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Korean influence on Japanese culture

Korean influence on Japanese culture (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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As already thoroughly demonstrated on the talk page, the article is a WP:POVFORK of a whole bunch of better articles on Japanese culture that may or may not mention hypothetical Korean connections for the topics mentioned. It has stitched together a bunch of sources that either (1) present Korean connection as one (the less likely?) of several possible theories of a cultural artifact's origins, (2) are written by Korean nationalists with no training in Japanese culture, or (3) don't mention "Korean influence" at all, but refer to a Japanese-born and Japanese-raised originator, whose remote ancestors might have immigrated from the Korean Peninsula. The topics Chinese influence on Japanese culture, European influence on Japanese culture and United States influence on Japanese culture are almost certainly more notable, but we don't have articles on those topics -- or, for that matter, any other articles with titles in the form "<Country Y> influence on the culture of <Country X>" -- because such articles by definition would violate WP:WEIGHT, WP:SYNTH, WP:NPOV and more. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:45, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

• Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Log/2014 October 4. —cyberbot I _Online 08:10, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

• Keep We have other articles of this sort and examples include Olmec influences on Mesoamerican cultures, European influence in Afghanistan, Spanish influence on Filipino culture, Islamic influences on Western art. In this case, there's an entire book on the topic and so the topic is notable. The worst case would be merger to another page such as History of Japan–Korea relations and so there's no case for deletion. Andrew (talk) 16:54, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

None of those articles are comparable, since they are not in the form "<Modern nation-state that didn't exist yet during the relevant time period> influence on the culture of <Other modern nation-state that didn't exist yet during the relevant time period>". The more accurate name for 90% of this material would be "Baekje influence on late-Yayoi culture". Many of your examples don't include the relevant word "culture", as well, and please see WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. As to the book: have you read it? It's author has no visible credentials in Japanese studies, the publisher is a specialist in English-language travel guides on South Korea, the book almost certainly fails WP:RS, and a lot of it is downright offensive to boot. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:21, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Plus, books with "hidden history" in their subtitle tend to be WP:FRINGE, and WP:SPAs who cite such books -- including the article's creator and several later contributors -- tend to be here to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:48, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

• That source seems fine and, in any case, is not the only one out there. I browse a little and soon find this — an account of the influence of the Paekche of Korea on Japan. This work is published by a university press and so demonstrates and further confirms the notability and the scholarly nature of the topic. Our corresponding article references the page in question in its section Baekje#Relations_with_Japan, giving it as a main article. This demonstrates that the page in question is interwoven with our other content and is not some fringe fork as you seem to suppose. As for righting great wrongs, you seem to be the one on a mission here as your sandbox indicates you've been grinding this axe for months now. Andrew (talk) 16:26, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

• Comment The issue is not whether any of the content on this page is true, sourced, or whatever. It's about balance: the "topic" is notionally as vast as my example below of France and England, and there is thus no coherence between bits about the Baekje arts and bits about writers whose ancestors were or might have been from Korea, and even less relevance of the bit about Jindai moji. Never mind "influence", why not have an article of "American superiority over the British" -- it could list all sorts of things (wasn't there a yacht race with rather one-side results), a few battles, and everything could be true, referenced, and even in native level English. But it would not be a good article. Imaginatorium (talk) 18:31, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

@user:Andrew Davidson: I'm sorry, but where did Jinwung Kim (the author of the second book you cite) gain his knowledge of Japanese history? I ask, because the paragraph you link to appears to be loaded with errors: (1) if any legit scholars think the Soga clan were immigrants from Baekje, I have yet to read their work (WP:FRINGE) -- the Soga were in fact active in Japan long before the great Baekje immigration of 660; (2) "Soga Noumako" is not a possible name-reconstruction -- his given name was "Umako"; (3) no one says "Asuka-ji"; (4) what's with the scare quotes around "Emperor" Kanmu? Also, the equation of the extinct Baekje civilization (whose educated populace by and fled to Japan) with modern-day Korea is extremely problematic, since they had their own (likely unrelated) language, etc. It seems pretty obvious that this is a WP:TERTIARY source reliant on other, better sources that do not support your claims.

Also, nice personal attack on my sandbox speculation about the obvious sockpuppetry on the part of Korean-nationalist SPAs (sockpuppetry that has been observed by others such as User:Canterbury Tail on ANI last Christmas Eve). I'm just trying to analyze as much of the information as is available to me to work through what's clearky a massive violation of WP:SOCK that has been going on for years. How about instead of rooting around in my user space you actually read the commentary I provided on the article's talk page clearly demonstrating the disastrous abuse of sources in the article.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:59, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• Jinwung Kim is a Professor of History and seems to be a reputable academic. As for sockpuppets, notice that, when you posted your commentary on the article's talk page, nobody, but nobody, responded. Andrew (talk) 07:00, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

