Talk:Korean influence on Japanese culture/Archive 1

If you wish to help...
feel free, but please only add sourced information or discuss it here first. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Globalscene (talk • contribs) 22:52, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

1) Tomb Culture 2) Toraijin ( Korean immigrants to Japan). 3) Yayoi People: Come from Korea 4) Hata clan 5) Kudara Kingdom 6) Korean and kansai connection. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Korean1historian (talk • contribs) 13:46, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

7) Oichi Clan: Founder and Powerful Ruler ( Yamaguchi Province). This clan is from Kudara ( Paekje) Kingdom. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Korean1civilization (talk • contribs) 08:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Protected
This article has been protected from editing due to a content dispute. Please come to consensus here and than ask an admin for assistance (you can even ask me if you wish) with unprotecting the page. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:57, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Title
The title should be Out of Korea theory or hypothesis. Reading other articles in Chinese and Japanese, this story is not about the Korean influence on Japanese Culture, but Korean's Out of Korea theory which insist Korea has influence on all over the world. Current article is a bit worthless since the citations are from one book only. - 219.98.208.195 (talk) 11:23, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Mistaken Link
"ja:韓国起源説" is different from "Korean influence on Japanese culture". "ja:韓国起源説" is the article about the list of wrong insistances from some Korean about historical origin of various things. "ja:韓国起源説" is not the article about the history of common. Editors have corrected the wrong insistances by of some Korean. For example, some Korean insists the origin of Samurai is Korea, not Japan. Besides some Korean insists the origin of Chinese character is Korea. (I don't know the truth of these story. Maybe some Korean just enjoy some jokes.) These some Korean's insistances make angry some Japanese and Chinese. "ja:韓国起源説" is the article about the culutural argument between Korea and ohter nations(Japan & China). So, the interlink (ja:韓国起源説-Korean influence on Japanese culture)is not within reason. "ja:韓国起源説" is deadly different from "Korean influence on Japanese culture". I will cut the mistaken link. I think it is better to cut the mistaken interlink. 122.26.95.13 (talk) 09:19, 9 May 2009 (UTC) -122.26.95.13 (talk) 09:28, 9 May 2009 (UTC) ---122.26.95.13 (talk) 09:32, 9 May 2009 (UTC)


 * It is recognized that it is ja:ja:韓国起源説 and this article is all another articles. And, It is recognized also that it is a related article. ja:韓国起源説 is pointing out that there are a lot of lies compared with the ｔheory "South Korea influenced Japan". It is this exactly article. I cannot be thought that the link to ja:韓国起源説 is a mistaken Link.--Kigyousensi (talk) 23:20, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Do you read Japanese Language? "Korean influence on Japanese culture" is the aricle about historical truth. Otherwise, "ja:韓国起源説" is not the aricle about the correct history. It is simular to Geocentric model. "Korean influence on Japanese culture is not equal" to "ja:韓国起源説". If I translate "Korean influence on Japanese culture", it will not be "韓国起源説", but "朝鮮半島の諸王朝が日本の文化へ及ぼした影響". It is similar to 日朝関係史. It is very different from ja:韓国起源説.122.26.95.13 (talk) 12:17, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

韓国起源説 is a completely made up story. Its article made by Japanese nationalists. It is a originally koreaphobia and racist article. 韓国起源説 based on numerous unclear things. Most of its article is based on "hoax" and "fake". There is no single (trusted) academic source and korea encyclopedia source provided it. for example, if some korean chairman of soy sauce company said, "Japanese soy sauce derived from Korea", then japanese wikipedia users pick up this sentence, and desribed in japanese wikipedia as "All Korean claim that All world soy sauce invented in Korea". Example 2, Some Korean says, Maybe British and Korean share same ancestor, in his personal homepage(not academic document), then Japanese pick up this sentence from his personal homepage, then says, "Korea goverment and every single scholars officially claim that ancestor of british was Korean." Example 3, some korea said, "mongolian and korean share same ancetor. (Root of Korea was Mongol)" then Japanese pick up this sentence from his newspaper interview, and described in japanese wikipeida as "All Korean claim that mongolian hero Ghenghis-Khan was a actually Korean". Can you understand ? wikipedia can edit by everyone. japanese wikipedia can't be a qualified source. That article is sorta Xenopobia article. if Japanese claim that "Korean origin theory" in 韓国起源説, it must verificated by Korean, Why? Because, Even Korean did not know it. Think about it, if some american writed in his personal blog "I am a first person who invented fire in history..." then it is a "American origin theory"? think about it... even american did not know that theory.. same thing. Please don't be kidding. They only show that they hate Korean so much.... it is a originally 'hate korea article'. We world people call it as "grunge". it only show that "we hate korea so much...". anyway, i agree that this article in not match with 韓国起源説, but, it is a Japanese wikipedia problem, because it a hoax article. Leave 韓国起源説 alone as orphan article.

See. Manga Kenkanryu
 * "Lacking confidence, they need a story of healing," Mr. Yoshida said. "Even if we say that story is different from facts, it doesn't mean anything to them." Cherry Blossom OK (talk) 17:04, 11 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Cherry Blossom OK, would you like to explain an issue on "Duanwu Festival"? Korea registered it in "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity", maintained by UNESCO, as their own culture originating from "Korea". I do not know where it derives from; no one knows whether it originates in Korea. I at least have never seen those who believe Korea began Duanwu Festival, although the Chinese-origin theory is often heard. Do Korean people have clear and clean proof? Anyway, this case indicates that the Korean government and/or some Korean public organizations, actually a large number of Korean people, asserted the origin. Do you think this affair is also plotted by Japanese people?
 * See Duanwu Festival and Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity --82.83.234.134 (talk) 19:30, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

The person above claiming the 韓国起源説 to be a fabrication, may I ask you this question: have you actually read the contents of the page "Korean influence on Japanese culture"? That wikipedia page is doing exactly what you treat as a "complete made up story": stealing Japanese culture and trying to deceive others into believing that it originated from Korea. When someone makes such claims in wikipedia I do believe it has more impact and despicable intention than, such as the example you provided, "some american [sic]writed in his personal blog". And I doubt that you've read the Japanese or Chinese links either, because both of them quote reliable sources, unlike the English one where the only source is a work of fantasy fiction.PrincessChibi (talk) 06:32, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

move
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Korean_influence_on_Japanese_culture&diff=294586828&oldid=288643752

I move this edit to Japan–Korea disputes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cherry Blossom OK (talk • contribs) 14:16, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

== The person who crtisized Jon Carter works, please defend your claiming with evidences, otherwise you are nothing but Japanese right wings who are equal to German Nazi, which consistently denies multidimensional cross cultural nature of ever existing civilizations, kingdoms, or nation and always trying to put down Korea and Koreans ==

http://koreasparkling.wordpress.com/2008/06/16/jon-carter-covell-is-a-joke/

I searched her name in data site of the following authoritative archeology. result： 0
 * The Archaeology Data Service (ADS)
 * The National Archeological Database NADB

I searched her writing in Google Scholar. "Korean impact on Japanese culture"

result：The quoted article was only three cases.Therefore, she is not a historian.

I enumerate below her writings.
 * 1982，Korea's cultural roots．Moth House，Salt Lake City, Utah
 * 1983，Korea's cultural roots (6th-)．Hollym International,Elizabeth, N.J.
 * 1984，Korean impact on Japanese culture : Japan's hidden history
 * 1985, Korea's colorful heritage ，Dae-Won-Sa，Honolulu, Hawaii
 * 1986，The World of Korean Ceramics，Si Sa Yong O Sa Pub

As for these writing, most were published by Hollym International. Hollym International is such a publishing company. http://www.hollym.com/

I say a conclusion. she was the quack scholar who wrote the made-up story whom Korean demand. Korean, you should stop letting you lose trust of wikipedia in an irresponsible source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Absolutism (talk • contribs) 20:47, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I think this article is venomous. Korean, stop poisoning wikipedia and stop losing your trust.--Arstriker (talk) 20:45, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Where to go from here?
Ok, recently I've been trying to clean up the grammar and citations in a way that I hope has not caused anyone problems, and I am happy to have helped. However, in doing so, I believe I have noticed some basic structural issues that need to be addressed, but am afraid to do so since this is a controversial topic. If there is a mandate to improve this article I'm glad to help... so I'm posting here to ask for help and to see who else is out there interested in really improving this article in a way that is respectful, neutral, and worthy of an encyclopedia.

1.) First of all, I discovered a case of possible plagiarism/misattribution.  The quote in the final "Royal Family" section is taken from the book "Korean Impact on Japanese Culture", and (prior to my edit) reads as follows:


 * This part of Japans history is very interesting for many westerners, one researchers states "However, the Japanese Imperial Household refuses requests to do so. "According to Professor Ryusaku Tsunoda, a former Japanese history professor of Columbia University: 'There was an opportunity, while repairs were being made, to look inside. people were amazed to see how many objects of continental craftsmanship it contained. The ruler...lived in the fourth century. The buried treasures were evidences of his relationship with the kingdoms of the Korean peninsula.'" Until the Japanese are willing to acknowledge this history, it will remain as Japan's hidden history."

Now see here: Seoul Selection and Han Books.

I was having trouble deciding which part was the quote and which part was outside the quote, so I tried Googling the phrase to see what else I found. Indeed, I found that this quote apparently is from the book's promotional materials, and not from inside the book itself. Now the promo DOES appear to be quoting the book when it says "According to... [...] kingdoms of the Korean peninsula." However, everything outside of that is almost certainly not written by the authors of the book, and we have no idea who wrote it (I'm guessing not a "researcher").

2.) Another issue is that one third of the citations and maybe half of the article is based on this one book, "Korean Impact on Japanese Culture", which I do not have access to but which seems to be somewhat sensationalized and perhaps not oriented towards an academic audience.  It's not healthy for an article to rely so much on one source... there needs to be more citations for many of these claims.  While there are some other sources in the article (especially in the starting paragraph, good stuff!), some of them have issues... why are we quoting an article in the New York Times written in 1901?  I'm sure we have more current information than that.  And do we have to use blogs? (well-written though they may be) There has got to be immense journal-quality research out there on this topic... I just got done reading the bulk of a textbook about Japanese history that was discussing Korea as a conduit for Japanese culture. So... maybe I can help? :) but some of the more sensational claims may simply have to go, and I'm afraid of what that will do to people's feelings.

3.) Finally, I am concerned that some of the conclusions in the article do not match (or go beyond) the original source material.  For example, in the aforementioned NYT 1901 article, here's the source quote:


 * "Even at the present day Korean influence can be traced in many a Japanese palace and temple. At the Shiba Temples in the capital one of the most perfect bronze gates is the handiwork of Korean artificers. The visitor to Kyoto may see some of the best and earliest specimens of wooden statuary in Japan at the Temple of Koryujl."

Right now, our article on Wikipedia is using this as citation for the following:
 * Regardless of the number, it is undisputed that at least some Korean potters were forcibly taken to Japan from Korea during the invasions, and that it is the descendants of these potters who produced Satsuma ware.

At the very best, this would be original research/synthesis. At worst it's simply not what the source says at all... this is a conclusion that (while a historically valid assertion, and one that I believe is correct) is not presented in the original source.

When I see stuff like this, the verifiability Nazi in me just screams "delete! delete!" but I know that doing so will simply make people think I'm POV, which is why I posted here. I may be able to use my resources to support some of the more accepted claims, but as for the other stuff? Now that I have spent so much time optimizing the article, I fear that substantial chunks of it simply don't belong here and some difficult choices will have to be made. What to do?

