by | 20 April 2007 · 8:51 pm

How Korea Became Illegal in 1907

In the summer of 1907, the world declared Korea illegal. The previous autumn, Emperor Kojong of Korea sent three representatives on his behalf to the Second International Conference on Peace at The Hague. Their mission was to register the emperor’s protest against Japan’s 1905 protectorate agreement over Korea. According to the well-known account of their travels overland to Europe, Yi Sangsol, Yi Jun, and Yi Uijong reached the Netherlands in late June 1907, during the second week of the conference. They carried a letter from their emperor detailing the invalidity of the protectorate and demanding international condemnation of Japan. Although the three young men appealed to diplomats from countries that had long-standing relations with Korea, none except the Russian envoy gave them more than a passing notice. Not coincidentally, of course, Japan’s shocking military victory against Russia two years earlier made St. Petersburg eager to support any protest of Japan.

On arriving at The Hague, the Korean emissaries confronted a belief system to which even the Russians had acquiesced. According to the terms of international law—the same ones used to script the conference at The Hague and legitimate the participant states—the Koreans could not legally attend the forum. The Portsmouth Treaty of 1905 secured peace between Japan and Russia, granted Japan the privilege to “protect its interests in Korea,” and garnered a Nobel Peace Prize for President Theodore Roosevelt, who orchestrated the negotiations. Shortly thereafter, the Second Japan–Korea Agreement named Korea a Japanese protectorate and gave international legal precedent to Japan’s control over Korea’s foreign affairs. As a result, the Koreans could not conduct their own foreign relations. Instead, all of Korea’s foreign affairs would be conducted by Tokyo. According to international law, without Japan, Korea no longer existed in relation to the rest of the world.

At The Hague, the Koreans’ appeal was collectively shunned by the delegates sent from the forty-three countries discussing world peace. The Koreans’ attempt to protest—to tell their story—interfered with the world order that the delegates sought to legitimate. According to anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot, some historical moments run so deeply against prevailing ideologies that they are “unthinkable.” In these situations, Trouillot notes, “worldview wins over the facts.”

Because the Korean envoys demanded rectification in the very terms that oppressed them, they were unable to bring the international community to recognize Korea as an independent country. As a result, their story was “unthinkable” to the organizers of the conference. Conversely, recognition of the Koreans’ claims to independence would have dismantled the worldview that not only determined Korea’s dependence on Japan but also legitimated the conference’s claim to define the meaning of international peace. In practice, of course, this definition of peace meant that certain countries legally controlled and colonized others.

SOURCE: Japan’s Colonization of Korea: Discourse and Power, by Alexis Dudden (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2005), pp. 7-8

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by | 19 April 2007 · 9:22 pm

Foreigners Purifying Islam in Indonesia

On Tuesday, Bret Stephens had another column in Opinion Journal on Islam in Indonesia, this time highlighting Arab influences.

JAKARTA, Indonesia–The headquarters of the Front for the Defense of Islam is reached by a narrow alley just off a one-lane street in a residential neighborhood near downtown Jakarta. But step inside the carpeted reception area, decorated by a mural of a desert mosque and partially open to the sky, and it’s as if you’ve arrived in a bedouin kingdom.Your host is Habib Mohammad Rizieq Shihab, 41. He is dressed entirely in white, a religious conceit far from typical of most Indonesian ulama, or experts in Islamic theology. To the question, “Where are you from?” Mr. Rizieq is quick to explain that he is descended from the Quraishi tribe, from what is now Yemen. Just how he knows this isn’t clear, but it’s the symbolism that counts: The Prophet Mohammad was a Quraishi, and the tribe is entrusted with the responsibility for protecting God’s House, the Qe’eba, in Mecca. Mr. Rizieq, in fact, is a native of Jakarta.

For the better part of the past decade, Mr. Rizieq and his Front–known by its Indonesian initials FPI–have played a prominent role in Indonesian political life, although the FPI is not a political party. It is an Islamist vigilante group, with the self-appointed mission of policing and, if necessary, violently suppressing “un-Islamic” behavior. Squads of FPI militants have forcibly shut down hundreds of brothels, small-time gambling operations, discos, nightclubs and bars serving alcoholic beverages. They have also stormed “unauthorized” Christian houses of worship, attacked peaceful demonstrators from Indonesia’s renascent Communist party, trashed the office of the National Commission on Human Rights and rampaged through airports looking for Israelis to kill.

“Non-Muslims from Dar el-Harb [countries at war with Muslims], if they are in Indonesia, then it is the duty of Muslims to oppose them to the last drop of blood,” he says. “George Bush can be killed, too.” As for the legitimacy of attacks on American diplomats and civilians, “this is a dilemma,” though after a moment’s reflection he concludes that they “cannot be disturbed” since they are here with the consent of a Muslim government….

