Talk:Hermit kingdom (Korea)

Worth keeping, at least in some form
Please don't delete this article in its entirety. I think it is important to shed light on past racism, if for no other reason than to be able to comprehend what people were writing at the time. I'm reading the 1968 Beveridge Award-winning The New Empire, by Walter LaFeber, and he refers to Korea as the "Hermit Kingdom" a few times in the course of a discussion of American attitudes and trade practices in the 1890s. Without entries like this, I would have had no idea what he was talking about or the historical connotations underlying his use of the term. Stephen Aquila 23:13, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Racist? HA!
I was recently reading the JoongAng Daily, the leading english language news service in the ROK and came across the following article:

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200510/14/200510142210035839900090409041.html

"A new poll suggests that a few traces of Korea's history as a "hermit kingdom" still linger in modern South Korea. The poll suggests that the general public here has a strong distrust of neighboring countries and favors the acquisition of nuclear weapons to deter outside pressure."

by Shin Chang-woon, Chun Young-gi

interesting that Korean journalists would refer to their own ethnicity with such racism. This article, which makes racist claims, needs to be completely re-written by someone with an education on the subject.

Metroattack 04:10, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Article content
Aside from all being rather POV this article is presented rather like a discursive essay, rather than an encyclopaedia entry. The scope for wikifying the article is surely there, but is it worth it?

Currently, it's pretty awful! All the empty headings are generally a bad idea too, so I've commented them out for now.

At the moment this seems more like original research than anything else, but possibly that's just the wording of the article? Will attempt to do some more clearing up when I get the time. &mdash; pmcm 18:59, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Article title
I have moved this article to Hermit kingdom (Korea), since "fallacy" is unacceptably POV in an article title. I think there is definitely room in Wikipedia for an article discussing the ways in which the "hermit kingdom" cliche has been used and misused, and how it has shaped/distorted modern understandings of Joseon (and for that matter contemporary understandings of North Korea). -- Visviva 13:53, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Piffle
This is mostly just irrelevant self-justification in response to normal criticism. Bringing racism into it is just a convenient item from the tool kit for abusing Westerners. Plenty of worse things are said about Western countries, but Westerners don't get the chance to respond with racism slurs. It deserves to be deleted. CalJW 17:54, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

This article needs clean-up.
It is too POV and sounds like an essay on why the use of the term "Hermit Kingdom" was so "racist". If its voice was changed a bit, I think we can salvage it and use some of the useful information it does have. I'll try to get more background information on the usage of the term and revise the tone so that it doesn't sound so absurd.--Sir Edgar 08:22, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Racism?
I once lived in Korea, (about 5 years to be exact) and according to the hermit kingdom thing, Koreans acknowledged the fact that they were called a hermit kingdom. It is true back then that there were a lot of hermits in Korea. However, I don't think I have met any Korean who has considered it a racial slur.

I can understand that the Koreans being called "hermits" can be offensive because of the book. However I will once again say it. Koreans are usually not offended when the nation is called the "hermit kingdom". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.177.11.143 (talk) 03:37, 25 February 2007 (UTC).

Tibet also considered a Hermit Kingdom
The term "Hermit Kingdom" has been historically given to any nation which practiced isolationism maintained by a Kingdom-like political structure. In addition to Korea, Tibet, Oman, and Bhutan have also been called Hermit Kingdoms.

As such neither is it necessarily considered a racial slur. I myself have lived in Korea and have worked among Koreans in Hyundai for years and heard them refer to their historical record as a Hermit Kingdom, and not necessarily in a negative way. This doesn't mean however that they like the term ... and in fact the Korean people as a whole seem unusually interested in presenting a very modern face for the rest of the world and most would likely find it offensive if others called modern-day Korea as a Hermit-kingdom, but not if Korea was perceived as the modern country risen from the Hermit Kingdom. Even then there is a great sense of pride in their history ... and their unique cultural survival between China and Japan after centuries of barbaric invasions from either side. The term "Hermit" proves the fact that they had to practice a degree of isolationism throughout their history to stay independent and maintain their national identity. Davea0511 (talk) 14:10, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Page Problems
Clearly this page needs to be totally rewritten as it's painfully biased at the moment. however, this definitely doesn't require its deletion as the phrase "hermit kingdom" is exactly the sort of thing people come onto wikipedia to investigate. could the biased sections not just be written out, leaving a stub that gives a quick definition and a brief mention that the phrase is contentious? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fixcef (talk • contribs) 14:06, 13 February 2010 (UTC)