-- Joren (talk) 05:15, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your well-thought-out post. My main thoughts are as follows (my numbers do not necessarily correspond to yours, Joren, but are rather used for emphasis):
 * Due to the very controversial nature of this topic, with extremely inflamed and passionate positions on both sides of the issue, if something can not be positively attributed to a very reliable source, it should be removed (unless it is a blatantly obvious fact about which there is no controversy at all).
 * If there is plagiarism, it should be immediately excised.
 * If a source is claimed to say something, but it can not be proven the source says that (or it is proven the source does not actually state that), it should be removed.
 * As it states below every edit box on the site:
 * "'If you do not want your writing to be edited, used, and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here. All text that you did not write yourself, except brief excerpts, must be available under terms consistent with Wikipedia's Terms of Use before you submit it.'"
 * We need to take very careful care in articles such as this that the information presented is completely verifiable and backed by completely reliable sources. If someone's feelings are hurt because of it, that is unfortunate, but we can't let that stand in the way of presenting solid information. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:42, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your reply! Sorry I have taken longer than intended to get back to this article.  I guess as far as the plagiarism goes, I can go ahead and remove it then.  I will do this shortly.
 * As far as reliability... I believe "Korean Impact on Japanese Culture" is not likely to be considered a "very reliable source". (there are also some self-published sources that may have to go as well.)  I have attempted to research Jon Covell Carter, and while she is an art historian (professor of Asian Art, doctorate in Oriental Art history, Columbia University), the conclusions of this book (at least as cited here), in addition to being contested, seem to go beyond art history.  Of course I've had to filter through a lot of POV on both sides trying to find out information about this author on the Internet...  I'm not sure how to approach this.  If I have time at some point in the near future, I'd like to go to a library and use their journal access to see how Jon Covell Carter (and her book!) are considered professionally.  (Hmm... I guess I can see if they have a copy of this book there while I'm at it)  Do you have ideas about how a consensus on whether or not this source is ok can be reached?
 * What I would like to do is cite what CAN be cited using alternative sources, and delete what cannot be supplemented with refs besides this book. However, I want to make sure I'm following a fair standard in deciding that this book is not a "very reliable source".  Thanks for your insight!  -- Joren (talk) 16:57, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Writing up a whole wikipedia page of lies, and then protecting it so that no one can point out how ridiculous those claims are: that is simply a blatant attempt of abusing the system. I see that the last entry in this discussion (apart from mine) was more than one year ago, and all this time nothing had been done while this abuse of the system continues to broadcast untruths to whoever may come across this page. Given that this talk page is already in archive, I guess no one is ever going to do anything about this and the lies here are going to be part of Wikipedia forever. Brilliant.PrincessChibi (talk) 10:05, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Untitled
This definitely needs sources. It is ridiculously biased and I am surprised it exists here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.107.243.159 (talk) 11:57, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

It also uses a blog site called "Ampontan" as a source. This is clearly not a reliable source and should be removed immediately. DUZZLEGOUCHE (talk) 11:41, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Biased, no real sources and historical facts, just pure korean imagination. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MerveillesDX (talk • contribs) 03:26, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Can you elaborate? What exactly in the article is biased? The article has plenty of references, so what exactly is wrong with them? Merlin  s  orca  15:32, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Biased, i am not japanese nor korean nor Chinese but this is claimed by some korean nationalism. Even Emperor Kammu's mother was Korean descendant but she was the 10th generation of a prince of Muryeong who even might be mixed with japanese for a long time, too far to take this serious. There are many countries which have(had) foreign blood in its imperial line such Thailand, England, Germany,Vietnam, etc. We should remove this thread ASAP.Dont forget that many of these " influences" of korea actually also originated in CHINA Hiraki (talk) 14:49, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Biased to the point of absurdity, full of dubious claims (some sourced by Korean blogs) and meets at least 5 flavors of Speedy Deletion criteria. I've studied with and worked with Asian art for the last decade and a half; most of the claims at the present time of writing are obviously from Korean nationalists or other VANKers.Ben Her (talk) 12:00, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 December 2013
section of kendo "originating" contradicts the kendo and kumdo wikipedia page.

68.117.60.187 (talk) 18:00, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please make your request in a "change X to Y" format. Technical 13 (talk) 05:11, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅. I removed the section. It's a factual error. You'd know if you see kendo and its talk page. Oda Mari (talk) 09:19, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Edit request
Could someone delete the "Literature" and "Man'yogana" sections? Even if they were backed up by their sources (they're not), they could only represent "Korean influence on Japanese culture" in the broadest possible sense of "Korean influence". (Read: Okura's father may have been from the kingdom of Baekje, which has virtually no relationship to modern Korea anyway, and Okura's link to Baekje is at best peripheral -- one of the reasons scholars believe him to have been from Baekje is that he wrote better Chinese than the majority of Japanese in his day.) 182.249.240.28 (talk) 11:19, 5 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't see how the sources don't back up the content. I checked Yamanoe Okura, a Korean Poet in Eighth-Century Japan, and it seems to say what we cite it for. Please be a little more specific. Which sources are misrepresented here? Huon (talk) 17:05, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

182.249.240.xx-San. Huon replied to your question on February 8. I don't see how the sources don't back up the content. I checked Yamanoe Okura, a Korean Poet in Eighth-Century Japan, and it seems to say what we cite it for. Please be a little more specific. Which sources are misrepresented here? Don't you argue with him ? --Juzumaru (talk) 12:17, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I got my account back and made the change myself. Huon misunderstood what I meant by "misrepresent". Miller, a comparative linguist on the edge of his field (could be the cutting edge or could be the fringe, I don't really care) and not a literary historian, was of the opinion that Okura was a "Korean poet in Japan". The article was citing this opinion as a fact, without noting that Okura grew up in Japan and his father had been a refugee from the extinct kingdom of Kudara. 182.249.240.21 (talk) 13:33, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

This article is WP:POVFORK full of WP:SYNTH

 * All the individual topics covered here are covered in greater detail, and in a less biased manner, in their relevant articles. Of the 133 citations, virtually all are either from questionable sources (written from a pro-Korean perspective by authors with apparently limited knowledge of Japan) or from reliable scholarly sources that merely say things along the lines of "Buddhism came to Japan from China through the Korean peninsula", "writing came from China through the Korean peninsula", or even "some Korean scholars have suggested that such-and-such aspect of Japanese culture may have originated in Korea, but I find this unconvincing". There are to the best of my knowledge no other articles titled "Country X influence on the culture of Country Y". There is a conspicuous lack of Chinese influence on Japanese culture, European influence on Japanese culture and American influence on Japanese culture, even though all three of these are universally considered to be more apparent in Japan (modern Japan, for the latter two) than "Korean influence". The reason for this imbalance is of course that the present article's original creator, and most of its significant contributors, are Korean nationalists who are clearly promoting an anti-Japanese agenda. The article's creator's sole contribution to Wikipedia apart from this page was to frivolously nominate List of English words of Japanese origin for deletion (does anyone else see the irony there?). The user appears to have left Wikipedia after losing that debate in the measure of eight-million-to-three.
 * The article currently includes 133 citations, but these can all be traced to a (relatively) small circle of authors. I would argue that most if not all of these articles are either unreliable for the claims being made, or otherwise inappropriate in that they are being cited out-of-context to support an opinion that they do not themselves hold.


