The KOREAN Civilization: Things Every Civ Player Should Know

[Drake Tungsten]

I actually used info from this thread for a presentation I just gave on Korean culture. This is one of the best threads I've ever read here on Poly. I wholeheartedly support its bumping.

[louiethelesbo]

Koreans are worthless just like the damn French....couple of good nukes and no more problems from either of those ass backwards countries.

[History Guy]

Indeed, this is an excellent thread, and certainly a great teaching tool about the great history of Korea. I applaude Yin and Sir Edgar for their fine work, and I must say that if Yin's book is as good as his posts, I'll have to pick up a copy!

[King of Rasslin]

My history school book summarized ALL of the Asian and African cultures in a single chapter! And we are taking world history this year! Europe has all the civs, except Eygpt has to be given a bit of credit. I have not even heard of the Iroquois being a major civ. I think their league lasted about half as long as America has been around. And I don't think they used mounted warriors either. Hmm... I guess Korea should have a chance if the Iroquois made it in.

I guess the fact that Korean's LOVE computer games would help too.

It's funny how Europe Civs are so unique but Korea is really just like China. However, the lower half of Korea is more like Japan. I guess it's just a messed up country, the way Germany used to be. America is the only non-Euro civ that should be in Civ 3.

[King of Rasslin]

BTW, I just checked in with the history book again. The movable type was invented by CHINA, not Korea. Hmm. And the Japanese also came from China. Buddism came from India. A lot of Korean culture is taken from other cultures. America has a little bit of its own unique culture.

America's huge advantage is having ALL of the world's culture. Being a land of immigrants, it's like having temples, libraries, cathedrals, and universities from every country! Whew! No other nation can brag about this. All of this comes together to make American culture.

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by King of Rasslin
My history school book summarized ALL of the Asian and African cultures in a single chapter! And we are taking world history this year! Europe has all the civs, except Eygpt has to be given a bit of credit. I have not even heard of the Iroquois being a major civ.

That is ugly.

I think their league lasted about half as long as America has been around. And I don't think they used mounted warriors either.

You're right about the Iroquois not using mounted troops or even mounted special forces (although there must of been exceptions).
IMHO their UU should be a Musketman using all squares as road.

The League was formed in 1460 and lasted, for all practical purposes, until the independence of the USA. In the 17th century they built an empire of a size comparable to that of many other civs included in the game, based on trade with the Europeans (primarily the Dutch), co-operation of individual nations, a food surplus (where rival tribes often went hungry) and superior war tactics.
They were often at war with the French, who supported their enemies (ao the Hurons). If not for the Iroquois, you would be writing in French now, and you might not have a democracy of sorts either.
As separate nations, the Iroquois still exist today with their own governments.

Having Korea in the PTW pack would be fine with me though.

[King of Rasslin]

Trade wise, the Iroquois got a ton of gold. But they didn't research anything. They never really made it out of the middle ages, technology wise. I don't think a musketman would be a suitable UU, though.

Maybe they could get the canoe as a UU? There should be more navy UUs out there, besides the stupid man-o-war. Canoe- 3/1/4, can transport 2, can go on rivers. That would be cool

[Ribannah]

A War Canoe would do fine as the Iroquois UU, but unfortunately boats can't travel on rivers (like the St. Lawrence) in Civ which defeats historical accuracy.

But about the muskets: it is quite normal that nations import their arms from abroad, so I wouldn't worry about that. (How do you think did Austria get a navy? )
Instead of gold, the Iroquois asked for and got muskets, and soon they had more than any other power in North America.
The local currency was wampum strings btw, of which they had plenty.

What is important, is that they got very skilled at using the muskets.

About Iroquois technology, advances like Democracy, Polyculture and Urban Planning are post middle ages IMHO. In medicinal
skills they outperformed the Europeans and they had a certain knowledge about chemistry (ao waterproofing, dye, drugs).

This they had before European contact and therefore before their Golden Age. During, their war tactics proved too much for the French.
They didn't sit still after the 17th century either, and became ao silversmiths and construction workers.

Today the Iroquois play Civ and are active on the web just like the Koreans and everybody else.

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by King of Rasslin
America's huge advantage is having ALL of the world's culture. Being a land of immigrants, it's like having temples, libraries, cathedrals, and universities from every country! Whew! No other nation can brag about this. All of this comes together to make American culture.

