Korean protesters smash birds with hammers

ok, now that’s just pushing it too far.

A bit cliche, but…can’t we all just get along?

Asian countries should follow our example and try to get along with better. Only on the internet do Westerners act like that toward Japan.

Well, just wait until Greenpeace gets involved on this one. They may not like that Japan eats protected animals but at least it’s for food. What these Koreans did is just vulgar.

Education is the most important method to create beautiful future!
http://briandeutsch.blogspot.com/2008/06/those-who-cant-do-teach-those-who-cant.html#links

Heh, Korean military vets attacking _domestic birds_. Way to go, tough guys.

When you can’t actually stand up to the SDF, you make do with birds, I guess.

you know, the sad and at the same time somewhat funny thing is that those look like common pheasants rather than green pheasants which are Japan’s national bird. So, in other words, they killed the wrong type of birds. If you’re going to go to that level of extreme gestures, you should at least do them correctly.

Lets be careful not to stereotype all Koreans here. I hope, though I don’t know for sure, that these sort of ultranationalists are a very small minority of South Koreans. We should look at these acts as indicative of South Korean ultranationalists and not South Korea itself.

Wow.
Hats off to those who where brilliant enough to think of a way to make a lasting impression, make oneself look like douchebags in the public view and make oneself loathed by everyone, all in a single bold stroke!
And better yet, bonus points for symbolically shooting oneself in the foot by slaughtering the wrong kind of bird!
This whole incident is glowing with so much irony, I’d even dare call it genius.

It’s always the same thing.
Japan provokes, Korea reacts and than those “intelligent” foreign observers gives advises to korea.
People seems to forget that Korea would not react that way if Japan just stay quiet. Japan ultranationalists can’t accept the fact that their dream of “kingdom of 1000 years” failed and now they keep provoking Korea because that help them to digest better their defeat in WWII.
The atrocities of WWII commited by Japan is still fresh in the mind of Koreans, since the war was over just 60 years ago.

Dear Dr.Yu

You always stick to ‘” Japanese forget ,forget ,forget”.
Try to ask ordinal Japanese people “ Is a war good thing?” They will answer you “ No”.

After all, a war is atrocities. According to your insistence, it’s seems that there is a good and bad brutal act in the world.

You will be the busiest man in the world. Today you go to Spain to blame about the brutal action 400 years ago against the native in S America. Tomorrow you go to England to blame about the brutal invasion 200 years ago against the native American.

It’s all silly!!!

regards

Admittedly, this form of protest is grotesque, no matter how justified the claims are. Using innocent birds is wasteful (and just immoral, if you’re an environmentalist).

This form of protest doesn’t even offer logical arguments for why SK should have Liancourt (although some would say that public protests aren’t supposed to offer logical arguments). If their goal was to get attention, they certainly succeeded at that.

You’d think that since the Liancourt Rocks are closer to SK than to Japan, and they’re currently being occupied by Koreans, not Japanese, the Koreans wouldn’t feel the need to protest so much.

I’m in the US now and I also have several Korean friends too. Honestly, I was really confused when I realized this thing happened. Clearly, this act created the bad image of Korea unfortunately. No one ever feels good seeing this kind of thing. I remember one Korean local stateman came to Shimane Prefecture’s office and cut his finger off to protest against Japan’s claim over the island. Don’t Korean people know that people who cut the fingers in Japan are only Yakuzas, the Japanese mafia?

I also sometimes read the Korean newspapers such as Yonhap, but they never denounce these acts but to advocate it. They are more willing to criticize Japan usually. So I sometimes wonder if these acts are pretty common in Korea because no one ever criticizes themselves. The common phrases are “Japan provoked it” or “Japan is manipulating the history.” Basically, they tend to justify themselves trying to act as a victim. But if South Korea is trying to become the real developed country, criticizing others while not to review themselves must be abolished. Because even many Japan’s newspapers criticize some Japanse ultranationalists. Asahi is left-wing paper, so they of course claim it, but even Yomiuri, the biggest conservative newspaper in Japan criticizes such a nationalistic act.

I also had an experience that I was eating with several Korean friends, and one of my Korean friend who was the oldest, started to say “Japan does not teach the Nanjing Massacre” while
he’s never ever read Japan’s history texts. I think this is the common issue that many Korean people have never read Japanese literature or even met a real Japanese. Those people just heard from other people, who also heard from others.

So I wanna say one thing to Korean people.

Are Korean people always right about the history?

My Korean friend criticized Japan not to teach the Nanjing Massacre, but if you say so, I have to say one thing.
For instance, Korea sent about 500,000 soldiers to Vietnam. This was the second largest following after the US. Some soldiers of course committed the massacre and rape, and as the result, this created the Korean-Vietnamese infant issue. This issue is not so famous for several reasons. But the biggest reason is Vietnam never demands the “apology” from Korea as Korea always demands apology from Japan. Korea never teaches this kind of negative issue about their country.

I told my Korean friend about this, and I guess he basically realized his stupidness. I honestly want Korean people to calm down and be able to talk in a constructive way. If you claim the history about others without looking back yourselves, it’ll never end because you also did the same thing in the past. Not only Japan and Korea, but also every country on the earth committed several “mistakes” at least. We are all the “same” basically. I think that in the case of the war, no one can deny the possibility to become the criminal of raping and killing innocent civilians.

Many people tend to argue as if they assume themselves that they never commit such a terrible thing, but I think that’s totally wrong. When we talk about the history, we all must recognize that everyone might have committed such a thing. Everyone has the same possibility to commit such a thing.
Otherwise, it’ll be just the endless arguments and never be able to make a constructive discussion.

The historical issue will never be solved unless we recognize one common thing that there’re no such countries which always did the right thing and never committed bad things.