Then there is the Institute for Islamic and Arabic Studies, or LIPIA, a Saudi-funded university in Jakarta, which offers full scholarships to top students. “LIPIA was designed to create cadres,” says Mr. Rahmat. Its graduates include Jafar Umar Thalib, the founder of Laskar Jihad, a terrorist group responsible for the death of thousands of Indonesian Christians in the Moluccas.

For his part, Mr. Rizieq tries to distance himself from that kind of violence–although not by much. “If I wanted to I could always bomb these places,” he says. “I’d rather have a physical confrontation.” He adds that he is in contact with Jemaah Islamiyah, responsible for the 2002 Bali bombing, but only in order to persuade it to change its ways. Why would he set his troops upon mere gamblers or prostitutes while conversing with murderers? “When there is universal agreement among Muslims on [the immorality of] adultery or fornication then we will act violently. When there is no agreement [on issues like terrorism] then the approach is dialogue.”

It’s a curious form of tolerance, conceived by a man who arrogates to himself the right to define what is and is not Islamic. Is it a harbinger for Indonesia? That will depend on whether his country seeks to remain a part of Asia, or become a satellite of the Middle East.

Robert MacNeill’s series on PBS, America at a Crossroads, just concluded a segment about the rich diversity of Islam in Indonesia.

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by | 17 April 2007 · 8:14 pm

On Cultural Explanations for Lightning Strikes

I think what depresses me most about the state of the world is not so much what happens—so much of which is out of any free society’s control—as what the Politically Voiced make of what happens after the fact: the international news media, political leaders, and the blogosphere. Lightning cannot strike in the forest without someone being vilified for letting it happen—or conspiring to make it happen. What a world of Tuesday-morning totalitarians the Voiced have become.

Of course I’ve been following the unfolding of events at Virginia Tech, as have people in India, Kenya, Moldova, Peru, Romania, the UAE, and elsewhere around the world. This hits close to home for me for several reasons. My maternal roots go back to Southwest Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley. My maternal grandmother died at Lewis-Gale Hospital in Salem, and my mother died at Roanoke Memorial Hospital—neither of them from gunshot wounds. My mother is buried on a hillside south of Roanoke overlooking her beloved Blue Ridge Mountains. After resigning from the mission field, my father served as chaplain of Virginia Baptist Children’s Home in Salem, and later as pastor or interim/supply pastor for just about every other little Baptist church between Lynchburg and South Boston, Va. And some old family friends from Honolulu (orginally from Sri Lanka) sent both their daughters to Virginia Tech after they moved to Fairfax, Va.

My heart goes out to all the victims of the shooting and their families and friends, including to the parents and elder sister of the shooter. Cho Seung-hui graduated from high school the same year as my own daughter.

The South Korean government, for what I hope to be invalid reasons, seems to expect the U.S. government to exploit the shooting for xenophobic purposes, just as the ROK government, media, and Netizens exploit every crime committed by foreigners in Korea. I don’t understand why this should have any effect on Korean–American relations, or why the shooter should be considered representative of Koreans in general—or Americans in general, or immigrants in general, for that matter. Should the ROK foreign minister resign? The ROK interior minister did so in the wake of the worst spree killing on record, that of Woo Bum-Kon, a deranged policeman who killed 58 people and wounded 35 in South Korea in 1982?

Nevertheless, two Korea blogs, the Marmot’s Hole and the Metropolitician have compiled lengthy examples of critical Koreanalysis, with long comment threads full of arguments and counterarguments about cultural factors. I don’t think cultural explanations make much sense when one is attempting to explain individual pathologies that constitute statistical blips within huge sample populations.

Last September, a Canadian journalist of Chinese ancestry, Jan Wong (Huáng Míngzhēn), caused a huge popular outcry by suggesting cultural explanations for three notable killing sprees in Quebec: at Dawson College in September 2006, at Concordia University in August 1992, and at the École Polytechnique in December 1989. Of course, Wong is (or was) a Maoist, so perhaps she tends to see cultural traditions as the root cause of most of the world’s problems—and great proletarian cultural revolutions as their solution.

A large number of spree killings around the world have occurred on school campuses, from kindergartens to universities. What is it about academic culture around the world that encourages such reactions? Or are schools just prime locations for finding large herds of sheep for the slaughter? What is it about the culture of post offices in the U.S.?

Would someone please attempt a cultural explanation for the Bath School killings in Michigan in 1927, in which anal-retentive school superintendent and tax protestor Andrew Kehoe killed 45 people and injured 58—all without the use of guns or the lure of television cameras. The Ku Klux Klan managed to blame it on Kehoe’s Roman Catholicism. Those nowadays who cannot let any tragedy pass without using it to advance their political agendas are in good company.

