Jump to content

Talk:Wokou/Archive 1

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1

Because It is not fixed URL [1] You can see, if it searches here.Objectman 09:37, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Error (ambiguity) in "Kamakura" section, 2nd and 3rd paragraph

This section seems to imply the mongols succesfully invaded Japan. In reality the mongols tried to invade Japan several times but were stopped by storms (the origin of the word kamikaze, meaning divine wind). (See article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamakura_period#Mongol_Invasions)

2nd paragraph: The period around the Mongol invasions of Japan were a low point for Wokou activity.

3rd paragrah: As the Kamakura shogunate and Goryeo state both declined following the Mongol invasions, the Wokou again became active.

131.111.244.214 13:20, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Why didn't the mighty fleet of Zheng He do something about the Wokou?

Seems like it would be a simple undertaking for a fleet with 30,000 men.

You forgot that most of the Wokou were Chinese....... they were free-traders. 128.135.121.91 03:43, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Wokou problem became prominent after the burning of the Ming fleet - recent analysis favours the view that the Wokou arose as a matter of economic necessity precisely because the Ming government cut off trade and destroyed the fleets. --Sumple (Talk) 05:48, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Merge with Wa (Japan)?

— Yaohua2000 02:32, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Go to Talk:Wa (Japan) for the discussion of this issue. Hermeneus (talk) 04:21, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Article biased against the wokou

The article is presenting the history of Wokou from the perspective of the Ming court and its portrayal is very anti-Wokou and anti-Japanese. Many Chinese however on the coastal areas benefitted from the activities of wokou (such as free trade and tax relief). It boosted the economic development of the southeast coast. Chinese Wokou outnumbered Japanese Wokou something like 7:1. I have edited the preamble, but the rest of the article is completely biased in POV of the Ming court, not from the local Chinese residents living in areas of Wokou activity. 128.135.121.91 03:49, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Please cite sources for your claim that killing and pillaging boosts economic development. --Sumple (Talk) 05:16, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Only partially on topic with the bias/Chinese perspective in the article, but since they were Japanese pirates, would it not be more correct to refer to them by their Japanese name (Wakou 和寇/倭寇)? Their Japanese name is not a derogatory term, as it is based off of Wa (和 - Japanese) as opposed to Wo (which the article tells us means dwarf). --ProdigySim 05:39, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I'd say that they were Japanese pirates but the phenomenon of 倭寇 was only notable in China - most ppl in Japan probably weren't aware of this phenomenon. Anyway, it's mostly Chinese people in these pirate fleets anwyay. --Sumple
倭 does not mean dwarf (it means Japan and is the same character as wa) but it happens to be a homophone with a character that does. On another note, I would support a rename to the Japanese name. These pirates were a very serious factor in Korean history as well, so it's difficult to see why the article should be called wokou (Chinese) instead of waegu (Korean). -- Visviva 06:10, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
The term is written with Chinese characters. They were first used in China. These by themselves should mean its a Chinese term, not Japanese or Korean.
The term does not refer to "Japanese pirates" in general. It refers to "Japanese pirates" in the particular context of Chinese and Korean coastal areas, even when used in Japan.
Thus the term is not a Japanese term - it is a Chinese term, referring to Japanese expatriats and their Chinese associates, but which was later also used in Japan to refer to the same people.
Finally, "kou" means "bandits" . If the term was invented by the Japanese, don't you think it should say "Japanese sea traders", which they undoubtedly were? The fact that the term inherently shows Chinese/Korean POV should demonstrate that it is not a Japanese term.
Finally, the name "Wokou" and "Wakou" mean exactly the same thing, and are written exactly the same. The character 倭 is pronounced "Wo" in Chinese and "Wa" in Japanese. It means exactly the same thing. It is *not* a homophone with the character meaning short, as some people seem to believe. The word has connotations of "dwarf" only because of stereotypes in ancient China and Korea that Japanese people were short in stature. --Sumple (Talk) 07:28, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
This is a minor point, but in Korean, 倭 and 矮 are homophones (pronounced 왜, wae). Perhaps that is not the case in contemporary Chinese?
Oh, and I'm sure you know this, but just because something is written in Chinese characters doesn't make it Chinese (as we use the term today); Classical Chinese was the chief written language for all of East Asia until recent times. But you may well be right that the term was coined in China, which would make our use of the Mandarin pronunciation reasonable. -- Visviva 08:30, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for that explanation. I wasn't aware that they are homophones in Korean. In modern Chinese (Mandarin) 倭 is "Wo" and 矮 is "Ai". --Sumple (Talk) 04:33, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Image

I removed the image Image:WakouLanding.jpg with description "Wokou landing and attacking a Chinese city, 14th century woodblock print." because i found this image is not about Chinese, but about Joseon Dynasty. (origin here) --Klutzy 13:33, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Couldn't we just change the caption to "Wokou landing and attacking a Korean city"? This article is not (or should not be) solely concerned with the Wokou impact on China. -- Visviva 14:11, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Imjin Waeran

It mentions that the Japanese obliterated the Ming expeditionary forces, which is untrue (sourcing Wikipedia's article on Imjin Waeran). The Japanese were forced by the Allied armies to the Korean coast facing Japan, where the war bogged down before a peace settlement was made.

Remove the title "Japanese pirates"

Korean documents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annals_of_Joseon_Dynasty) "世宗実録"二十八十月壬戌条(year 1446) shows Japanese prirates were only 10% or 20% and rest were Koreans. The original text were "然其間倭人不過一二而本国民仮著倭服成党作乱"

Also old Chinese document (http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%98%8E%E5%8F%B2) "明史" describe Japanese pirates were only 30%. Again, the original Chinese text is "大抵真倭十之三".

Already the introductory sentence excludes "Japanese pirates". If you have any objection for the 2nd sentence, which includes the phrase, well, we still need to keep it. Because for most of the people, term Wokou means "Japanese pirates" & most of the people know it that way. And we need to present the world in other people's views. See Wikipedia policy, no original research. Ask any historians & they will say "Wokou" were Japanese. (Wikimachine 17:22, 3 November 2006 (UTC))
I got it. Thanks.

No! Citation of Annals of Joseon Dynasy is misinterpretation. Sejong 28th year(1446) October 28, The content is report from Lee, Soonmong who is 2nd class in government. It was proposal of resident registration. In the middle of report, he mentioned some Korean theives mocked Waegu(Japanese Pirate) to cover their identity in the last period of Koryeo(12~13C). So he said only 1~2 out of 10 Japanese pirate were real Japanese pirate. This was reason why Joseon need a new policy of resident registration for all Korean people including Nobles and lower class people. So during 14C, some Korean theives were disguised themselve as Waegu(Japanese pirate).

So it is totally misunderstanding about this citation. Following is full citation from http://sillok.history.go.kr/inspection/inspection.jsp?mState=2&mTree=0&clsName=&searchType=a&keyword=%EB%85%BC%EB%A6%AC

○壬戌/判中樞院事李順蒙上書曰:

臣伏覩國家聲敎遠被, 邊境無虞, 生齒之繁、戶口之夥, 而軍額不加者, 以其民無定志而逃避差役者多也。 其中公私賤口逃移他道, 自冒兩班, 婚姻有蔭之家, 至有生子之後, 見獲還賤者, 其爲反常甚多。 臣聞前朝之季, 倭寇興行, 民不聊生, 然其間倭人不過一二, 而本國之民, 假著倭服, 成黨作亂, 是亦鑑也。 今新白丁, 與平民間居, 相與作黨, 爲盜宰殺牛馬之利, 耳濡目染, 以爲常事, 或因嫌隙, 故燒人家, 將恐有難防之患。 救弊之要, 莫切於號牌。 昔在太宗朝, 號牌之法, 試行數年, 而流移鮮少, 或議煩擾民間而廢之。 此弊小矣, 當時盜賊流亡之徒日盛, 不可勝紀。 臣願復行號牌之法, 禁遊手之輩, 弭盜賊之源, 則良賤自別, 而軍額日敷; 獄訟弭, 而民之生産物故, 自明矣。

不報。 時公私賤口及逃役良人彼此流移者, 不知紀極。 順蒙, 麤人, 亦憤其弊, 乃上此疏。

--Alf 11:37, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

The note from above: "Japanese prirates were only 10% or 20% and rest were Koreans"

This is a serious misdirection:

Percentage are deceptive if you consider the actual numbers. Thus, compare several Korean bandits numbering less then 20 men, as noted by Admiral Yi Sun-sin, then compare with the figures of actual fleet strength of Japanese pirates recorded during two korean dynasty. Adverage fleet strength of Japanese pirate are known at times to exceed well over a 100 vessels that required fully capable navy to counter. During the year of 1380 the Koryo dynasty Korea first use of canons aboard the ships was to repel Japanese pirates raiding with the fleet of 500 ships. Also original use of Turtle ship built well before Yi Sun-sin in 1414 was to curve the rise of Japanese piracy, stating 2 out of 10 are real Japanese pirates this is serious misrepresentation, I think this is typical "putting a lid over what smells" politics. Passing the bucket of shame to Chinese and Korean is rediculas, the pirate base was in Japan and the pirate bosses the Japanese may have recruited some Chinese and/or Korean bandits not because of lack of manpower but as a guide. —Preceding Hanzor comment added by 173.206.98.11 (talk) 22:23, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Pronunciation of 倭, and other matters

I have several problems with User:Jjok's treatment of the pronunciatin of 倭.