 * The article cites "Jon Carter Covell" 10 times. Covell doesn't appear to be a Japanologist (at least not one I heard of in college). Googling his name brought up no reliable sources, but a list of his works indicates he is interested in Korea, not Japan, and so I would question whether he knew the Japanese language or even had the ability to find out about Japan from reliable primary or secondary sources. While I could not find any reliable sources, I did find one unreliable but (at least apparently) third-party source that is extremely critical of the author. The publisher's website explicitly states that it specializes in books on Korea, and so its publications are not automatically reliable sources on Japan (this article claims to be an article primarily on Japanese culture rather than Korean). Additionally, the book's title Korean impact on Japanese culture: Japan's hidden history. This implies not only that the article was originally written based solely on Covell (a fact borne out by Globalscene's original draft citing it five out of eight times), but that the work is a WP:FRINGE conspiracy theory book whose ideas run contrary to the scholarly consensus. Everything in the book should therefore be taken with a pinch of salt, and it should not be cited 10 times in the article.
 * McCallum and Gautam are both cited only once, and attached to the same sentence beginning "Therefore", with the previous sentence not having a citation. We can therefore assume that either they both back up the whole statement, in which case Gautam is clearly unnecessary when McCallum is published by a university press, or Gautam backs up one sentence and McCallum backs up the other. My concern is that McCallum might back up the innocuous that Baekjean architects helped in the construction of early Japanese, and another, less reliable source makes the claim that "Therefore, Japanese temples are modeled on Korean ones", which. This would be a blatant violation of WP:SYNTH, and given that the user who originally added both the sentences and the sources is a blatant POV-pushing SPA, I wouldn't be surprised.
 * Mitchell's book is more than 400 pages long, and not primarily about Japanese temples, and no page number is given. This would not be a problem, except that Mitchell's [ http://www.amazon.com/Donald-W.-Mitchell/e/B001HCVS92/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1 other published works] imply he is a scholar of either comparative religion or Buddhism in particular, but not of Japanese temple architecture or "Japanese culture". It also seems unlikely that he reads Japanese. Even the best scholarly work (and let's be clear, OUP generally only publishes the best scholarly work) can have minor factual errors, and in a big book like that a minor statement regarding something outside the author's area of expertise is either probably wrong or derivative of other, more specific sources. This means we can't take some Wikipedians' word that Mitchell backs up the statement to which he is attached.
 * Uehara (date?) and Ryan are both attached to a statement that Japanese architecture was influenced by China. This statement doesn't belong in an article called "Korean influence on Japanese culture". They are joined by Fenellosa, an extremely old source that can't be taken to represent the current scholarly consensus.
 * Fenollosa is also used three more times. Once again for a statement about China (not Korea), and twice for his opinion that some Kannon statues were from Corea. Again, Fenollosa's opinion is noteworthy, and should be included in the articles on those statues if it isn't already, but a 1912 book can't be a reliable source to hang a POVFORK article on.
 * Mizuno is cited four times. The first is for a statement that has nothing to do with Korea. The second is for a statement that similar practices were common in Korea. The third is for a statement that workers from Baekje took part in a construction project, with no indication that this is a "Korean influence". The fourth is for a curious statement that cites the New York Times but doesn't actually cite the New York Times. It mentions a "reporter" for the newspaper who supposedly noted the Korean influence on a certain Buddha statue. The fact that the reporter is not named, or directly cited, despite the sentence having two sources (the other being the Asia Society) makes this statement extremely suspect on its head, and I would also have to wonder how much training in Japanese culture the average NYT art correspondent has. The fact that the two sources are separated by five years (1979 and 1984) means we can't even easily date the report.
 * Stanley-Baker is cited twice. Once for the same statement as I Mizuno, and again for the same statement as II Mizuno.
 * Paine and Uehara 1932 are both cited (the former twice!) for the same statement as II Mizuno, which is to say that similar practices were common in Korea at a certain time. Whether any of these sources actually say "therefore, Japanese culture took this influence from Korea, and not the other way around or they both developed it independently", is unclear. Also ... Uehara 1932!? Really? Really? if the one Uehara source is over eighty years old then we can assume the other is about as old as well.
 * Schirokauer et al. are again cited for the same statement as the others immediately above. By the way, of the four scholars involved in the book, only Lurie and Gay appear to specialize in Japan, as opposed to China, and they in Japanese literature, not art. Of course, they are still reliable sources, but they are obviously being misused here, as (at least as the sentence is worded now) it appears they are not talking about "Korean influence on Japanese culture".
 * Von Ragué is interesting. Her book is from a trustworthy university press, and the book even has "Japanese" and not "Korean" in the title. But the sentence to which she is attached says that the method in question is "native to Korea". The fact that her book's title indicates she is writing about Japan also implies that she actually said the method was imported to Japan from Korea. This in turn gives me the impression that she is the only source of the twelve cited in this paragraph who actually supports this paragraph's conclusions. This is a whole big WP:SYNTH mess. If only one source actually draws a conclusion on a subject that is discussed in numerous other sources that don't draw the same conclusions, and that one source is almost 40 years old (considerably older than most of the other sources), then in accordance with WP:WEIGHT and WP:NPOV we need to cut the paragraph. Or better yet cut the whole article.
 * Watt and Ford: Watt is apparently an expert in Chinese art, and the more I learn about him the more I grow to respect his life and achievements at the Met. But in this bio on the museum's website, neither Japan nor Korea are mentioned even once. Ford on the other hand at least seems more focused on Japanese art. However the real problem with this source is that it's a book about a particular art collection (the Florence and Herbert Irving Collection) but I get the distinct impression that the shrine in question is not part of said collection. It therefore seems incredibly likely that the book (which I admit I have not read) is not actually talking about what the article claims it is talking about.
 * Plutschow and Suzuki both appear to be respected experts in their field, and I am not qualified to dispute the statement to which they are attached. I do, however, wish that the Korean nationalists who wrote this article would actually do something useful and add this information to the Asuka-dera article where it belongs, rather than taking it out of its appropriate context and synthesizing it with a whole lot of other stuff as part of some modern-day political agenda. (Note: It is entirely possible that they don't actually say what the article cites them as saying, which was definitely true of the Yamanoue no Okura paragraph before I removed it. I am just saying that at the moment I don't have the resources to either prove or disprove SYNTH has taken place.)
 * That said, a single 6th-century temple in a rural village in Nara Prefecture having modeled its architecture partly or entirely on that of an extinct Korean kingdom (whose educated populace mostly fled to Japan a matter of decades later and left barely a trace on Korean civilization from that point on) could only represent a "Korean influence on Japanese culture" in the broadest possible sense.
 * The sentence to which both Bhattacharyya and Frédéric are attached is incredibly poor English. I don't know enough about temple architecture to say whether the sentence is "true" or not, but the fact is that Bhattacharyya is clearly talking about Indian influence on East Asian culture in general, and we don't yet have an article on "Indian influence on Japanese culture". I also wonder if he discusses Indian influences on Korean culture, and if so, I wonder how my Korean nationalist co-editors would feel if I created an article "Indian influence on Korean culture" based on his book...
 * As for Frédéric: if the statement is uncontroversial (nothing in this article should be considered uncontroversial) and can be found in other sources, we can use him; otherwise, consensus is to stay the hell away.
 * "Nishi and Hozumi Kazuo" looks like extremely dodgy. I am not saying they don't know what they are talking about or that their book (?) is not reliable. I am just saying I don't want to cite a book on Wikipedia where I can't figure out how many authors there were and what their names were. "Nishi" and "Hozumi" are both surnames, and "Kazuo" is a boy's first name. I'd say the most likely reason is that the book was written by two men whose first names both happen to be Kazuo. On what looks like the cover of this book they give their names in western order. But someone on Wikipedia, who apparently knows Japanese names well enough to be aware that they can be written both ways, but not well enough to know which way is which, came to the conclusion that they were either related or married, shared the "family name" Kazuo, and "Nishi" and "Hozumi" were their first names. This makes me of course extremely suspicious of whether whoever added the sentence in question had even read the book or understood what was in it if they did. As an aside, the sentence itself (per III Mizuno, above) has nothing to do with Korean influence on Japanese culture anyway.
 * The article cites Mark Schumacher's personal website four times. Disregarding the nature of this source as a self-published work by a lay scholar who may or may not meet Wikipedia criteria like RS and GNG, the fact is that he says the opposite of what the Korean nationalists responsible for this page want him to say. Relevant quotes from the linked page's Korean Influence in Japan section are Prince Shōtoku lived at a time when Korean influence was perhaps near its peak in Japan." and "However, by the early 8th century, the Korean artistic influence began to wan, and was eventually overshadowed by Japan's growing fascination with China and Chinese Tang-era culture." Basically he says that Korean influence in Japan lasted for a short time at the dawn of the historical period, and then rapidly disappeared. That is not what this Wikipedia article wants its readers to think. Also of note is the fact that he devotes slightly more space on the page to Hata Influence in Japan''. I wonder if the same Wikipedia editors who wrote this article would be willing to devote the same amount of time and effort to an article "Hata influence on Japanese culture"? No? Gee, how odd...
 * Sun-Young Shin is an assistant professor of second-language studies at Indiana University. His qualifications are all in linguistics and English language/literature. What he thinks about Japanese Buddhist architecture seems pretty irrelevant, and I also wonder why we are citing an "Audio/Slide Program for Use in Korean Studies" that is not linked. Is this a PowerPoint that he used in teaching a class? If so, was it found online? If it was found online, then why is it not linked? If it is a PowerPoint for a class but is not to be found online (i.e., someone on Wikipedia was in the class) then the source clearly fails WP:V. If this is not a PowerPoint for a class, then what exactly is it? I've never heard of an "Audio/Slide Program" used as a source that wasn't a PowerPoint (or Office Impress or other) presentation...
 * Swann seems like he is being horribly misused here. He is cited twice. The first instance he is attached to the incredibly obviously and indisputable fact that "Kudara" is the Japanese name for "Baekje". If he is also meant to support the previous sentence, then he is either being used out-of-context or he is wrong. The relevant article gives a fuller (and therefore probably more plausible -- again, I'm not an expert, just naturally skeptical) story. "Kudara Kannon" may translate as "Baekje Guanyin", but it appears to be just a name. The Horyu-ji Temple themselves don't seem to believe Kudaran (or Korean) influence is noteworthy enough to receive significant coverage on their website. The second time Swann is cited, he is specifically attached to a claim that the statue was brought from Baekje or built in Japan by a Baekjean immigrant. If this is in fact the scholarly consensus, then I wish Korean nationalist Wikipedians would add it to the Horyu-ji article rather than maintaining a WP:POVFORK that contradicts all our other articles.
 * Gurugé and Portal are cited once each, both for the same claim as II Swann above. As above, if all three of these sources actually make this claim, then why does the actual Horyu-ji article contradict it? Why are Korean nationalist Wikipedians afraid to engage Japanese Wikipedians on the actual Japanese culture pages, instead creating and maintaining a POVFORK where they can say whatever they want and not have it challenged except by equally disruptive and self-destructive users like that other guy?
 * McCune: Notice how this article cleverly cites Schumacher for the claim that the Kudara Kannon is Korean, but picks another source for the claim the Guze Kannon is Korean. I wonder why they didn't cite Schumacher for both. He discusses both in some depth. He's also a much more modern source than McCune (roughly 50 years), and therefore (assuming he is a reliable source) he is a much better source on the modern scholarly consensus than she is. I wonder if the reason this Wikipedia article's creators chose one source for one claim and a different source for a different claim, is that neither source actually supports both. It's worth pointing out that Schumacher appears to make the claim that if there is influence from anywhere in the Guze Kannon, it is from Central Asia. I wonder if McCune discusses the Kudara Kannon. He also says that Fenollosa (and older source than anyone) thought the statue was Korean, but that there was no consensus. Does McCune discuss the Kudara Kannon, I wonder? If she does not, then we have a problem: this section of the article is saying that both the Kudara and Guze Kannon statues are of Korean origin, a claim that neither source makes by itself.
 * This article takes Schumacher as a reliable source. Schumacher says that "Guze Kannon is Korean" was a theory developed by Fenollosa, but never widely accepted. Therefore, we need to throw out the other sources that make this claim. We especially need to throw them out if they are not making this claim but are attached to sentences that give that impression. These sources are the Asiatic Society of Japan, Kinoshita, and the primary source 聖冏抄. None of these sources are attached to any other part of this article, and we have an apparently semi-reliable source that claims (at best) "the jury's still out".
 * The Asia Society source was already discussed in IV Mizuno above. The source is attached to a claim about "a reporter" at the New York Times, and for this it is insufficient. Unless the actual NYT article can be located, the sentence is effectively unsourced, and we should treat the Asia Society source like it isn't cited.
 * Oh, come on! Why did I have to accidentally analyze two sources that appeared to be attached to a statement, only to find that the statement's actual source was further down! Anyway Cotter is the "New York Times reporter" mentioned in IV Mizuno and the Asia Society source discussions above. Holland Cotter at least appears to know art. And maybe he can be used as a source for a hypothetical future Korean influence on Japanese Buddhist art article. In fact, most of this section could possibly be salvaged if it was entirely rewritten and moved to a more appropriate title, with all the WP:SYNTH removed. But he and other professional art critics cannot be synthesized together with other sources to claim that Japanese culture overall has received a stronger Korean influence than Chinese (or Indian!) or European or American influence. And no, I'm not interested in creating all those articles just to make a point. This article simply should not exist, because there are NO other "Country X influence on the culture of Country Y" articles. Cotter also can't be used for the claim that the views expressed in the exhibition he was discussing are "widespread" or "consensus", since he clearly states that the exhibit "goes against the grain of history".
 * Sugiyama and Morse are attached to two separate sentences. The first, like so many others in this article, is an innocuous point that people of Korean origin contributed to the construction of a certain temple. The second is interesting, since it concerns supposed Silla influence in the early Heian period. The problem is that Sugiyama and Morse's book is about the mid-Nara period. Another problem is that like virtually all the other sources here, no page numbers are given. I find it incredibly unlikely that Silla influence on early Heian sculpture is discussed on more than one or two pages of this book about the Tenpyō era, so what gives? Are the writers of this article trying to hide something??
 * The CAAA source is apparently a collection of abstracts from papers, and it is cited for two sentences both with the same basic premise, that Korean immigrants were responsible for the planning and construction the Great Buddha at Tōdai-ji. I have two questions for the writers of this article: Why is this information only included in this article and not added to the main article in question? And have you actually read the papers being quoted here? Citing abstracts for claims like this is extremely tricky, since the whole point of this article is clearly to give a modern Korean political spin on the issues, and scholars almost never give the exact same dimensions, weight and point of view to their abstracts as they do to the full papers. The point of an abstract is merely to state the facts as plainly and simply (and briefly) as possible. Kuninaka no Kimimaro was descended from immigrants from Baekje. This is not in dispute. But unless he lived to be 114, he was not born in Baekje. He was born in Japan. His father was probably also born in Japan. He was Japanese, not Korean. And he certainly was not South Korean. And he was the principal mastermind behind the Nara-Daibutsu. The principal architect of the statue was Japanese, not Korean. The fact that his remote ancestors immigrated from a kingdom on the Korean peninsula that was wiped from the face of the earth decades before he was even born does not make him Korean. The Nara-Daibutsu is not a "Korean influence on Japanese culture". So regardless of what this source actually says (I doubt anyone on Wikipedia has actually read the original papers) this paragraph should not be included.
 * McBride is a source about Buddhism in Silla, not about the Nara-Daibutsu. The difficulties this sentence describes were actually primarily related to a shortage of gold reserves in Japan. One would think that if Nara Japan was as closely linked with Silla as this paragraph wants us to believe, they could have just imported the gold, but still. The gold problem isn't even mentioned in this Wikipedia article. The implication is that the problems were overcome by the skill and diligence of the superior Korean workers, or some racist-nationalist nonsense like that. We have very limited historical records for this period, and those we have say the main difficulties involved a shortage of materials, and these problems were solved by the miraculous intervention of supernatural powers, brought about by prayer. What does this have to do with "Korean influence on Japanese culture? NOTHING!
 * Nihon-shoki is an ancient primary source that tells us nothing whatsoever about Korean influence on Japanese culture for the intervening 1,300 years, and cannot really be relied on for detailed analysis of the cultural impact of Kudarans in Japan in the sixth-century (more than 100 years before it was compiled).
 * Myers and Akiyama may or may not be reliable, but that is beside the point. They are discussing a topic for which there is next to no archaeological evidence one way or the other, and for which there is exactly one written source from more than a century later. Since this article is a WP:POVFORK we are unable to explain these facts in its proper context. If modern scholars actually consider this article's claims to be the case, then they can be cited in the Japanese painting article or some other more appropriate place. (The following paragraph is another piece inspired entirely by Covell. Also, [o]nce in Japan, they continued to use their Buddhist names instead of their birth (given) names, which eventually led to their origins being largely forgotten is like admitting "we're making this stuff up, and you can't prove us wrong".)
 * Farris is used as a source for the statement "Various metal-working techniques such as iron-working, the cuirass, the oven, bronze bells used in Yayoi period Japan essentially originated in Korea." This is technically accurate, but metal-working techniques used in Japan before the dawn of the historical period having been adopted from an equally shadowy area that happens to have existed on the same peninsula that is now called Korea has nothing whatsoever to do with so-called "Korean influence on Japanese culture". And, again, there is no Chinese influence on Japanese culture and there never will be, because Chinese nationalists are apparently not insecure enough that they need to go onto English Wikipedia and denigrate another country's culture by saying "Oh, by the way, they just copied everything off us". Plus, I'm worried about whether "essentially" is Farris's word, or if he actually gave a more detailed and nuanced discussion and some Wikipedians are "interpreting" him as saying this.
 * Fagan and "Agency of Cultural Affairs/Japan Society/IBM" are also both attached to an otherwise non-controversial statement that is being taken out context (the bad English grammar in the middle of the sentence implies that there were no indigenous Japanese who were skilled, because Kudaran immigrants were "the" skilled workers). Plus, I'm confused as to who/what the second source is: the Japanese Agency of Cultural Affairs, the Japan Society and IBM are all separate entities. Also, who exactly is Fagan? The author of the Oxford Companion to Archaeology is probably not a very reliable source on "Japanese culture"; he doesn't really need to be since this sentence actually has nothing to do with culture anyway. We should delete the sentence then. Or delete the entire article.
 * The entire "Iron ware" section relies exclusively on Covell and someone named Harmon. The title of Harmon's book says it all: 5,000 Years of Korean Martial Arts: The Heritage of the Hermit Kingdom Warriors. How does Harmon know about these 5,000 years of Korean martial arts? Where's the evidence? Certainly no on in Korea (or anywhere else for that matter, except Mesopotamia and maybe a few other places) had writing at that time. He self-published his book through the vanity press Dog Ear Publishing. Harmon himself has apparently never accomplished anything noteworthy except self-publishing this 200+ page book. Where is his doctorate in Japanese studies? What university does he teach at? Does he not teach at a university? Does he even have a higher degree? Does he even speak Japanese? Page 167 tells us all we need to know about Harmon's knowledge of and attitude toward Japanese cultural history. He is NOT a reliable source.
 * And for that matter, why the devil does Covell get so much attention in this encyclopedia article? What has he done to merit one of the highest-ranked websites devoting an encyclopedia article worth of material to his "research"? What university did he teach at? What was his doctorate in? Did he even speak Japanese???
 * Anyway, yeah, almost none of these sources are reliable, and those that are are being horribly abused and misrepresented.
 * Hudson is apparently a reliable source, but the sentence to which he is attached is written in such broken English that I'm sure whoever wrote it either (1) didn't read Hudson, or (2) didn't understand what Hudson was trying to say. I for one can't understand what this sentence is trying to say. A third option is that whoever wrote this sentence knew what Hudson was trying to say, but didn't care. I don't generally go for that option, but we've already seen that in this article it's definitely a possibility.
 * Cooper appears to also be adequate. And what this sentence says might be factually accurate. But "pottery" isn't the same thing as "culture". From the mid-17th century to the mid-19th century, Japan was almost completely closed off to outside cultural influence, so this point is completely moot. The Met and Washington OCG are both cited for statements that are probably equally factual, but irrelevant to an article about Japanese culture. Also, the timeline here is kinda screwy: did Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea bring captive potters to Japan in the 1590s, or did Koreans come over to Japan (voluntarily?) "in the 17th century CE"? I doubt whoever added these almost-oxymoronic statements to the article could tell you, since they actually know nothing about Japanese history or culture. They are just looking for any excuse to claim "everything Japanese is actually Korean".
 * The sourcing for the "Satsuma ware" section is ridiculous. "Some sources claim X, but other sources claim Y" is an indication that some sources are wrong, and given that one is a blog post... Anyway, I think that all of these sources may be wrong, since they all appear to be written by non-Japanese-speaking laymen, who are reliant on other secondary sources.


