| My Letter-to-the-Editor printed in Newsweek International Sept. 17th 2007 |
| The Newsweek articles I was reacting against (Links to their online versions no longer work): "Pilgrim's Progress: The world is rediscovering the power of pilgrimage" "Journeys of Faith: a guide to some of the world's main places of pilgrimage" "The Path to Enlightenment" essay by the Dalai Lama These are shown below |
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Notes on their mis-editing of my letter
that was complaining about their editing:
I originally wrote this as six paragraphs, and without
the paragraph-separation it loses some impact. In the
middle after I mentioned Qufu as the hometown of
Confucius, I was clearly referring to the very famous
Tai-shan as its "nearby holy mountain" (it's less than
two hours by road from Qufu), but Newsweek's
clueless editor inserted a "Wu" there assuming that I
was referring to the already mentioned Wutai-shan
(also a very holy Chinese mountain but entirely
different, two day's travel away).
Also, in my letter I named a few of the most sacred
Korean mountains properly: Jiri-san, Taebaek-san,
Gyeryong-san and etc. This editor changed that to
"Mount Jiri" and so on, in what I guess is the European
style, which is not appropriate for Korean mountains ---
perhaps "Mt. Jiri-san" and so on might work.
Both of these errors perfectly exemplify what I was
really complaining about in the letter: that Newsweek
International's editors, supposedly so globalized,
seem quite ignorant about East Asia in general and
Korea in particular -- and seem to be, rather incredibly,
too damn lazy to do the very simple one minute of
googling that would tell them what Tai-shan and
Gyeryong-san are, and that Ankor Wat and Qufu are
not "pilgrimage" destinations in the modern world,
and, and, and...
So much work remains to be done, in exposing these
sacred sites and their significance to the attention of
the global public -- most especially those of Korea.
that was complaining about their editing:
I originally wrote this as six paragraphs, and without
the paragraph-separation it loses some impact. In the
middle after I mentioned Qufu as the hometown of
Confucius, I was clearly referring to the very famous
Tai-shan as its "nearby holy mountain" (it's less than
two hours by road from Qufu), but Newsweek's
clueless editor inserted a "Wu" there assuming that I
was referring to the already mentioned Wutai-shan
(also a very holy Chinese mountain but entirely
different, two day's travel away).
Also, in my letter I named a few of the most sacred
Korean mountains properly: Jiri-san, Taebaek-san,
Gyeryong-san and etc. This editor changed that to
"Mount Jiri" and so on, in what I guess is the European
style, which is not appropriate for Korean mountains ---
perhaps "Mt. Jiri-san" and so on might work.
Both of these errors perfectly exemplify what I was
really complaining about in the letter: that Newsweek
International's editors, supposedly so globalized,
seem quite ignorant about East Asia in general and
Korea in particular -- and seem to be, rather incredibly,
too damn lazy to do the very simple one minute of
googling that would tell them what Tai-shan and
Gyeryong-san are, and that Ankor Wat and Qufu are
not "pilgrimage" destinations in the modern world,
and, and, and...
So much work remains to be done, in exposing these
sacred sites and their significance to the attention of
the global public -- most especially those of Korea.
| One site designated in all of Northeast Asia!!! |