  1. User Jjok introduced a version that said "[Wokou is] a combination of "Wo", Chinese pronunciation of "倭 (Wa)" referring to Japanese, and "寇 (kou)"" This misleadingly implies that the "actual" pronunciation of 倭 is "Wa", and "Wo" is a Chinese variant of that pronunciation. The reality, of course, is the opposite. 倭 is a Chinese character (kanji), and being a Chinese character, it has multiple pronunciations in various languages. If any of these pronunciations are the "true" pronunciation, then it is the Chinese one.
  2. Similarly, User Jjok changed the sentence referring to Korean and Chinese sources to: "the Stories of Japan in the History of Ming (明史日本傳) states: "[Out of those captured] real Wa comprise about three in every ten (大抵真倭十之三)"." Now, clearly the History of Ming was written in Chinese, and would have pronounced the character as Wo. Likewise, the Korean source was written in Chinese.
  3. Also suspicious, is that for some reason the Hanja for the Annals of Joseon Dynasty (世宗実録), especially the character "実", are written in Shinjutai, a Japanese system, when the book was written in Korea, by Koreans, and not during Japanese occupation. In standard Hanja the character should be 實. What is even more inappropriate is that such Japanese writing is wikilinked to "Hanja".
  4. Finally, User Jjok seems to believe that "Wa" is an "English" word, for some strange reason. It is not: it is a foreign word, whose English translation is "Japan(ese)", or "Ancient Japan(ese)", as the context may require. In the present context, when transliterating Chinese or Korean sources, it is inappropriate to use a Japanese transliteration.

I have made edits in line with the above. --Sumple (Talk) 00:40, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

  1. I will not talk which pronunciation for the character is appropriate. In the English wikipedia, the current entries for 倭 and 倭寇 are described as Wa and Wokou, respectively, and I am making efforts in consistent with those entries here in this wikipedia. (However, I also concern the inconsistency of Wa and Wokou) If you think Wo is more appropriate, please discuss in the article Wa (Japan) to move it to Wo (Japan) first. Wikipedia:Naming conventions will help you. It is very confusing to use Wo for every Chinese literature, Wae for every Korean literature, and Wa for every Japanese literature based description and I am standardizing based on the English title for 倭.
  2. Same as above, though your suggestion that Korean literature using classical Chinese should be described in English based on Chinese pronunciation, is an interesting point. Maybe Koreans were pronouncing 倭 as Wo at that time.
  3. Thank you for your correction. I just thought "世宗実録" was better than "世宗憲録"[2] though I'd have better copy and paste rather than my "original research".
  4. I do not know how much "Wa" is common as an English word (and it looks like not) and how the title for 倭 became Wa here, however, I prefer the standardization based on the article title in en wikipedia and describing specific-language based namings as the derivative for the consistency within and with other articles to avoid confusion by individual description based on specific-language pronunciation.--Jjok 15:54, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
This approach (1 & 4) seems very reasonable. We should not lose sight of the fact that Wikipedia is aimed at a general audience, most of whom will not have a background in East Asian linguistics. -- Visviva 16:05, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
What you (Jjok) say makes sense. I am, however still concerned about internal consistency: if this article is called "Wokou", yet references to the first constituent part of the name is to "Wa".
I think, however, that these problems can be avoided in some instances, where it is not necessary to translate 倭 as "Wo/Wa/Wae" - for example, at the time of the History of the Ming (Qing dynasty in China), the country was already called, and referred to, as Nihon, in Japan and in China. It may be better to simply translate 倭 as "the Japanese". What do you think? --Sumple (Talk) 00:25, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Source from KoreanHistoryProject.org

I added a source from KoreanHistoryProject.org[3] to the External Links section. It talks about piracy in the context of Japan-Korea relations. I haven't read this entire article on the Wokou yet, so I don't know if this source really contributes anything. But I just thought I'd mention it here for anybody interested. When I have more time, I will read through this article in its entirety and add to it if necessary. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 19:15, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Here's another source from the same site[4]. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 19:54, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Typo?

The second sentence in the article starts with "Besides Wokou is meaningly Japanese pirates". Something doesn't make sense here, but I'm not sure what was meant. Would someone who knows what is meant here fix this, or explain the brain fart that is preventing me from understanding this bit? 2007/03/01

That looked like vandalism. I've reverted it. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 15:58, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Later Wokou

Regarding :later substantial Chinese militia, merchants and smugglers, even Portuguese sailors, traders, moneychangers and missionaries and Korean pirates joined.

It is not appropriate saying Wokou is consists of a variety of people from Portugues, Sailors, traders, moneychangers, missionaries and Korean. There is no clue Korean and Japanes joined together as one group of bandits. I think it should be changed to "later substaialAlf are regarded and confused with Wokou." Even though modern pirate in Asia has members from a variety of background, it is really difficult to join in as one group in those days. In Korea, the term, Waeku(Wokou) was always for Japanese and Japanese enemy. But it is possible some Korean-Japanese who is abducted as slave might worked for Wokou. --Alf 12:29, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Page seems like it could use some work

In terms of grammar, etc.

What confuses me the most after a glance is this sentence: "This term is used as an insulating reference to the Japanese by the korean and Chinese after that." Insulating, or insulting? --Edwin Herdman 22:48, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I think they are trying to insult Japan.[5] Jjok 01:53, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, if it was/is used as an insulting reference to Japan, there's no reason it shouldn't be in the article, however unflattering that is. I'll go ahead and fix the sentence, since we seem to be in agreement that this is simply a minor typo. I'll have to look at a rewrite later; the article itself seems to carry a lot of anti-Japanese bias and shouldn't go beyond stating the facts. Thanks! --Edwin Herdman 12:21, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Hello; I am anonymous editor(129.254.33.196)

On the misspelling:

The "insulting" is correct spelling. Thank you on the correction!!
I thought that the "insulting" is more easy word compared to the previous one.

On the "trying to insult Japan":

"The They" does not insult Japan.
However, "The They" wants more correct historical facts on waegu.

One question:

"The They" cannot edit the waegu article today.
What happen to "the They"? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.254.33.196 (talk) 13:24, 7 May 2007 (UTC).

Requested references from anonymous editor(129.254.33.196)

The search word "왜구"(waegu) appears 1,356 times in the annals of joseon dynasty that is the official records of the recent 500 year's history of Korea. I will quote an article of the annals of joseon dynasty.