The Wikipedia entry on school massacres also notes:

In contrast to Columbine, the 1927 Bath School disaster, in which 45 people died, engendered no copycat attempts. Following the forty-five deaths that resulted from the Bath School disaster in Bath, Michigan, there was much less media reporting on the event and no legislative response on any level other than local legislation to appropriate small amounts of money for the victims’ families.

In some respects, those were good old days.

UPDATE: Liminality offers some thoughtful ruminations about differing reactions by Koreans and Americans.

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by | 13 April 2007 · 6:16 pm

Japan Focus on Ethnic Koreans in Yanbian, China

I’ve been preoccupied with other matters lately and slacked off blogging a bit, but I meant to excerpt a few passages from an interesting portrait of ethnic Koreans in Yanbian, China, that appeared recently in Japan Focus.

The current Korean population in China is of rather recent origin. A wave of migration from the Korean Peninsula began in the 17th century. However, most of the migrants arrived during the tumultuous decades between the middle of the 19th century and the end of the Second World War. Northeast China was first a refuge for poor peasants and later a base for Korean nationalists, who fought against the Japanese colonial rulers in the period 1910–45. After Japan annexed Northeast China in 1931, hundreds of thousands of Koreans migrated to the new Japanese-dominated state of Manzhouguo, including many forcibly sent to work in factories and mines. However, the vast majority of migrants from Korea came allured by the promise of land.

When Japan was defeated in 1945, there were 1.7 million Koreans in Northeast China. When the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949, some 600,000 Koreans returned to the Korean Peninsula, while 1.1 million remained in China. China’s ethnic Korean minority presently totals roughly two million people. Most live in Northeast China, with a dense Korean population in Yanbian on the North Korean border. The number of ethnic Koreans in Yanbian is about 200,000, 38 percent of the prefecture’s population. An estimated 80 percent of the Yanbian Koreans have their roots in contemporary North Korea, and 20 percent have their roots in South Korea….

A closer look at certain elements of Koreanness that Yanbian wished to rely on reflects the complexity of ethnic ties as a resource for promoting economic cooperation. Ethnic background or family ties do not automatically generate business. When the Yanbian Koreans won the opportunity to visit South Korea, they were surprised at not receiving a warmer welcome there. Indeed, South Koreans tended to look down on them. For political and cultural reasons, North Koreans were held in even lower esteem in South Korea. As Korean-Chinese were often mistaken for North Koreans when visiting South Korea, due to similar dialect and appearance, they often met rather harsh treatment.

As contacts between Korean-Chinese and South Koreans intensified, the differences in their habits and values also became quite clear. Korean-Chinese and South Koreans had drifted apart during forty years of separation. The resulting differences led to conflicts over values and other misunderstandings between the two groups….

Some Chinese government officials also wanted to avoid the problems which contacts with South Koreans might create. This, especially, seems to have hindered cadres of Korean origin. Due to the strong South Korean connection with Yanbian, and the pan-nationalistic activities aimed at creating a united Great Korea, including Yanbian, Yanbian was classified as one of the four sensitive regions in China where the Central Government fears separatism. The fear is that pan-nationalistic South Koreans might infiltrate Yanbian in the guise of economic cooperation. Some officials, who wished to render their career secure by avoiding all trouble, chose to block cooperation with South Koreans and other foreigners….

In addition to political ideas, religious activities spread through transnational ties. Christianity was not only perceived by the Chinese leadership as a threat to the “Chineseness” of the Yanbian Korean culture, but Christian congregations were considered to be a disguise for political infiltrators who aimed to disintegrate the country through peaceful means. South Korean missionaries worked not only among Korean-Chinese but also among North Korean migrants and refugees. While in South Korea, many Korean-Chinese encountered Christianity. Until the 1980s, the role of religion had been limited among Korean-Chinese, while in South Korea, one-third of the population were Christians. One contact assumed that the Korean-Chinese migrants were initially attracted to Christianity when they got support from South Korean believers while working under adverse social and economic conditions: Christian organisations provided practical help, like free medical treatment, as well as social and political support. Christian organisations also won support by backing Korean-Chinese demands that South Korean authorities guarantee humane treatment.

Korean churches worked among Korean-Chinese actively not only in South Korea but also in China. They sent both money and personnel to local churches and ran welfare projects. Some churches had established congregations in Yanbian and other areas of China. Many returning migrants joined a local Christian congregation. By the year 1996, the Christian community in Yanbian had grown to include nearly 10 percent of the ethnic Korean population. In addition to return migrants, these congregations also appealed to locals who looked for support in the midst of deteriorating socio-economic conditions.

In order to counteract foreign political and religious infiltrators, three measures were taken in Yanbian in the late 1990s. Firstly, education emphasizing patriotism, socialism and religious policy was intensified. Secondly, leadership was strengthened. Thirdly, control of foreign religious activities was intensified.

via Frog in a Well

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Filed under China, economics, Japan, Korea, religion

by | 12 April 2007 · 10:24 am

Less Street Theater, More Thought Crime, Please

While the lemming media and political office-seekers fall all over themselves seeking to demonstrate their selectively outraged sensitivities, at least one lucid commentator steps away from the stampede: John McWhorter in the New York Daily News.

