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Imperial Japan Used Feng Shui Against Korea?

I recall hearing several years ago about how the Japanese placed stakes and rods into the soil of Korea to manipulate mystical energy and suppress Korean power during the colonial period. Here’s a subtitled South Korea news report about some folks who spend their time removing the “curse” of these rods:

Did the Japanese colonial authorities really undertake a costly project that involved putting stakes in the ground throughout the Korean peninsula as a Feng Shui attack on the Koreans? One Japanese blogger has pointed out a flaw in this theory:

First of all, those stakes are for the surveying land. Those stakes are all over Japan as well. There is one on top of Mt. Fuji. And they claim those stakes are something to do with Feng shui, but the fact is Feng shui has never ever been popular in Japan at all. Why the hell Japan had to spend all that effort and money to set up those stakes when no one believes it? Besides, if you know Feng shui, stakes do nothing. Period.

Dude, any sane mind could guess those stakes are for the surveying land. But they are damn serious…

Personally, I find the idea of the Japanese undertaking a gigantic Feng Shui curse program to be a bit tinfoil hat-ish. But hey, if you want to believe the Japanese used Feng Shui auras/ mind aggression to suppress Korea, you’re entitled to such a belief.

(The subtitles in the video state that “the armed forces of that time did not have technology to drive a tree precisely in this way.” Is that a translation error? It looked like the stakes were put into place with some pretty basic construction techniques…]

38 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - June 7, 2007 at 2:47 pm

Categories: Anti-Japan Tags:

http://higashiajia.wordpress.com Peter Pan

The hardest part about living away from home is not having access to Comedy Central.

I was in need of a good laugh, thanks!

Someone needs to start a new comedy network, ‘Corea Central’ and just broadcast subtitled ‘news’ from Korea.
ponta

I don’t think anybody take this theory , or comedy or whatever seriously but should someone be interested in it, here is a good link to study it.

http://groups.msn.com/KoreanMediaWatch/antijapanese.msnw?action=get_message&mview=0&ID_Message=2631&LastModified=4675464611874536795
Evan

I have heard of medieval japanese military driving swords or stakes or something into burial mounds of deceased kings when they raided the east coast of korea (kyongju) back in the day. dont know if that was credible either, but it could go someway towards explaining the ludicrous beliefs shown in that news expose. almost on par with fan death.
http://www.fandeath.net/
Nick

Poster: “Personally, I find the idea of the Japanese undertaking a gigantic Feng Shui curse program to be a bit tinfoil hat-ish. But hey, if you want to believe the Japanese used Feng Shui auras/ mind aggression to suppress Korea, you’re entitled to such a belief.”

What logic was that? So I guess the North Koreans are entitled to believe America is the source of all their problems.

http://www.japanprobe.com James

I believe in that every person is entitled to freely believe what they want, regardless of its stupidity. That doesn’t mean I am entitled not to present them with information that counters their belief, though.

Nick

Got ya, so other people being stupid does not bother you.
If you present information to counter their belief you are basically saying they are wrong and they shouldn’t believe in such thing.

You are contradicting yourself here.

Zaciroth

Sounds like korea is just finding more things to complain about.
http://sleepytako.blogspot.com David

I have to say that if these were surveying land those wooden poles were a little huge and aren’t sunk that low into the ground. In a survey you have to put many markers all across the area to be surveyed and those seemed to be centered on one hill. I wish they showed a map of their locations. If it was for a survey I would guess it would be a marker to measure the hight of the hill from a distance.

Given the time and effort it would have taken to sink that one big wooden pole it must have been for a different use. Military training seems a bit more realistic.
Steve

Korea has it’s share of ultra-nationalists as do Japan. If they both got rid of them, I’d imagine we’d see a much closer relationship then the political nationalist parties bumping heads… But then again, I’d be labeled a communist in both countries if I said that.
the overthinker

I didn’t watch the whole thing (I find Korean a particularly unpleasant language to listen to, much like German and Cantonese) but the attitude of the presenters at the beginning was instructive – very VERY anti-Japanese stance very clearly on display.
Ben

That Fengshui story is actually true, not many of you will believe this but Japan did actually comission this stupid idea.

