It Makes a Difference to the Sheep

QUIBBLES OVER ROCKS. The Dokdo/Takeshima controversy appears to be heating up again. This time postage stamps are central to the dispute. The Marmot has the goods. I remember several conversations with South Korean college students in the early 90's when literally the second question I was asked (after the obligatory, "what are you doing in Korea?") was "what do you think of Dokdo?" At that point, it was the fact that Microsoft's Encarta Map listed the small spit of rock as Takeshima instead of Dokdo that had angered many South Koreans (the 2003 version of Encarta skirts the controversy by opting for neither Dokdo nor Takeshima but rather "Liancourt Rocks (disputed)"; these disputed rocks are in the middle of the, according to Encarta, "Sea of Japan (East Sea)). I usually escaped the controversy by repeating a few lines of what was then a popular song in South Korea:

America has Hawaii
Japan has Tsushima
Dokdo is our land ["uri dang"]

Of course this song blithely glides over the fact that Hawaii was a colonial possession and Tsushima was at least semi-independent for quite some time before being fully integrated into Japan proper. But who was I to quibble when matters of great national import and pride were at stake.