What, really, is the goal of these monthly performances over something someone says in passing and usually in jest? If the goal is to stop people from ever uttering anything that can be construed as belittling to people of color, it doesn’t appear to be working.

We have already succeeded in making the outright abusive wielding of racial slurs unacceptable in American society. Nicholas (Fat Nick) Minucci, the Howard Beach, Queens, twentysomething who assaulted a black man with a bat while shouting the N-word, deserved to go to prison.

However, the quest for an America where no one ever makes passing observations that are less than respectful of minority groups is futile. And why are so many of us so obsessed with chasing that rainbow anyway? The truth is that black people who go to pieces whenever anyone says a little something are revealing that they are not too sure about themselves.

Imus hosts a radio show and a lot of people listen to it. During a few seconds last week he said something tacky. The show went on, as did life. Black people continued to constitute most new AIDS cases, black men continued to come out of prison unsupervised. And we’re supposed to be most interested in Imus saying “nappy-headed ho’s”?

What creates that hypersensitivity is a poor racial self-image. Where, after all, did Imus pick up the very terminology he used? Rap music and the language young black people use themselves on the street to refer to one another.

What Imus said is lowdown indeed, but so is the way blacks refer to each other. And life goes on.

Street theater is not strength. It saps energy better put to other uses.

What the world desperately needs now is much less street theater, many fewer witch hunts, far less name-calling, and much less street crime—but far, far, far more productive thought crime in the public sphere.

I don’t have much patience with talk radio, TV talk shows, or opinion-mongering in general, but I find these tedious cycles of talk crimes followed by ginned-up public outrage, struggle sessions, and rectification campaigns in the media far too totalitarian for my tastes. I’ll take thought crimes over mind control and reeducation camps any day.

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by | 11 April 2007 · 9:37 pm

Exorcising Radical Islamist Demons in Indonesia

In Tuesday’s Opinion Journal, Bret Stephens profiles an Indonesian who is attempting to preserve the traditions of religious tolerance and syncretism long characteristic of Indonesia.

SENDANG AYU, Indonesia–In the fall of 2005, Abdul Munir Mulkhan returned to his childhood village to exorcise a demon.

Belief in the spirit world persists in this corner of southern Sumatra, as it does throughout most of Indonesia. In this case, however, the demon took human form as an itinerant Islamic preacher named Mun Faasil. He had appeared as if from nowhere the year before and had promptly set about “purifying” the villagers’ religious practices. For instance, he objected to sacrificing water buffalo (a local practice) instead of sheep (an Arab one) for the annual feast of Eid ul-Adha. He also disapproved of the villagers’ custom of giving couples an envelope of cash on their wedding day, on the grounds that there was no Quranic basis for it.

What happened next is a portrait-in-miniature of the assault being waged against traditional Indonesian Islam by its totalitarian variant. “Mun Faasil’s speeches created a crisis of faith,” recalls a village elder. “One group started implying that the others were not true believers.” Things got worse when the preacher began extolling the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), a radical Islamist party modeled on Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, while attacking the Muhammadiyah, the century-old, 30 million-strong, apolitical Islamic social movement to which most of the villagers belong. Soon PKS cadres started arriving in the village.

It was at this point that some of the villagers called on Mr. Mulkhan, 60, to offer a “clarification” on the true teachings of Islam. They were fortunate in their native son. A leading scholar of Islamic theology and history, Mr. Mulkhan had only recently stepped down as vice secretary of the Muhammadiyah and continues to wield influence as a reformer within the organization. It did not take much to persuade his old neighbors that good Muslims do not use narrow theological pretexts to condemn fellow Muslims as infidels. Mun Faasil and his cadres were told to go.

For Mr. Mulkhan, however, what happened in Sendang Ayu was not the end of the matter but only the beginning. If the PKS could reach a remote rural community of 150 people, he reasoned, where had they not penetrated? The problem was compounded by the PKS’s use of clandestine cells to infiltrate the Muhammadiyah’s institutions–hospitals, universities, schools, mosques, charities, student associations–and recruit new members. “We had a situation where people in positions of trust were suddenly revealing themselves as PKS,” he says. “If we had allowed this to continue they would have consolidated their position with a purge of their opponents.”

The rise of the PKS nationally is itself a thing to marvel at. Barely eight years old, it won just 7% of the vote in the 2004 elections and has made itself conspicuous with its support of radical cleric Abu Bakir Bashir. Yet it has already managed to seize key institutions of prestige and patronage throughout Indonesia, including the speakership of the national Parliament, the ministry of agriculture and key municipal posts. As with Hamas in the Palestine Authority, it has burnished a reputation for incorruptibility.

