Foreign textbooks provide wrong information about S. Korea: lawmaker

 

(Yonhap) -- Foreign elementary, middle- and high-school textbooks have provided wrong information about South Korea, a lawmaker said Sunday, urging his government to make more effort to correct such information.

   Citing an analysis of 543 foreign textbooks, conducted by the state-run Academy of Korean Studies, Rep. Kim Tae-won of the ruling Saenuri Party said there is a total of 602 cases of wrong information about South Korea.

   A textbook used in Kuwait, for instance, describes South Korea as a country that speaks the Chinese language. Another in Argentina calls South Korea a country where malaria, a mosquito-borne infectious disease, is widespread.

   Referring to the body of water between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, many foreign textbooks unilaterally refer to the expanse as the "Sea of Japan," instead of the "East Sea," a term supported by South Korea, according to the analysis.

   In a statement, Kim called for the government to increase the budget and train more experts to correct wrong information about South Korea in foreign textbooks.