(image: KobizMedia/Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, Oct. 12 (Korea Bizwire) — More than 1,500 pieces of erroneous information about South Korea have been found in foreign textbooks, including a Croatian text saying the country speaks the Chinese language, a lawmaker said Friday.
The state-run Academy of Korean Studies looked into 1,707 foreign texts between 2014 and 2017 as part of a project to fix erroneous information on the country and discovered 1,507 cases of misinformation, Rep. Kim Hae-young of the ruling Democratic Party said.
Some textbooks in Taiwan, Turkey, Israel, Uruguay and the United States marked the body of water between the Korean Peninsula and Japan as the Sea of Japan, not as the East Sea, while a Croatian text said Chinese is spoken in South Korea, according to the lawmaker.
A Spanish textbook mistook South Korea for North Korea, saying that South Koreans suffer from malnutrition while North Koreans are well fed. Another Spanish textbook stated South Korea’s per capita national income amounts to only US$3,000-10,000.
“The government should put in greater effort into ensuring that foreigners have correct information about our country,” the lawmaker said.
(Yonhap)