But the Muhammadiyah, with its immense network of social services, is the organization the PKS must first seize if–in the spirit of Antonio Gramsci’s “long march through the institutions”–it is to achieve its longer-term political objectives. As a takeover target, it also helps the PKS that the Muhammadiyah has espoused a relatively strict form of Islam, making its members all the more susceptible to tarbiyeh, the form of Islamic indoctrination practiced by the Muslim Brotherhood and adopted by the PKS.

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by | 9 April 2007 · 8:00 pm

Two Essays on Baseball in Japan and the U.S.

Frog in a Well contributor Charles W. Hayford has posted a long and interesting essay on differing perceptions of Japanese baseball entitled Samurai Baseball: Off Base or Safe at Home? An earlier version appeared in Japan Focus under the title Samurai Baseball vs. Baseball in Japan. Here are few inducements to read the whole thing.

Is the difference between the original Yankee baseball and the game in other counties the difference between the real thing and a knock off or between the narrowly conceived original and new versions creatively adapted? Is baseball franchised around the world like MacDonald’s? After all, “a Big Mac is a Big Mac is a Big Mac,” so isn’t baseball just baseball? The dispute over baseball in Japan vs. Japanese baseball involves more than whether the bats are heavier, balls smaller, and training more strenuous. Do these differences represent differences within a system or between systems? Depends on who you ask.

On one side is Robert Whiting. His books are classics of sports writing and hugely influential.

His first book, The Chrysanthemum and the Bat (1977) begins by stating that Japanese baseball “appears to be the same game played in the U.S. – but it isn’t”…

In his Yale class lecture “Professional Baseball,” [Willam] Kelly agrees that some professional baseball in Japan does fit the “samurai” stereotype: “not entirely, not convincingly, not uniquely, but enough to feed the press mills and the front offices and the television analysts.” In fact, he says, this “spin” is part of the game. Our job is “not to dismiss this commentary as misguided (though much of it clearly is)” but to ask who is putting these ideas about, who is believing them, and why they are appealing: “The myths are essential to the reality….” Japanese baseball is “not a window onto a homogenous and unchanging national character, but is a fascinating site for seeing how these national debates and concerns play out – just as in the United States.”

Why did baseball in Japan develop this “samurai” self-image? Baseball in Japan was shaped by the important elements of the nation in the early twentieth century – education, industry, middle class life, the government, and above all the national project. Since baseball was an American sport but Japan was not a colony, baseball in Japan was a way of declaring independence, defiance, and creativity. From early in the century, the middle schools and colleges adopted a “fighting spirit” in athletics (recall that Teddy Roosevelt called for the abolition of college football in the United States when violence had become the hallmark of the game). In the 1930s the newly formed professional leagues adopted that spirit, which styled itself “samurai.” The government, which stepped in to shape local social institutions, used sport to train and manage its citizenry both spiritually and physically; major business corporations turned to college teams to recruit loyal executives; large commercial newspapers competed for readers by telling more and more nationalistic sports stories; transport companies bought professional teams. The Japanese public and media demanded “Japanese style” in sports to distinguish themselves from the foreigners and set models for self-sacrificing workers and citizens….

Karl Friday debunks idea of explaining modern conduct by reference to historical samurai in “Bushido or Bull? A Medieval Historian’s Perspective on the Japanese Warrior Tradition. “Hanging the label of ‘bushidō’ on either the ideology of the Imperial Army or the warrior ethic of medieval Japan,” he says, “involves some fairly overt historian’s sleight-of-hand.” Much of the modern version of bushido was “at odds with the apparent behavioral norms of the actual warrior tradition.” Even the term “bushidō” is the invention of a twentieth century Japanese, Nitobe Inazo (1862-1933), who wrote in English. Ironically, Whiting, without mentioning his role in the invention of the bushido tradition, includes in his history of the game Nitobe 1905 charge that baseball was a “pickpocket’s sport” in which players tried to swindle their opponents and steal bases. In fact, these samurai traditions are contradictory and could be equally well used to explain either “samurai” group ethic or “samurai” individualism, submission to authority or rebellion against it, innovation or traditionalism.

At the same time Kyushu-resident blogger Ampontan posted a lengthy essay on Japanese major leaguers: Now as American as apple pie, with his usual caustic take on American media reporting.

Major League Baseball’s 2007 season got underway last week, and while the media focused on Boston’s 50 million dollar man, Daisuke Matsuzaka, the real story is that there are now 14 Japanese players on major league rosters in such places as Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay instead of the geographically convenient Seattle or LA, or deep pocket teams like the Yankees or Mets.

