Published on July 14, 2019.
Through Masayuki Takayama’s commentary, this article criticizes the cultural theory and historical view presented in The Asahi Shimbun’s Tensei Jingo column. It reexamines Asahi’s claim that “culture came from the Korean Peninsula” through pottery, writing, law codes, religion, chili peppers, Hōryūji, Takamatsuzuka, and the Jiangxi Tomb.

July 14, 2019.
It would rather be the place to appreciate the magnanimity of the lord, but Tensei Jingo develops a foolish cultural theory without knowing any of this history.
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Culture flowed from Japan to Korea.
It would rather be the place to appreciate the magnanimity of the lord who allowed the kiln to be maintained until the sixth generation, but Tensei Jingo develops a foolish cultural theory without knowing any of this history.
It preaches, saying, “Not only pottery, but even writing, law codes, and religion were learned from the continent and the peninsula and then refined. That is the path Japan has walked,” and “What meaning is there in making much of differences in culture and race, and rattling on about what is indigenous to Japan and what derives from Korea?”
The error of Tensei Jingo concerning pottery is as stated above.
In addition, I do not know which of “writing, law codes, and religion” it means, but Tensei Jingo asserts that they came from the peninsula.
However, Furuta Hiroshi, a leading authority on Asian studies, has long denied the theory that “culture came via the peninsula,” saying that “the Korean Peninsula was culturally blank” and that “culture flowed from Japan to Korea.”
Chili peppers became wa-karashi on the peninsula.
In fact, ruins transmitting the bronze culture of Ordos have been found in Shiga Prefecture, but there is no trace of that culture on the Korean Peninsula.
It is already a historical fact that there was a route linking the continent and Japan from around the Maritime Province, separate from the peninsula.
Since this seems difficult for Asahi reporters, let us give an easy example: chili peppers.
In Japan, they are called tōgarashi because they came from Tang, but on the peninsula they are called Wa, or Japanese, karashi.
It means they came from Japan.
During the Muromachi period, envoys from the Joseon dynasty would come, learn methods of gilding, papermaking, and irrigation techniques for rice paddies, and then return home.
That is surely evidence that there was no culture over there.
A book titled Who Made The Asahi Shimbun Like This? has been published, but Asahi’s abnormality did not begin now.
From long ago, it has been ignorant and lacking in study.
The other day, it also took up “the image of a white tiger painted on silk,” which had been preserved at Hōryūji, and wrote that it “resembles the mural of the Jiangxi Tomb” and that “the influence of the Korean Peninsula is strong.”
The Wangxi Tomb is a burial mound built on the outskirts of Pyongyang in the latter half of the Goguryeo period, that is, around the beginning of the seventh century, and was registered as a World Heritage site about ten years ago.
However, the person who recommended it was Hirayama Ikuo, who flattered Shina and promoted a masochistic view of history.
He was selling flattery to Korea in such places as well.
That alone makes the Jiangxi Tomb reek strongly of something suspicious, but when Kitora and Takamatsuzuka were discovered, just as in the case of Hōryūji this time, Asahi immediately spread the claim that “the Jiangxi Tomb was the model.”
It is being made into the sole basis for the theory that “culture came from the Korean Peninsula.”
If it is such a splendid model, they should line up the murals and compare them, but they never do that at all.
So I personally compared the Genbu of Takamatsuzuka, for which Asahi says the mural of the Jiangxi Tomb was the model.
Genbu is a composition in which a turtle and a snake intertwine, and in the Takamatsuzuka version, both the turtle’s shell and the snake’s scales are drawn vividly, richly colored, and with precision.
By contrast, the Jiangxi Tomb version is almost monochrome, and the turtle is thin and flat.
The entwined snake is thin and twisted, almost like a vinyl cord.
It looked like a soft-shelled turtle tied up with hemp rope.
It is a sufficiently kenchanayo mural.
How could taking that as a reference produce the precise Takamatsuzuka?
This article continues.