"Professor of History" doesn't help much. It's like saying someone who is a "Professor of Science" is automatically a reliable source on the vertebrate eye, when their qualifications are in fact all in nuclear physics. However, Googling his name and the phrase you provided I was able to find his "Author Bio" on the publisher's website. I'm guessing that's what you read, too: what it actually says is "Jinwung Kim is Professor of History at Kyungpook National University in Taegu, South Korea. He has published widely on South Korean–U.S. relations, with a particular focus on South Korean perceptions of the United States." You cleverly chose to omit the area of history he specializes in, since the area under discussion in the article -- and the area in which he made the somewhat embarrassing mistakes I already pointed out -- concerns a different country, over 1,000 years before either South Korea or the United States even existed! Anyway, being published by a university press doesn't necessarily mean the book is an even-handed, scholarly source. I read through most of the GBooks preview: there were no inline citations, and scant notes (I couldn't read the notes since they were not on the same page). This implies that it is meant for a general audience, like most of Bart Ehrman's books (all of which come from Oxford University Press). Nothing wrong with that, but it means we can't easily track his sources and find out why he thinks that "the Soga clan were immigrants from Baekje" is not only an obscure theory he ascribes to but an established fact. It also makes the polemical, somewhat anti-Japanese nature of every part of the book that might be relevant to this discussion (again, what's with the scare-quotes??) problematic for its use as a source anywhere on Misplaced Pages, especially as a source to demonstrate that we can rewrite this article to not be as polemical and anti-Japanese as it already is. Also "seems to be a reputable academic" -- what are you basing that on? That he holds a teaching position in an unrelated field in a Korean university? That an American university's publishing department published a general-audience book by him in that same unrelated field?

And besides, you have not yet touched on the main argument for deletion. The page is a POVFORK, and will never be anything more. Neither I nor anyone else has proposed a GNG rationale for deletion, so your digging up obscure, semi-reliable sources will not help.

As for sockpuppetry: How does the lack of a response to my detailed talk page analysis affect that? They don't usually use talk pages, and are more accustomed to edit-warring. Plus, a lot of those accounts seem to have a WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality, so maybe, at the time, they thought of me as an "ally" who did them a "favour" by getting their "opponent" blocked? (Note that this user actually got himself blocked, but still...) And if in fact all of the dozens and dozens of single-purpose accounts all editing in the same area were actually different people independently patrolling the area, don't you think at least one of them would have seen my post and responded? If anything (I don't actually believe this, though) the lack of a response is an argument for sockpuppetry having taken place.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:13, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

If I may interject Hijiri, but I think your interpretation of the article title is a tad faulty. You've mentioned a number of times above that most of these influences come from Baekje and affected Yayoi Japan, and that they have nothing to do with "modern nation states". I read the title more as "influence of Korean people on Japanese people's culture", nothing about countries. That's all I see wrong with your argument. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 15:42, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Korea-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica 17:21, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Japan-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica 17:21, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bilateral relations-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica 17:22, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica 17:23, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

• No preference, but Japanese culture might be a better location for some of this. The current article has grammar issues throughout, and does seem to have a severe slant toward presenting Korean culture as influencing practically everything in Japan without presenting dissenting academic opinions and research. If this article is not deleted, it will definitely need a serious overhaul, and shepherding from editors willing to work together and put any nationalism aside in that effort. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 18:37, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

• Delete: This is of no real value to English-speaking readers. Most importantly, there is no need for generic articles "Influence of France on English culture" (to give an example closer to (my) home), because such influence is general, all-pervasive, and obvious. In this specific case, of course, both Korea and Japan went through many centuries under the influence of Chinese civilisation, and Korea is geographically in the middle, so obviously it is possible to make a hodge-podge list of "connections", but this does not an encyclopaedia article make. Imaginatorium (talk) 05:09, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

• Keep There's more than enough scholarship on this subject to make an article. Even the Kyoto Cultural Museum noted that "In seeking the source of Japan’s ancient culture many will look to China, but the quest will finally lead to Korea, where China’s advanced culture was accepted and assimilated. In actuality, the people who crossed the sea were the people of the Korea Peninsula and their culture was the Korean culture." What is very glaring about the nominator's source criticism is that he seems to admit that he's hasn't actually read the scholarship he is criticizing. He writes at length about why sources like Covell, Mitchell, and Farris should not be included in the article, but doesn't acknowledge he has ever actually read the books. This is just quibbling with sources and not a legitimate reason to delete the article. Farris' book, for instance, notes that "Together South Korean and Japanese archaeologists have been able to show that from the late fourth through the late seventh centuries Korean-borne continental ideas, technologies, and materials streamed into the archipelago. Influence from the peninsula hit peaks in the mid-fifth, mid-sixth, and late seventh centuries and played a crucial role in population growth, economic and cultural development, and the rise of a centralized Yamato state." The nominator says that "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 Misplaced Pages and denigrate another country's culture". Statements like this show how wrong-headed an attempt to delete this article would be. First of all, someone should write an article about Chinese influence on Japanese culture because that is also an important subject, but secondly, there is no historian today who doesn't acknowledge the massive influence people from the Korean peninsula had on Japan and that has nothing to do with appeasing the so-called "insecurities" of the Korean people. William Wayne Farris, the Kyoto Cultural Museum, and all the other scholars who have written extensively on this subject are of course not inspired by Korean nationalism, they're just acknowledging the fact that Korea has played a tremendous role in shaping Japanese politics, culture, and society, something definitely noteworthy enough to have a Misplaced Pages article.CurtisNaito (talk) 06:36, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

(1) Curtis, I'm noticing a pattern here. So far, you and I have interacted four times on Misplaced Pages (including this time). On all four occasions, I stated that an article violated WP:SYNTH, and on all four occasions you opposed me on that point. On all three previous occasions, consensus worked out on my side in the discussion. Because I was right. Last time, you were told by more than one user that if you were actively trying to violate WP:NOR or just couldn't tell that you were engaging in OR, you would probably need to be either banned or blocked. You managed to avoid this result last time, but I find it hard to believe you would come here and defend the same type of OR as you did there, given the potential consequences for you. Both User:Nishidani and I have pointed this out to you, and if I recall correctly User:Sturmgewehr88 and User:Curly Turkey basically agreed. Now, given that in 100% of your four separate interactions with me you have engaged in SYNTH (in three cases in the service of a modern political agenda), what are the odds that 100% of your other edits have been disruptive in this manner?