Source=(太祖實錄 太祖 4年 4月 19日: 19/April/1395)
(Hanja:Chinese)及庚申秋, 倭寇三百餘艘至全羅道鎭浦, 朝議崔公火藥, 今可試矣。 乃命爲副元帥, 與都元帥沈德符、上元帥羅世, 乘船齎火具, 直至鎭浦。 寇不意有火藥, 聚船相維, 欲盡力拒戰, 茂宣發火具盡燒其船。 寇旣失船, 遂登岸刼掠全羅以至慶尙, 還聚于雲峰。上時爲兵馬都元帥, 與諸將殲盡無遺。 自爾倭寇漸息, 乞降者相繼, 濱海之民, 復業如舊
(Hangul:Korean)경신년557) 가을에 왜선 3백여 척이 전라도 진포(鎭浦)에 침입했을 때 조정에서 최무선의 화약을 시험해 보고자 하여, 〈무선을〉 부원수(副元帥)에 임명하고 도원수(都元帥) 심덕부(沈德符)•상원수(上元帥) 나세(羅世)와 함께 배를 타고 화구(火具)를 싣고 바로 진포에 이르렀다. 왜구가 화약이 있는 줄을 뜻하지 못하고 배를 한곳에 집결시켜 힘을 다하여 싸우려고 하였으므로, 무선이 화포를 발사하여 그 배를 다 태워버렸다. 배를 잃은 왜구는 육지에 올라와서 전라도와 경상도까지 노략질하고 도로 운봉(雲峯)에 모였는데, 이때 태조가 병마 도원수(兵馬都元帥)로서 여러 장수들과 함께 왜구를 〈한 놈도〉 빠짐없이 섬멸하였다. 이로부터 왜구가 점점 덜해지고 항복하는 자가 서로 잇달아 나타나서, 바닷가의 백성들이 생업을 회복하게 되었다.
(English)When Waegu raid the Jeonra-province with 300 ships for a robbery, Korean-navy defeats them with a bombardment of a naval gun. .....

The above citation clearly demonstrates that waegu is not simple robbers or pirates. They are almost regular navy of Japan. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.254.33.196 (talk) 11:28, 8 May 2007 (UTC).

Move to wako (or wakō)

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.


I'm a little unclear as to why this page is at Wokou when

1) although these pirates obviously affected other East Asian people, they are inherently a Japanese subject matter, and

2) wako seems to be much more common in the English language than wokou (wako+pirate gets 10,100 Google hits compared to wokou+pirate getting 1,470 Google hits)

Just a thought ... CES 23:45, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Britannica: Wako[6], no Wokou[7]
MSN Encarta: no Wako[8], no Wokou[9], but described as Japanese pirates[10]
Google book: 200 books on wako pirates[11], 51 books on wokou pirates[12]
move to Wakō or Wako (pirates) seems reasonable. Jjok 02:18, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I didn't see the necessities de moving,Wokou seems to describe the japanese pirates but it is chinese who described.And I doubt whether the japanese used Woko to describe the pirates in east asia--Ksyrie 03:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I am almost sure that Japanese did not call themselves as Wako at that times and rather used by other east Asian to frighten their own nations. However, the word is now used even in history in Japanese elementary education that may responsible for spreading the term all over the world. Jjok 05:57, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes,Wako may be used in japanese elementary school,but Woukou is used in chinese elementary school--Ksyrie 11:49, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I would support a move to wakō. It is, as far as I am aware, the more common term by far in English-language use, and as an East Asian Studies major, I can say that I have come across wakō many times, and never wokou until I saw it on Wikipedia. A move to wakō would also help avoid any calls for weird pronunciation-guide-style spellings, like Wōkòu, which is currently being suggested on the WikiProject Japan requested moves. LordAmeth 09:27, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I do not support the moving. The Wokou and Waegu terms are created and used by the Chinease and Korean. Also, If you are East Asian Studies major, The necessity of using correct term is more important.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.254.33.196 (talk • contribs) 07:46, 29 May 2007
I agree with you, and wakō is the correct term, in Japanese. Every book I have ever read relating to this subject within the field of Japanese history has referred to them as wakō, and not by the Chinese or Korean names. Besides, as CES has pointed out, the crucial thing here is the extent to which a given term is commonly used in English. LordAmeth 12:35, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
The article is not about the word 倭寇 per se, but about the pirates themselves. English common usage should trump any other concern, including who coined the term, what these pirates called themselves, or what little Chinese, Korean, and Japanese children learn in elementary school. Wōkòu, wakō, and waegu are all correct and legitimate pronunciations, but wakō happens to have entered the English language to the most prominent degree and for Wikipedia naming purposes, that ultimately is what matters. CES 12:20, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I am afraid not,check [13],It is not wako that happens to have entered the english the most,but it is you who mainly studies the japanese material.For the english sholars who study the chinese materials,Wokou may be the most prominent.--Ksyrie 12:55, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Your link proves my point. Take any combination you like and wako outweighs wokou (70 vs. 19 for wako/wokou + pirate, 200 vs. 51 for wako/wokou + pirates). "Japanese pirate(s)" outnumbers both of them, so I could go for HongQiGong's suggestion below (although "Japanese pirates" is a bit more vague in usage) but I just cannot see how wokou (or waegu for that matter) could be preferred over wako at the very least. This isn't about whether wokou is used at all but about which word is used most commonly by all users. There's no reason why this should cause "confusion" either, that's what redirect pages are for. CES 19:06, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, well, that being the case, it does depend entirely then on whether one is a scholar of China or of Japan, and neither can really be said to be overwhelmingly the more common term. I get 1209 hits for "wako" and 94 for "wokou", on Google Books. When I searched for "wako pirate" and "wokou pirate" in order to weed out other non-related subjects, I got 69 for the former and 19 for the latter. LordAmeth 13:36, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Furthermore,the 1209 wako finding in google book doesnt all relate to the pirates,I found the majority are linked to a japanese city.To move it to woko will raise confusion when woukou isn't.--Ksyrie 13:56, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

How about just moving it to "Japanese pirates"? The Chinese name can certainly be mentioned in the content of the article, together with the different pronounciations of the term in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. This way the title remains neutral and it would be in line with English-naming conventions. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 16:44, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

LordAmeth - yeah, the title of "Japanese pirates" is a bit ambiguous. However, that's not necessarily a bad thing, because then the article could possibly be expanded to include Japanese pirates from other periods of time that may not have been referred to as Wokou/Wako. These article titles that are romanised versions of a name in an East Asian language can sometimes complicate things, because the spelling is different depending on what language you're romanising from. But the title is still basically "倭寇", or as far as I know, that's what the kanji and hanja are. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 19:17, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I apologize to be difficult, but I would definitely prefer "wokou" over "Japanese pirates". It may not be a term I'm familiar with from my Japanese studies, but at least it is an accurate one, and widely used in Chinese studies texts, as others have pointed out. Since many "wokou" were not in fact Japanese, this would be a decidedly misleading title. Truly, I'm alright with leaving it at "wokou" and calling it done. Thank you. LordAmeth 21:12, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm afraid I disagree with this logic. Foreigners also joined or supported the Barbary Pirates, but this does not change their name based on the pirates' origin. Personally, I support the term "Japanese pirates", as this is a literal/approximate translation of the name 倭寇. Also, I haven't heard of any other instances of Japanese piracy not referred to by this name, but if there are, I retract my argument.--Ryoske 02:33, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
If the issue weren't such an inflammatory one relating to anti-Japanese sentiments in China, I would agree with you. No one blames the Berbers as a whole for being associated with piracy in the way the term wokou was used at the time (and perhaps still today) as an attack against Japanese as though no one else (Chinese, Koreans, SE Asians) were involved in piracy at the time. Essentially, regardless of its literal meaning, wokou refers to Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Southeast Asian piracy of a particular time period, and not to Japanese piracy as a whole, excluding non-Japanese nationals. I must admit I do not know of any other instances of Japanese piracy in other periods, but if they were to exist, they would be a separate topic, and not lumped under wokou, since they would relate to different geopolitical situations and motives. LordAmeth 07:53, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I would support a move to Wakō. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 22:37, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I would also support a move to Wakō. Amake 00:39, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I think "Japanese pirates" would be much better. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 02:17, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Page Move

There seems to be support for moving this page, although the opinions appear to be split between Wakō and Japanese pirates. To get a better idea of where people stand, let's take a poll to gauge support for the three primary preferences:

