US sees bias in South Korea textbooks.

Korea Herald

-snip-"We are moving pretty aggressively on this," the newspaper quoted a senior U.S. diplomat here. "We are doing a survey to figure out how the United States is being portrayed in textbooks - primarily history books - and to see what the references and the omissions are. There are not a lot of references about the United States liberating Korea from the Japanese, for example." (wonder if they omitted the references to Nogunri or My Lai?)

-more-
"It's so anti-American, it's amazing," the senior diplomat said about the multiple-choice quiz, an English translation of which the embassy provided to the Washington Times.

The newspaper also said one of the questions, for example, includes the statement: "President Bush has officially cited several reasons for striking Iraq, but they have not been convincing enough for people around the world."

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I guess the truth is anti-american now? If that's the most shocking example they can come up with for anti-americanism (Bush's reasons not convincing people), what are they gonna do when the reral dirt comes out?

The washington times article has a little more detail, but it's still pretty laughable. WashingTimes link

Umm how have we portrayed the Native Americans of this land.... and oh yeah the rosy Thanksgiving story we teach to our children. Give me a break we are concerned about South Koreas bias. Give me a break!

In the country where every high school history textbook paints the last 300 years as nothing but progress (read: we may have had some rough spots, but everything will turn out OK in the end), we have the nerve to complain about a DIFFERENT country's textbooks? How about learning the TRUTH about the history of the US before telling other countries what to print in theirs?

Just ask any high school student or college freshman about Helen Keller's life. Of course, you'll get the standard being blind, Anne Sullivan, etc., but how many can tell you of her adult life as an outspoken Socialist? Probably not too many, since American history books never mention that fact.

At the time Keller became a socialist, she was one of the most famous women on the planet. She soon became the most notorious. Her conversion to socialism caused a new storm of publicity--this time outraged. Newspapers that had extolled her courage and intellegence now emphasized her handicap. Columnists charged that she had no independent sensory input and was in thrall to those who fed her information. Typical was the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, who wrote that Keller's "mistakes spring out of the manifest limitations of her development."

--From Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James Loewen

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/156584100X/ref=ed_oe_h/107-1232445-8788525

Edit for spelling

their main goal is to PREVENT Americans from knowing the truth about what the US does in the world.

Then they say the problem out there is that people don't know the US, that's why they're antiAmerican, if only they knew the truth.

Of course the problem is exactly that they DO know the truth!!

For a great read on US actions in Korea as a way to understand Koreans' take on the US, read Chalmers Johnson, Blowback. The guy was Very establishment, expert on East Asia, and the book documents how the US screwed Korea and other places in order to serve the narrowly defined interests of US power...

I'll definitely have to pick that one up.

I do actually live over here in South Korea though, and get to talk to quite a broad segment of society....their views on the US can be quite interesting...