While Ichiro Suzuki is headed for the Hall of Fame after batting titles, hitting records, and gold gloves, Hideki Matsui is the toast of New York, and modern Japanese pioneer Hideo Nomo is the part-owner of an American minor league team, relatively anonymous players such as So Taguchi of St. Louis and Tadahito Iguchi of the White Sox are the guys with the World Series rings, relief pitcher Shigetoshi Hasegawa has retired after a respectable but unheralded nine-year career in the States, and burnt out former Yomiuri Giants’ star Masumi Kuwata wants to hear one last hurrah, this time for the Pirates….

And here’s an article that originally appeared in the New York Times about Japanese players and their perpetual shadows—their personal interpreters. The focus here is on the Yankees and their two Japanese players: Hideki Matsui, with his interpreter Roger Kahlon, and their new import, Kei Igawa (roundly booed in his Bronx debut Saturday after a bashing by the Baltimore Orioles) with Yumi Watanabe, his interpreter.

Of particular interest is Watanabe’s bloodline. His father was another pioneer in reverse: Takamiyama, the Hawaiian who became the first American to win a Japanese sumo tournament. Before being hired as an interpreter at an annual salary of $300,000 (roughly the minimum salary for a major league rookie) Watanabe had been a Yankee security guard. Now that’s upward mobility. The idea that a person can jump from ID checker to interpreter is probably making all the professional conference interpreters feel faint.

I got the distinct impression reading this article, however, that Japanese players are being treated as if they were a new kind of royalty. The Americans seem to think everyone needs an interpreter, and that part of an interpreter’s job is being a personal assistant and valet….

Every Japanese player in the US has had six years of English by the time they graduate from high school. I’ve made that trip in reverse and acquired a driver’s license, rented an apartment, and opened a bank account in Japan. Even if those players weren’t serious students, there’s no question every one of them knows enough English to handle the daily chores of living.

I remember watching one of Ichiro Suzuki’s first games in the States on TV. He was on second base and the other team decided to change pitchers. During that break in the action, Ichiro struck up a conversation with the other team’s shortstop, a native of Venezuela. They had a high old time laughing and talking with one other, and it’s a good bet they weren’t speaking Spanish or Japanese.

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by | 7 April 2007 · 9:53 am

Japanese Loanwords in Yapese

Japan ruled the island of Yap from 1914 to 1945, introducing many new material goods and cultural practices, which have left a rich legacy of loanwords in the Yapese language. The following list is extracted from a dictionary that uses the new Yapese orthography, which I have undone in order to make it easier for people familiar with Japanese to recognize the source words, some of which are quite archaic (or even obsolete) in contemporary Japan.

  • baru ‘crowbar’
  • bata ‘batter (in baseball)’
  • baydok ‘syphilis’
  • beni ‘lipstick’
  • benikawa/binikawa ‘type of potato’
  • bokdang ‘bomb’
  • chikongki ‘record-player’
  • chiyoseng ‘Korea; Korean’
  • chiyusa ‘shot, injection, hypodermic needle’
  • chiyusa nag ‘to give a shot to someone’ (nag derives verbs, like Jp. suru)
  • chumong ‘order, in the sense of a requisition’
  • chungayri ‘to dive head first’
  • daykusang/daykisang ‘carpenter, builder’
  • dempo ‘telegram; to send a telegram’
  • denchi ‘battery’
  • dengki ‘electricity; flashlight; xray’
  • dengkibasra ‘utility pole, power pole’
  • dok ‘poison’
  • doma ‘checkers, chess; a game’
  • futong ‘mattress’
  • gengkang ‘covered, protruding entranceway to a building’
  • hang ‘seal, stamp’
  • hangngo ‘small Japanese pot’
  • hasra ‘utility pole, power pole’
  • hyakngo ‘type of potato’
  • isobing/usubing ‘type of half-gallon bottle’
  • jori ‘rubber sandals, slippers, zoris’
  • jubong ‘pants’
  • kabang ‘handbag, purse’
  • kachido ‘movie, cinema’
  • kama ‘sickle, scythe’
  • kamoch ‘car, automobile’
  • kangkiri ‘can opener’
  • kayak ‘gunpowder’
  • kayru ‘toad, frog’
  • kech ‘stingy’
  • kich ‘crazy’
  • kitanay ‘dirty’
  • komey ‘rice; type of yam’
  • koyeng ‘rest house on a hilltop’
  • kui ‘marker pole in sea’
  • kyuri ‘type of vine, cucumber’
  • mame ‘beans’
  • mangwa ‘cartoon’ [a spelling pronunciation?]
  • marutobi ‘hopscotch’
  • merikengko ‘[American wheat] flour’
  • mong ‘Japanese ornamental gate or archway’
  • nappa ‘cabbage’
  • nas ‘eggplant’
  • nawa ‘jumprope; to play jumprope’
  • negi ‘onion, green onion’
  • nejimawas ‘screwdriver’
  • nis ‘varnish’
  • niso ‘gallon bottle’
  • nori ‘glue, paste’
  • okas ‘candy, cookies’
  • okinawa ‘Okinawa; type of [sweet] potato’
  • osongach/isongach ‘Christmas’
  • otobay /atobay ‘motorscooter, motorcycle’
  • pachingko ‘slingshot’
  • panchu ‘underwear, pants’
  • ping ‘pin, hairpin, safety pin’
  • pistor ‘pistol, gun’
  • remong ‘lemon, lime, citrus’
  • rengnga ‘concrete block’
  • sakura ‘type of flowering tree; pink plumeria’
  • sarumata ‘underpants’
  • sarukang ‘swivel used to connect leader to fishline and to fishhook’
  • sasing ‘photograph, picture’
  • sasmi ‘raw fish, sashimi’
  • sayda ‘soda, soft drink’
  • semmengki ‘small washbasin’
  • seng ‘wire, line’
  • sensey ‘teacher; to teach’
  • sensey nag ‘to teach’ (nag derives verbs, like Jp. suru)
  • sentak ‘laundry; to do laundry’
  • sentaksekken ‘laundry soap’
  • sigobing ‘bottle about the size of a fifth gallon, the size of a shoyu bottle’
  • sikato ‘skirt’
  • sikidas ‘drawer’
  • sikojo/hikojo ‘airport’
  • sikoki/hikoki ‘airplane’
  • simeng/jimeng ‘to lay out the ground for a house foundation’
  • simi ‘charcoal’
  • sitangi ‘women’s underclothes’
  • supido ‘fast, speedy’
  • tama ‘marbles, the game of marbles; light bulb’
  • tamanegi ‘round, dry onion’
  • tamango ‘egg’
  • tanchyobi ‘birthday party, birthday celebration’
  • taray ‘large washtub’
  • tech ‘steel ball’
  • tempra uta ‘song in different languages mixed together’
  • teng ‘score, mark’
  • tesange ‘purse made of pandanus leaves’
  • togang ‘ash pumpkin’
  • totang ‘boat made out of folded sheet of roofing [tin]’
  • udong ‘noodles’
  • yakyu ‘baseball’
  • yasay ‘green vegetables’
  • yasmi ‘vacation, holiday, rest’
  • yeng ‘dollar’ (cf. piseta ‘quarter dollar’ via Span., mag ‘half dollar’ via Ger.)

