Dokdo Day 10/25
โฅThe Names and History Of Dokdoโฅ (Vocab List at the End)
Hello! It's Admin Do and Admin Sun! Today is Dokdo Day in Korea! Today we'll talk about the Dokdo Islands!
Dokdo is an island in the East sea (It's called the Japan sea in some sources. There's an ongoing name dispute between Japan and Korea whether it should be named the 'Sea of Japan' or the 'East sea'(๋ํด). Since this is a Korea blog, I'm using the term East sea.). This Island is disputed between Korea and Japan. While Korea holds sovereignty over the islands, Japan claims the islands should be rightfully theirs. In Japan, the islands are called 'Takeshima'. Another name for Dokdo is 'Liancourt rocks', which is a neutral term used by other countries. (Same with the East sea, since this is a Korea blog I'm using the term 'Dokdo'). 10/25 is Dokdo day(๋ ๋์ ๋ ), which is to celebrate Dokdo. (In Korea, we sometimes do stuff like read books on Dokdo, or write essays about it on this day. Usually the school serves cake shaped like Dokdo (Dokdo cake) too!)
(Photo credit: https://www.google.com/amp/m.kmib.co.kr/view_amp.asp%3farcid=0013860247)
Dokdo consists of two islets, ๋๋(East islet) and ์๋(West Islet) and other 89 small islets. Today we will briefly look at the history of Dokdo. (*Since we're Koreans, we'll focus on the Korean history. If you wish to know the Japanese perspective on the dispute, you can go visit the wiki page on the island)ย
During King Jijeong of Silla's reign (year 512) the general of Silla Lee-Sabu conquered Usanguk(์ฐ์ฐ๊ตญ, current day Ulleungdo). As Dokdo(Usando at that time) was a part of Usanguk, it was automatically claimed for Silla. 'Usando(์ฐ์ฐ๋)' means high mountain, and it was named for looking like a mountain above the sea. Silla's territory is later conquered by the Goryeo dynasty.
Dokdo is later features in the geography book during the Joseon dynasty, ์ธ์ข ์ค๋ก์ง๋ฆฌ์ง. It is written that ์ฐ์ฐ(Dokdo) and ๋ฌด๋ฆ(Ulleungdo), the two islands are in the east sea and if the weather is clear you can see the islands from each other. During the early Joseon times, Dokdo was called ์ผ๋ด๋(An island made of three peaks) because when seen from Ulleongdo, three peaks were significant.
During the late Joseon dynasty, around Dokdo lived animals called '๊ฐ์ง(๊ฐ์น)'. They're a type of sea lion. According to Sin Gyeongjun's ๋๊ตญ๋ฌธํ๋น๊ณ , The ๊ฐ์ง was a 'big creature in the sea shaped like a cow with red eyes and no tail', and 'Useful to make leather products'. As the ๊ฐ์ง around Dokdo became famous it was also known as '๊ฐ์ง๋'. ๊ฐ์ง became extinct after the Japanese hunted around 1400 ๊ฐ์ง for the span of 8 years during the Japanese occupation.
During the Daehan Empire times, there were a lot of Japanese coming into Ulleungdo illegally. the Daehan Empire government in the year 1900 put Dokdo under Gangwon Do(๊ฐ์๋) as '์๋(Rock island)'. This order is the '๊ณ ์ข ํฉ์ ์น๋ น 41์กฐ'(Korean Imperial Decree No. 41). But in 1905, the Japanese thought that Dokdo was very valuable and incorporated Dokdo into their territory. The name the Japanese gave Dokdo was Takeshima. This incorporation was not agreed with Korea and was just taken by the Japanese.ย
These facts show that Dokdo is Korean territory! Of course, the Japanese have their opinions and claims as well. However since we're a Korean blog we reviewed the Korean perspective on things. Like we said in the start, if you want to know the Japanese claims too, visit the wiki page, it explains the problem pretty well. In Korea, we have a song about Dokdo. Sometimes in school we dance to this song (For talent shows etc.) And there are some flash mobs that dance to the dokdo song too. Here's a video of the song! (It's famous among Koreans. We probably have heard it at least one time during our childhood). The song has a lot of stuff about Dokdo history and stuff.ย
We would be so grateful if you reblog this post to raise awareness about Dokdo! Thanks for reading our post๐๐
โฅDokdo Videosโฅ
๐The Dokdo song, the new version. It changed a bit from the first version I learned as a kid XD
๐Dokdo Flash mob. I remember doing this dance in Elementary school XD. Since I was on Student council I had to do it! I forgot all the moves though..
๐A video about Dokdo made by the Korean Ministry of foreign affairs.ย
๐Dokdo Themed Vocabulary List๐
โฅ๋ ๋: Dokdo
โฅ๋ : Land
โฅ์ํ : Territory
โฅ๋ถ์: Dispute
โฅ๋ฒ: Law
โฅ์ฃผ๊ถ: sovereignty
โฅ์ฃผ์ฅ: assertion
โฅ๊ทผ๊ฑฐ: reason
โฅ์: King
โฅ์์กฐ: Dynasty
โฅ๋: East
โฅ์: West
โฅ๋จ: South
โฅ๋ถ: North
โฅ๋ฐ๋ค: Sea
โฅ์ฌ: Island
โฅ์ธ๋ฆ๋: Ulleungdo
โฅ๋: Rock
โฅ์ง๋ฆฌ: Geography
โฅ์ญ์ฌ: History
โฅ๋ ธ๋: Song
โฅ์ถค: Dance
๐Credits: ๋ ๋์ฐ๊ตฌ์, ๋ ๋๋ฐ๋ฌผ๊ด, KBS
๐Photo credits: ๋ ๋์ฐ๊ตฌ์,ย
https://www.google.com/amp/m.kmib.co.kr/view_amp.asp%3farcid=0013860247ย
Post by Admin Do, Admin Sun
Edited/translated by Admin Sun















