L.J. Writes

I learned yesterday that evidently a bunch of jingoistic pseudo-historians (let's call them JiPHs for short) who claim to be "patriots" helped put a halt to the Early Korea Project, a joint publication project by Harvard University and (actual) historians of ancient Korea. The JiPHs' complaint? That the project put the site of one of the major Chinese colonies, Nakrang, in the Korean peninsula, as opposed to the Chinese continent where the JiPHs insist Nakrang was located.


Different theories on the location of Nakrang: Most South Korean scholars (green), North Korean scholars (blue), so-called "irregular" scholars, i.e. JiPHs (red)

The JiPHs' argument, as always, is total baloney. The historical and most crucially the archeological evidence points to Nakrang being on the peninsula, around what is now Pyeongyang, North Korea. (Green area of map above) The JiPHs, however, insist that Nakrang was in modern China to the west of the Liao River (Red area of map) because Reasons because Korea wasn't centered on the Korean peninsula we were a continental power dammit and the Chinese could never have had a presence on the Korean peninsula and it's colonialist to say otherwise and wahhhhh why are their dicks so small.

That's their entire thing, that ancient Korea has to have been a continental power, no, a continent-spanning empire in order for our history to have any worth, the evidence must only be interpreted to support this conclusion, and any scholarship that says otherwise is imperialist treason to the Korean people and ughhhh I feel slimy just typing this wanky nonsense.

Like mainstream historical scholars tend to, I've regarded the JiPHs with amused tolerance because I assumed they were harmless though annoying cranks. But now, realizing they can get valuable, serious research shut down with their pseudoacademic crap and get members of the national legislature on their side, I realize they are a serious threat and need a stompdown.

This gives me more incentive than ever to finish and publish my novel which places Nakrang, obviously, squarely in the Korean peninsula where it belongs. I want with all my heart for this novel to gain enough influence that the idea of Nakrang in Pyeongyang becomes popularized and the JiPHs can only scream and cry while their "theory" goes down the toilet where it belongs. That's not the only JiPH sacred cow I'm slaughtering, so may their cryfest be bitter and long.

And sure, if that happens they'll start their usual campaigns of smears and harassment, tactics that people with actual proof and logic on their side don't have to resort to. And you know what? Bring it. I am so ready for these liars and cowards. They have gone too far and this means war.

I'm reading a book called Ancient Korean Conceptions of Life and Death (고대 한국인의 생사관), which turns out to be a little bit of a misleading title--in fact the author Na Huira frankly admits that we can't know for sure how ancient Koreans viewed life and death. We have a better idea once they took on more cosmopolitan (and better-documented) beliefs, most prominently Buddhism. This doesn't help me a whole lot, though, since my story takes place centuries before Koreans became Buddhists. Besides, culture probably played a role even after the changes in religious faith, differentiating a Korean Buddhist's beliefs from, say, those of her Vietnamese co-religionist.

( One wedding and one funeral, except not really? )

So this book, while slender and speculative out of necessity, is providing me with some good material. More than the information, though, I like the feel for the ancient Koreans I get from reading. The discussions give me the means to knit together information I already know, like with the Bear Woman myth and marriage as death-rebirth. For some reason I never thought of the myth in terms of a wedding ritual before, though the connection is obvious once I think about it. I look forward to what more I can learn.

Also I dug up a whole bunch of books on the details of Goguryeoh life, and I'm hitting the library so hard once I get a free day. Snoopy dance!

( Yay! )

I keep blowing my self-imposed deadlines on the novel, so I've decided to work on it a little every day--specifically at least one hour a day. I'll be blogging about that work, both as a way to leave notes to myself and to show that hey, it's alive!

( She didn't eat rice, at least not a lot of it. )

I ended up checking out one book I hadn't seen before but had marked in my research notes, Traffic Routes and Footholds in Ancient China-Korea Relations. I need to get serious about spatial relations and trade/military routes and bases. I've placed most of the major locations in the story, but haven't figured out a pivotal one--the seat of the heroine's first husband. I do have a site I like very much, but I'll need to check and see if it's feasible.

In the course of researching for my novel, which takes place in ancient Korea and parts of modern-day China, I turned to e-book bookstores among other sources. It seemed an easy start, a way to dip a toe in the waters without devoting too much space and money from the first go.

Unfortunately, that water I was dipping into? Actually sort of scummy. Now I did fish out one excellent book, a work of non-fiction that I liked so much that I read it all the way through even though only a small portion was directly relevant to my research. Unfortunately the other books I found on Google Play were all duds, particularly the historical fiction.

( Bad history, horrible writing, and terrible art )

I am duly traumatized by my attempts to begin research via e-books. I'm not even getting into the nonfiction fails--bad history books based on a known forgery don't even make the cut after all the crap I've been treated to. Now look what you've done it, awful historical fiction--you've raised the bar so high, or sunk it so low, I can't even get a proper hate-on for run-of-the-mill bad books.

So I've begun reading basic information (links to Korean page) about the history of my heroine's people circa 1st century B.C. I've learned this in school, glanced over web pages and so on but now I'm reading with a purpose in mind, namely to learn what kind of people these were and how their worldview and customs might have affected my heroine's story.

One thing that strikes me is that the customs of Buyeo, or Buri, were oppressive as hell by modern standards. Their politics were centered entirely around the nobility, and it seems their subjects were commoners in name but close to slaves in terms of the way they were treated. "Serf" may be the Western equivalent of their status. We know about four articles of Buri's laws, which were:

( Murder, arson, and jaywalking. Or rather, jealousy. )