Move to Japanese pirates

  1. Support - English naming for English WP in this case. Plus, "Japanese pirates" is even more widely used than "wako". Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 01:15, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
  2. Support - I think "Japanese pirates" make most sense to an average reader with little knowledge of Japanese or Chinese. To introduce new article names with different diacritics also make the articles less accessible. To be sure, not all of the wokou were ethnically Japanese, but neither were the contemporary armies of Gustavus Adolphus hundred per cent ethnically Swedish either - whatever that was supposed to mean in the seventeenth century. You are never going to end up with a name that is completely accurate.--Amban 00:25, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
    Ah, but the soldiers under Adolphus were all in the formal service of a Swedish monarch, and were thus part of a Swedish army. But wako were not in any way formally organized under a Japanese authority, and many had no connection to Japan whatsoever; they were simply Chinese, Korean, or SE Asian pirates acting at the same time and in similar manner to those who did. LordAmeth 05:43, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  3. Support - Seems most informational and descriptive for English readers. Cydevil38 02:21, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  4. Moderate Support I do not have particular objection to this popular name, though I also have the same kind of concern as LordAmeth. It is concise to write Japanese Wako or Chinese Wako than Japanese Japanese pirates or Chinese Japanese pirates. Jjok 15:50, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  5. Support - I usually find it's better to translate words unless they are proper names or commonly used in their native form. Oberiko 15:58, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  1. Oppose - Too broad and imprecise to the historical topic; also, misrepresents Wakō as being primarily or solely Japanese. LordAmeth 15:58, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
    Are there other Japanese pirates which merit articles? If so, what are they primarily called? I wouldn't say the English misrepresents any more then the existing title, "Wō" already means Japanese. Oberiko 15:58, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  1. Oppose,misleading,they are not all the japanese,furthermore,they are not all the pirates.--Ksyrie 16:03, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Move to Wakō

  1. Support - wakō is more common in English than wokou and appears more accurate than "Japanese pirates" as discussed above CES 01:04, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
  2. Support - Wakō refers to something specific, while "Japanese pirates" could mean anything, including a bunch of Japanese people dressed up as pirates for Halloween.MightyAtom 01:46, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
  3. Support as this is more specific and therefore a better title. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:46, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
  4. Support although IMO someone needs to due something about fixing Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Japanese) to get rid of those silly macrons. -- Visviva 07:19, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
  5. Support as "wakō" is a specific term and is from the same language as the subject. Amake 14:54, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
  6. Support as per all above. LordAmeth 15:58, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
  7. Support I think Japanese name would be also appropriate considering they were Japanese. Wako (pirates) seem the most appropriate. Cydevil38 02:22, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  8. Support per popularity and encyclopedicity compared to Wokou. It is also specific for the nature as East Asian pirates than Japanese pirates, as discussed above. Jjok 15:45, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Move to Wōkòu

  1. Support the source/original is the important thing, and the translation also. the whole article refers to this. the redirect will fix it for the other possibilities. otherwise its like "product piracy". --ThurnerRupert 17:07, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Keep at Wokou

  1. Support mainly used in chinese not in japanese--Ksyrie 07:13, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
  2. Support Accurate term and accurately reflected in pinyin. LordAmeth 15:58, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
  3. Support Current translations of Chinese history use the term wokou. Other Wikipedia articles on Chinese subjects (i.e. Beijing, not Bĕijīng) do not include tone markers, so this one also should not. As mentioned above, wokou included many nationalities, not just Japanese, so I would oppose moving to Japanese pirates or Wakō. (Oops, include signature) Pirate Dan 22:53, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
  4. Support this is the english wikipedia and wokou is IMHO mostly used in english text. Benjwong 01:49, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
    "IMHO"? Are you serious? Cite a source. Wakō supporters have cited theirs. CES 01:57, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
    Wait the second. You said "wakō is more common in English than wokou and appears more accurate than Japanese pirates" based on absolutely nothing? Can you explain where it is more common in English? At least I am saying English text. Benjwong 02:08, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
    Have you not read this section? Please read the discussion before voting. CES 02:23, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
    Sorry I missed that section above. I was going by the books that I own regarding the subject. Ignore my vote if you're going by the search engine results instead. Benjwong 03:08, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  5. Support. No clear case for move has been made out. --PalaceGuard008 06:19, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  1. Oppose This article is not about the word 倭寇 it's about these pirates themselves, thus the origins of this word and its usage by Chinese schoolchildren, historians, rocket scientists, etc. is irrelevant. English common usage supports either/both wako and "Japanese pirates" over wokou. CES 03:02, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  2. Comment if we changed the title to wako,Wakō, Saitama and several other japanese peoples may be mired into confusion,and for the Wokou,it is precise enough to describe the east asian pirates,furthermore no matter Wokou or Wako are traced their etymology in ancient chinese character 倭寇，so why bother to change it？We are sticing to KISS principle--Ksyrie 20:48, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
    Context makes the meaning clear, but worse case we disambiguate. The KISS principle is not the Laziness Principle ... and it does not trump the cardinal Wikipedia naming rule of common usage, which certainly does not seem to be wokou. CES 21:54, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Move to Wako (pirates)

  1. Support per discussion above. The term derived from Japanese is more common than the term from Chinese and the form without macron is more common than the form with macron. Japanese pirates is less precise. --Kusunose 03:24, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  1. Oppose due to missing macron. The macron is crucial in differentiating between "wako" (吾子, 和雇, 和子) and wakō. "wako" is only more common because it is easier to type than "wakō". Simply put, "wako" is less precise. Bendono 13:23, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

There seems to be general support for moving the page to Wakō (5 of 8 total votes), I will move the page unless there is an argument against doing so based on the voting. CES 14:41, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I was going to move the page and change references of wokou to wakō but I noticed that capitalization is inconsistent--the next issue seems to be whether these pirates should be referred to as Wakō or wakō. CES 20:54, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Wait a few more days

Hey, CES, you know it's very interesting that you posted a note at WikiProject Japan about this poll[14], but neglected to notify any of the other WikiProjects that have tagged this article. I've taken it upon myself to notify the other WikiProjects. Please wait a few days to see if the poll result changes. If it more or less stays the same, feel free to move the article. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 21:26, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

That's fine ... no conspiracy going on, it's just the only Wikiproject I'm involved in and the issue had been raised earlier when the original page move was mentioned so I thought I'd follow up ... feel free to bring in more voices. I only hope this doesn't turn into a China vs. Japan thing--to me, the wokou arguments above make no sense. This is an English language Wikipedia, people ... I've yet to see data that suggests wokou has entered the English language more than wako, on the contrary wako seems predominant. I could go with "Japanese pirates" even if it's a bit misleading, but I see no rationale for wokou. CES 01:55, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Similarly, I don't see how the "English language Wikipedia" argument supports "Wako" at all over "Japanese pirates". We can't find any evidence so far that there was ever a trend of Japanese piracy that was not called Wokou/Wako. And even if there was, it's probably not notable enough for its own article anyway if we can't find evidence of it already. If we are to go by Google search on English websites that are not WP mirrors, then "Japanese pirates" is much more common. Heck, if you even search for only "Wako", the first Google search results aren't even about Japanese pirates. You have to search for websites with both the words "Wako" and "pirates" to return the results you want. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 05:18, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Both "Wokou" and "Wako" are used in the various sources cited on the talk page and the main article. The basic argument on the "Wako" side seems to be: Japanese subject --> Japanese name. Well, it's a Chinese name given to a Japanese subject by the Chinese and Koreans, and subsequently adopted by the Japanese.

Unless there's some overwhelming evidence on the Common Names front in favour of Wako (and google search is not overwhelming evidence), it should remain at Wokou as this is the original name. --PalaceGuard008 06:22, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