You'd be surprised to learn about the multitude of cultures and religions present in The Netherlands, after centuries of seafaring, open trade relations, accepting refugees, and unchecked philisophising.

[King of Rasslin]

Democracy? Polyculture? Urban Planning? These are great concepts and all, but they couldn't make their own muskets. So what if a civ can create a good concept. I mean, the Chinese made the printing press before Gutenberg. Did it help them? Nope.

Guterberg was smart enough to use a practical alphabet, not the thousands of Chinese characters. Ideas and concepts are less important that putting them into practical use. Extensive knowledge of chemistry, medicine, and dyes is great. Getting it down in writing is greater.

I don't care if the Iroquois can make their own little democracy or plan a village. I don't care if the Chinese/Koreans can make movable type. Any culture can create these ideas. But it takes a true civilization to put them to use.

[Ribannah]

Ehhm - they DID put them to use.

The Iroquois built a large empire, dominating all of North America, and Korea is a major economic power today.

Luckily your ancestors did care about the Iroquois democracy and constitution (written on 114 wampum belts), and followed in their footsteps. And what the Iroquois didn't write down themselves, was written down for and about them by Jesuit priests and European philosophers (among them Benjamin Franklin and Friedrich Engels).
European fashion was greatly influenced by the Iroquois colorful and practical (buckskin!) outfit, and their medicine (eg sassafras products) found a prominent place in world medicine.

China has produced great writers despite the drawback of not having a phonetic script.

[King of Rasslin]

There are dozens of Indian tribes out there. The Iroquois were not organized to control the whole continent. And they didn't have real writing, either. That was an advance freely given to them.

Real writing has to have more than just symbolic meaning. A character resembling a mountain or a buffalo has to mean more than "mountain" or "buffalo." That's why cave wall paintings are not really writing. No native american tribe created true writing; the kind, benevolent conquistadors taught them that.

And yet, the Chinese (and Korean!) writing system is considered to be true writing. I guess it's just politically correct to say that. They are big and powerful enough to claim that their "writing" is real, even though extremely tedious and impractical compared to our system. Wonder why illiteracy is so high there? You were considered to be a scholar in Korea and China if you were able to read, which took years of constant memorization. Yep, that title is well deserved if you can understand their language.

[Ribannah]

KoR, let's try not to hijack this wonderful thread, shall we?
Start a new one if you want to further discuss the Iroquois or Chinese accomplishments (better yet, dig up some old threads), you'll find me there.

About writing, while it is true that a phonetic alphabet has many advantages, it also has drawbacks. If you don't speak French, you can't read it either. But if you know Cantonese, you can read writing in any other Chinese language even if you don't speak it.
The same goes for the glyph script that was originally used by the northern Amerind tribes. Later, the phonetic Pickering alphabet was developed that is now in use for most Northern Amerind languages.

[King of Rasslin]

I think the Iroquios/Korean arguement is about the same: both are unfamiliar civs that take the place of other deserving civs in Civ 3. Between the Iroquios and the Spanish, I wish the Spanish would be in the game. The Spanish would get the man-o-war and the English would get the longbowman. Spain conquered the Aztecs, so they should be in the game. Korea didn't conquer anything. Since Civ 3 has such a huge emphasis on war, that is a major factor. Because Korea didn't really get involved in any major wars, what would its UU be? At least the Iroquois could have the canoe...

[Ribannah]

Missed the fifties, didn't you?

I'd rank the civs you compared thus far as follows, in order of importance: 1. China, 2. Iroquois, 3. Korea, 4. Spain, 5. Aztecs (far below the others). But that's me. Conquest is just one game aspect, I'm primarily a builder.
But I also value science.
If it was conquest and war alone, it would be a toss-up between Spain and Iroquois for first place.

[King of Rasslin]

You have got to be kidding me. Although the Korean war was significant, it was a modern war. And we know how messed up that period is in Civ 3

Spanish is the most spoken language in the world, and is, in fact, the easiest language to learn. Chinese is the hardest to learn. Spain's culture has shaped half of the globe, while China and Korea have traditionally been isolationist.

Unfortunately, the Korean war was too soon after WWII. Its importance gets overshadowed here. Also, Russia and China had so much influence in the war, Korea was hardly doing half of the work. Plus, it was only north Korea that was against us, not south Korea.