 * (Probably more to come...)
 * Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 03:57, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Removing WP:SYNTH and other otherwise problematic material for the time being
Per Articles for deletion/Korean influence on Japanese culture, virtually everyone is in agreement that most of the stuff in this article is problematic. Per my earlier post on this page and User:Nishidani's analysis, most of this material is either patent nonsense, or probably wrong until sources can be found. Therefore, I am removing that material pending future consensus to re-add it. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 12:29, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

From speculation to verification
In order to partially restore prior versions of the article, I eagerly tried to insert page numbers for each reference and corrected some substantial mistakes. Jagello (talk) 06:11, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I've undone your edits. Please be more carfeul with the way you do it next time, and don't restore garbage like "it is inevitable and well-documented that at various times".  I didn't even bother reading what else you restored—it was clear that your restorations were far too reckless. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 06:20, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but on AFD about a dozen users commented on the problems in this articles, with only one claiming that the only significant problem was page numbers. For material that was removed according to consensus, you need consensus to re-add it, and you will never get consensus to add material that takes the opinions of a minority of scholars and states it in Wikipedia's voice as "fact", or that places fringe theories on the same level as scholarly consensus. I am open to a move of this page to Korean influence on early Japanese civilization, but unless the title is change you can't claim that the various technologies previously discussed here qualify as "culture". Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 09:58, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. What I know is that some users agreed in the necessity of improvement for this article rather then the deletion of the page. But there has been definitely no consensus over the massive blanking of the page. Maybe you thought fringe theories must be deleted immediately based on Wikipedia policy. But much of the cited sources in the deleted sections I restored, came from prominent university presses like Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Stanford press and Museums like Metropolitan, British Museum, Nara National Museum or publishers like McMillan, Kodansha, the Brill publishers, Thames & Hudson and much more. I simply cannot imagine that they would let to distribute fringe theories. Cited reliable sources in the deleted paragraphs, I once restored came from renowned and mainstream Japanologists like Edwin O. Reischauer, George Bailey Sansom, Donald Keene, Lane Richards, Ernest Fenollosa, Louis Frédéric, Peter Kornicki and much more. It is hardly to believe that they would insist on fringe theories or views, which are generally rejected by most of the scholars. My suggestion would be to report this problem to the Fringe theories/Noticeboard. So it is better to restore the past version for the better proof of this.

As for the definition of culture, following is a paragraph you removed from the page, because you are the opinion that technique does not belong to the category of culture:

''Various metal-working techniques such as iron-working, the cuirass, the oven, bronze bells used in Yayoi period Japan essentially originated in Korea. During the Kofun period, in the fifth century, large groups of craftspeople, who became the specialist gold workers, saddlers, weaver weavers, and others arrived in Yamato Japan from the Baekje kingdom of Korea.''

The following passage is the original source cited to the paragraph. This is written by Bunkachō or Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan.

In the fifth century, readers of Chinese classics and masters of various crafts including pottery, saddle making, brocade weaving, and painting arrived in Japan from the Paekche kingdom of Korea. According to your logic, Kagakugijutsuchō or Science and Technology Agency of Japan as you might imagine, should have written the above passage. Jagello (talk) 03:54, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Your most recent revert cited the Covells ten times. This is evidence enough that you are not interested in fixing the problems of this article, but are instead rooting out yet more sources that don't say what you attribute to them. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 04:26, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, regardless of one's definition of "culture", you keep referring to metalworking techniques from 1,500 years ago as "Japanese culture", as though the Japanese and their culture do not exist anymore. Nothing scholars refer to as "Japanese culture" has anything whatsoever to do with ancient Kudaran metallurgy! Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 04:34, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Do you mean citations from the renowned Japanologists like Reischauer and others do not support the section I restored? Ok, let's examine, whether these citations were misused. Your assumption or speculation merely by checking the titles of sources is weak and invalid as an argument for saying the source is misquoted. The contents in the article must be verified by checking sources. The source text should be given and made comparison with the relevant footnoted content on this page. May be this can be one reason, why you failed to get any consensus for massive removing the contents on this article.

Following is the lower part of a section you deleted without any consensus. This is cited from ‘Ennin's travels in Tʻang China'. Ronald Press Company (1955) written by E. O. Reischauer:

The article says:
 * ''… at the time when the men of Silla were the master of the seas achieving Korean maritime dominance in eastern Asia.

Original source:
 * ''…, but in Ennin’s time the men of Silla were still the masters of the seas in their part of the world.

The article says:
 * The monk Ennin’s crossing to China on Japanese vessels and the whole catastrophic maritime record of the mission contrast sharply with the speed and efficiency with which Sillan ships quickly brought him back home to Japan.

Original source:
 * Ennin’s crossing to China and his subsequent voyage up the south coast of Shantung on Japanese ships as well as the whole catastrophic maritime record of the mission contrast sharply with the speed and efficiency with which Korean vessels whisked him up and down the Shantung coast and finally back home to Japan.

The article says:
 * Another indication of the gap in navigation skill between the Sillans and Japanese at this time was the employment by the Japanese embassy of 60 Korean helmsmen and sailors to help get the main party safely home.

Original source:
 * Another indication of the discrepancy in navigational skill between the Koreans and Japanese at this time was the employment by the Japanese embassy of 60 Korean helmsmen and sailors to help get the main party safely home.

My conclusion: The editor(s) who contributed this section actually footnoted multiple sources, but the sources from Reischauer alone support exactly each relevant sentences in this section. So that there was no place to make any misinterpretation or synthesis of the sources, which is against the Wikipedia's policy.

By the way, you are reluctant to specify, what various theories or views on the page are ‘fringe’ or ‘nonsense’, whatever you call them, so that these can be reported to Fringe theories/Noticeboard. And regardless of your personal perception on culture, ancient Japanese culture like iron working techniques are supposed to be called culture: 鉄器文化(culture of iron in Japanese). Jagello (talk) 22:11, 19 October 2014 (UTC)


 * I already specified a fringe theory: the Soga were of Baekje descent. As for "nonsense", most of the English you added was extremely poor. Please stop mentioning "renowned and mainstream Japanologists" -- I have seen enough evidence from this article already that such quotes are being taken out of context, and none of the quotes you have provided above have addressed the root problem that virtually everything that has ever been discussed in this article is some aspect of ancient Japanese civilization, from a time when Japan really did take a lot in from the Korean Peninsula, but virtually none of it has anything to do with contemporary Japanese culture. The sources you quote above specifically state at this time, referring to the 6th to 8th centuries!
 * Plus, I might ask you -- who are you? You have never edited this article before, but you appeared immediately after the AFD closed (without commenting on the AFD itself) and reinserted material that had been removed almost a year ago. You had clearly been following not only the AFD, but my edits to the page in February. Not only that, but you haven't edited any other page since March 2013! Which of the other accounts/IPs that edited this page in the past is yours? Would you care to be a bit more transparent about your editing habits? Sooner or later either myself or someone else is going to find a smoking gun somewhere in this mess, open an SPI, and CU will catch all or most of the sockpuppets editing in this area, but you can probably save yourself by owning up now.
 * Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 00:26, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, you are aware that changing a word or two of a sentence-long quotation and including it in the article without marking it as a quotation is a potential WP:COPYVIO, aren't you? You are just adding to our case against this material! Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 00:28, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't care whether Soga clan was pure Japanese or not, because there is no such a statement on the page I restored saying or indicating the Soga clan was of Baekje origin or descent. Your argument like ´quotes are being taken out of context` is just an assumption or speculation as long as it is not examined by checking source texts. Again, merely by checking the titles of sources is weak and invalid as an argument for saying the source is misused.