(2) Regarding the scholars you name: the authors of the article also clearly have not read most of the sources, since they clearly contradict each other, contradict the material in the article, or are on completely unrelated topics and do not mention Korea at all! Clearly you did not read my long post with enough care: Covell is not a scholar, and you have not demonstrated that he had any qualifications in Japanese studies. You have not read Mitchell either, and so you cannot be right in your assertion that my argument that, given how he is cited in the article, he probably does not back up the text to which he is attached. (I've grown accustomed to this kind of argument from you.) You have not read Farris, either, but the more important point is that the statement to which Farris is attached in the article has nothing to do with "Japanese culture" (it is about metal-working techniques used in the Yayoi state 2,000 years ago). Also, given that the statement violates WP:WEASEL with the word "essentially", we cannot assume Farris actually backs it up; if "essentially" is actually his word and not an "interpretation" by Wikipedians, then does he mean "probably" (60~80%)? If so, then the material should be added to the relevant article, and given the proper context; its being stated as fact, in Misplaced Pages's voice, with no in-line reference to Farris, violates WP:POVFORK.

(3)Regarding the rest of your post: per WP:V, naming institutions and scholars who have written a large volume of work, even providing quotes, without actually giving page numbers, links, publication titles, etc. is pretty useless. And even all the sources in the world won't help this article, since neither my deletion rationale nor those of the other contributors is based on WP:GNG. This article is a WP:POVFORK, and trying to place the WP:BURDEN on me to create the hundreds of other articles (Irish influence on British culture, anyone? Mexican influence on American culture? North Sudanese influence on South Sudanese culture!?) necessary to provide balance is ridiculous. All of those other articles would need to rely just as much on the OR/SYNTH that you know and love so well, Curtis, as this one. Or maybe you don't sincerely believe those hundreds of articles should be made, and are just trying to goad others into violating WP:POINT. Please stop this kind of disruptive behaviour, or you will be blocked. And on that point...

(4) I notice that in all but the first of my four interactions with you, you have shown up at an article you have never edited before, and opposed me with an extremely weak rationale. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen you edit an article on ancient Japanese history, except when you showed up to revert me. I'm beginning to think that you have been following my edits, and showing up to revert me when I edit an area of which you have some knowledge and it seems to you that my position is weak. Per WP:AGF, I'll give you until your fifth infraction on this point, but your constant violations of WP:NOR will probably get you in trouble before that. I would also like to politely ask you to withdraw the above no-rationale, bad-faith oppose !vote per WP:REVENGE and WP:POINT.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:13, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

User: Sturmgewehr88 warned you previously about threatening to ban people for disagreeing with you, and yet you're still doing it. Regarding the matter at hand, I have read Covell and Farris, and Farris makes clear that Korea played the defining role in shaping Japan's state and society, as indicated by the quote above. You could argue that Korea and Japan were quite different entities in ancient times, but ultimately we ought to basically stick to the wording of reliable sources, which seems to be the main thing you always object to in my line of thinking. The fact is that Farris and other sources like him define the ancient peoples living in the Korean peninsulas as being, broadly defined, "Koreans", and the ancient peoples living on the Japanese island as being "Japanese". There is nothing wrong with sticking to the wording of our sources. I read Farris when looking into the subject of the Relations between Kaya and ancient Japan and, incidentally, he does note that the Soga Clan, like many major Japanese clans, most likely had Korean roots. Korean migration to Japan began well in advance of 660. It takes no original research to see that the society and culture imported to Japan from Korea constitutes "Korean influence on Japan". If this article is really based primarily off Korean nationalism, then explain how Korean nationalists managed to infiltrate the Kyoto Cultural Museum.CurtisNaito (talk) 16:23, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

You, and certainly the editors of the page, have not used Farris, a very important source used only generically without page citation so far on the page. From your remarks above, it is reasonable to assume you haven't read Farris's important book. Where does he define the people on the Korean peninsular as being 'broadly defined "Koreans"'? The peninsular peoples were as much Kulturträger of Indian, Chinese civilization as contributors of their own distinctive styles (a distinction that must be observed. Immigrant peninsular assistancee in drafting the 律令 does not mean that code was of 'Korean' provenance: it means immigrants from the Korean peninsular sufficiently sinified to be masters of Chinese law and Confucianism, played a role in its drafting). His most frequent term for the priod is 'peninsular peoples'. Evrything hinges on such distinctions. He does not say the Soga clan had 'Korean roots'. He says that clan had 'intimate ties' with immigrants from Korea (p.111). The problem is not documenting the obvious: i.e., that ancient Japanese society had profound links in its formative state period with peoples and kingdoms in Korea, and that technology, art, religion and writing came over together with peninsular immigrants, to make a seminal impact on the shape the Yamato state took. The problem is to find editors capable of documenting the obvious without sounding like illiterate juveniles, incapable of keeping the text clean of nationalistic nuancing, retrospective discourse on 'Koreans' and 'Japanese' etc. In your remarks, and in your editing elsewhere, you show no ability to make use of scholarly sources in an acceptable encyclopedic fashion.Nishidani (talk) 17:49, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