Before the Korean war, Korea, like Tibet, just didn't get involved in world affairs enough to be significant.

[Miznia]

King of Rasslin said:
Spanish is the most spoken language in the world, and is, in fact, the easiest language to learn. Chinese is the hardest to learn.

Rasslin, what are you talking about? The ease or difficulty of learning a language depends on what your native language is...

Anyway, for an English speaker, I'm not so sure Spanish is the easiest. French, although hard to pronounce, probably has more words in common (I haven' t studied Spanish). Secondly I do not think Chinese is the hardest, because Chinese grammar is easier for an English-speaker to master than SOV languages like Korean, Japanese, or Turkish. In the Japanese case, you still have to learn Chinese characters.

Spain's culture has shaped half of the globe, while China and Korea have traditionally been isolationist.

China doesn't count as "half the globe," but the Spanish-speaking world does?!

[King of Rasslin]

You are kidding, right? Spanish is the official language of the Western Hemisphere. Some day, we will all be speaking Spanish. In fact, Spanish is the only language with its own race, hispanic. Other races, like Asian or African, have a huge difference in language.

I am told in school that Spanish is the easiest to learn, and they are right. I have seen maybe 6 or 7 Asian's here in GA, but Hispanics are everywhere. And because of population controls in China and the massive Hispanic birth rate, Mexico will have more people than China someday. Go check out the population of Mexico City and its growth. See what I mean?

And, although there is a big difference in Asian languages, Chinese and Korean are almost the exact same thing. Asian languages are hard to learn because you have to learn hundreds of different characters, many of which you rarely use in everyday speech.

French has a lot of silence syllables, and you have to be able to pronounce their words. Spanish words are much easier to pronounce than French. Anyone will tell you how much easier it is to learn Spanish than French.

Finally, if it is so easy to learn Chinese/Korean, why don't you see more people speaking it here? Because:

#1- There are almost no Asians here in America, at least in GA. Hispanics are everywhere.

#2- Chinese, Japanese, Korean, whatever. These languages are hard to learn because they come from a totally different language tree. In fact, some sounds in the Chinese language cannot be heard by westerners because their language is so different from ours. Really, Spanish is easier.

So, WHY DO WE HAVE CHINA, JAPAN, AND INDIA IN CIV 3 BUT NOT SPAIN! WHY DO THE ENGLISH GET THE ONLY UNIQUE OCEAN UNIT?

I guess because including Spain would include half the globe, in many ways. China is going downhill, and they never were half the globe.

[Ribannah]

KoR, please stop your trolling.

[King of Rasslin]

Sorry. I guess I don't need to complain. Spain got in. Korea didn't. That UU is from the Japanese scenario. I'm happy now that I know. I can stop complaining. Ahh.... So happy



BTW, in the Civilizations board, people are going to want a certain civ to be in the game. But there is only room for so many civs. It can get a little competitive in here. But thats ok because I can relax now that Korea didn't get in. I knew they respected the Inca enough not to ignore them. And everyone knew that Spain was going to make it in the first place.

[Spiffor]

Can you give a link saying explicitely Korea won't be in ?

[King of Rasslin]

Well... no, I can't. But they have revealed at least 7 of the 8 civs, and there is no way they could exclude the Incas! Also, the only evidence that suggests Korea will be in is that UU, the hwanzi or whatever. In case you didn't notice, that is an artillery unit. Bombarding cannot kill another unit, so no golden age is possible. It is definitely not the Korean UU, it is most likely from their feudal Japan scenario.

[thinkingamer]

Dear KOR, ur statements show that u know close to nothing about Korea.


Where shall I start? I remember a map in a huge book about just Eastern Asia's history and in about 0 A.D. the places known by a civilicized nations in East Asia at that time was: China, most of South east Asia, most of Tibet, and ALL Manchuria, and the Korean Penninsula. And only the Island of Kyushu, Shikoku, and the west south tip of Honshu in Japan was known in the Civilized World. Interesting insn't it?

There are many evidences that Korea had every requirement that qualifies as civilization by 4th cent B.C. ruled by King, while Japan was divided by tribe warlords until the 4th cent A.D.