I already get to know during my examination of the sources, there have been copyright problems. That is why I did not restore, during my last edit, the original stable contents, even though your massive blanking done without any consensus.

Although I was aware of the last AFD, because of your argument without substance in vague manner motivated me check reversely the last AFD on this matter and your past edits. Do you think I participated in contributing this article before and was active at AFD? Nope, I mainly searched the original source to get the page numbers for a month. But good idea! You should start an SPI right now and let CU detect all the sockpuppets. Jagello (talk) 19:40, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

From speculation to verification
In order to partially restore prior versions of the article, I eagerly tried to insert page numbers for each reference and corrected some substantial mistakes. Jagello (talk) 06:11, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I've undone your edits. Please be more carfeul with the way you do it next time, and don't restore garbage like "it is inevitable and well-documented that at various times".  I didn't even bother reading what else you restored—it was clear that your restorations were far too reckless. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 06:20, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but on AFD about a dozen users commented on the problems in this articles, with only one claiming that the only significant problem was page numbers. For material that was removed according to consensus, you need consensus to re-add it, and you will never get consensus to add material that takes the opinions of a minority of scholars and states it in Wikipedia's voice as "fact", or that places fringe theories on the same level as scholarly consensus. I am open to a move of this page to Korean influence on early Japanese civilization, but unless the title is change you can't claim that the various technologies previously discussed here qualify as "culture". Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 09:58, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. What I know is that some users agreed in the necessity of improvement for this article rather then the deletion of the page. But there has been definitely no consensus over the massive blanking of the page. Maybe you thought fringe theories must be deleted immediately based on Wikipedia policy. But much of the cited sources in the deleted sections I restored, came from prominent university presses like Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Stanford press and Museums like Metropolitan, British Museum, Nara National Museum or publishers like McMillan, Kodansha, the Brill publishers, Thames & Hudson and much more. I simply cannot imagine that they would let to distribute fringe theories. Cited reliable sources in the deleted paragraphs, I once restored came from renowned and mainstream Japanologists like Edwin O. Reischauer, George Bailey Sansom, Donald Keene, Lane Richards, Ernest Fenollosa, Louis Frédéric, Peter Kornicki and much more. It is hardly to believe that they would insist on fringe theories or views, which are generally rejected by most of the scholars. My suggestion would be to report this problem to the Fringe theories/Noticeboard. So it is better to restore the past version for the better proof of this.

As for the definition of culture, following is a paragraph you removed from the page, because you are the opinion that technique does not belong to the category of culture:

''Various metal-working techniques such as iron-working, the cuirass, the oven, bronze bells used in Yayoi period Japan essentially originated in Korea. During the Kofun period, in the fifth century, large groups of craftspeople, who became the specialist gold workers, saddlers, weaver weavers, and others arrived in Yamato Japan from the Baekje kingdom of Korea.''

The following passage is the original source cited to the paragraph. This is written by Bunkachō or Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan.

In the fifth century, readers of Chinese classics and masters of various crafts including pottery, saddle making, brocade weaving, and painting arrived in Japan from the Paekche kingdom of Korea. According to your logic, Kagakugijutsuchō or Science and Technology Agency of Japan as you might imagine, should have written the above passage. Jagello (talk) 03:54, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Your most recent revert cited the Covells ten times. This is evidence enough that you are not interested in fixing the problems of this article, but are instead rooting out yet more sources that don't say what you attribute to them. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 04:26, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, regardless of one's definition of "culture", you keep referring to metalworking techniques from 1,500 years ago as "Japanese culture", as though the Japanese and their culture do not exist anymore. Nothing scholars refer to as "Japanese culture" has anything whatsoever to do with ancient Kudaran metallurgy! Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 04:34, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Do you mean citations from the renowned Japanologists like Reischauer and others do not support the section I restored? Ok, let's examine, whether these citations were misused. Your assumption or speculation merely by checking the titles of sources is weak and invalid as an argument for saying the source is misquoted. The contents in the article must be verified by checking sources. The source text should be given and made comparison with the relevant footnoted content on this page. May be this can be one reason, why you failed to get any consensus for massive removing the contents on this article.

Following is the lower part of a section you deleted without any consensus. This is cited from ‘Ennin's travels in Tʻang China'. Ronald Press Company (1955) written by E. O. Reischauer:

The article says:
 * ''… at the time when the men of Silla were the master of the seas achieving Korean maritime dominance in eastern Asia.

Original source:
 * ''…, but in Ennin’s time the men of Silla were still the masters of the seas in their part of the world.

The article says:
 * The monk Ennin’s crossing to China on Japanese vessels and the whole catastrophic maritime record of the mission contrast sharply with the speed and efficiency with which Sillan ships quickly brought him back home to Japan.

Original source:
 * Ennin’s crossing to China and his subsequent voyage up the south coast of Shantung on Japanese ships as well as the whole catastrophic maritime record of the mission contrast sharply with the speed and efficiency with which Korean vessels whisked him up and down the Shantung coast and finally back home to Japan.

The article says:
 * Another indication of the gap in navigation skill between the Sillans and Japanese at this time was the employment by the Japanese embassy of 60 Korean helmsmen and sailors to help get the main party safely home.

Original source:
 * Another indication of the discrepancy in navigational skill between the Koreans and Japanese at this time was the employment by the Japanese embassy of 60 Korean helmsmen and sailors to help get the main party safely home.

My conclusion: The editor(s) who contributed this section actually footnoted multiple sources, but the sources from Reischauer alone support exactly each relevant sentences in this section. So that there was no place to make any misinterpretation or synthesis of the sources, which is against the Wikipedia's policy.

By the way, you are reluctant to specify, what various theories or views on the page are ‘fringe’ or ‘nonsense’, whatever you call them, so that these can be reported to Fringe theories/Noticeboard. And regardless of your personal perception on culture, ancient Japanese culture like iron working techniques are supposed to be called culture: 鉄器文化(culture of iron in Japanese). Jagello (talk) 22:11, 19 October 2014 (UTC)


 * I already specified a fringe theory: the Soga were of Baekje descent. As for "nonsense", most of the English you added was extremely poor. Please stop mentioning "renowned and mainstream Japanologists" -- I have seen enough evidence from this article already that such quotes are being taken out of context, and none of the quotes you have provided above have addressed the root problem that virtually everything that has ever been discussed in this article is some aspect of ancient Japanese civilization, from a time when Japan really did take a lot in from the Korean Peninsula, but virtually none of it has anything to do with contemporary Japanese culture. The sources you quote above specifically state at this time, referring to the 6th to 8th centuries!
 * Plus, I might ask you -- who are you? You have never edited this article before, but you appeared immediately after the AFD closed (without commenting on the AFD itself) and reinserted material that had been removed almost a year ago. You had clearly been following not only the AFD, but my edits to the page in February. Not only that, but you haven't edited any other page since March 2013! Which of the other accounts/IPs that edited this page in the past is yours? Would you care to be a bit more transparent about your editing habits? Sooner or later either myself or someone else is going to find a smoking gun somewhere in this mess, open an SPI, and CU will catch all or most of the sockpuppets editing in this area, but you can probably save yourself by owning up now.
 * Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 00:26, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, you are aware that changing a word or two of a sentence-long quotation and including it in the article without marking it as a quotation is a potential WP:COPYVIO, aren't you? You are just adding to our case against this material! Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 00:28, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't care whether Soga clan was pure Japanese or not, because there is no such a statement on the page I restored saying or indicating the Soga clan was of Baekje origin or descent. Your argument like ´quotes are being taken out of context` is just an assumption or speculation as long as it is not examined by checking source texts. Again, merely by checking the titles of sources is weak and invalid as an argument for saying the source is misused.

I already get to know during my examination of the sources, there have been copyright problems. That is why I did not restore, during my last edit, the original stable contents, even though your massive blanking done without any consensus.

Although I was aware of the last AFD, because of your argument without substance in vague manner motivated me check reversely the last AFD on this matter and your past edits. Do you think I participated in contributing this article before and was active at AFD? Nope, I mainly searched the original source to get the page numbers for a month. But good idea! You should start an SPI right now and let CU detect all the sockpuppets. Jagello (talk) 19:40, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Reading through this section, your English progressively worse to the point that I don't think you're a native speaker. The two main problems of this article are 1) most of the material doesn't apply to modern Japan or Korea 2) most of the article is poorly written. Hijiri88 is against the restoration of this material for these two reasons, plus he believes the sources are misrepresented. If you would like to resolve these problems and avoid an edit war, I would suggest copying the article and pasting it into your sandbox, where you can freely edit it to perfection. Alternatively, you could add something more contemorary to the article, like the influence of K pop.  ミーラー強斗武   (StG88ぬ会話) 05:49, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The trouble with the latter option is that you'd be hard-pressed to find a reliable source that says K-pop has "influenced Japanese culture". K-pop (and K-dramas!) is popular in Japan, but to include a discussion of that in this article under its current title would give the (false? I'm not an expert either way...) that Japanese pop music, TV dramas, etc. bear Korean influence. I wouldn't be against moving this page to, for instance, Japan-Korea mutual cultural influence or some such, though... Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 06:22, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comment. 1) Please take a look at this article Culture of Japan. This page has full of descriptions on medieval or even ancient Japanese culture. This article doesn’t restrict the definition of culture to the contemporary culture. 2) Multiple sources that the editors footnoted their contributions on this page are relatively truthfully represented in this article without synthesis or exaggerations. I inserted page numbers for each reference not only on the purpose of a better verifiability of the text on this page, but also I tried to check every single citation in the text on this article. For instance, I was initially skeptical that Silla gave some meaningful influence on Hakuho and Tenpyo Japan. But after checking the source, I had to admit that there were significant cultural influences from Silla on the Japanese Hakuho and Tenpyo culture. Shotoku: Ethnicity, Ritual, and Violence in the Japanese Buddhist Tradition written by Michael Como, Professor of the Columbia University. In this book, there are detailed information regarding the Silla influence on Hakuho Japan.--Jagello (talk) 00:54, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Reason for this article?
Has anybody put forth a rational, NPOV argument for why this article's contents are incapable of being integrated into other articles about Japanese history and culture? We don't have articles for the Greek influence on Italian culture, the Chinese influence on Korean culture, the Indian influence on Chinese culture, the Arab influence on Persian culture, the Turkic influence on Anatolian culture, Japanese & American influence on modern Korean culture, etc. despite the fact that all of these influences were significant and frequently cited in academic literature - so why exactly is there a page for specifically ancient "Korean" influence on "Japanese" culture? I agree with the editors who state that the presence of such an article encourages tit-for-tat nationalism and it's as plain as day that such edit wars have already begun. Allowing this article to exist encourages future articles of the same sort and equally heated edit wars.

