For those interested in the origins of the regional interaction between China, Korea, and Japan, the Japan Times covers all the bases with this review of history. This is well worth reading for people interested in the subject. Here’s the first sentence:
The Chinese had a name for the people of Japan long before the proto-Japanese had one for themselves. It was “Wa” or “Wo,” written with a character that means “dwarf.”
An excellent idea for a followup would be an account of the influence Japan has had on the rest of Asian culture in modern times, including in language, culture, and business. This influence has been extensive and has taken a route that is almost the reverse of the historical one: from Japan to Korea to China, though Taiwan and Hong Kong are now included.
Excellent article. I’m quite interested in the interaction between early Japan and the southern kingdoms of ancient Korea. Great link and thanks again.
This was a good article. I really love reading these articles on history. Its really great for me to get exposed to all 3 sides (China, Korea, Japan) of history. I wish the three countries would meet and hammer down on histories that have intersections and made a large volume history text that would include histories of these nation as both parallel and continuing history.
Well i got halfway through the article and then i remembered im not a big fan of history X.X or at least the way it has to be written. The article was pretty interesting its just i kept forgetting who was wa and sui and when this happened. Clearly it requires more attention paid to it than i can at the moment.
Lets not forget what Emperor Akihito said about his Korean Lineage. ^^
China, Korea, Japan has been so close throughout the history that I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that they are all cousins of each other. LoL
Well, the character “wo” is comprised of the “person” radical and the character for “short,” but that doesn’t mean it means “dwarf.” It’s generally explained that way, but it’s folk etymology–it could just as easily be a simple phonetic.
Actually, “wa” is most certainly phonetic. “Wa” is what pro-Japanese called themselves, so a “person” radical was added to an existing “wa” character by the Chinese to record the people in the annals. Granted, none of the radical-added characters based on that “wa” base character have really positive meaning — I mean they all derive from meanings of bent, short, withering, etc., so the Chinese could have probably picked a better phonetic part, but you know…
However, the Japanese did change the character to another one with a similar sound, the same one for peace, then promptly changed the reading on it to yamato.
More information about the historical links between Korea and Japan. And Emperor Akihito’s comments.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20020312b6.htm
and more info on japanese ancient history.
http://www.asianresearch.org/articles/2410.html