Then the Han conquered Korea in 108 B.C. , but in less than 40 years the Koreans recovered all the lost land, except the Chinese-city colony of Lolang (lasted until 313 A.D.).
While the Koreans learned a lot from Chinese, in this period, it was the Korean that taught Japan; one time i read a book (A school text book) saying that voyage from Japan to China and from China to Japan was Extremly dangerous before steam engine ships were introduced in Japan because of the dangerous sea currents and winds(remember those Mongol ships?). This shows that most ot the mainland civilization came from Korea to Japan, not China to Japan.

Korea was attacked by Chinese for about 1000 years strait, until they realized that Korea was a peaceful nation and no threat to the Chinese and at the same time that Conquering Korea was not possible (at least not in a long run).

As I stated before, i think the Han dynaty was stronger than the Roman Empire. A Major Chinese battle (in Han dynasty) is around 200,000-500,000 men strong each side, while a Major war in Roman era is around is no more than 50,000-100,000 men each side.
In 612 A.D. the Sui (China) attacked Korguyo with more than 1,100,000 men, a split of 300,000 (out of 1,100,000) attacked the capital of Korguyo (one of the 3 kingdoms of Korea at that time), but less than 3000 Sui men survived. You must remember that it was only about 50 years prior to Chinese golden age. And also from about 0 A.D. to 1000 A.D. the Mongos was not a major threat compared to growing Koreans (which Chinese attacked for 1000 years, only to weaken the Koreans and finally the Kittan could take the Manchuria from Korea after Koreans got worn out of these Looong Chinese attacks.). And If nations Like Korguyo, and Tibet (another major power at the time) did not exist the Chinese could attack the world like Alexander did. (Note: i said COULD) Now.... is Korea really insignificant?

Until the Portugese, introduced firearms to Japan, Japan, was considered no threat at all to either Koreans and China (except those "pain in the butt" Japanese pirates that even the Japanese gov't could not control).

Then the unexpected happened to Korea; in 1592 Japan attacked with more than 150,000 men. Most of u know that these men were "Samurais". Well, they r not; all of them were musket men. At that time Korea only had a bit less than 50,000 men (which was more than enough to control the Japanese pirates, and northern barbarians) and firearms was only owned/known by the high ranking generals in Korea. Obviously the Japanese forces ran through Korea, stealling pottery, painting, even people who made these beautiful works of Art. but after a long fight, Korea won this war.

BTW, I just checked in with the history book again. The movable type was invented by CHINA, not Korea. Hmm. And the Japanese also came from China. Buddism came from India. A lot of Korean culture is taken from other cultures. America has a little bit of its own unique culture.

First of all, i have to say something about the wesrtern history text books and encyclopedias; most of them when they write the Korean History, they write in Japanese perspective not Koreans. And considering how Japan changed the Korean History (when Japan annexed Korea), and not long ago they taught that Japan tied (not lost) against US in ww2 in their schools, would u want to believe this kind of History?

I agree that China invented the movable type, but the first nation that used metal print/movable print (extensively) is Korea, .
and Korea has the oldest printing in the world dated at 8th A.D or older.

Japanese, didn't come from China........genetically more than 50% of Japanese blood is Korean, and at most about 20% of the their blood is Chinese. As i stated above, most of the knowledge came from Korea, not China.

And Buddism... it was spread to from India to China, from China to Korea, and from Korea to Japan. Buddism is a part of Eastern Asian culture, as musch as Christianity is to Wertern Europe culture.

I don't care if the Iroquois can make their own little democracy or plan a village. I don't care if the Chinese/Koreans can make movable type. Any culture can create these ideas. But it takes a true civilization to put them to use.

They did put them in use. The only thing that really killed China and Korea was their isolationist agendas.

I think the Iroquios/Korean arguement is about the same: both are unfamiliar civs that take the place of other deserving civs in Civ 3. Between the Iroquios and the Spanish, I wish the Spanish would be in the game. The Spanish would get the man-o-war and the English would get the longbowman. Spain conquered the Aztecs, so they should be in the game. Korea didn't conquer anything. Since Civ 3 has such a huge emphasis on war, that is a major factor. Because Korea didn't really get involved in any major wars, what would its UU be? At least the Iroquois could have the canoe...

Korea was involved in some major bad ass wars. While Korea never attacked other nations, they did constantly fought the northern barbarian to expand their territories. (which is not bad since they were unestablished territories). Korea was considered as powerful as Japan until the 16th century; heck, Korea was stronger than Japan when they had Manchuria.

