact, José Rizal, the national hero and martyr of the Philippine Revolution, is of Chinese decent, so is the first Filipino Saint, St. Lorenzo Ruiz.

There are a lot of Chinese decent in the Philippines, and due to forced conversion to Hispanic last names, it isn’t easy to tell.

http://briandeutsch.blogspot.com/2008/09/thats-true-confederate-flag-is-pretty.html

On the other hand, English speaking countries are equally fascinated with Asian cultures. Hence the Kanji and Hangul tattoos worn by people who didn’t really know what they mean. Even Prince Fielder got ?? (prince) tattooed on his neck over this winter.

I think it’s a good thing that people are interested in other cultures.

As a native San Diegan, should I be up in arms that the Korean national baseball team has staked a claim to my ancestral land? Those assholes!

Flag planting is generally associated with claiming that land tho. Iwojima and the moon for America and the sub-Arctic for Russia come to mind, not that they ended up holding any legal rights.

One thing I like about Chef’s comments, however, are the nuance and subtlety with which he conveys his ideas.

Should I force Japanese team to stop calling themselves Samurai Japan, because I find it a distasteful form of expression since it brings back the idea of feudalism and revisionism of hierarchical structure that Meiji Revolution deconstructed?

All I know is that Ogasawara when shaved looks like Lou Diamond Phillips, and while he’s got facial hair, my mom says he looks like the kind of Japanese that rapes women and kills babies!

In terms of purely personal opinion, I do find this whole idea of baseball teams representing each country to be rather absurd and funny, including the flag-planting incident that Korean team engaged upon. But, I do find the distinction between flag waving, flag painting, and flag planting to be more absurd. Flag waving and painting, while planting it over steps the boundaries of decency in sportsmanship? Is there a certain standardized test for this? Should I force Japanese team to stop calling themselves Samurai Japan, because I find it a distasteful form of expression since it brings back the idea of feudalism and revisionism of hierarchical structure that Meiji Revolution deconstructed? Also, I’m not sure what an individual or a group chooses to do can account for a nation as a whole?

Just wanted to remind everyone that this is baseball game after all, and politicizing the nature of game through how one country is too nationalistic and what not per se is also politicizing the game as well. Just let them be, and enjoy the show.

Steven Phillips on ESPN2’s coverage predicted that Korea will win it all. Which, no doubt, means they won’t. But he and Orel Hershiser were creaming on and on about how far Korea’s come, how they combine the best of Asian and American baseball, and how they’re a more complete and hungrier team than Team Japan. That last point sounds right to me.

Tomorrow will be the pointless seeding game. The winner of that squares off against the new-look Team USA on Sunday. I’ll be there!