Path: ccsf.homeunix.org!ccsf.homeunix.org!news1.wakwak.com!nf1.xephion.ne.jp!onion.ish.org!onodera-news!newsfeed.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!x060053.ppp.dion.ne.JP!not-for-mail From: "John Yamamoto-Wilson" Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan,fj.life.in-japan Subject: Re: Why Koreans hate Japanese Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 20:08:51 +0900 Lines: 50 Message-ID: References: <365fcc52.0305201057.565afc97@posting.google.com> <365fcc52.0305281748.6fd5360d@posting.google.com> <365fcc52.0305291840.7b936ae6@posting.google.com> <365fcc52.0305310935.200762e8@posting.google.com> <365fcc52.0306022212.30aed075@posting.google.com> <3EDC4631.5030805@hotmail.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: x060053.ppp.dion.ne.jp (210.234.60.53) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: fu-berlin.de 1054639172 10025627 210.234.60.53 (16 [169501]) X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 Xref: ccsf.homeunix.org fj.life.in-japan:565 Declan Murphy wrote: > Which part of Hearn was "ethnically British"? The Greek mother or the > Irish father? The Irish father, I would imagine. Hearn's father was Protestant Irish, meaning he almost certainly had "British ethnicity" (insofar as that term makes any sense), since the Irish Protestants almost all came either from Scotland or England. > Hearn was born in Greece, educated primarily in France, > Ireland and Sepponia, and had in fact spent the majority of his life in > Sepponia prior to his arrival in Japan. Well, you're partially right, of course, but none of that affects his ethnicity. Kaz's perception of Hearn is not that different from Hearn's perception of himself. As he himself wrote: "I was born in the town of Leucadia in Santa Maura, which is one of the Ionian Islands, in 1850. My mother was a Greek woman of the neighbouring island of Cerigo. My father was an army-doctor, attached to the 76th English Regiment of the Line. The Ionian Islands were at that time under British protection, - because the Turks had been killing all the Greeks there.My parents took me to England when I was only five or six years old. I spoke Romaic - which is modern Greek and Italian; but no English. My father went to Russia some years after, and then to India. Myself and brother were brought up by rich relations and educated at home. My father and his wife died in India of fever.When I was about 15 years of age, I was sent to France to learn French, and spent several years there. I was eighteen years of age, when my friends lost all their property; and I was obliged to earn my own living. I went to America in '69, and learned the printing business. After some three years more, I gave up printing to become a newspaper reporter. I reported for several large papers in Ohio for eight years. Then I went South to become literary editor of the chief paper of New Orleans; and remained there ten years. In the meantime I had begun to publish some books, - novels, translations, and literary sketches. In 1887, I became tired of writing for newspapers, and I went to the French West Indies, and to South America, to write a book about the tropics. I returned to America two years later, and after publishing my books, resolved to go to Japan." (http://tinyurl.com/dc5z; the website doesn't actually say where in Hearn's writings this passage originates) In other words, you are right, but Hearn himself stressed the English/British side of his background, and doesn't, in the above, mention Ireland at all! -- John http://rarebooksinjapan.com