And yet, the Chinese (and Korean!) writing system is considered to be true writing. I guess it's just politically correct to say that. They are big and powerful enough to claim that their "writing" is real, even though extremely tedious and impractical compared to our system. Wonder why illiteracy is so high there? You were considered to be a scholar in Korea and China if you were able to read, which took years of constant memorization. Yep, that title is well deserved if you can understand their language.

Wrong. Korea has much less illiteracy rate compared to US. The Korean alphabet is a phonetic alphabet, and perhaps its the most original and best devised phonetic alphabet ever. (I read an article in Times about the Korean language about 7-9 years ago).

You have got to be kidding me. Although the Korean war was significant, it was a modern war. And we know how messed up that period is in Civ 3

.

The Korean war is more of a world history involving war between communism and democracy. For Koreans its more like a dark age, tragedy than gave them a great injury. Its sad that Korea is only remembered this way....

I am told in school that Spanish is the easiest to learn, and they are right. I have seen maybe 6 or 7 Asian's here in GA, but Hispanics are everywhere. And because of population controls in China and the massive Hispanic birth rate, Mexico will have more people than China someday. Go check out the population of Mexico City and its growth. See what I mean?

I speak almost perfect Spanish. I learned how to read Korean when i was 4. IMHO the Korean language is not less harder to learn than Spanish. For an Italian who knows nothing about Korean alphabet, is easier to learn Spanish than the Korean. A Japanese who knows nothing about the phonetian alphabet is easier to learn Korean than Spanish. Duh.

My friend, if u want to troll, do it better next time.

[King of Rasslin]

If you could read Korean at age 4, you can look down on anyone as an idiot or troll

And no nice paper is good unless you have a bibliography. I have my text book to back me up, at the least. Where did you find all of this information? It is all accurate, but Rome is the greatest civilization of all time. It's ok, a lot of people get confused here.

Korea didn't get in, and Japan did. If Korea is as great as you (and many others) say, why didn't it get in? We all know the most deserving civs are put in the game And if you describe the Korean war over communism as the dark age, why is Mao Zedong the Chinese leader? As bad as communism is, it is recognized more than the dynasties are.

The advantage of English is that you can sound out a word even if you don't know it. In Korean, you are just out of luck if you don't recognize a symbol. That is common when a Korean keyboard is four times the size of ours. Think of it that way. They can't type out a page like this unless they took a few hours at it. That high literacy is from the extreme discipline the kids are given. Too much of a desire to be #1 in every way. There is a really high suicide rate in Asian countries, you know.

[Veracitas]

For a while, rassler, I couldn't tell whether your remarks were facetious. I realize now that I overestimated you.

As thinkingamer said, you really have no idea what Korea is about except what you learn from your misconstrued High School (by God, I hope it's HS...if you're learning this stuff in college, woe is the day!), Western-biased textbooks!

And no nice paper is good unless you have a bibliography. I have my text book to back me up, at the least. Where did you find all of this information? It is all accurate, but Rome is the greatest civilization of all time. It's ok, a lot of people get confused here.

No, it's you who sounds confused here.

Korea didn't get in, and Japan did. If Korea is as great as you (and many others) say, why didn't it get in? We all know the most deserving civs are put in the game And if you describe the Korean war over communism as the dark age, why is Mao Zedong the Chinese leader? As bad as communism is, it is recognized more than the dynasties are.

Of course, the word of Firaxis is GOD! Obviously, since nations such as Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, etc, etc didn't make it into the original game, they should all go to HELL! (ok, well, maybe Canada....hahaa, j/k!)

Also, sir, please read more carefully before you make such drawn out criticisms. Thinkingamer said "For Koreans its more like a dark age" in reference to the Korean War being a fight between Communism and Democracy. He didn't say anything about the PRC nor bash its form of government. Please READ THE F'IN SENTENCE. It's because of people like you that our literacy rate is criticized.

The advantage of English is that you can sound out a word even if you don't know it. In Korean, you are just out of luck if you don't recognize a symbol. That is common when a Korean keyboard is four times the size of ours. Think of it that way. They can't type out a page like this unless they took a few hours at it. That high literacy is from the extreme discipline the kids are given. Too much of a desire to be #1 in every way. There is a really high suicide rate in Asian countries, you know.