To quote Farris, "The Soga were probably of Korean ancestry". He does use the word "Korean" and "Japanese" to describe those relevant regions. For instance, "The repeated convulsions in Korea are the context in which historians should place the archaeological evidence of the influx of Korean-borne technologies and material culture. Again, Korean immigration to Japan was undoubtedly responsible for much of the influx..." Or "Korean immigrants served on the committees that drew up the law codes. Of the nineteen members of the committee that drafted the Taihō Code, eight were from Korean immigrant families. There were no Chinese. If one excludes the high aristocrats such as Fujiwara no Fubito and Prince Osakabe, who probably did little of the actual writing, then about half of the authors of Japan's most comprehensive set of Chinese laws were from Korea." You yourself may not believe that the aspects of Japanese culture which were imported from the Korean peninsula constitute "Korean" provenance, but Farris clearly does and what I was advocating is that we stick to the reliable sources rather than personal opinions.CurtisNaito (talk) 18:57, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

'The Soga were probably of Korean ancestry'. Good example of your method. You assert that you have read Farris, and the book the page we are discussing cites Farris's 1998 monograph on this topic. You assert that Farris says the Soga had Korean roots. I checked the work by Farris we cite on the page, and he says no such thing. You come back citing his general history of Japan from its beginnings to 1600 (without naming it) for the view. Of course, Farris says that 2009:35, but no one will know that. You hide the source I guess because it means that you weren't reading Farris 1998, which is what we are discussing, but found the statement you need in a later book by Farris never cited in this article. Either you are being disingenuous or, I suspect, you just enjoy wasting people's time. As for Koreans. You are wrong. The term 'peninsular peoples' is used from memory 35 times in the 1998 monograph and is the default term in that book for contexts where we are speaking about the impact of Korea-born culture and technology on the Yamato state. Again, this is another reason why it is impossible to edit with you. Nishidani (talk) 19:19, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean. Just read the quotes above. They are all direct quotes from Farris' works. He does use the words "Korean" and "Japanese" very often, even more so than "peninsular peoples". He does say that the Soga were of "Korean ancestry". These facts speak for themselves.CurtisNaito (talk) 19:24, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the proof

I stated earlier

In your remarks, and in your editing elsewhere, you show no ability to make use of scholarly sources in an acceptable encyclopedic fashion.[[

And you now confirm.

I don't understand what you mean.

I also looked at the sourcing, much of it is false. Didn't you note that?Nishidani (talk) 07:31, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Oh, an actual source that speculates the Soga were of Korean ancestry. However, that theory should be included in the Soga clan article, and mentioned as one of the theories, not claimed as a widely-accepted fact, unless (as on Yamanoue no Okura) it can be demonstrated that a broad plurality of scholars agree, and it is the most widely-covered in reliable encyclopedia articles. We should NOT uncritically include it in a list of "Korean influences on Japanese culture". Also Curtis, I did not "threaten to ban you". I don't have that power. I threatened to bring your constant OR (or support thereof) to the attention of the community, and warned you of the likelihood of repercussions. If User:Sturmgewehr88 actually does think that you have been engaged in anything less than WP:SYNTH on all four of the occasions you and I have interacted, or that you are constantly engaged in SYNTH but repercussions are not warranted, I'd like to hear it from him: despite your claim, your diff above shows that last time, he was talking about my threatening to bring you to ANI for your personal attacks, not about OR. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:02, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

'Delete Andrew Davidson and Curtis Naito raised a book written by Covell as an evidence of the legitimacy of this article. However the book is a Self-published source and two book reviewers concluded the book is hardly academic.

1. The book by Covell is a Self-published source.

• The publisher "Hollym International Corp" is a private company with only three employees. Its office is a small house located in a residential area. So the book never be a "peer-reviewed publication".
• WP:SPS says "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." However Alan Carter Covell's only qualifications are that "having spent many years in Texas, knows horses and their capacities as well as their weaknesses. (Dust jacket)" (Guth)

2. There are two book reviews regarding Covell's book.

• Guth, Christine (June 1986). "Book reviews: Korean Impact on Japanese Culture". Numen. 33 (1). BRILL: 178–179. ISSN 1568-5276.
• Best, Jonathan W. (Summer 1990). "Horserider Returns: Two Recent Studies of Early Korean-Japanese Relations". Journal of Japanese Studies. 16 (2). The Society for Japanese Studies: 437–442. ISSN 1549-4721.

These reviews criticize harshly (or with sarcasm). Some of the examples are as follows:

• "In this slender volume of one―hundred pages,　the authors describe the Korean impact on Japanese Culture from the Prehistoric through the modern era. Such a task presupposes an understanding of and ability to synthesize a vast body of confusing and often conflicting historical, political, and artistic evidence. This subject, more than any other in Japanese and Korean studies, requires objectivity and well-rounded scholarship. All are lacking in this book intended, according to the dust jacket, "for Popular consumption rather than the specialist's tedious reading."" (Guth)
• ... "Covell's presentation of this provocative thesis is sloppy and full of factual errors. Furthermore, his text suffers from a lack of editing." .... (Guth)
• "Whereas Part I attempts a broad characterization of early Japan through sometimes questionable interpretation of historical sources such as the eighth century Kojiki and Nihonshoki,..." (Guth)
• "... Dr. Covell deliberately presents a distorted picture of the state of Japanese scholarship in the field of Buddhist sculpture.... This statement is both unnecessary inflammatory and historically inaccurate." (Guth)
• "There is a need for a publication aimed at a general audience that explains the close relationship that has traditionally existed between Japan and Korea. This book, however, does not fill that need." (Guth)
• "A close scholarly critiquing of the volume would prove even more tedious for all concerned." (Best)
• " Approximately four‐fifths of the book's hundred pages are devoted to Korean inpact on Japan prior to the eighth century, It is this section that is the most plagued by the Covelis' propensity to take uncritically a single entry from a historical source.... and to elaborate it exponentially in a fashion to suit their particular historical notions and sensationalizing literary style." (Best)
• "... Where does one begin to critique such a presentation? It is basically the stuff of historical novels, not of history." (Best)
• "... but the potential value of its message is seriously impaired both by the numerous historical inaccuracies that appear on its pages and by the historically unsupportable elaboration of minimal evidence in which its authors repeatedly indulge." (Best)

