Where is Seoul in South Korea in the weather forecast? Is Seoul still the capital of South Korea?

The Chinese name of South Korea's capital "Seoul" was officially changed from "Seoul" to "Seoul" on January 19, 2005. "Seoul", which has been called "Seoul" for so many years, will disappear from Chinese documents. .

On the surface, Seoul changed its name to align with international standards. Mayor Lee Myung-bak of Seoul City said: The Chinese refer to Washington as Washington, London as London, and Moscow as Moscow. They are all marked with Chinese pronunciations that are close to the pronunciations of these words. Only Seoul still refers to them according to ancient names. Called Seoul, this caused a lot of confusion.

This reason is somewhat far-fetched. Geography textbooks in Chinese middle schools clearly tell everyone that the capital of South Korea is Seoul. Anyone with a little bit of culture knows this. The biggest trouble is that when learning English, people often find it difficult to associate Seoul with Seoul, but this is just a trouble for the Chinese themselves.

Seoul was renamed Seoul, which is rooted in nationalism. In fact, similar "de-Chinese" moves have been going on in South Korea for many years. In South Korea, there has never been an end to the dispute over whether to retain Chinese characters and how many Chinese characters to retain. The most recent one was on December 21, 2004. South Korea decided to replace all mixed Chinese character marking methods in the current 759 legal texts with Korean. The degree of "de-Chineseization" is closely related to the improvement of South Korea's strength, the style of South Korea's leaders, the struggle with different factions in South Korea, and even China-South Korea relations.

What is worrying is that the name change of Seoul may also highlight the shortcomings of China's "soft power" from one aspect. Neighboring countries that have been deeply influenced by Chinese culture since ancient times have changed their place names, indicating that the appeal of Chinese culture has further weakened in the face of Western culture.

my country’s economy has developed rapidly and its strength has steadily increased. However, the improvement of cultural soft power is far from matching its economic strength. Teenagers in Southeast Asia can be crazy about F4 and worship Hong Kong movie stars. Korean TV stations also broadcast Hong Kong and Taiwan TV series almost every day, but the influence of mainland cultural products abroad is relatively insufficient. In Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan culture has a great influence; globally, many people regard Japanese culture as the representative of oriental culture. At that time, China was a "superior kingdom". In fact, its splendid culture and civilization had a strong appeal. Until now, we can only be truly attractive if we first carry forward our traditional culture and strive to innovate.

South Korea and China both belong to the East Asian cultural circle and have been greatly influenced by Chinese culture in history. However, as European and American civilization prevails and dominates the world today, there is nothing wrong with South Korea getting rid of or reducing the influence of Chinese culture and taking the path of cultural independence. The question is how we respond. China's diplomatic work has always adhered to the policy of mutual respect and non-interference in each other's internal affairs. When a country changes the name of its own city, it is an "internal matter" and cannot be interfered with. However, this "internal matter" will affect all aspects of China. The documents of foreign-related institutions, travel agencies, education departments, etc. will have to undergo a series of changes, so it It doesn't seem to be purely an "internal matter".

China should first understand the renaming of Seoul: South Korea used to be a vassal state of China, but now the two countries are equal partners. On the basis of understanding, China should also support it. China is implementing the policy of "being a partner and being good to our neighbors", so there is no need to cause any unpleasantness in the naming of a city.

In addition, the name is just a symbol, and paying too much attention to it is a sign of lack of confidence. Just as we don’t need to ask people to change “Chinese” to “Chinan (adding “n” to a country’s name in English is a complimentary way of referring to the country’s people, and adding ese has a derogatory meaning)”, but we can make the word “Chinese” become a Compliment has become a word of respect. In this regard, black people should be respected. Initially they were called "Negro" and "Black" was a derogatory term. However, in the process of fighting for civil rights, they confidently told the world "I am Black". Over time, "Black" became Instead of a positive word, "Negro" has become a derogatory word.

In this sense, it is not important to change the name of Seoul. What is important is the improvement of South Korea's strength; it is not important what the Chinese call "Seoul". What is important is that "Seoul" is what we call it in our minds. What image.

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