I suggest moving the article's contents into other articles relevant to the subjects cited. For example, the section about "Koreans" being on the committee that drafted the Taiho Code can be placed under Taiho Code, where it belongs in the first place. Lathdrinor (talk) 19:29, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Threre are already some articles of this kind like History of Indian influence on Southeast Asia, Olmec influences on Mesoamerican cultures, Spanish influence on Filipino culture, Islamic influences on Western art.Jagello (talk) 01:05, 3 February 2015 (UTC)


 * These articles are open to the same criticism, but in the case of Olmec influences on Mesoamerican cultures and Islamic influences on Western art, the topics themselves are sub-topics of larger macro-theories about Mesoamerican culture and Western art, respectively, and are expansions of the "Beyond the heartland" section of Olmec and the "Arts" section of Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe. This article is, however, virtually an orphan but for a "See Also" link placed under Culture of Korea and its inclusion in a few WP:Categories. To begin with, an article about the Korean influence on Japanese culture is ultimately a sub-topic of Japanese history/culture, and therefore ought to be a sub-topic within a Japanese historical/cultural context. Yet, History of Japan and Culture of Japan have no such sub-topics. The expansion of a sub-topic into its own article occurs when the sub-topic becomes too large to be included in the main article, but this sub-topic has no main article reference in the first place. It exists solely to serve as a laundry list, abiding by no general theme and context, and has no purpose beyond being a laundry list. In that case, there is no need whatsoever for a separate article. It's the equivalent of taking out all the myriad of Greek influences on Western art, philosophy, science, technology, etc. from articles about those items, and putting them in a single article called Greek influences on European civilization as a laundry list. What purpose does that serve? What purpose does this serve? Lathdrinor (talk) 02:50, 3 February 2015 (UTC)


 * This article exists because it reflects the scholarship which has been written on the subject. William Wayne Farris wrote a lengthy chapter of his book "Sacred Texts and Burried Treasures" on "Ancient Japan's Korean Connection", with no quotations marks around the words Japan or Korea. The historians Song-Nai Rhee, C. Melvin Aikens, Sung-Rak Choi, and Hyuk-Jin Ro contributed a extensive article to the peer-reviewed journal Asian Perspectives on "Korean Contributions to Agriculture, Technology, and State Formation in Japan". Historian Hyoun-jong Lee has written a series of articles on "Korean Influence On Japanese Culture", and so on. None of these scholars are known to be extreme nationalists of any sort. With so many scholars devoting so many books and lengthy articles to the precise topic of Korean influence on Japan, it makes sense that Wikipedia should follow their lead and also have such an article. Objecting to the existence of an article about Korean influence on Japan is not really an objection to anything Wikipedia says, it's an objection to what most of the world's leading scholars say. Stating that it encourages "tit-for-tat nationalism" is like saying that Wikipedia should not have an article on the My Lai Massacre for fear that it might encourage tit-for-tat anti-Americanism. Facts are just facts, and don't need to offend anyone.


 * Furthermore, with the current state of scholarship, it would be impossible for this article to be renamed as "Japan-Korea mutual cultural influence". The fact is that not much has been written about Japan's influence on Korea, except for the colonial period. There are some works dealing with Japan's influence on Korea during the 1895 to 1945 period, but apart from that I don't know of any books or academic articles dealing with Japan's influence on Korean culture. One of the few sources I've read discussing Japanese influence on Korea pre-1895 is an Asahi Shimbun article printed in the evening edition of March 19 2010, but even though its author interviewed many prominent researchers, he only came up with a list of three things: bronze tools, keyhole shaped burial mounds, and a possible theory about some types of pottery. So even an article like that explicitly intending to discuss Japan's influence on Korea could only scrap up a sparse list of three things which look rather insignificant by comparison to the lengthy academic papers devoted to the subject of Korea's influence on Japanese culture. I wouldn't be surprised if Japan influenced early Korea in more ways than that, but scholars just haven't written about it yet and for the time being any attempt to include reverse influence in this article would be nothing more than a tacked-on footnote, except for the 1895 to 1945 period.


 * So ultimately the reason why this article exists is because Wikipedia tends to reflect the opinion of the scholarly community. It's true of course that this article could benefit from more page numbers attached to the sources, but denying the validity of the article itself and its title is just turning a blind eye to everything scholars have written about this subject in the last fifty years. I'm certain this article will never be deleted entirely.CurtisNaito (talk) 01:29, 3 February 2015 (UTC)


 * The scholarly community writes all sorts of articles about inter-cultural influences. Between any two cultures with historical interactions, there are papers, chapters, and books about the nature of that interaction and the influences derived thereof. But we don't see an article for every pair of interacting cultures on Wikipedia, do we? In fact, we barely see such articles at all. The reason being that it is a lot cleaner, and a lot less polemicist, to describe these influences within their appropriate contexts than to WP:SYNTH them into a single laundry list article. Every sub-section of this article is capable of being placed elsewhere, where it'd be surrounded by proper context. Taking them out of the larger topics in which they belong and listing them here is an act of emphasis and synthesis. For what agenda? Lathdrinor (talk) 02:50, 3 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Well, creating such a "laundry list article" has already been done in numerous scholarly publications, so you're only objecting to the transposition of the views of the scholarly community onto Wikipedia. It's true that not every subject written about in academic journals has its own article, but that's something that will change as the encyclopedia expands. I'm not sure why it matters what agenda scholars have in writing about this subject. Agenda or not, most informed opinion deems the topic to be valid.CurtisNaito (talk) 02:56, 3 February 2015 (UTC)


 * What exactly is the "views of the scholarly community" when it comes to creating a laundry list article on Wikipedia? That is a red herring, as the scholarly community does not and has never dictated how Wikipedia is organized. Do not confuse my objection with ignorance of academic scholarship. I am fully aware of the influences. But I do not believe it belongs in a laundry list article, just as I do not believe creating a Japanese influence on modern Korean culture article to list all the myriad of influences found in a hundred separate articles. Such articles are virulently WP:SYNTH and invariably become nationalist battlegrounds. What is the purpose of their existence? How do they advance the cause of Wikipedia? Saying that they 'represent the scholarly community' is an invalid argument: the scholarly community is capable of being represented in a variety of different ways; the choice to do so in this way or that is a product of Wikipedian editors. Lathdrinor (talk) 03:13, 3 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Well, the fact is that scholars have devoted many articles to specifically this subject, so there's no reason why Wikipedia shouldn't also have its own article devoted to the subject. This article advances the cause of Wikipedia by giving those with an Internet connection a free summary of the viewpoint of the scholarly community on the significance of Korea's influence on Japanese culture. The scholarly community hasn't been afraid to address this topic directly and Wikipedia shouldn't be either.CurtisNaito (talk) 03:26, 3 February 2015 (UTC)


 * It doesn't provide a "free summary of the viewpoint of the scholarly community on the significance of Korea's influence on Japanese culture." It provides a list of "influences" divorced from their proper contexts, that at times *directly contradict* the contents of actual Wikipedia articles on those subjects. The article on Taiho Code, for example, mentions *no* Korean influences whatsoever, but has a section on Chinese influences. Tamamushi Shrine contains nothing about the shrine being a "magnificent example of Korean art." How is having contradicting information on Wikipedia a positive development? Just because the editors working on *this* article are not willing to integrate their sources and arguments into their proper places does not justify the existence of the article. A List is capable of being made for Korean influences on Japan, with cross-refs to the actual articles, but that is not what this article is. This article is a separate authority, adhering to a different POV than the main articles, that doesn't even try to integrate its information with the sources in those articles. The proliferation of such separate authorities in no way benefit Wikipedia: it results in internal inconsistency and confusion, and draws nationalist edit battles as moths to a flame. Lathdrinor (talk) 03:56, 3 February 2015 (UTC)


 * The information about Korean influence on the Taiho Code can be sourced to an excellent recent scholarly work by William Wayne Farris, whereas by contrast the article on the Taiho Code itself contains no secondary sources dating before the year 1903. This article is superior in its sourcing compared with that one, so we shouldn't be criticizing well-sourced articles like this one for not corresponding perfectly with poorly-sourced article like the one on the Taiho Code itself. Farris' works have been very well-received in academic journals, and even if this scholarship about Korean influence on Japan disturbs some nationalists, it doesn't make the topic any less noteworthy.CurtisNaito (talk) 04:07, 3 February 2015 (UTC)


 * You've dodged the argument entirely. There is no justification whatsoever for having separate and different articles on the same subject on Wikipedia. New sources about the Taiho Code ought to be merged with Taiho Code, not kept in a virtually orphaned article maintained by an independent set of editors. The existence of this article negatively affects the internal consistency of Wikipedia and is also WP:SYNTH. This argument has little to do with censoring scholarship on the subject. In fact, scholarship on the subject ought to be cited *in the actual articles* that they deal directly with. For lists, such as a list of Korean influence son Japanese culture, tertiary sources need to be cited, because they properly evaluate what Wikipedians are not qualified to do. But that's secondary. The primary problem with this article is that it represents a separate source of authority on various subjects from the main articles on those subjects, thereby violating WP:POVFORK and WP:REDUNDANTFORK. Lathdrinor (talk) 04:35, 3 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Scholarship on the subject of Korean influence on Japanese culture ought to be directly dealt with in this article, the article on Korean influence on Japanese culture. You say that "scholarship on the subject ought to be cited *in the actual articles* that they deal directly with", but Farris' work was called "Ancient Japan's Korean Connection". Korean influence on Japan was what it directly dealt with. This is treated by many scholars as a special subject of study and there's no reason why Wikipedia can't do the same. You say that the article is a separate source of authority, but on the matter you brought up it's also a superior source of authority. Whatever inconsistencies do exist can be ironed out with time. This article ought to summarize the scholarly literature on this subject and need not be a fork of anything.CurtisNaito (talk) 04:46, 3 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Scholars treat virtually any topic they're researching as a special subject of study. From an organizational stance, your logic here is tantamount to saying that we must have Chinese influence on Japanese culture, Indian influence on Japanese culture, American influence on Japanese culture, German influence on Japanese culture, Taiwanese influence on Japanese culture, and of course all the reverse wherever appropriate. I don't see how that is even remotely a great idea when it comes to maintaining internal consistency, NPOV, and an efficiently structured Wikipedia. But it's obvious that you don't agree. Regardless, I leave this comment here as a reference for the future. Lathdrinor (talk) 05:30, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

That this article is inept is obvious. The subject however can be retrieved by
Finally. This ethnic rivalry or assertion of autochthony characteristic of edit-warring is puerile. It can be surmounted by denationalizing the focus. The Korean peoples of antiquity are no more 'Korean' in the modern sense than the 'Japanese' peoples of antiquity are 'Japanese'. Both benefited immensely from Chinese and Indian civilizations, as is natural in the dialectic of centre and periphery. Much of what Japan got from or via Korea came to Korea via China and India etc., and by noting, as the case may be, the full story (China/India to Korea/Japan, and the modulations affected on the former as cultural flow went east, solves the bickering issue of national dignities vexing this subject.Nishidani (talk) 18:08, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * (a) checking all sources sequentially, and placing tags if they do not corroborate the text. Many of these sources are not worth a nob of goat shit, which, however, does not mean the elements they document do not deserve study and verification
 * (b) Get a coherent time line, beginning with
 * (I)linguistic theories of possible Korean-Japanese common roots
 * (2)Theories of population flow
 * Only then should one move topically to
 * (3)Institutional impacts, namely (a) religion (b)writing system (c)institutional borrowings (d)Confucianism etc.
 * and art, dance, design, technologies etc.

Constant, unexplained re-addition of material that has been explicitly demonstrated to be inaccurate, unsourced, or downright racist
Would the users who keep blankly reverting any attempts to clean up this article please take a breather and actually address the specific points given in favour of our removals/editions/cleanups? The Covells wrote a work of historical fiction, not scholarship; the National Geographic never mentioned "foreign" archaeologists; the kudaragoto originated in Assyria and got its name because it came to Japan through Baekje (and not in the 5th century); jindai-moji is barely an aspect of "Japanese culture" by the broadest possible stretch of the phrase; etc., etc., etc.

These concerns have to be individually addressed, and consensus established, for any of them to be reverted. Users who continue to ignore this will have yet another reason cited in favour of their being indefinitely blocked (in addition to this, this, this and this).

Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 15:45, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

WP:BURDEN
User:Jagello, I think you don't know how Wikipedia editing works. If you want to add something the burden is on you to convince others that the material belongs in the article. I don't need to cite sources or do work in order to remove inaccurate, poorly sourced material, but by constantly re-adding it, and refusing to address any of my points (if you count, I'm pretty sure you've used the word "fringe" more than I have on this page). I have rewritten the "Man'yōgana" section (the previous version inaccurately WP:SYNTHesized bits and pieces of various sources, none of which by themselves said the same thing as this article), and I will do some more later, but it's not my responsibility to conclusively prove that each sentence of this article is a misrepresentation of a source; if I suspect such to be the case, I am allowed remove it on site, and the responsibility to prove me wrong is yours. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 12:10, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Covells are not a reliable source for an encyclopedia article
Per this review in a reputable scholarly journal, the book is a work of historical fiction, not scholarship. Claims that are made in the book but are also made in reliable sources, should be attributed only to those reliable sources. If something appears only in the book and nowhere else, it doesn't belong on Wikipedia. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 12:14, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Read the Dispute Resolution Policy
A question was posted at the Help Desk concerning this article. I see that it has been subject to edit-warring, arguments about the reliability of sources, and tendentious discussions at this talk page. Please read the dispute resolution policy. (It will say to discuss here, which you have, and discussion here is going around and around.) I suggest either the dispute resolution noticeboard or a formal Request for Mediation. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:10, 5 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Technically, discussion here isn't going round and round, it's just going VERY SLOWLY, because one user in particular is being disruptive and demanding that every single sentence be thoroughly demonstrated to be a misrepresentation of its source before it is removed or edited. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 00:06, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Reischauer, Ennin and Korean sailors
Hey, I live in Japan, which ironically means I have better access to sources on Japanese history and literature in general than most other editors of English Wikipedia, but it's very difficult to get hold of super-old English-language American sources like the two Reischauer works being cited. However, as per the ANI discussion I have serious doubts as to whether they actually say what they are being cited as saying. (For instance, I'm extrapolating based on the other abuse of sources in this article that Reischauer says "the Japanese embassy employed 60 Korean helmsmen and sailors", and Wikipedians have extrapolated from this that "another indication of the gap in navigation skill between the Sillans and Japanese at this time was the employment by the Japanese embassy of 60 Korean helmsmen and sailors to help get the main party safely home".) Could someone please provide accurate quotations that back up each of the following sentences? I still don't think any of this material belongs in an article titled "Korean influence on Japanese culture" -- it's not like Japanese later emulated these "Korean master sailors", or if they did why doesn't the article say that? -- and I think Jagello should be indefinitely blocked for his WP:IDHT attitude toward my legitimate concerns (ADDING MORE PAGE NUMBERS!? REALLY?). But this material definitely needs to be completely rewritted at the very least if it is indeed an abuse of the source. Also, Reischauer didn't write [ http://www.amazon.com/A-Brief-History-Of-Korea/dp/0816050856 this book]? Why is this book not named specifically as the source for Evidently, the Ennin's Diary suggests that Koreans were active in the international trade in the late Silla period and were considered the best sailors with the best ships of the day [...] Consequently, the Japanese monk-traveler Ennin tended to rely on the Korean sailors and traders on his travels? Could someone please provide appropriate quotations from Peterson and Margulies as well, and explain how they are reliable sources on Japanese history? Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 00:26, 6 February 2015 (UTC) Is Peterson the same person as this? If so, he doesn't include the book in question on his resume -- why not, I wonder? Oh wait, no: this is him: "Commonly Taught Courses: Korean literature, language and history" -- Ennin's diary doesn't fall into any of these. Margulies appears to be quite obscure. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 00:31, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
 * In the 9th century, Japanese had not mastered the skill and knowledge necessary for safe ocean navigation in their part of the world.
 * Consequently, the Japanese monk-traveler Ennin tended to rely on the Korean sailors and traders on his travels, at the time when the men of Silla were the master of the seas achieving Korean maritime dominance in eastern Asia.
 * The monk Ennin's crossing to China on Japanese vessels and the whole catastrophic maritime record of the mission contrast sharply with the speed and efficiency with which Sillan ships quickly brought him back home to Japan.
 * Another indication of the gap in navigation skill between the Sillans and Japanese at this time was the employment by the Japanese embassy of 60 Korean helmsmen and sailors to help get the main party safely home.
 * It seems that commerce between East China, Korea and Japan was, for the most part, in the hands of men from Silla, accompanied by Silla Korean hegemony over the maritime commerce of East Asia.
 * Here in the relatively dangerous waters on the eastern fringes of the world, the Koreans performed the same functions as did the traders of the calm Mediterranean on the western fringes.

Japanese script and Korean influences. To be redrafted
This section too is incompetently written. Historical opinions (金沢庄三郎) are not current scholarly opinions. WP:SYNTH is disallowed. You don't just add a few views incoherently, cherry-picking. 'most linguistics in the field tend to accept. . ' Bentley's 2001 paper doesn't have this pagination, and his conclusions at that date are not those attributed to him here.
 * I have googled the Bentley's 2001 paper. This is what the paper says on the p. 62.: As noted above, the scholarly consensus seems to accept that ancient Japan is indebted to the peninsula (more precisely Paekche) for what later became known as man'yo:gana. This is the sentence on this page: And it seems that most linguists in this field tend to accept that Man'yōgana came from ancient Korea or more precisely from Baekje. My conclusion is that the editor, who contributed this sentence even toned down in more modest and moderate manner than the original source, which is more convinced. Apparently, you have checked original texts cited in this article. Could you link another original texts that you have checked? So that I can make a proof? --Jagello (talk) 22:02, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Whoops. Perhaps it's aged eyes or the lateness of the hour. I read 82 for 62, and I immediately 'saw' that p.62 couldn't be right. I stand corrected on this. However, the section simplifies by cherrypicking a complex matter, and has to be rewritten. I will suggest a draft shortly.Nishidani (talk) 14:50, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Bentley is one of the best Americans working in classical Japanese, but there is a glaring hole with the absence of this book by Bjarke Frellesvig [ http://www.amazon.com/History-Japanese-Language-Bjarke-Frellesvig/dp/1107404096/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423232569&sr=8-1&keywords=A+History+of+the+Japanese+Language A History of the Japanese Language].-- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 14:28, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I looked at that, but didn't add it because he said what Seeley and Bentley say (which is obvious), and further details are better put on the relevant Japanese pages. For the record he states the key role of Paekje scholars on pp.11,13,146 in the formation of Japanese literacy. Thanks, and cheers.Nishidani (talk) 15:21, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The stuff about Korean's developing phonetic script first is controversial, and I have a couple more sources on that I can dig out. But Frellesvig is one of the only people to address the role of the use of stylus tools in Korea to make invisible markings to on the periphery of Chinese character to provide cues to the reading, which is one aspect of the road to phonetic representation. It's been a while since I looked at the material, but mostly with respect to the use of mokkan, it appears that a full-blown usage appears first in Japan. After Paekche collapsed Shotoku-Taishi increased exchanges and commerce with China directly to an extent that far eclipsed the Korean era exchange--as I foggily recall. I just remembered the name of the other source [ http://www.amazon.com/Centrality-Marginality-Ancient-Documents-ISBN/dp/4882742039/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1423237266&sr=8-2&keywords=marginality+and+centrality Centrality and Marginality of Ancient Documents], which is a translation of studies by Korean and Japanese scholars. Cheers.-- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 15:42, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I got to thinking about that and decided to look it up on googlebooks and found the page.. It seems "highly likely that the stylus marking practice (and by extension, I presume "kunten") was first developed in Korea and transmitted to Japan, and the earliest Japanese examples of that resemble the Korean examples, but subsequently diverged. Anyway, I haven't read the Seely, etc., but this was an interesting point in the development of the kana. The Manyogana is yet another creature.-- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 16:33, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Very good. Certainly the stylus/kunten hypothesis, attributed to him, should be noted here. Generally I think details should go into the main articles, all of which need improvement. Whatever, we should proceed with a wariness of certainties: the subjects are very complex and highly theoretical/speculative in lieu of extensive data(esp from Korea). There's no room for general books in a subject like this. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 17:20, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The first sentence would appear to be way off, chronologically speaking.
 * As Bentley's account demonstrates and as is widely accepted, Chinese (and by extension, the immediate precursor to Manyogana) was introduced to Japan via Paekche. Chinese was probably first introduced into Korea via the commanderies in Koguryo, etc. The problem, of course, is that the development of a full blown phonetic writing system occurs first in Japan, with hira/katakana predating Idu, and hyangchal being from much later, according to my insomniac memory. Attributing the Manyogana to Idu, etc., is chronologically false, though there may be similarities to Manyogana(derived from what might be considered a predecessor to Idu) preserved in Idu(!), because Japan and Korea followed different courses of developmentWP:OR...
 * The research at present seems to be focused on the mokkan (shipping labels, etc.), with the stylus aspect being a sort of bonus. Mokkan are still being dug up (mostly in Japan but some in Korea, too), and seem to be a valuable complement to the influence the introduction of Buddhism on the development of written vernacular (Mair, " Buddhism and the Rise of the Written Vernacular in East Asia ", Journal of Asian Studies, 1994). -- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 20:20, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Indeed. That is why I elided Idu, hyangchal etc., from the revision I added yesterday to the article. The assumption there is both theoretical, and potentially 'nationalist'. The key words I added from Seely, re peninsular (I prefer that to 'Korean' for that stage) immigrants and their descendents being recorded as entering Japan from the late 5th century, are significant. Evidently, while Paekje, and Silla/Koguryo scholars as well, played a seminal role, the state of our materials does not allow us to exclude that the immigrant families who controlled script production from the late 400s to early 500s onwards might themselves have further developed their ideas on phonogramic issues, in Japan. Nishidani (talk) 20:33, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Man'yōgana
"The Koreans were indeed among the first to adapt Chinese characters for phonetic purposes, producing Idu, Gugyeol, and Hyangchal, who deviced probably the model of the Japanese Man'yōgana syllabaries. The immigrant scholars from Korea were heavily involved in early writing activity in Japan using phonogram orthography, Man'yōgana. And it seems that most linguists in this field tend to accept that Man'yōgana came from ancient Korea or more precisely from Baekje. Furthermore, some Japanese linguists also suggest that the Katakana system may have influenced by Korea's ancient writing system. Kanazawa Shozaburo(1872-1967), former Professor of Kokugakuin University is of the opinion that the Japanese Katakana were borrowed from Korea. Kobayashi Yoshinori, Professor at Tokushima Bunri University has discovered, in a Korean Buddhist text introduced to Japan in the early eighth century, letters that look like Katakana. He said that the newly discovered Silla scripts, written in 740, may have acted as a source for the origins of Japanese scripts, Kana. He guessed that Silla scripts was imported into Japan, along with Buddha texts during the Nara period."

Jindai moji
"Jindai moji, 'the god age script,' was claimed by a Shinto scholar in the 13th century that Japan had had its own system of writing before the introduction of Chinese characters, and this idea was taken up by several scholars of nationalists persuasion in the Tokugawa period who produced samples of the script to support their claims. The discoveries of many varieties oí Jindai moji, during the late Tokugawa period, were forgeries done by Kokugaku scholars, who were feeling embarraced about adopting and adapting scripts from other cultures and unwilling to acknowledge that writing was one of the many of cultural appurtenances for which Japan was at first dependent on China and Korea. Ironically, several Jindai moji, modeled on the Korean alphabet Hangul, are identical in shape and sound values to their Hangul models, and others are distorted versions."