Chinese did the same thing to Korean in the past, most ppl don’t know this Coz, it’s rarely reported.

It’s documented by japanese imperior command center in Korea and that’s how Korean find out. Japanese Govt again denying this, it’s time to Japanese govt to tell truth of their dark past.

Also check story about Japanese special Unit 731 did during WWI/II. Then you will how Japan was systematically destroying Korea.

During occupation, Japan took alot of Gold and Korean dynasty’s historical records, many historical documents are now hands of Japanese Govt archives, which Jap an never returned to Korean. This is how Japan was during WWII. Shame on you ppl, get true information not lies.

the overthinker

“That Fengshui story is actually true, not many of you will believe this but Japan did actually comission this stupid idea.”

Then please provide quotes from historical records to back this assertion up.
And Unit 731 was in Manchuria, nor Korea.
http://www.japanprobe.com James

Could you give us a link to some information on this documented proof?

Steve

I’d really be interested in this information as well. So please provide any informative link or references, Ben!

BTW, Wasn’t there a previous post of mini-torii gates to prevent people from illegally dumping garbage? Maybe back then, the imperial army used superstition as well… But all in all, who really knows?

the overthinker

The thing about this is that it’s not a priori IMPOSSIBLE – while Feng Shui (Chinese for Horse Dung) never thankfully gained the following it did in the mainland, it wasn’t totally ignored. Kyoto and Nara are the obvious examples, but Edo too was laid out in some respects to comply with FS directives. However this involved hills and streams, not wooden stakes pounded into the ground. Never heard of that before. If someone told me that building the occupation HQ slap-bang in the forecourt of the old Royal Palace was intended to have a (partial) FS effect, I could swallow that a bit more easily, I guess.

I’m Japanese and I use Janglish,sorry.

Those stakes are just another survey stakes from every standpoint .
Thanks for laugh Korean.
Korean is just laboring under the illusion that Japanese was putting cursed stakes in the ground throughout the Korean peninsula .HAHAHA.
Korean is thinking that those stakes are cursed with bad feng shui because of Imperial Japan’s curse.
Korean always refuse to hear that Feng Shui is not Japanese traditional culture at all.Feng Shui is quite unique to China and Korea.Not Japan.
Hahaha,Korean is paranoid .
toru

Ben,

You need to provide us at least some information on the 2 following things.

>It’s documented by japanese imperior command center in Korea

What document? Written by who? When?

>Japanese Govt again denying this

Japanese Govt officially denied? Who did? When? I seriously doubt Japanese Government take this seriously.

I think you are lying.

Sonagi

This wooden pole is just one among many examples of beliefs that the Japanese tried to disrupt feng shui on the Korean peninsula. If you are ever in Seoul, take a tour of Kyongbokkung, an old palace located at the end of Sejong St. in downtown Seoul. The Japanese colonial administration building, shaped like the sun character used to be located behind the main gate. Post-war, t served as Korea’s national museum until it was torn down several years ago. It was widely believed that the Japanese built the palace between the main gate and the main hall of the palace to disrupt the feng shui. Within the palace are minor examples of bridges and streams moved or destroyed to damage feng shui. I also recall reading about Japanese feng shui discoveries in the area of the Suwon Hwasung fortress. Reports like the wooden pole segment appear periodically in the news. This “Japan tried to disrupt our feng shui” nonsense is widely believed by Koreans and trying to dissuade them is fruitless.

the overthinker

Don’t know about the FS, but building the Japanese admin building slap bang in the old palace court certainly was a very clear message about Who Rules. Could they have made it more obvious?

Sonagi

Indeed, the location of the administrative building was carefully chosen to send that very message, but Koreans take it a step further and believe the building was designed to cut off the flow of qi between the king and the people.

the overthinker

It’s interesting to speculate the extent to which the Japanese were aware of this idea, and while not perhaps believing it themselves, knew that the Koreans would.

Sonagi

I lived in Korea many years and knew very little about Korean feng shui. My feeling after watching and reading news items like this was that Koreans were imagining. Fake qi disruption works only if people know. The huge administration building was impossible to miss, but other minor examples weren’t discovered until years after the occupation ended.