SOURCE: Yapese–English Dictionary, by John Thayer Jensen with the assistance of John Baptist Iou, Raphael Defeg, Leo David Pugram (U. Hawai‘i Press, 1977)

To the list above I can add a few more from my own fieldwork in Yap: chichibando ‘brassiere’, hanafuda ‘hanafuda card game’, kanggof ‘nurse’, and kawanguchu ‘leather shoes’.

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Filed under Japan, language, Micronesia

by | 6 April 2007 · 11:13 am

New Religious Terms in Two Pacific Languages

How have local languages in the Pacific handled the new lexical requirements of foreign religious traditions? Much seems to depend on the language and sect of the first foreign evangelists.

The island of Yap in Micronesia was first evangelized by Spanish Catholics long before German Protestants arrived about 1898. Yapese is still largely Catholic, and religious loans are mostly from Spanish. Shinto seems to have left no lexical traces from the Japanese colonial era (1914–1945), but loanwords from Japanese remain well represented in the more profane contexts of the new clothing, containers, diseases, foods, tools, and means of transport introduced during those decades.

The following examples of Christian terms do considerable violence to the vowels of Yap’s new orthography, which would take too long to explain—and would also make the words look more Dutch than Spanish.

  • bibliya ‘Bible’ (Span.)
  • galasya ‘church’ (Span.)
  • kiristiyano ‘Christian’ (Span.)
  • komunyon ‘communion’ (Span.)
  • kuruth ‘cross, crucifix’ (Span.)
  • infiyarno ‘hell’ (Span.)
  • misa ‘(Catholic) mass’ (Span.)
  • padrey ‘priest’ (Span.)
  • rosaryo ‘rosary’ (Span.)
  • baynag ‘Christmas’ (Ger. Weihnacht)
  • næp’ ni-b thothup ‘Christmas Eve, Holy Night’ (lit. ‘night that’s holy’)

Morobe Province in Papua New Guinea was evangelized by German Lutheran missionaries beginning in 1886. The Germans adapted two local languages for evangelical and educational purposes, Jabêm for the Austronesian circuit along the coast and islands, and Kâte for the Papuan circuit in the interior of the Huon Peninsula. (Many, if not most, of the other interior languages of Morobe Province have since proven to be Austronesian, not Papuan.)

The German Lutheran strategy for communicating new Christian concepts was to adapt the local vernaculars rather than to introduce foreign words—not unlike the strategy of Martin Luther himself during the Protestant Reformation. The following examples are from Jabêm, in whose German-inspired orthography j represents a palatal glide (like English y), ŋ represents a velar nasal (like English -ng), and -c represents a glottal stop.

