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Opinion

Columnists

Thu, February 20, 2020 | 07:56

Korea's peaceful history

In my first articles for The Korea Times, over a year ago, I wrote about how my own views of Korean history are different from the orthodox history taught in Korea - I described myself as a frog outside the well.

2020-02-14 17:29

Robert Jermain Thomas

Last week, inspired by the paper presented by my colleague Prof. Kirk Larsen, I wrote about the ill-fated 1866 General Sherman incident, the ship that was attacked and burned to the water line on the outskirts of Pyongyang. Prof. Larsen mentioned a missionary onboard who died with the rest of the crew. I have been curious about him and decided to look up his story and write about it today.

2020-01-31 17:26

Not USS General Sherman

My colleague at BYU, Kirk Larsen, recently made a presentation on the destruction of the ship, the General Sherman, delivered at a conference co-sponsored by the University of Utah and Seoul National University. I've been claiming that some of my views are like that of the frog that is outside the well. Prof. Larsen's presentation was exactly that - a new look at the sinking of the General Sherman that tells us we have been getting it wrong in several ways.

2020-01-19 16:32

Pre-modern Korean democracy

Last week I wrote about a specific document I would like to tell you more about. It is a petition and shows a degree of demo-cratic action in that it was signed by numerous people of the county involved in the action. Last time I wrote about the uniqueness of the signatures, and the fact that Koreans only used the dojang (stamp or seal) after the Japanese period, but in the Joseon Kingdom, they would sign documents.

2020-01-12 17:06

Petitions and signatures

We used to joke, when I was a student in Korea in the 1970s, that the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom was more democratic than the Park Chung-hee era in then contemporary Korea. The joke had some truth to it. Both at the level of criticism of the Park administration for its lack of democracy on the one hand, and the amount of democracy we find in Joseon.

2020-01-05 16:58

Gems from Sillok

In continuing the theme I wrote on last week, that of unusual incidents recorded in the Sillok, the official history of the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom, today I want to write about an unusual episode discovered in the Sillok by my colleague, Milan Hejtmanek, who recently retired from Seoul National University.

2019-12-29 17:47

Treasures from Sillok

The Sillok was the official history of the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom. It was an abridgement of the discussions at court where the Royal Secretariat keep record of all the discourse between the king and his subjects. Topics covered everything from major policy decisions, minor decisions, reports from the countryside and even astronomical phenomenon.

2019-12-15 18:12

More on Chinese education

After writing last week about my Chinese tutor, Na Kap-ju, and the study of the Chinese classics in Korea, it occurred to me that there is much more I would like to say. When I was first in Korea the signboards on virtually all businesses were in Chinese. There were some signs in Hangeul. I remember thinking “Why do so many signs have 'CH' in English on them?” That was the word “대,” meaning great or big. So, I do remember some signs in Hangeul, but there were so many signs in Chinese. From time to time I see photographs of Korea in the 50s and 60s and am reminded of how much Chinese was used.

2019-12-01 19:05

Chinese scholarship in Korea

This article is in the series of “tribute” articles I've written lately. This time the person I want to honor is Na Gap-ju, my classic Chinese tutor who taught me Chinese for about five years when I was living, studying, and working in Korea.

2019-11-22 17:32

Korean Studies pioneer

In recent issues here, I have paid tribute to some of the founders of Korean Studies in America. Today I want to recall the contributions to Korean Studies of Spencer Palmer.

2019-11-10 17:02

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