The argument is not restricted to the notion that it should go by the Japanese name since it is a Japanese subject. The argument is that, in English language sources on Japanese history, wako or wakō is overwhelmingly the most common term, and wokou is almost entirely absent. As I said earlier, towards the beginning of this discussion, I have read a great many English language works on Japanese history, and I had never seen the term wokou before. This isn't about Google results, nor is it about the innate meaning or origin of the word; it is about the form it most commonly takes in English language literature. JSTOR, an online database of academic journals, gives 216 results for "wako" and 9 for "wokou". All of my sources on Southeast Asia (that is, my sources outside of a Japanese focus) discuss pirates and piracy of the time, discussing the complex nature of the subject, and not referring to them as "Japanese pirates". I would be more than happy, if anyone would like, to make a list of English language sources immediately at my disposal that use the term wako or wakō with no mention of wokou or waegu whatsoever.LordAmeth 07:08, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
To everyone just joining the dialogue, please read this discussion before you post. Multiple sources support the argument that wako is more common in the English language than wokou. This has nothing to do with the history or meaning of the word 倭寇 itself, but rather the question is: what is the most common English language term for these pirates? Multiple popular and scholarly sources support wako over wokou. Overwhelmingly. At this point HQG's "Japanese pirates" suggestion comes in. The phrase appears quite often the English language, after all. But there are several problems with this solution:
  • "Japanese pirates" is much less precise than the definition on the article page--pirates who raided the coastlines of China and Korea from the thirteenth century onwards
  • As has been pointed out many times, not all wako were Japanese. That's the next line in the article--Originally, the Wokou were mainly soldiers, ronin, merchants and smugglers from Japan, but became predominantly from China two centuries later
  • "Japanese pirates" in usage has multiple meanings. Of the first 10 hits on Google when I searched "Japanese pirates", 4 different types of pirates appeared: wako who attacked China and Korea, domestic pirates in Japan, Japanese pirates who appear in the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean", and modern day multimedia pirates. This makes me skeptical of any claims of English common usage for "Japanese pirates" as it is not clear what exactly is being described. CES 12:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't have a JSTOR account so I can't search for articles there, so I did a Google search under JSTOR's domain name. Along with the pirates called Wako, it also returned articles that mentioned "Wako Pure Chemical", "Miss Wako Tawa", "choles- terol-FA test (Wako)", "sekuru wako", so on and so forth.
  • On the possibility of Japanese pirates that were not called Wokou/Wako - I think we can just use them to expand the existing article if it is moved to "Japanese pirates". So far, it doesn't seem like any of us have found any such Japanese piracy that's notable enough for its own article.
  • On the possibility that not all Wokou/Wako were Japanese - this is a matter of semantics. The "Wo" or "Wa" in Wokou/Wako refers to Japan. Even if we moved it to Wako or keep it at Wokou, the name still essentially means Japanese pirates or more literally Japanese bandits.
  • I see this matter as an issue of romanisation. Wokou/Wako/Waegu all refers to 倭寇. "Japanese pirates" is often used, is English, and eliminates these romanisation problems altogether.

Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 15:28, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

  • The difference between "wako" and "Japanese pirate" is that the former can be disambiguated, the latter cannot. If your point was that searches turn up "wako" other than the pirates, add "pirate(s)" to the search and that should solve the problem. Note that most searches mentioned in the above section do this, so the counts should not be overinflated by other "wako".
  • The difference between wako/wokou and "Japanese pirates" is indeed a matter of semantics, but in the literal sense, that of word meaning. Wako and wokou literally mean "Japanese pirate" but the understood nuance that they can come from other lands is described in the second line: Originally, the Wokou were mainly soldiers, ronin, merchants and smugglers from Japan, but became predominantly from China two centuries later. Imagine how nonsensical that sentence would become if "Japanese pirates" was substituted: Originally, the Japanese pirates were mainly soldiers, ronin, merchants and smugglers from Japan, but became predominantly from China two centuries later. Huh? This gets to the issue Jjok raises above: are we really going to entertain the idea of "Chinese Japanese pirates" and "Korean Japanese pirates"? The meaning of wako/wokou as used in English is much more specific than "Japanese pirates" in the same way that 倭寇 (wakō) itself is much more specific than a phrase like 日本の海賊 (a more generic phrase meaning "Japanese pirates"). The more I think about it, the more I realize the potential confusion (and general inaccuracy) created by changing this article to Japanese pirates.
  • Is the wako/wokou debate a matter of romanization? In a way, yes. In fact, that's the whole point: it appears the Japanese term wako seems to have entered the English language to a greater extent than wokou, despite the fact that the Chinese coined the term. If wokou (or waegu for that matter) was used more often than wako, then that word would get my support because it is more specific than "Japanese pirates".
  • We also need to debunk the unstated assumption that 倭寇 is originally a Chinese word. If the article is correct, then the wako first attacked Korea and were first recorded by the Koreans. If anything, waegu has the most legitimacy as the "correct" romanization of the "original word". CES 22:35, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved. --Stemonitis 13:57, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

New suggestion

Maybe this is a little late considering there are already many votes on the poll, but how about "Piracy in East Asia" or "Historic piracy in East Asia"? Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 23:16, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Now, that's not bad. "Historic" is a bit vague, but "Pre-modern" might cover it. It's a bit tricky because it sort of spans the medieval and early modern periods. But it's nice and all-inclusive, eliminating the concerns over Chinese vs Japanese name and over ethnic composition. LordAmeth 12:30, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Not too late at all, as it appears the polls have been closed for us! I like Piracy in East Asia, as there are already precedents at Piracy in the Caribbean and Piracy in the Strait of Malacca. This might even solve the wako/wokou debate as well--the "Piracy in ..." articles tend to refer to their subjects simply as "pirates" without making a big deal of nationality. We can mention that these pirates were often called (sometimes erroneously) "Japanese pirates" (倭寇 Jp: wakō Ch: wōkòu K: waegu), but then just refer to them as "pirates" in most cases, except for when nationality would make the context clearer ("Japanese pirates from xxx did yyy", "Chinese pirates posing as Japanese did zzz"). This also avoids the "Chinese Japanese pirate" problem. It will involve a fairly significant rewrite but it might be the best solution unless there's some flaw I'm not thinking of. CES 14:17, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

That's strange that someone came to close the poll when people were still voting yesterday. Anyway, how about we wait a few days to a week to see if anybody objects to this suggest of "Piracy in East Asia". If there are no objections, we'll move it? Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 15:31, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

But if we rename the article to a general title like that, won't we have to expand it beyond Japanese pirates? Were there ever Chinese or Korean pirates in the region?--Danaman5 21:56, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
That was part of the problem with the "Japanese pirates" suggestion--a lot of them were actually Chinese or Korean. In later periods (eg late Ming dynasty) it appears that most "Japanese pirates" were not Japanese! CES 22:14, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
In that case, I support the title "Piracy in East Asia".--Danaman5 01:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Waegu or Wokou is created and used for Japanese pirates, Not for "Piracy in East Asia". Exactly two historical events indicate that there were fraud Waegu or Wokou, but the fact does not justify the modification of definition of Waegu. In recent 500 year's Korean history, there are 1,356 events of Waegu, but the fraud Waegu reported is only 1 event.
So, Wokou is Wokou and Waegu is Waegu!! 129.254.33.196 01:48, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Um ... what? CES 02:05, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

(de-indent)The article reads:

In contrast with previous Wokou, however, the pirate bands of the middle sixteenth century no longer consisted preponderantly of Japanese. Although Wokou remained the common label by which they were identified, most of these bandits were in fact, if not in name, Chinese.

It seems clear that the Wokou, while still retaining the same name referring to Japan, eventually included many Chinese pirates as well.--Danaman5 02:08, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why there is a controversy here. 'Wako' is by far the dominant term in English-language sources. I had never heard the term 'wokou' before. The article should be entitled 'wako'. Shirokuma1 11:39, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Against moving,Google Book includes more japanese translation but fewer chinese translation books about Wokou,it doesn't mean there are more book refering Wako than Wokou--Ksyrie 15:02, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not even really sure what you mean by all of that because you seem to contradict yourself, but note that the new suggestion is to move the page to something like Piracy in East Asia which would allow us to get past this wako/waegu/wokou squabble because we can simply call these people "pirates" (a word I'd like to think that we all can agree is more familiar to the average reader than wako, wokou, or waegu!). It seems like a win-win solution. CES 15:30, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I am against moving to Woka.Piracy in East Asia will be a suitable title,but Piracy in East Asia between 13th and 16th centuary is more precise.--Ksyrie 17:38, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
How about this, we'll move it to Piracy in East Asia for now, and if the article gets a large enough amount of information of piracy in East Asia outside of the period between 13th and 16th century, then we'll do an article split for piracy in East Asia in different time periods? Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 18:12, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm alright with that... we can just make separate section headings for the different historical periods/types, and once it gets too big, we can re-address the issue again, and decide how to split it. LordAmeth 18:56, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't like "Piracy in East Asia" because it is too general. What about domestic piracy in China or Japan? Commercial raids by the Dutch while based in Taiwan? Pirates in and around Hong Kong?

The article is specifically talking about coastal raids by offshore-based pirates who have been consistently identified as "Wokou" in history. We may debate about the precise ethnicity of these pirates, but there is no doubt that they are conceptually different from piracy in the region in general.