―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 08:52, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

(EDIT CONFLICT) Phoenix, I should thank you for tracking down those scholarly reviews. As I pointed out on the talk page, I had only been able to locate some guy's blog. How on earth did you get them?

Anyway, I should point out that roughly 30% of the article as it stands now is a slightly-reworded form of the SPA User:Globalscene's original one-editor article, which, including in-line citations I had previously missed, cited Covell 7/10 times. The article was originally based entirely on (and essentially named after) Covell's book, and later expanded on by mostly other POV-pushing SPAs and IPs, using stitched-together sources that don't actually draw the same conclusions our article does. (Notice, to give one of dozens of possible examples, how it cites Mark Schumacher when it sees fit, clearly considering him a reliable source, but neglects to mention him when claiming that the Guze Kannon shows Korean influence? That's because he contradicts that claim...)

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:39, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• No, the fons et origo of this page may be seen in the first edit which created it. This was an article by Jared Diamond about the origin of the Japanese. This is an interesting account which states, inter alia, "A theory favored by many Western archeologists and Koreans, and unpopular in some circles in Japan, is that the Japanese are descendants of immigrants from Korea who arrived with rice-paddy agriculture around 400 b.c. ... These are not just academic questions. For instance, there is much archeological evidence that people and material objects passed between Japan and Korea in the period a.d. 300 to 700. Japanese interpret this to mean that Japan conquered Korea and brought Korean slaves and artisans to Japan; Koreans believe instead that Korea conquered Japan and that the founders of the Japanese imperial family were Korean." So this is clearly the sort of topic which attracts nationalist partisans and we seem to have some here now. But if someone of the stature of Jared Diamond is able to discuss this in a balanced and educational way, we should aspire to match this. This is our editing policy. Andrew (talk) 12:55, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Umm... the first edit was followed by about a dozen other edits over a period of two weeks, all by the same person (the other users didn't alter the content at all). So we can take the original author's original version as being the one immediately before the article was first edited by someone else. Anyway, Jared Diamond is not a Japanologist, and unless you can name some of the western archaeologists he mentioned in his non-academic popular articles, he is pretty irrelevant to this discussion. And I would ask you, once again, to kindly retract your assumption of bad faith on my part ("we seem to have some here now"). I have said it to you twice already, but please examine my edit history in this area rather than trolling around my userspace for evidence of "bias" and "nationalistic partisanship" on my part. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:08, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• Hollym seems to be a respectable and specialist publisher and distributor of books about Korea. It is based in NJ while the Covells were based in Korea. That's not self-publishing. In any case, the page in question is not dedicated to the Covells' book which is just one of many sources. The reviews of the work demonstrate the notability of the actual topic by showing that there is academic discussion and debate. If we don't care for the Covells' work then we can instead use the work of one of their critics such as Jonathan W. Best. For example, here's a review of his work which states, "The impact of the Korean kingdoms on the early development of Japanese culture is widely recognised today, even in Japan...". Or another review which states, "...Paekche's role in the introduction of Buddhism into Japan, a widely acknowledged fact. Best's contribution lies in providing several new perspectives for this well-discussed topic. ... In particular, Best has judiciously taken into account the role played by the material culture of Buddhism (especially temple architecture) in the process of this complex religious transplantation, which was to prove one of the two greatest transformations of Japanese culture..." Q.E.D. Andrew (talk) 12:38, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Please stop using the word "seems" -- whether Hollym is a vanity press or just a non-academic niche publisher is pretty irrelevant. The book in question has a subtitle that, if you were an objective, critical editor, would be sending up red flags. (And while were on the subject of objectivity, kindly take your previous ad hominem WP:AXE comment back. I'm not the one with an axe, here. If that was my mentality, then why would I have "helped" the Korean POV-pushers by spending more time arguing with their opponents than with them?) Anyway, the quotation you provide above proves nothing relevant to the current dispute. If you want to be WP:BOLD and move the page to Baekje influence on the early development of Japanese culture, go right ahead. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:08, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