  • biŋsu ‘foreign missionary’ (also ‘admonition, commandment’)
  • biŋ gôliŋ ‘parable, proverb’ (lit. ‘talk steer’)
  • gôlôàc ‘congregation’ (also ‘clan, relatives, kinfolk’)
  • gêbêcauc dabuŋ ‘Christmas Eve’ (lit. ‘night holy/taboo’)
  • moasiŋ dabuŋ ‘holy communion’ (lit. ‘benefit/blessing holy’)
  • ŋalau dabuŋ ‘Holy Spirit’
  • kêdôŋwaga ‘teacher’ (lit. ‘3sg-teach-agent’)
  • sakiŋwaga ‘minister, servant’ (lit. ‘service-agent’)
  • jàeŋwaga ‘catechist, local missionary’ (lit. ‘message-agent’)

SOURCES: Yapese–English Dictionary, by John Thayer Jensen with the assistance of John Baptist Iou, Raphael Defeg, Leo David Pugram (U. Hawai‘i Press, 1977); Jabêm–English Dictionary, rev. by J. F. Streicher (Pacific Linguistics, 1982).

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Filed under Germany, language, Micronesia, Pacific, Papua New Guinea, religion, Spain

by | 3 April 2007 · 8:53 am

POWs Not Quite Ready for Liberation, 1945

[Robert J.] Body finally got the picture—his planned escape had been trumped by a full-scale rescue. The American Army had beaten him to the draw by no more than a half hour. Yet like many of the other prisoners, Body wasn’t sure where he was supposed to go. Some Rangers were yelling, “Head for the cut fence!” while others were saying, “Head for the main gate!” Not only that, the prisoners were thoroughly confused about what the Rangers meant by the “main gate.” It was a basic orientation problem. For the past three years, the main gate had always meant the gate to the American compound, not the central exit of the entire prison. This ultimate portal to the outside world was generally viewed as a forbidden concept, something one didn’t talk about because it was depressing and futile and could all too easily lead to subversive thoughts that might get a prisoner shot. The area around the main gate was strictly out of bounds, a dangerous piece of real estate, a dangerous idea….

As the precious minutes ticked by, the Rangers became more and more irritated by the strange stubbornness of the POWs. They didn’t seem to understand the urgency of the situation. “I was getting annoyed,” recalled Alvie Robbins. “I’d say to them, ‘Listen, I’ve got a job to do here. I can’t spend a lot of time arguing with you. There’s thousands of Japanese just up the road. We gotta get out of here in a hurry.’ ” In some cases, the Rangers actually had to use physical force. “We just turned them around and booted ’em,” said Lester Malone. “We couldn’t fool around and explain nothing. They just didn’t want to believe we were Americans.” One of the prisoners Malone “booted” was Herbert Ott, the camp veterinarian. “I told him, get the hell out of here. I just turned him toward the gate and kicked him on out.”

Dr. Ralph Hibbs was another prisoner who needed a little physical convincing. “What the hell is going on?” Hibbs shouted at three Rangers who came bounding down the path toward him “with their tommy guns blazing” from their hips. “Where’d you come from? Are you guerrillas?”

“We’re Rangers—General Krueger’s boys.”

“What are Rangers?” Hibbs demanded. He was taxing their patience. Finally, one of them picked up the doctor, muscled him around, and gave him “a ten-foot kick squarely in the ass.”

The most recalcitrant prisoner of all was Hibbs’s immediate superior, Colonel Duckworth, the American commander of Cabanatuan. Duckworth was digging in his heels, refusing to go, even refusing to let the Rangers escort others out. The colonel, who’d been suddenly awakened by the shooting and still seemed perplexed by the whole fracas, was strutting through the compound buttonholing Rangers and shouting in their faces. He seemed unwilling to surrender authority to people whose identities and motives had been inadequately explained to him. Alvie Robbins was almost shocked by Duckworth’s belligerence. “He says, ‘I’m Colonel Duckworth, and I’m in charge here! Who the hell are you!’ I said, ‘We’re Americans. We’ve come for you.’ He said, ‘You can’t do this! You’re going to get us killed. The Japanese told us no escapes! No one leaves here until I say they do.’ I said, ‘You go see Captain Prince,’ and I went on about my business.” Duckworth continued storming about the camp, demanding explanations, imploring the raiders to cease and desist. Finally, another Ranger grabbed him by the arm and said, “With all due respect, you are not in charge here, General MacArthur is. Now I suggest you head to the main gate before we kick your ass there. I’ll apologize in the morning.'” Still grousing about the situation, Duckworth shambled out the American gate. Plagued by night blindness like so many others, he promptly fell into a ditch and fractured his right arm.

SOURCE: Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II’s Greatest Rescue Mission, by Hampton Sides (Anchor Books, 2002), pp. 276-278

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Filed under Japan, Philippines, U.S., war