An article about "Piracy in East Asia" in general will not be a move. It will fundamentally change the character of the article. If there is a need for a general article about piracy in East Asia, that should be created separately. It should not be confused with a renaming proposal, because it isn't one. --PalaceGuard008 05:50, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

The article already has problems in terms of scope and title to the point that it's hard to justify the status quo by simply invoking wokou's "squatter's rights" on the article title.
  • Scope: the word wako/waegu/wokou means "Japanese pirate" but refers often to people who are not Japanese and to people who aren't even pirates. Given that this word apparently first appears in 414 (and may have been used earlier) and was in common usage at least through the 16th century (the Japanese Wikipedia claims that this term was even used during the 20th century Sino-Japanese war!), I think it would be hard to argue that this article has a narrow scope. If the scope is "Japanese aggressors in China and Korea (and Chinese and Koreans pretending to be said Japanese aggressors) from 400 to 1600 (1945?)" I'm not really sure that's any more focused than "Piracy in East Asia".
  • Article title: I hate to beat a dead horse (all right, in this case I enjoy it slightly), but wokou is 1) not the pronunciation of the original language of origin (Korean), 2) not the most common import into English (wakō from Japanese), and 3) not the most accessible word for the average Wikipedia user ("pirate"). The only justification I've heard for keeping it at wokou is that translations of Chinese history use wokou (to which I say: so what?), which conveniently ignores the fact that every popular and academic word search to date (see above) shows overwhelming evidence for the prevalence of wako over both waegu and wokou as an overall count in the English language, which is what "common usage" means.
To me the choices are clear: either this page moves to wako, or to Piracy in East Asia with the potential widening of scope that title entails. Personally, I'd be interested in learning about these Hong Kong pirates and Dutch pirates (as well as domestic piracy besides the faux-wako) so I am leaning towards "Piracy in E.A." (especially since this would allow us to downplay the whole wako/waegu/wokou debate by simply calling everyone a "pirate" because really, that's what the article is about, right? These pirates, and not the word 倭寇). Perhaps we should try a new vote with three options: stay at wokou, move to wako, move to "Piracy in East Asia". Heck, we can even throw move to waegu in there too. Let's save the debate on diacritics for now ... arguing about wako vs. wakō or wokou vs. wōkòu puts the cart before the horse. CES 15:34, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Like I said about piracy specifically in the period between the 13th to 16th century, if this article grows too big with information about definitively seperate trends of piracy in East Asia, then we can split the article. So, PalaceGuard008, are you interested in writing enough on the topic of domestic piracy in China or Japan, or commercial Dutch piracy, or pirates in Hong Kong that it'll be a problem of scope for this article, or that it'll make this article too big? Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 15:50, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

New proposal

Why not add the southeast asian pirates?They were less prominent but sometime constitutes the same as the east asian ones.--Ksyrie 16:01, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Propose to seperate wokou with Piracy in East Asia.For Japanese invasions of Korea (1592-1598),which the japanese raiders were not the pirates,so Wokou should be in two meanings,one is about the japan based piracy in East Asia between 13th and 16th centuary,and another is the Japanese invaders in Japanese invasions of Korea (1592-1598).And that will make things clear and precise.We change Wokou or Waegu or Wako to a disambiguous page,with at least two seperate terms.--Ksyrie 16:28, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

So Wokou were not just pirates? As for piracy in Southeast Asia, the most prominent trend was in the Malacca Strait. Take a look at Piracy in the Strait of Malacca. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 17:01, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Not all Wokous were JBP(Japan Based Pirates),sometimes in modern chinese,the WWII japanese invaders were also called Wokous,So the disambiguous pages will be more proper.--Ksyrie 17:03, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I am against the first proposal and don't entirely understand the second:

  • SE Asia proposal: if anything, that should be an expansion of Piracy in the Straight of Malacca. Why add a whole new region?
  • Your second proposal is neither "clear" nor "precise" to me at least. If you're proposing two articles--Piracy in East Asia and Wokou then nothing has been solved. The fact is, the term wako/wokou/waegu has applied to three groups of people: 1) Japanese pirates, 2) non-Japanese pirates, and 3) Japanese armies that were not pirates, and applied to these three groups over the last 1500 years! Next thing you know we'll have to disambiguate wokou: Wokou (pirates) or Japanese wokou--which might be what you are indeed proposing. The more I learn about the word, the more leery I am of having an article at wako/wokou/waegu at all as it seems to be a catch-all derogatory word, kind of like "Reds" was used for any real or suspected communist sympathizer, regardless of nationality or actual affiliation.

The facts seem clear about the acts of piracy themselves, what we're quibbling about is what to call them. Why not just call them "pirates"? As these pirates were from numerous East Asian countries and acted in numerous East Asian countries, why not call the article Piracy in East Asia? Refer to the "true" Japanese wako/wokou/waegu as "Japanese pirates" and the Chinese/Korean wako/wokou/waegu as "Chinese/Korean pirates". Note in the article that the term wako/wokou/waegu exists but could refer to the three groups mentioned above. Add info on Hong Kong, Dutch, and other pirates that operated in East Asia if desired. Finis. As Hong Qi Gong has said, if we need to split the article later let's do it, but for now let's try things at one article. CES 22:18, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

If it'll satisfy more people, we can even go for Piracy in Northeast Asia. Though I prefer Piracy in East Asia as the article currently stands. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 23:31, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I much prefer "East Asia". It excludes Southeast Asia well enough. "Northeast Asia", if you ask me, is Korea, Manchuria, maybe Japan, parts of Russia... and does not include Taiwan or regions like Fujian and other coastal regions in southeastern China where the wako were a serious thing. LordAmeth 23:49, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I reiterate my support for Piracy in East Asia. None of the other proposals I have read here seem clear or satisfactory to me.--Danaman5 01:04, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

CES's argument is based on the fact that in common conception "Wokou = Japanese pirates", but in reality "Wokou =/= Japanese". That is true and I agree with that.

However, what the argument misses is that, regardless of their internal ethnic diversity, there is a concept of the "Wokou", which is distinct and separate from piracy in East Asia (or North Asia, or Northeast Asia). In academic writing, "wokou" is rarely equated with "Japanese pirates" (a point which seems to have been overlooked). Instead, the "Wokou" are usually described as encompassing pirates, based off-shore and usually connected with or led by the Japanese, who base themselves off-shore from China and Korea, and raid coastal China and Korea for commercial gain. Note that this does not equate with "a pirate in China, Korea, or Japan".

Not every pirate in East Asia (or North Asia, or Northeast Asia) is a Wokou. Conceptually, small-time bandit living on a rock off the coast of Japan who raids other Japanese ships for profit is a pirate in East Asia, but he is not a Wokou.

It is fine to start up a new article about pirates in East Asia, and perhaps merge Wokou into that article. However, that should not be framed as a "move" proposal because the two terms are conceptually separate and distinct.

To put it another way, even though this article talks about pirates who are Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, they are not here simply because they are pirates, and are Japanese, Korean, or Chinese. They are here because they are pirates, who are connected with or led by Japanese persons, who raid coastal China and Korea for profit, within a certain historical interval, and who are therefore identified as "Wokou" by history and academic sources.

"Moving" the article to "Piracy in East Asia" or similar would be expanding the concept of the article. It should not be framed as a "move" proposal, but instead a "Create & Merge" proposal.