User:Andrew Davidson, are you familiar with the expression "rearranging chairs on the Titanic"? You keep beating around the bush and arguing against straw-man "this topic is not notable" claims that neither Imaginatorium, nor Phoenix7777, nor myself have made. This article is a POV fork and there is nothing comparable anywhere else on Misplaced Pages, or in any other general reference encyclopedia. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:12, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• A fork of what? What are the other tine(s)? And why is merger not preferable as an alternative to deletion? Please see WP:BEFORE. Andrew (talk) 13:15, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Kongō-gumi, Tōdai-ji, Shitennō-ji, Asuka-dera, Jindai moji, Buddhism in Japan, Yayoi period, Asuka period, Kofun period, Nara period, Nara Daibutsu, Soga clan, Ernest Fenollosa, Nara, Yamanoue no Okura, Baekje, Korea-Japan relations, Buddhist art in Japan etc., etc. You will notice that at present virtually none of these articles discuss Korean influence in that much depth at the moment. Forking all of these topics into a single article that presents near-consensus statements (Yamanoue no Okura was likely a first- or second-generation immigrant from Baekje, and so on) and remote fringe theories (Man'yōgana was imported from Korea, and so on) equally as "facts" is most definitely a violation of WP:POVFORK. In the main articles we can provide discussion of the various theories (and, in several cases, the fact that no one takes the claims of people like Kim that the Soga clan were of Korean descent seriously). This fork article exists so Korean-nationalist POV-pushing SPAs (90% of the page's contributors) can add WP:FRINGE material without having to get it by the editorial standards of good-faith Wikipedians like me who have those other pages on our watchlists. It also presents one theoretical picture of 7th-century Japan, and refers to it as "Japanese culture" as though Japan has remained static and wholly-Korean for the past 1,400 years. A title-change and massive content overhaul might solve this last problem, but how do you propose we deal with this? So far all either you or CurtisNaito have offered is "this topic is covered in books, and books are full of thinking". Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:42, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• Delete and give the people who wish to have this article here some months to rework it up to a minimum respect for scholarship. The article takes a serious and fascinating topic, which has been the subject of intense scholarly focus in oriental linguistics, ancient history, the history of art, and, using poor sources, itsy bitsy dabs of factoids and tabloid talk points, makes a caricature of the subject. The importance of academic scholarship for any article of this type is ineludible in order to avoid the pitfalls of competing traditions of nationalism, Japanese and Korean. There was stictly speaking no Korea or Japan (unified states with a common national culture, but 'secondary states' both drawing on Sinocentric conceptions. See Gina Barnes,State Formation in Korea: Emerging Elites, Curzon 2011 passim) for that matter, at this point in time. Korea was riven between the claims of three kingdoms, Silla,Goguryeo, Baekje with distinct linguistic (Suksin-speaking Mulgil, Umnu, Malgals; Puyo-related speakers, Sinic Mahan, Chinhan and Pyonhan groups) and ethnic makeups, each with its own national history (Ki-Moon Lee, S. Robert Ramsey, A History of the Korean Language, Cambridge University Press 2011 p.37) just as Japan had similar territorial complexities. Korea was a conduit also for many things, craftsmen, Buddhist priests, Chinese scholars bringing in continental civilization in succeessive waves. Japanese elites' Korean-peninsular connections, and reverse immigration, also complicate the picture. What happens in the newspaperoid and subacademic popular literature is a retrospective interpretation in which Korea's experience of modern Japanese colonization, and the subsequent establishment of a southern Korean state, was accompanied by Korean assertions their ancestors were responsible for much of ancient Japanese culture, and Japanese repudiations of such claims. This is a popular obsession: scholarship alone, in Japan, Korea and foreign oriental studies, has risen above the nationalistic POVs, and the picture we get is in no way reflected in the childish simplifications of this article. We have wonderful monographs on all this, not least most recently, H. Mack Horton', Traversing the Frontier: The Man'yōshū Account of a Japanese Mission to Silla in 736–737, Harvard University Press, Harvard East Asian Monographs 330, 2012.Nishidani (talk) 13:26, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages aspired to encyclopedic status which means it should not be dabbed up by patches from miscellaneous sources of fair to mediocre popular impress, of the kind, once more, we get in this absolutely bone-shakingly tedious article.Nishidani (talk) 13:26, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Curtis: you write:'There's more than enough scholarship on this subject to make an article.' Well, against your own practice, which I have had occasion to laboriously document elsewhere, you never use it, or if someone does, you look past it, apparently incapable of understanding it.Nishidani (talk) 13:30, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• Neutral - While I think this subject is of encyclopedic value, and I'm an Inclusionist, I do see problems with the article itself and the sources. I won't give a ye or nay now, but I think other editors should try to fix it up before it's deleted, or at least salvageable sections moved to other articles. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 15:49, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
• Neutral, slightly leaning delete. I don't buy the arguments that it should be deleted just because Chinese influence on Japanese culture or Influence of France on English culture (or that those articles should not be created), and I don't think an article about the Korean influence on Japanese culture is in the least out of place. However, the article as-is is far too imbalanced—obviously POV-pushing in a very contentious area. Unless someone is willing to step up and give the article the balance it needs (which I don't equate to adding refutations to all the claims), then the article would better be deleted. Of course, the best solution is to rewrite the article in a balanced, comprehensive, NPOV way on the real and significant contributions of Korean culture to Japanese culture, with balanced, due-weight discussion of disputed areas. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 23:32, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Comment. What does one do when, point by point throughout the article, you discover this kind of fraud?

Among the oldest crafted items extant in Japan is the Tamamushi shrine, a magnificent example of Northern Qi Chinese art of that period.

• (a)Uehara Kazu's article on the 玉虫厨子 is said to associate it with the Northern Qi. But on the Tamamushi Shrine page, which appears to be sourced conscientiously, his 玉虫厨子: 飛鳥・白鳳美術様式史論 p.1f. is cited for a date round ca.650, over 80 years later than the end of the Northern Qi.
• (b) Fenollosa's Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art: An Outline History of East Asiatic Design, p.49 is cited in support. He associates certain motifs there (th Buddhist deities on the door), not with the Northern Qi but with the style of the Northern Wei, which is even earlier.
• (c) C.J. Ryan,Art in China and Japan, New Century Corp., 1914. Note there is no page numeration. Ryan's work is just a review of Fenollosa, a mere article published in The Theosophical Path, 7, no. 1 (July 1914): 5—12. Theosophy?