I remember I saw the US souldiers threw the puppy away at the cliff on YouTube. I also remember many violent netizens wrote tons of bad things about the US. I am not defending those soldiers, but what I wanna say is everyone can be that soldier who threw the puppy away and killed it. It’s not because that souldier was an American. Yes, Japanese did such a thing in the past, Germany did, China did, the US did, Australia did, Great Britain did, France did, and even Korean people proved themselves that they might commit such a thing by killing innocent 9 pheasants.

I think Korean people need to understand this. I’m not saying
they are bad. They just need to be calm down and look back themselves before criticizing others.

President Park Chung Hee used to say that “If this such a small island becomes the sting and disturbs the development of Korea-Japan relations, I want this island to be sunk under the sea.”
I really want this stupid island to be sunk under the sea seriously. This island is nothing but a stupid symbol of nationalism.

I know there’re so many problems, but I still like Korea since I love Korean food and there are nice people too. I guess the ultranationalists are common problem not only in Japan, but also in Korea. There are always some stupid people in every country.

But by killing 9 innocent pheasants, those ultranationalists disgraced the image of Korea anyway. Also, they killed the animals which are nothing but they were just the same kind of the national bird of Japan. I read the thread that some Korean say it was the result of the Japan’s provocation, so they are not bad; however, it is just criticizing others while you are ignoring your fault. By doing so, they also hurted the feelings of ordinary Japanese too. Some people seem to criticize Japan’s side, but these terrible acts cannot be justified.

If you compare Japanese demonstrations and Korean demonstrations, Korean one is much aggressive and violent.
I read someone said, Korean people is always burning Japanese flag, tearing and throwing the flag away, burning the pictures of both emperor and prime minister, but I’ve never seen Japanese do the same thing in the demonstration against Korea.

I really want Korean people to calm down and see what they are doing. Burning flag and killing a national bird of Japan means they are refusing everything. Killing national bird made me seriously angry because they are the symbol of Japan and the symbol of the peace. They killed those peace symbols without hesitating and even threw the dead bodies away into the Embassy of Japan in Korea. This is degrading the humanity and lives of animal, and even the challenge against whole human beings.

I don’t think those stupid killers are representing the Korean people, but what I wanna say to Korean people is by burning the flag and picture, they are basically refusing the Japanese culture, society, and even ordinary people.
I have to say these are really stupid. By doing so, they are creating the anti-Korean feeling among the Japanese too. The hatred creates more hatred. This’ll never end. What Korean people feel if Japanese start to do exact the same thing?

Many people said it’s all Japan’s fault about these historical issues, but it’s not at all. There’re so many dark facts like this including the political conflicts between each country.
As far as I see this situation, Korean nationalism is not the healthy nationalism. It’s getting aggressive each year and becoming anti-foreign especially toward Japan. Sicne they criticize Japan about the past, I’ll say that this situation of Korean nationalism looks pretty the same as Japan during 1930s.

I have to defend Japan for one point. Japan decided to add about Takeshima (Dokdo) in teacher’s manual. But the Japanese government does not add only Japan’s claim over the island, but also Korea’s claim. I have to say this is fair and internationally common thing when there is a territorial issue.
What about Korea’s textbook? They even don’t mention about this issue while Japan even explains about what Korean people are claiming. The Korean government and people are even denying the existence of the territorial issue. Japan has kept trying to resolve this issue through the diplomatic negotiation. Japan has been proposing to the Korean government each year to hand over this issue to the ICJ, International Court of Justice. But the one refusing is South Korea.

But what about Korean reaction this time? The Japanese government announced that “There are different positions each other; therefore, it is important to understand each other’s difference and make a constructive and peaceful resolution.”
I think Japan’s act is not so bad in a sence they decided to add Korean claim over the island on the manual too. I’ll say it’s not fair if the gov. decided to add only Japanese claim.

But the Korean government recalled the ambassador to Japan and that ambassador even said he does not want to go back to Japan.
What this ambassador said is really outrageous and rude in the diplomacy. The Korean government closed every meeting and conference with Japan, and even local communication gates were totally closed.

Korean people, don’t you think politics and communication exchanges are different? Why you have to close those communication lines too? The key to solve the issue is definitely the exchange of people and understanding each other.
But if they close the gate, there’ll be no hope.

I read some article in the US few days ago, and it was an English translated article from the Korean political magazine.
Actually, that Korean journal was published last year. It was reporting about the secret agreement, which was also concluded after the sign of Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea, about the island.

According to that, both decided not to create the diplomatic tensions between 2 countries because of this island. Basically tried to maintain the current situation. But one important clause was both countries will never settle the residents or police on the island. How can I say, both really agreed not to touch this island as much as possible and tried not to make a big issue.

But President Park was killed, and basically the Korean government broke this agreement if this is true. The Korean government placed the police and fishermen on the island to establish a fait accompli.

I’ll also say one more thing. It’s fine to do anti-Japanese movement, it’s fine to close the political gate and communication gate. But the one which loses money, resources,
and has the difficulty to manage the country in the future is not Japan. It’s rather Korea itself because they are throttling their own neck. If Korea wants to improve its position in the international society and not to be forgotten due to the rise of China, the only way and the best way is to have a close relations with Japan in the 21st century. If Korean people realize this, South Korea can maximize their influence and national strength. It’s also good for Japan.

But I guess it is still too far. Japan does not have a problem without Korea, but Korea will have a problem without Japan in the future. If they lose Japan, Korea will be back to the situation when they were under the Chinese influence as a tributary state. I think Korea will have more freedom and choices if they strengthen the relations with Japan.

That’s also why I want this stupid island to be sunk under the sea.