The crucial question in "moving" "Piracy in East Asia" is not "whether that is a better name for the article", but whether "the concept of wokou should be combined into the general concept of piracy in East Asia". --PalaceGuard008 01:40, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

My point is that the "concept" of wokou is fuzzy, and thus an article on wokou is doomed to be fuzzy. Let's call a spade a spade, and a pirate a pirate. The non-Japanese wokou were not always connected with the Japanese, and if you consider a 1500 year span "a certain historical interval" then I tip my hat to your far-sighted vision of history. For the rest of us, the term "wokou" is concise neither in meaning nor in timespan, nor have I heard why wokou and not wako should be the preferred term. CES 01:59, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Nevertheless, you are still dodging the issue that "Wokou" is not just any pirate in East Asia. "Pirates in East Asia" is far too general to correlate with the present article.
Plus, no one seems to have flagged this yet, but piracy at law is the armed attack of one ship by another for profit ("the two ships principle"). The "Wokou" mostly raided coastal settlements, rather than attacking ships. They're not "pirates" in the trues sense of the word. --PalaceGuard008 03:40, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
It seems that I didn't make me clear, wako/wokou/waegu at least got two relate but dictinct meaning,one for the JBP(Japan Based Pirates,not Japanese Pirate),another is the Japanese Invaders from Japanese invasions of Korea (1592-1598),and the second one is not continuing one,generally describes in the 16th Japanese Invasion of Korea and 20th Japanese Invasion of China.--Ksyrie 02:14, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Another vote (move 2007)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

We seem to have some support for moving this page to Piracy in East Asia. Let's see if another vote will clarify things. For now, let's ignore diacritics: consider a vote for wokou a vote for wōkòu and a vote for wako a vote for wakō. Should one of those options win, we can straighten out the details regarding macrons, tones, etc. CES 01:20, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Move to Piracy in East Asia

  1. Support - for the reasons stated above, this seems to be the most straight-forward, accurate, and accessible option. CES 01:19, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
  2. Support - Is English title, specifies that it's about the trend of piracy in the region of East Asia, and eliminates romanisation issues with Wokou/Waka. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 03:05, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
  3. Support - Eliminates fighting over C/J/K naming, and can still remain a distinct section within the larger article, which will inevitably include both earlier and later developments. LordAmeth 08:17, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
  4. Oppose - per reasons above. Generality of name, does not correlate with current article, and plus, the Wokou were raiders, not pirates. --PalaceGuard008 03:42, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
  5. Oppose -They are not pirate but onshore raiders like Viking and Sea People--Ksyrie 12:05, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Move to Wako

  1. Support - the most common term in English for these groups, and more precise than Piracy in East Asia. LordAmeth 08:17, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Keep at Wokou

  1. Oppose - again, wokou is neither the original word nor is it the most common import into English. I have yet to see a rational reason for keeping this page at Wokou. CES 01:23, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
  2. Support - per reasons above. There is a concept of "Wokou", regardless of their internal ethnic diversity or mis-application of the name, which is separate and distinct from "piracy in East Asia" in general. The creation of a new article about "Piracy in East Asia]] should not be framed as a "move" proposal. --PalaceGuard008 01:30, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
  3. Support - It is just different. --123.212.51.83 04:12, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguous Page(s)

To satisfy all the parties,Wokou and Waegu will be made into disambigous pages including at least two different meanings,if possilbe,wako also.(As far as I know,japanese didn't call the their troops in asian continent as wako).Piracy of East Asia or JPB(Japan Based Pirates) will include the majority of the current article,which emphasize Geographical Concept but not the ethical constitution ,like Piracy in the Strait of Malacca or Piracy in the Caribbean--Ksyrie 02:21, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

  1. Support,I wish this proposal will solve the dispute.--Ksyrie 02:22, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Keep at Wokou

And emphasize they are not pirate but onshore raiders and looters like Sea people and Vikings

  1. Support--Ksyrie 11:51, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
  2. Oppose - the vast majority of scholarly texts refer to them as pirates. Our job is not to decide what they ought to be called, based on strict definitions and semantics, but to represent what they are called in scholarship. LordAmeth 08:19, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Are wokou pirates?

This issue is related to the renaming proposal, but is an issue for the article regardless of the outcome of that proposal. Are the wokou pirates?

The Wokou were based off-shore and used ships as their primary mode of transport and one mode of attack: that much is clear.

My Chinese-English dictionary gives the following meanings for the character 寇 (kou): 1) bandit; invader; enemy; 2) to invade.

Piracy at law is an illegal act of violence committed for private ends by persons on one ship or aircraft, against anything on another ship or aricraft, on the high seas or outside any state's jurisdiction. (Geneva Convention on the High Seas 1948, Art 15 para 1). There is some expansion of the concept in some jurisdictions to include attacks on a ship (or aircraft) by its own crew or passengers.

Of course, pirates also conduct other activities: on-shore raids, settlement building, trading. Such acts do not make them less of a pirate. However, the defining feature of a pirate is using one ship to attack another (or attacking a ship on-board). In either case, piracy is about attacking a ship (aircraft).

The target of the wokou's activities were almost exclusively onshore: raiding settlements; taking over settlements; bombarding/attacking settlements from ships. Plus, these attacks almost always occurred within the jurisdictions of the coastal states (China, Korea, etc), and not on the high seas: as seen in the sources cited in the article.

My view is that both the literal meaning and the substantive activities of the wokou make them not pirates. A better description would be "bandits" or "raiders".

I'm also concerned that this inaccuracy could rouse conflict in any renamed article (e.g. Pirates in East Asia) -- just look at all the fuss about spelling. --PalaceGuard008 04:14, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, wokou are pirates. The definition of piracy given above is much more narrow than anything you'll find in most reference works. Some examples (italics mine):
  • Random House Unabridged Dictionary - Piracy = "a person who robs or commits illegal violence at sea or on the shores of the sea."
  • American Heritage Dictionary - Piracy = "One who robs at sea or plunders the land from the sea without commission from a sovereign nation."
  • WordNet - Piracy = "someone who robs at sea or plunders the land from the sea without having a commission from any sovereign nation "
  • Wikipedia (Piracy) - "Piracy is a robbery committed at sea, or sometimes on the shore, by an agent without a commission from a sovereign nation"
There is plenty of justification for calling wako "pirates". CES 11:44, 9 June 2007 (UTC)


I have to admit you are genius,they are not Pirate,And the western counterpart or similar people should be Sea people or Viking!!!--Ksyrie 11:48, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Check the two pics
Sixteenth century Japanese pirate raids.
Map showing area of Scandinavian settlement in the eighth (dark red), ninth (red), tenth (orange) and eleventh (yellow) centuries. Green denotes areas subjected to frequent Viking raids.

--Ksyrie 12:15, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I hate to break it to you, but the Vikings were pirates. The Old English usage of the word "Viking" was a synonym for "pirate", Vikings are defined as pirates (look on Dictionary.com--the first definition of Viking is "any of the Scandinavian pirates who plundered the coasts of Europe from the 8th to 10th centuries"), and Vikings are described as pirates on both the Japanese and Chinese Wikipedia page (and probably others). A raid is simply a surprise attack. All pirates are raiders. Not all raiders are pirates. Pretty pictures though ... CES 12:41, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Oh, I agree with you that many people will call Wokou and even Vikings "pirates" -- I don't just live in lawyerland, afterall. (You might find thinning support for that view as to Vikings in the academic literature, though.)
Still, it is quite clear that the Wokou don't fit in the legal definition of piracy. I put it to you, also, that the everyday usage of "piracy" doesn't exactly correspond with "pirates" -- not everything a pirate does is piracy, as I've pointed out above.
Which would be a problem if this article gets moved to Piracy in East Asia -- there is a strong argument that, at least on a legal basis, land raids are not piracy. --PalaceGuard008 13:02, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Lucky for us, then, that this is the English Wikipedia, and not the legalese one. (I appreciate your point, but as has been said many times before, on many different discussion pages, our job here is not to decide what things should be called, but simply to represent what they are called. Wokou/Wako/whatever are called pirates extremely frequently not just in popular use or whatever, but in real serious scholarship as well.) LordAmeth 13:14, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
They did involve Piracy,and Viking and Sea People also,but for the behavior patterns between the Pirates and Seafaring Raiders are not same.--Ksyrie 13:32, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Check the wiki category for the both en:Category:Sea Peoples and en:Category:Vikings,they are not included in Pirates.--Ksyrie 13:33, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

We need to move on past this point, so here is the answer to the "are wokou pirates?" question, which again highlights the problem with the word wako/wokou/waegu. The answer: it depends--on which "wokou" we're talking about. For simplicity, let's be consistent within Wikipedia and take the definition of piracy (as appears at piracy) as "Piracy is a robbery committed at sea, or sometimes on the shore, by an agent without a commission from a sovereign nation." This is consistent with dictionary definitions of piracy.