In short a complete sourcing fuck-up. I fail to see why with this incredibly bad mess of sourcing, th article should be retained. Retaining it, means retaining crap, known to be such, and giving serious or competent editors a burden to fix what the original editor created. Nishidani (talk) 13:13, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

1. Uehara Kazu Professor of Seijo University "Production documented age of Tamamushi shrine "
2. C.J. Ryan. Art in China and Japan. New Century Corp., 1914
3. Fenollosa, Ernest F (1912). Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art: An Outline History of East Asiatic Design. Heinemann. p. 49.

• This is a deletion discussion not an FA review and so such nitpicking is inappropriate. Moreover, it is our explicit policy that articles may be imperfect: "Perfection is not required: Misplaced Pages is a work in progress." It is easy to find fault with any article — one merely has to look. For example, if one looks at the first article listed as Nishidani's creation on his user page — Barasana — one immediately finds a sourcing issue in the first line. An alternate name of Taiwano is listed with a citation of The Palm and the Pleiades but when one consults this work, one finds that the Taiwano are another group - similar but different. The article goes on to say something of this but it needs improvement to present the matter more clearly. The page in question needs improvement too, no doubt, but so it goes. This is not a reason to delete. Andrew (talk) 16:39, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Spurious. The classification of the tribes can be by descent or by language. By language the Taiwano are virtually identical to the Barasana, save for 'minute dialectical variation' (P&P p.23-4;FtMR p.12). Lack of clarity in a minute issue on an article which has been written with close attention to many academic sources is one thing: unpaginated or irrelevant or misleading sourcing throughout a contentious page from top to bottom, reeking of both authorial incompetence and insouciance to the relevant scholarship is another.Nishidani (talk) 17:19, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

@User:Andrew Davidson: I'm the biggest advocate of WP:IMPERFECT rationales you will ever find, but in this case the article is fundamentally imperfect and can never be improved except by (1) renaming the page, (2) removing virtually all the current content, and (3) replacing it with better content that is neutrally-worded and properly-sourced. In other words, the only way to improve the article is to delete it and start over. Also, virtually all the contributors to the current one would be indeffed per WP:NOTHERE if they hadn't abandoned their previous accounts already, so preserving their "contributions" is of questionable value. You have not addressed any of these concerns yet. You asked me for a list of the articles of which this one is a WP:POVFORK, and when I provided you with a scant eighteen examples, you just pretended I hadn't responded. So far the only user other than you who is arguing to keep the current page is Curtis, who has a significantly longer history of following me to discussions of this type and opposing me just because he "lost" the last debate than of good-faith contributions to AFD discussions or working on articles in this general area. So it looks like it's entirely up to you to figure out why this page should not be deleted and (possibly) started-over. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 17:37, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I might add that, anyon who actually wishes to make a page along these lines, has a vry simple but cogent source guide to draw on: Farris 1998:68-9 (from memory). By using those headings and sub-headings, it would be the work of a few days to get a good article sketched out on a solid academic basis. I haven't the time nor interest to do that. But the schema there is more informative than the sprawling magpie hodge-podge we have here.Nishidani (talk) 18:43, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

• Do you mean Farris' Sacred Texts and Buried Treasures: Issues in the Historical Archaeology of Ancient Japan? This has a substantial chapter Ancient Japan's Korean Connection. This is about 70 pages long and seems to be a development of his paper of 1996, Ancient Japan's Korean Connection. These look fine to me and tend to confirm what Diamond was saying at the outset. The rest is then a matter of ordinary editing not deletion. Andrew (talk) 22:58, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but neither Farris nor Diamond (!) are valid sources for the claim "most western scholars believe the Japanese are descended from Korean (horse-riders?) who left the peninsula for the archipelago 2,000+/-400 years ago. The only evidence I can find of this from a specialist is Donald Keene having aid Ledyard gave an excellent description of the situation in Asia at the time; he didn't say he agreed with Ledyard's conclusions, much less that most western scholars do. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:40, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

User:Andrew Davidson is wrong about both the original article being based on Diamond's 1998 Discover article and said 1998 article being relevant to this discussion and here's why:

Also, genetic connections between the Japanese and Korean "races" and philological links between has nothing to do with "Korean influence on Japanese culture" anyway, since genetics are irrelevant and whether or not the languages are related is not a question of one "influencing" the other. That appears to go against the whole thrust of Diamond's closing argument that the Japanese and Koreans are like siblings and should stop antagonizing each other by, for instance, claiming that the other has never in their history accomplished anything without reliance on them.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:06, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

• Comment This discussion page is now 50% bigger than the page in question and still growing. I could respond in similar detail to all the points which are being raised but am mindful of WP:BLUDGEON and WP:TLDR. The essential question here is whether we have a notable topic which merits further development rather than deletion. The fact that we are able to discuss it and its sources in such extensive and minute detail indicates that deletion is not appropriate. Andrew (talk) 10:14, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

