Korea Finder #48
Who can name who this man is? For bonus points who can point out his most memorable quote concerning Korea’s status in Northeast Asia?
Here are this year’s current Korea Finder Leader’s Board:
Mark -9
James – 2
Sonagi – 2
Peekstr – 1
HumKor – 1
Farty – 1
Mike -2
Maui – 1
kcbill06 – 1
CPT Kim – 1
Tim – 1
Note that who ever totals the most points at the end of the year, I will purchase for them a Korea related book or DVD of their choice using the proceeds I have accumulated by people purchasing books from Amazon.com on my website.
I had to do a little digging, but I found him. He’s National Assembly Member Roe Hoe-chan (???), who describes Korea’s status in Northeast Asia as a “small and weak country.” Do you know the original Korean term, GI Korea? Do you know its opposite, a label applied most often to the US and China?
While googling his name, I found a very recent news item with a quote from him about the hostage crisis:
??? ??? “??? ?? ??? ??? ??? ???? ??? ??? ?? ???? ??? ? ? ???? ??? ??? ????? ? ?? ?? ???? ???? ??? ?”??? ???. ?? ?? “?? ??? ??? ?? ??? ??? ??? ????? ????? ???, ??? ?? ??? ?? ? ??? ?? ?”??? ???.
Assemblyman Roe Hoe-chan said, “If the US doesn’t show sincerity with regard to the hostage crisis, it’ll practically be a declaration that the US doesn’t care about the safety of Koreans because of its own interests. It’ll be difficult for our citizens to tolerate that. He continued, “If hostages continue to be killed because of America’s rigid stance, anti-American sentiments will be even stronger than in the aftermath of the deaths of Hyo-sun and Mi-seon.”
http://www.pressian.com/scripts/section/article.asp?article_num=60070802114432
Sonagi, you got it good old Representative Roe and his often used quote the Korean is a small weak country. You get two points for that and I'm awarding you another extra point for the additional quote from Roe. It is not surprising at all that he is using the memories of the deaths of the two girls for his own political purposes. I guess Korea is a small weak country when compared to the Taliban as well.
He is one of the reasons why there is so much wrong politically with South Korea today.
Thank you for the extra point. I need it. Did you overlook my question? What Korean terms are translated into English as "small, weak country" and "big, powerful country"?
??? (???) Small, Weak Country
???(???) Large, Strong Country
From a think tank named
Sonagi,
Here is where Roe translated in English making his comments:
http://rokdrop.com/2004/12/05/another-useful-idio…
The Korean terms (have to Romanize them since your blog doesn't like Hangeul) are "yaksoguk" (weak, small country) and "kangdaeguk," (powerful, big country). Looks like Kimchi GI tried to type them in Korean. I was wondering if you realized that Roe was uttering a sentiment often heard among Koreans, whose worldview classifies countries as such.
The Institute for Industrial Policy Studies was established in 1993 and likes to use this “yaksoguk” (weak, small country) and “kangdaeguk,” (powerful, big country) paradigm in their economic research about NE Asia. Interesting enough, according their index, Korea is a jungjungguk A Intermediary-Medium Country with a rating of 46.77.
Sonagi,
I need to find a plug in that fixes the hangul problem, but yes I have heard the weak small country line one to many times. Korea has the ability to be a leading country in the world but due to their own collective psyche of victimhood played upon by opportunistic politicians the country has not been able to become a leading nation in the world.