By For some reason these statistics about Korean perceptions of the Korean War really doesn’t surprise me:
Three out of 10 South Koreans do not know when the Korean War broke out, a poll suggests. In a study by Dongseo Research for the Committee for the 60th Anniversary of the Korean War of 1,000 adults over 19 or older, 33 percent of respondents gave the wrong year when asked when the Korean War broke out or said they did not know.
In a similar survey by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security in April, 36.9 percent were ill-informed.
Some 47.9 percent of respondents over 60 were misinformed about the year the Korean War broke out or did not know. They were followed 47.4 percent of those aged between 19 and 29, 24.5 percent of those between 50 and 59, 24.4 percent of those between 30 and 39, and 21.3 percent of those between 40 and 49.
Some 14.6 percent said that it was not North Korea that started the War or did not know who started it. Most, or 94.9 percent, of respondents knew about the UN forces’ participation in the war, but 80.8 percent gave the wrong number of countries that joined the UN forces. The correct answer is 16. [Chosun Ilbo]
The fact that many Koreans don’t know the start of the Korean War isn’t all that shocking to me because if you ask Americans when World War II started I am willing to bet many of them wouldn’t know, much less the Korean War. When I first received orders to Korea I can remember a high school friend of mine telling me that he hoped that I enjoyed my stay in the islands. That is how much Americans know about Korea.
Anyway the only stat I found interesting was that roughly 15% of Koreans do not think North Korea started the war. That number is actually lower then I thought it would be considering all the North Korea apologists in South Korea.
12:56 am on September 30th, 2009 1
Yeah, a lot of Americans would be confused about the start of the actual war in Europe while the U.S. policy was isolationist for over two more years, the date that the U.S. was attacked, the date the U.S. actually declared war, and the date that Germany declared war on the U.S.
If anything, I think Americans should know more about the dates that wars broke out at home–The Revolutionary War and The Civil War being the big ones. On the issue of important dates though, besides July 4th, 1776, I'm kind of partial to March 2nd, 1836.
1:48 am on September 30th, 2009 2
Given that a greater number of Koreans probably believe in ghosts and other superstitions, I'm not too worried.
4:00 am on September 30th, 2009 3
that's way less then the ones that believe in FAN DEATH.
12:09 pm on September 30th, 2009 4
When WWII broke would depend on who you were asking and I am very surprised that it was only 15% that didn't know.
I would expect a much higher number with a percentage blaming the US for the whole thing.
Funny how now that the USSR is defunct, they get a free pass from blame from the Korean revisionists. That's beside the point.
I shudder to think of the numbers of people who don't know stuff in the US.
As a general rule, people don't know & don't care about history and geography!
1:37 am on May 30th, 2010 5
According to a BBC poll, the majority of ppl in the developing world and the former Soviet Union think that the destruction of the Soviet Union was mostly a bad thing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8347409.stm