Wahoo

I am a little getting tired of hearing where the proof is?
We all know lots of documents have been destroyed.
And I know someone will say where is the proof for that as well.
Usually criminal’s mentality is the same isn’t it?

Also Survey theory is real joke. Nobody put a stake permanently for Surevy.
It would take a 100 years to do that.

Come up with smething a little better

http://www.japanprobe.com James

The absence of evidence is not evidence. If one were to use the “Japan burned all its documents” argument, one could claim the Japanese did just about anything. Asking for proof isn’t a sign of a criminal’s mentality, it’s the sign of thinking rationally.

Wahoo

OK

Where is the proof that Japanese didn’t put the stick for the purpose of Feng Shui?

http://www.japanprobe.com James

Reasons why the Feng Shui stick claim are questionable:
-Feng Shui was pretty much dead in Japan at the turn of the 20th century.
-Similar small sticks exist throughout Japan, the result of surveying.
-Those making the claim that these sticks were a Japanese Feng Shui conspiracy against Korea never produced any credible evidence to back up their claims.

Wahoo

The stick on video is not small stick but a big pole that needed a group of people to be put on. It is impratical for Land survey

Ken

Most of Japanese are not believing such a ocultism unlike Korea.
Korea has been looking for and removing the stakes for 13 years.
It started from a comic strip and cost around tens of $M already.
The number reported is 2,400, which almost matches 3,600, the number of lost water level mark.
Due to it, a Korean city was computed at Meditaranean sea and another at equator.
http://japan.donga.com/srv/k2srv.php3?biid=2006042103768

Wahoo

No matter what, it is something Japanese did it during its occupation. Japanese Gov should be responsible for removing them.
Who knows, one day K Gov send a bill of $3600M to J Gov.

How 2400 almost matches 3600?
I think you may not be a Japanses because I don’t remember any Japanese not good at math

Ken

-comment deleted by admin: off-topic crap about koreans eating dog-

Ken

James,
Please delete all my posts and I will not bother you any more.

Aki

I heard that there are stakes at the corners of the residence of the South Korean head of state. Roh Moo-hyun would be being controlled by those curse stakes.
Ken

To James (Admin.),
Please deleat all my comments from the very 1st one.

http://www.japanprobe.com James

I only delete comments that violate the comments policy:
http://www.japanprobe.com/?page_id=1242
As long as you stick to the basic rules I’ve set for this site, I won’t have to delete any of your comments.

In the case of the comment I deleted, it was a totally off-topic swipe at Koreans because of a case in LA where Koreans made dog meat soup. If you want to argue about eating dog meat, you can do that in one of the several dog meat posts I’ve made. Posting about it here would only lead the discussion way off the topic. The topic for this post is: Feng Shui stakes/rods in Korea. I think that Wahoo’s arguments are weak enough that you can go after them without mentioning Koreans eating dog meat.

Ken

James,
Isn’t it off-topic “one day K Gov send a bill of $3600M to J Gov.”?
I will not post such a unjust blog where the administrator dicide on his preference.
I do not like my comments which judged preferable for you only were taken advantage of nor my comments are left critisized.
I cannot take responsiblity after I left this blog, neither.
Therefore, please delete all my comments, please.

http://www.japanprobe.com James

He was talking about billing the Japanese government for placing the stakes/rods into the ground. It’s stupid, but its not off-topic. It’s about the topic of stakes/rods in the ground in Korea.

I’ve deleted dozens of comments by Koreans who have posted similar off-topic anti-Japanese comments, so it’s only fair that I delete your off-topic comments about Korea. Feel free to defend your comments by actually staying on topic.

I won’t be deleting your old comments because it would be too time consuming and would leave huge gaps in previous discussion threads. If you wish to quit commenting on this “unjust” blog, you’ll have to deal with the fact that your old comments will remain here. Sorry.

Either comment by the rules of this site or don’t comment at all.

Ken

Tell me how to delete all my comments as far as you are not kind enough to delete them.

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Imperial Japan Used Feng Shui Against Korea?

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