  • Wokou #1: Japanese people who raided coastal areas from the sea. PIRATES
  • Wokou #2: non-Japanese people mistaken for/pretending to be Japanese people who raided coastal areas from the sea. PIRATES
  • Wokou #3: Japanese invasion forces (e.g. Hideyoshi and Sino-Japanese War armies). NOT PIRATES CES 14:28, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I see this "are they pirates?" issue as purely one of English semantics of what is referred to by the English word of "pirate". I don't think we need to haggle over this, because clearly many English sources have referred to the Wokou/Wako as "pirates". We should just go by that. But it's true that the connotations of piracy do not necessarily carry over to how Asian cultures or historic Asian accounts considered the Wokou/Wako. Maybe we should make a note of that in the article. Take a look at this[15]. It talks about piracy in Southeast Asia, but it might be applicable to the Wokou/Wako. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 15:30, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Wokou's fate: hung jury

Well, I started this whole thread thinking it would be a simple formality as a prelude to a move to wako based on English common usage ... and instead it's spawned a massive cluster of inconclusiveness and (in my humble opinion) bizarre logic regarding common usage and semantics. Hopefully the above discussion will provide a starting point in case this issue is revisited in the future, but unless anyone has anything else to add it looks like this page is inexplicably staying at wokou for the time being.

Regardless of the title, however, this discussion has made it clear that the opening line and definition of wokou (Wōkòu or Japanese pirates were pirates who raided the coastlines of China and Korea from the thirteenth century onwards) must be changed. We've noted that wokou come in several flavors, and the term has been in use for some 1500 years. This implies some significant changes to the article body, regardless again of what we call this article. CES 20:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm not sure if I can really contribute to this effort of revamping the article, but I do agree with you. LordAmeth 20:58, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Based on many and long historical records, Clearly, Waegu(Wokou) is created and used for Japanese pirates. Exactly two historical events indicate that there were fraud Waegu or Wokou, but the fact does not justify the modification of definition of Waegu. In recent 500 year's Korean history, there are 1,356 events of Waegu, but the fraud Waegu reported is only 1 event.129.254.33.196 02:36, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
In Korean history, that may be the case, however odd it sounds. But if you would like me to cite from books on Chinese, Japanese, and Southeast Asian history, I would be happy to. It is a well accepted fact that a significant portion of the people raiding the coasts of southern China and Southeast Asia in the 16th-17th centuries were not Japanese. LordAmeth 09:26, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree it needs a revamp. It's become quite clear that "Wokou" (etc) was used in at least two different senses, in addition to just "Japanese pirates". They were:
1. Any "Japanese bandit/invader/enemy" - thus Japanese invaders other than pirates.
2. Any "pirate" raiders, etc - thus ethnically Chinese or Korean pirates/raiders who raided the same areas as their Japanese predecessors. --PalaceGuard008 11:23, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
In Korean history, "Any Japanese invader/enemy" are denoted as Waejuk(왜적:倭賊). You can see the facts at the web of the Jeosun sillok[sillok.history.go.kr] where the Waejuk is hitted 1,559 times. As you know, the Waegu(Wokou) is first recorded and used at Korean history and denotes Japanese pirates. Therefore, Waegu(Wokou) is Waegu, not other terminologies129.254.33.196 02:11, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Regardless, even if the only pirates and raiders to attack Korea were Japanese, which I sincerely doubt, it does not change the fact that in other parts of Asia, the majority of raiders were not. I am sorry if events in the rest of Asia don't fit into your Korea-centric view, but the subject being discussed here is far from being a solely, or even primarily, Korean matter. LordAmeth 08:32, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
I do not claim that "the only pirates and raiders to attack Korea were Japanese". However I claim that Waegu(Wokou) is Korea and China-centric terminology. 129.254.33.196 12:31, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
OH! I'm sorry. I really misinterpreted the point you were trying to make. Alright, so therefore, since it is Korean/China-centric terminology, what are you suggesting? Piracy in East Asia or something like that? LordAmeth 23:04, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
I am sorry for late reply. Opinion, Waegu(Wokou) is Japanese pirates.129.254.33.196 12:46, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Regarding whether the Wako were Japanese pirates, the complication is that often they weren't Japanese. Here is George Sansom on the issue, in his "A History of Japan 1334-1615" [p.267 in my Tuttle edition] "Consequently at a time when the activity of the so-called Wako was at its height, say from 1550 to 1560, the crews of the pirate craft were for the most part not Japanese but these distressed Chinese. Reliable Chinese records indicate that the rank and file of the pirate bands consisted of Chinese and Japanese in the proportion of ten to one, or as some said, ten to three." So the Wako were not strictly a Japanese phenomenon but one whose membership fluctuated depending on the economic situation of the Asian littoral, and also the degree of repressiveness of the formal trade policies of the countries [smuggling was a big activity related to the Wako]. But there are similar phenomenon which wouldn't fall under the rubric of Wako. See for instance the Wikipedia entry for "Limahong", a Chinese pirate who invaded Luzon in 1574, burning down Manila and then setting up his own state for 7 months before the Spanish and local allies were able to evict his forces. Shirokuma1 16:51, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

If your comments are based on a historical trues, The trues must be denoted by other terminology; for example Chinese or Korean pirates. Waegu is japanease pirates because Wae(倭) refers to Japan.129.254.33.196 09:48, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I think you are continuing to miss the point - China and Korea, at this time, used the term 倭寇, meaning "Japanese pirates" to refer to Chinese and Korean pirates as well. China and Korea accused all pirates of being Japanese, accused the Japanese authorities of being responsible, and ignored the fact that many of their so-called "Japanese pirates" were indeed not Japanese. Please recognize that literal meanings are not always the same as actual (widely-used) meanings, and cannot be used as your sole argument. Rice paper isn't made from rice, Pâté chinois (Chinese pie) is not Chinese, and "Japanese pirates" are not necessarily all Japanese. LordAmeth 12:45, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
User jerry modified link above for Pâté chinois after moving the page to eliminate double-redirect. JERRY talk contribs 19:48, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
On top of that, there is an additional distinction, which is that while 倭寇 referred to raiders who were not necessarily Japanese, it didn't refer to just any raider. Thus, while some members of the 倭寇 were Chinese or Korean, not all Chinese or Korean pirates or raiders were considered 倭寇.
Generally, there had to be some Japanese connection (being commanded by the Japanese, being based in or around Japan, having lived in Japan, actively or passively maintaining the impression that they are Japanese) for a non-Japanese raider to be identified as 倭寇. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:19, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Wōkòu and the Tanaka Memorial

An introduction by Carl Crow to the English language version of the Tanaka Memorial contains this interesting statement (p. 9):

For generations during the Ming dynasty Japanese pirates ravaged the coast of China, justifying their raids by the fanciful idea that when they looted a Chinese city, they were collecting the tribute which these cities should have been bringing to the emperor. There is not a city around the mouth of the Yangtse which does not record these piratical attacks of the Japanese. Along the coast of Chekiang and Fukien provinces are still to be seen the remains of many ancient watch towers which were erected to keep an eye on the approach of pirates and summon troops for defence. These piratical raids were not confined to the nearby China coast, but extended as far south as Manila and Siam.

In this article the Japanese Emperor is not mentioned, nor does it describe the Wōkòu having reached this far. Is there any truth to this statement?--Ryoske 03:22, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Except early and recent era in japanese history, The king of japanese was political dummy.129.254.33.196 10:55, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Raiding in the name of the Emperor or the like was simply a ruse or a delusion or something to that effect; the wako were not liked or respected or supported by the Japanese authorities, and the Emperor had next to no actual political power. LordAmeth 01:25, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Meaning of Wokou

I removed the translation of "Wokou" as "Dwarf Japanese pirates." While I understand that "wo" can mean either "dwarf" or "Japan" depending on context, I see no evidence that it means both at the same time, and in the context of "Wokou" it seems pretty clear that "Japanese" is meant. Pirate Dan (talk) 13:37, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, wo（倭）is an ancient name for the Japan from the Chinese, while the word itself carries the meaning of "short" or even worse, "dwarf" well before the known of Japan to the Chinese. Also not to ignore the Chinese in the ancient time regard themselves as the civilized human and discriminate the others who are surrounding them. ChowHui (talk) 18:14, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Ryoko the pirate

What about Ryoko the pirate who chased off the Mongols during the Mongol invasions of Japan and became a heroine? Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 18:45, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wokou/Archive_1&oldid=1137328954"