[KS] Hermit Country?

[William Pore]

Excuse me, but what is "standard East Asian Practice"? Do you mean 
Vietnam, too?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Walraven, B.C.A." <B.C.A.Walraven at let.leidenuniv.nl>
Date: Wednesday, August 3, 2005 9:38 am
Subject: Re: [KS] Hermit Country?

> Recently Scott Burgeson in his discussion of the Hermit Kingdom issue
> has stated that "it was official policy to detain permanently foreign
> (mainly non-Chinese and non-Japanese) sailors who were shipwrecked on
> Korean shores so that they could not return to their native lands and
> disseminate information about Korea (and thus attract more unwanted
> visitors)". It is of course true that Weltevree and Hamel and his
> companions were held in Korea for a long time (although hardly "in
> captivity" as they enjoyed considerable freedom), but this was not
> official policy. It was standard East-Asian practice to return
> shipwrecked sailors to their home country and this argument was 
> used to
> good effect in the successful negotiations between the Japanese 
> and the
> Koreans about the return of the sailors who remained in Korea after
> Hamel had made his escape. See the chapter by W.J. Boot about these
> negotiations in "The World of Hendrik Hamel" ed. by Vibeke Roeper and
> myself (Amsterdam: SUN publishers, 2003).
> 
> Boudewijn Walraven
>