Man, you really know nothin about the way Hangul works, do you? Korean is one of THE EASIEST languages to pronounce in this respect, whereas English is actually one of the harder ones. Just ask any etymologist you know. I could probably teach even you--yes you--to pronounce any Korean word within a week. I taught one of my Indian friends in like two days. English, on the other hand, has so many anomolies in pronunciation. Compare two simple words like "TOWER" and "THE." If the first word had a "T" sound, shouldn't the second word be pronounced something like "té."? But wait, there's an "E" in the first word, so shouldn't it go something like "tow-é-r"? Anyway, this is a simple example, but there are many. Thus, while many of my Chinese friends have said that Korean is a hard language to learn (which just shows you that the two languages--one being nasal, the other not--are VERY different and classified under two wholly different categories), they applaud the alphabet as much easier to learn than the 5000 Chinese characters.

The advantage of English is that you can sound out a word even if you don't know it. In Korean, you are just out of luck if you don't recognize a symbol. That is common when a Korean keyboard is four times the size of ours. Think of it that way. They can't type out a page like this unless they took a few hours at it. That high literacy is from the extreme discipline the kids are given. Too much of a desire to be #1 in every way. There is a really high suicide rate in Asian countries, you know.

Explain to me how this last bit is a hard statistical fact and not merely your uneducated, Western-biased assumption?

I am told in school that Spanish is the easiest to learn, and they are right. I have seen maybe 6 or 7 Asian's here in GA, but Hispanics are everywhere. And because of population controls in China and the massive Hispanic birth rate, Mexico will have more people than China someday. Go check out the population of Mexico City and its growth. See what I mean?

Only 6 or 7 Asians, huh? Well, my cousin and his family make up 4 already, so I know 4/7 of all the Asians in Georgia, then!

Ok, seriously, though, you can't imagine that the whole world is like Georgia, can you? I mean, I've lived almost my entire life in the Old Dominion (Virginia) where there are a decent amount of Asians, but not all that many. Imagine my shock when I went to school in California where Asians actually made up the majority. Thus, while i was there, it was actually hard to imagine that there was anywhere else in the US where Asians were actually a minority. Of course, having lived in Virginia my whole life, I knew that there's more to the picture of course. There's a hell of a lot more than Georgia and a hell of a lot more than the US in this world, you know.

One thing about Mexico. It's current population (July 2001 estimate) is 101,879,171. China's is 1,273,111,290 (also July 2001 estimate). Let's do a little math exercise, and actually, I will do all the work for you, and you can just sit back and watch:

According to Malthus's REALLY HIGH estimate for population growth, a population unfettered by TERRITORIAL and BIOLOGICAL NEEDS will double every 25 years. So, let's do this with Mexico:

101,879,171*2 = 203,758,342
203758342*2 = 407516684
407516684 * 2 = 815033368
815033368 * 2 = 1,630,066,736

Assuming China's population doesn't increase at ALL, Mexico will surpass China in about 100 years, according to Malthus's really high and outdated estimate.

Now let's look at that last part of Malthus's statement: unfettered by territorial...needs. So, let's compare total country areas: China: 9,596,960 sq km
Mexico: 1,972,550 sq km

Doing a quick calculation, we can see that China has an area nearly 5 times that of Mexico.

I'll let you figure out my point here, because I'm sure you can. And keep in mind that we were assuming that China doesn't grow AT ALL and that we are able to fit 1.6 billion people into a country about three times the size of Texas.

[Veracitas]

Originally posted by King of Rasslin

I am told in school that Spanish is the easiest to learn, and they are right....

One more thing. You use a lot of "I am told"s or variations thereof. Do you really believe every opinionated fact (yes, I'm saying that with a sneer) that you hear??? That's called brain-washing, and that's how Hitler amassed his following. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not accusing you of being a Nazi or anything, I'm just saying you shouldn't believe everything you hear, even if it's from an "authority" like a teacher or the leader of a nation.

[King of Rasslin]

I won't argue with you with the Asians living in GA. I guess they could be hiding. But you see a lot more hispanics and blacks, even more native americans than Asians. Maybe they are hiding. Ok, so if a Chinese student who knows 5,000 Chinese characters has a difficult time learning Korean, I can't learn it. There is a lot of similarity between Chinese and Korean writing, while English is a different language group. I did learn that there is something called "romanji" in Japanese. Is it english characters replacing the Japanese ones? I know very little about this. I mean, we have names for Japanese people like Tokugawa, but they spell their names out in Japanese characters. How does that work?

