| Sam asked me while we were watching the world cup soccer game this morning why the audience had written Corea as opposed to Korea on the placards. This is actually an issue that was and still is a big topic among Coreans. I first came across this issue when I was a freshmen in college as an avid reader of soc.culture.korean. I don't know about these days, but back then there were many instances where the issue had been brought up. To make long story short, Corea was the way it was spelled prior to the Japanese annexation in the early 1900s. Japan had pushed to get the spelling of Corea to become Korea in an effort to at least put their own country's name before ours in an alphabetical lineup of nations... Then it had been officially registered as Korea to the rest of the world... Kinda silly? Politics, man... It's all about the politics... The world is a pretty damn silly place. |