That is a ridiculous excuse for an argument. "You think this article misquotes its sources, and went into detail explaining it, therefore the article is fine and shouldn't be deleted"? I think we've identified a new candidate for WP:ATA! Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:40, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Andrew. I'm not trying to bludgeon anyone. I am simply looking at the page from a technical point of view. The subject matter deserves an article, yet this page is a POV/sourcing disaster. I could have written more extensively, but I haven't. I'm all for eager editors jumping on board to contribute: I am also worried that failure to insist they master and apply the quite elementary procedures for article development only flatters a superficial approach to editing, and leaves the burden of improvement on others, while leaving our global readership none-the-wiser about the quality of what they are taking on trust. Regards Nishidani (talk) 11:57, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

• I'm replying to you both after an edit conflict. Firstly, the procedural issues are reasonably well covered already in WP:ATA in the section Surmountable problems. This indicates a difference of wiki-philosophy where I suppose we must agree to disagree. Then, from a technical point of view, there seem to be plenty of alternatives to deletion which have not yet been fully explored. These include:

1. Knocking the page down to a stub or summary. Hijiri88 will be familiar with what was done recently at Historicity of Jesus, for example — a less is more approach in which a broad outline of the issues is presented without getting bogged down in detail.
2. Renaming the page by moving it so that the focus is on the ancient period which seems to be the focus of sources such as Farris.
3. Tagging the page with cleanup/disputed tags so that readers are made aware of the issues and invited to help resolve them.

Andrew (talk) 12:13, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Your proposal is quite different from the Historicity of Jesus article, since with that one the exact same words appeared on other pages, where they belonged. The problem with the historicity article involves the words of the Misplaced Pages articles being forked being taken out of context in a manner that appears to support a fringe POV. In the present article's case, the very words of the sources are being taken out of context, and it appears none of it is salvageable. If you can find one single paragraph that doesn't abuse a source or cite a questionable source, I will take this statement back. But the fact is that as you pointed out earlier the very first sentence written for this article was based on Diamond 1998, and as I pointed out a bit later that first sentence was a complete misrepresentation of Diamond's point. The article has gone down from there. I actually agree with ... everyone else, that this subject is theoretically notable and deserves an article, but I also agree with everyone else except you that the current article contains absolutely nothing of value that would need to be salvaged. Userfy the current page yourself right now if you like; I'll help you fix it, and we'll share the credit when the at-least half-decent article on the subject eventually gets put back in the mainspace. Or, are you not yourself willing or capable of rewriting the article? Because you know, neither Nishidani nor myself are obliged to rewrite the entire article ourselves in advance of a deletion discussion. If you think the article can "in theory" be saved in some version of its current form, the WP:BURDEN is on you to demonstrate such. Otherwise, this seems like a classic case of WP:TNT. (I'd compare it to the ending of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but I don't wanna risk spoiling it in case you haven't seen it. :P ) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:55, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Hijiri, please don't say that I have a "history of following to discussions". Over the past two years I've only bumped into you editing from your undisguised account two times, an average of one per year. Regarding the matter we are actually supposed to be talking about, Diamond's article is not the basis for the article, but it would be worth including in the future. He makes a very solid case based off anatomical and genetic evidence that "immigrants from Korea really did make a big contribution to the modern Japanese, though we cannot yet say whether that was because of massive immigration or else modest immigration amplified by a high rate of population increase." Still though, Diamond only deals with one issue rather than the larger trend of Korean influence on Japan noted by Farris. Farris says

"A chronological list of Korean contributions includes iron, iron goods, and the ferrous industries, which really matured in the fifth century although known earlier. Horse use and equipment gave rise to mounted warfare. Ditch- and pond-digging technology gave peasants access to more fertile, higher grounds for the first time. Ovens became available for households, and Japan's initial wheel-thrown, kiln-fired gray stoneware was used by the aristocracy. Techniques for stone corridor and chamber tombs, more sophisticated stone fitting, and decorated grave walls entered the archipelago from Korea, as well as gold and silver jewelry. New silk-weaving methods; writing and mathematics ; more advanced methods of bureaucratic elaboration such as the surname, title, and eventually ranking; a system to supply the court with services and craft goods; Buddhism and its architecture; Chinese-style law; mountain fortifications and the crossbow—these were other peninsular contributions."

I don't think either Farris or this article are saying that all Japanese culture originated in Korea, but such a long list of contributions requires acknowledgement. Probably the main problem with the article is the lack of page-specific citations, without which it is unlikely to reach good article status. It's not a bad article as it is though, and very few of its facts are particularly controversial among scholars. Deleting the whole thing would be a big loss. I concur with Andrew that this article is a work in progress with some issues that can be resolved without deletion. Furthermore all the sources I've checked so far appear to be accurate albeit without the page number. For example Elisseeff says "The fact that Silla and Paekche as well as Kugoryo influence the ancient music of Japan is well known in the field of Korean and Japanese historical musicology. That is why more weight should be given to the term 'acceptance' rather than 'influence' in an account of the ancient history of Korean music and its relationship with foreign music." Cooper says, "Like many other developments in the history of Japanese ceramics, the origins of porcelain are largely attributable to Korean influence." Perkins says, "The ancient Japanese learned shipbuilding techniques from the Korean kingdom of Silla." The Needham sources says, "From 1592 to 1595 the Japanese warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi unsuccessfully attempted to conquer Korea and among the booty he brought back was equipment for movable-type printing; it was used until about 1650, being popular among the court, individuals, and the temples." Batten says, "The individuals credited by Chronicles of Japan for building the fortresses all bear Korean names and were, in fact, former subjects of Paekche who had fled to Japan after the war." And I could keep on going on, but suffice to say that while the writers of this article may have made a few minor errors, but I don't know where anyone got the idea that the sources were systematically misrepresented.CurtisNaito (talk) 18:37, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

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