I did read an article about Japan's life expectancy and how they will be surpassed by some little European country very soon. Suicide really is high in Japan.

You still haven't explained how they make a Chinese/Korean keyboard 5000 characters, plus 5000 more capitalized ones! That must be a pain to learn.

China's population growth cannot continue at its current rate. The government will have a few million people "disappear" or become abducted by aliens if their population control won't work. Mexico is a very rich land with our support. We are against China because they helped Korea in the Korean War, and they are communists. Mexico has a lot of food because they get a lot from us. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. 1 in 3 people will be hispanics in the US by 2100. When Mexico and the US unite because of culture similarities, nothing can stop us.

Plus, the benefit of learning Spanish is an improvement in your English skills. This hasn't been proven with any other language. We are just lucky our neighboring country, which speaks Spanish, has such an easy language to learn. We can adjust easily to their immigration, but I haven't heard of any benefits of learning Korean. I see a lot more Spanish speakers than Korean speakers. On top of that, Spanish is very, very similar to French, Italian, and Portuguese. That unlocks half of Europe, right there. And those are the good countries, not like Lithuania or Poland

As for Korean culture, they are ok. They are just too isolationist to be a factor in civilization. Maybe they could get a worker UU and be penalized heavily for going to war. They could be put in after the good ones like the Spanish and the Carthaginians.

Finally, Rome has been proven to be the greatest civilization. This is accepted by most historian. Culture means nothing unless it has force to back it up. Rome had both power and culture. At its peak, no other civilization could stop Rome.

[Ribannah]

KoR, stop your trolling.

[King of Rasslin]

You are just no fun, Ribannah

[Q Classic]

king of rasslin...

written korean is actually quite practical. unlike chinese text, which is an ideogram-based system in which characters mean concepts, the korean alphabet is just that-- an alphabet, one that is phonetic.

the koreans were involved in many wars. except, these wars, like most wars in general, were confined to the region the countries were in. thus, almost all of korea's wars in the past were exclusively fought in east asia-- something that a eurocentric world seems to forget. korea developed the first ironclad ships, beating back japanese invasions; this, centuries before the americans developed their own ironclad vessels.

you also show very little knowledge in regards to the korean war. the north koreans were very involved in the war, especially early on; the soviet russians actually did nothing but send supplies, and then not very often. the chinese did not get involved until it looked like the north koreans were going to lose--in 1952.

as for asians in georgia... are you from atlanta? if so, where in atlanta? if not, then i'm not surprised you haven't seen asians. there is quite a sizeable population of asians in atlanta, particularly in north fulton, gwinett, dekalb, and cobb counties. furthermore, the city of macon has a noticeable indian population. granted, it's not as large as the hispanic population, but the asian population is large enough to spawn several dailies, two radio stations, a television station, and represent a strong voting bloc in dekalb, gwinett, cobb, and fulton counties.
furthermore, as for the rest of america: new york, chicago, and los angeles all have large asian populations. new york's most famous asian center is flushing; chicago, it's the northwest side; and la, it's all over the goddamn place. again, not as sizeable as the hispanic population--but remember the distances involved for immigration; hispanics do not have to cross the pacific ocean.

actually, those sounds in the chinese language that you say can't be heard by westerners? not true. westerners can hear them, and can distinguish them. but since the chinese language is tonal, one has to pay attention to them.
unfortunately, that has almost entirely no bearing on the spoken japanese or korean languages, because there are no sounds that the japanese or koreans have that the western languages do not have.

as for the bibliography: please, go back to pages 2-7 of this thread, you'll find more than enough.

the supposed advantage of english where you can sound out a word even if you don't know it? well, see, korean has a phonetic alphabet: meaning, yes you can sound out a word even if you don't know it. furthermore, unlike in english where many letter combinations give the same sound, in korean, that doesn't happen very often. actually, it happens very rarely. the korean alphabet has fewer than 30 unique symbols; indeed, the Korean keyboard is actually identical in size to the common English keyboard, including all number keys, function keys, and punctuation keys. and really? typing in korean is extrememly quick on a keyboard, once you learn the layout-- it would not take a few hours to type all of this out. korean does not have over 5000 characters; being an alphabet that number of characters is unneeded.

look, if you're trolling, then so be it...
just remember, when you troll, you don't look particularly bright.