Katakana
(who apparently followed his/her friend here) posted the following "Ki-Moon Lee and S. Robert Ramsey note that 'many in Japan as well as Korea' believe that Japanese katakana was based at least partly on earlier Korean scripts." I don't think this claim belongs in the article as it stands, since the book in question is a history of the Korean language; unless mainstream sources on the Japanese language -- and katakana in particular -- can be found that present this as something a large number of mainstream scholars accept, we shouldn't include a single, out-of-context citation of an American and a Korean who happen to have espoused this view (or did they -- can we see the whole quote?) in a book on the Korean language. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 03:46, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * What's problematical about that text is the phrasing 'many in Japan and Korea' which is simply stupid, because it is undefined (folks? specialists?, why is the reference restricted to Japan and Korea when if the sentence were to be valid for registering here, it would have to refer to a notable opinion among Japanese/Korean language specialists the world over. As it stands, it looks like a nod to popular opinion.
 * I rewrote it:-
 * "According to Ki-Moon Lee and S. Robert Ramsey, 'many in Japan as well as Korea' believe that the beginnings of Japanese katakana and the orthographic principles underpinning them 'derive at least in part from earlier practices on the Korean peninsular.'Ki-Moon Lee and S. Robert Ramsey, A History of the Korean Language, Cambridge University Press, 2011 p.84."
 * The book itself is a very good one academically. I disagree with Hijiri that one would require for this not a quality book on Korea, but rather 'mainstream sources on the Japanese language, but I agree we should keep it here in case we get further information on the theory (which seems, thus phrased, not unlikely).Nishidani (talk) 08:42, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh don't get me wrong -- I don't doubt for a second that it's a good source. But if it were actually about katakana and/or Japanese linguistics, it would specify what it means by "many", "at least in part" and so on. For all I know (again, without the full quote) it's entirely possible that they were describing the exact same thing as Bentley, since katakana is based on man'yougana, and if man'yougana was influenced by usage in the Korean Peninsula, then in that sense... but no. If they are saying the same as Bentley and the others, then quoting them as well as Bentley is interpreting the clear with reference to the obscure. Now, if it is referring to the innovative theories previously sourced to the Japan Times then "many" almost certainly does not refer to Japanese language specialists. So without clarification, we can't really use it. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 12:13, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes I see that. Another point that worried me was the specification of katakana, excluding hiragana. Why should they say the former had peninsular antecedents, implying the latter didn't. The problem of continental derivations is complex here. As Frellesvig writes appositely in this regard (while incidentally throwing light on the obscurity of Lee and Ramsay's remark):
 * 'It is important to note that many of the reduced shapes which became hiragana in Japan are found in Chinese cursive writing styles, and that many of the reduced shapes which became katakana are found in Korean kugyŏl. This suggests that in fact the hiragana and katakana letter shapes were not the result of independent developments in Japan, but followed continental models.' (Bjarke Frellesvig,A History of the Japanese Language, Cambridge University Press, 2010 p.160.)Nishidani (talk) 13:09, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The cursive represents, in writing, the linguistic principle whereby communication is economized. The kana represent the first systematic adoption of reduced characters for the phonemic content. I haven't read the Frellesvig in a couple of years, but at the time I recall thinking that was the case, and it didn't seem an unreasonable progression from the use of some Manyogana as phonographs. As I recall, kana predates Gugyeol, but given the common origins in cursively reduced Chinese characters, some similarly between forms adopted as phonographs from similar characters to represent the same sound would not be unusual.
 * There must be a way to simply point to similarities and the practices that might help explain them than to attribute something without concrete archaeological documentation. It's clear that there was transmission of linguistic data and practices from Korea to Japan, but there seems to be a lack of evidence to say, for example, that kugyŏl influenced the development of katakana as opposed to the other way around. It is clear that they were working with the same Chinese characters toward similar ends and shared a number of practices, but what got my attention in this regard in Frellesvig was the discussion of the stylus technique, as it pointed to shared practices that showed divergence in application.
 * (ec)It's all very muddled (for me at least, not being familiar with the intricacies of the Korean side) simply because the Japanese records are more extensive, I gather, and mostly earlier than the surviving Korean records conserving these innovations (b) the Japanese developments are certainly linked to peninsular immigrants, who settled there and whose descendants played a role in adapting scripts (c) the Japanese phonemic system was complex than the Korean (d) given travel both ways, and the family links that undoubtedly existed between sectors of the Japanese and Koguryo, Silla and esp. Paekje elites, it cannot be ruled out that Japanese, naturalized, second/third generation, might have assist in innovating some of the devices that later, at least in surviving Korean records, we find in the contemporeanous Idu and much later Hyangchal and kugyŏl systems. Nishidani (talk) 15:32, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't doubt that there was influence, because many were teachers, it would seem. But I think it has to be borne in mind that from Shotoku Taishi through to early Heian, the number of missions Japan sent to Tang China was relatively high, and acquiring books was one of the primary objectives.-- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 16:03, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Does the Cambridge book on Korean have anything about the stylus practice?-- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 13:34, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * If you mean Frellesvig's book, p.263 remarks on stylus marks for kunten, and the increasing attention the recent unearthings or discoveries of this material is getting.Nishidani (talk) 15:35, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I guess we should, as you suggested, keep our eyes pealed for comprehensive studies of the now 150,000 木簡 unearthed in Japan. Similar stuff is coming out of Korea, but how much?Nishidani (talk) 15:40, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Not much, as I recall, but I don't have time to check that book at the moment.
 * If there were some overlapping material about the stylus in the Cambridge book, there might be something to say about that. Frellesvig didn't produce much info, probably because there isn't much to go on, but I take his text to suggest that the first examples are from Korea, that the early examples found in Japan are similar, but later become different. -- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 15:59, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Incidentally,many--if not most--of the mokkan are being unearthed near Nara, as I recall, near the site of the ancient capital of Heijo, so that might indicate a coincidence with the high frequency of Tang missions as well as trade with Shilla, etc. I haven't seen anything as to whether the mokkan were being used domestically as well, which would have required enough people that could read them.-- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 18:04, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Yep, 36,000 were found in one palace trove (Prince Nagaya) there, weren't they? I don't know how one defines 'domestically' but they were used in trade, and like medical prescriptions (of which there is one by a doctor for princess Tajime asking the imperial pharmacy for three officinal herbs. The doctor, Yô, appears to have a foreign name. The original text is given in a paper by Tanaka Kuniko, 'La voce del legno: ciò che raccontano i mokkan,' (Wood speaks: What mokkan tell us,' in Andrea Maurizi (ed), La cultura del periodo Nara, FrancoAngeli, 2012 pp.145-156 p.154. This paper deals mainly with uta mokkan.(Tanaka says actually 370,000 mokkan have so far been recovered p.148, the oldest being dated 648)Nishidani (talk) 19:41, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I pulled that book off the shelf, and see that there's much I've forgotten already... One chapter has a list of various mokkan...(later)
 * What I wanted to convey was a brief rundown on the chapter about Korean mokkan from Seongsan-Sanseong Fort, by Sung-Si LEE, of Waseda. It was a fort captured by Silla during the 6th century (562). There first page recounts that there only about 300 tablets have been excavated in Korea, with 116 from the site of the fort. There are mostly Nifuda commodity tablets (military provisions?) that were used between 540-561 during the conquest of Alla by Silla.
 * Here's a pdf with some data. -- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 22:14, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Satsuma ware?
I don't know enough about the topic to erase it outright immediately, but it looks to me like the section derives all its information from a New York Times magazine supplement from 1901! Can this material be verified with a more recent scholarly source? I'm WP:COMMENTing the paragraph pending verification. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 10:29, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Only the early stages, it would appear, before the style was defined, could be said to have a direct connection to Korea, but I don't see any source for that, even. It seems like the Koreans set up kilns, but the pottery was rustic earthenware, not Korean porcelain.-- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 23:06, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * That Satsuma ware (錦手 style however is a later, indigenous development of that tradition) is indebted to Korean artisans brought over from Hideyoshi's campaign is very well known. Arita pottery also had Korean roots.
 * Takekoshi Yosaburō, The Economic Aspects of the History of the Civilization of Japan, Taylor & Francis, 2004 Vol. 1 pp.478-479.
 * Clare Pollard's article, 'Gorgeous with Glitter and Gold,' in Ellen P. Conant (ed.) Challenging Past And Present: The Metamorphosis of Nineteenth-Century Japanese Art, University of Hawaii Press, 2006 pp.133-149, pp.138f.
 * Kitahima Manji, ',' in James B. Lewis (ed.), The East Asian War, 1592-1598: International Relations, Violence and Memory, Routledge 2015. pp.73-92, p.87 Nishidani (talk) 13:23, 12 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Those look like good sources. I just checked the article, because I'm not familiar with Satsuma ware, though I have read that it had an influence on the development of Ryukyu ware. Arita porcelain I'm familiar with...I just checked the Japanese pottery and porcelain article and saw this"The Japanese ordered ceramics custom-designed for Japanese tastes from Chinese kilns. In the late 16th century, leading tea masters changed the style and favored the simpler Korean tea bowls and domestic ware over the Chinese. Patronized by the tea master Sen no Rikyū, the Raku family supplied glazed earthenware tea bowls. Mino, Bizen, Shigaraki (Shigaraki ware), Iga (similar to Shigaraki), and other domestic kilns also supplied tea utensils. Artist-potter Honami Kōetsu made several teabowls as his masterpieces. At the Japanese overlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Korean campaigns of the 1590s attempting to conquer China. the Japanese forces returned to Japan, taking with them some Korean potters.[6] These potters established the Satsuma, Hagi, Karatsu, Takatori, Agano and Arita kilns. One of them, Yi Sam-pyeong, discovered the raw material of porcelain in Arita and produced first true porcelain in Japan. In the 1640s, rebellions in China and wars between the Ming dynasty and the Manchus damaged many kilns, and in 1656–1684 the Qing Dynasty government stopped trade. Chinese potter refugees offered the Arita kilns more-refined porcelain technique and enamel glaze methods. "I would imagine that the specifics need to be provided for each kiln/type, etc. I do recall reading somewhat in the past that the Raku family claimed to be of Qin extraction.
 * Incidentally, I have a copy of the Ruins of Identity book, in case you don't and have a query.-- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 13:43, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I read it several years ago (borrowed copy). And, in any case, you're overworked as it is. I think the best way to work here is take a section, at leisure, and overhaul it. I think we have enough sources to make the key points on at least 16th-century onwards Korean pottery/ceramics. If possible, weeding out all sources that cannot be linked to google books. If the info here is standard, then that shouldn't be difficult. There's no hurry, of course. Nishidani (talk) 20:02, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Yamanoue no Okura
"Yamanoue no Okura was a famous poet in eighth-century Japan, who immigrated from Korean Baekje. Influenced by the Madhyamika School of Buddhism growing out of his former Baekje cultural heritage, he addressed social concerns through his poem, unlike other Japanese poets of the time, who spoke for the ethos of land, love, death and devine monarchy. He later became a tutor to the crown prince and Governor of a province in Japan. The reputation of Yamanoue no Okura has sharply risen in the twentieth century, “he became, in the general consensus of sub-sequent centuries of Japanese literary scholarship, one of the most memorable, most influential, and today most often cited poets of the Old Japanese period.”"

I think Yamanoue no Okura should be included, but not in this way. In the first place, (a) the text is wrong, since he did not immigrate from Korea. He was brought over to Japan by his father. (b) whoever wrote this confuses Miller's personal interpretation with facts: Miller's excellent paper is not a summation of a scholarly consensus, but an interpretation of the poems, and his take on the scholarly research (c) the fact that he addressed social concerns has nothing to do with the article's theme (d) sources are quoted to write about the poet which do not mention the 'Korean' origin-hypothesis (WP:SYNTH). (e)There are excellent sources not yet used to explain the hypothesis, and these should be harvested for writing the section, together with other Man'yoshu poets who might have continental c§onnections.Nishidani (talk) 20:30, 4 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Not to mention that the paragraph's wording/POV was loaded with this quasi-racist "otherness" attitude toward "the Japanese", an attitude espoused by exactly none of the cited scholars, "Governor of a Japanese province" being emblematic. Jagello's last edit summary citing "western scholars" is the same. English Wikipedia articles should assume a neutral POV, not the point of view of Korean ultranationalists who have a bone to pick with Japan and interpret everything Japanese scholars say through that interpretive lens. 182.249.240.31 (talk) 06:32, 20 February 2015 (UTC)