The reading on "Thought Police Stay for Dinner" brought up the point of how it must have been living under colonial Korea, and it must have been terrifying. Just the thought of being scared all the time from the "rulers," in this case the Japanese, of your home land and not being able to express yourself on how you felt about things because you might insult the Japanese and land you in jail. The whole tone of the reading was very stern. She did not seem angry but frustrated with the whole situation of how the Japanese tried so hard make her dad a suspect all the way through the war up to the point when the war was over and then ironically said that her dad was pro japanese. Overall I enjoyed the reading.
The reading New Women, Old Women introduces the ideal women. There are many forms of the ideal women but the notion of education stood out to me. The intellectual element of a women is what was most attractive. The women that knew what she wanted and how to make those choices were qualifications of a contemporary woman. However, the notion of the modern woman was not attractive to the older generation who grew up with the ideology that a woman is there completely for the man. Based on Cartoon 1 I would say that younger men are more open to the idea of the modern women. The first two men are skeptical of the women, her clothing and her attitude. In contrast the young man is rather attracted to the woman's fashion and is curious about her. The modern women like in Cartoon 2 can live her life as a married women and fulfilling her duties while pursuing outside interests like reading and writing.
"When My Name Was Keoko" gave a great picture of the loss of identity during the Japanese occupation.
Several things struck me including the fact that Koreans could not be bosses. The main character's father is the vice-principal and her best friend Tomo is the son of the principal.
The students had to speak Japanese on the streets and could only speak Korean at home. Folktales were forbidden as well.
The scene when the main character had to choose a new name is painful because it shows the loss of identity. Another powerful scene was when Abuji drew the Korean flag and they had to burn it shows how hidden they had to be about their national identity.
I also appreciated the insight into Korean culture--youngest children role in listening, girls having to listen when men and boys are around.
I found this reading interesting and applicable to my students. I plan to use this to compare the treatment of names and identity in this story versus other authors' writing Sandra Cisneros' "My Name" and Julia Alvarez's "Names/Nombres" and have the students compare the author's perspective of names and identity.
I really enjoyed Professor Jung Kim’s lecture today. I particularly liked her focus during lecture and in her reading selection on the average citizen and bringing out the stories of the people to help us understand the context of the time. One topic that struck me was the organized military sexual slavery of the time. I think that sexual slavery in general is a very methodical military strategy that is also part of warfare, but I am very surprised by the number of women who were enslaved as part of government supported programs!
I think it is very powerful that women to this day are able to come out of the shadows and speak about their experiences. My heart melts for those women who demonstrate every Wednesday at noon (I believe) in front of the Japanese consulate as a reminder of a dark historical time period. It’s beautiful that people bring them flowers and try to literally keep the “comfort” women comfortable with blankets and clothing; providing them with the humanity they deserve. I am also interested in visiting the memorial in Glendale. I am curious at the tone of the description at the memorial and how people perceive the statues today.
Very interesting, the whole forced name change and such. It is puzzling, however, that if the Japanese truly felt a sense of racial superiority to the Koreans, then why did they attempt to Nipponize thier names? The Richard Kim reading quotes an elderly Korean man as lamenting, "And Asian to Asian, so cruel... even the British in India didn't go *that far!" Well, of course not; the British, while acknowledging certain aspects of Indians in general, also felt a sense of ethnic superiority. It would have been highly undesireable to have the Indians start calling themselves "Wilkinson", "Cavendish", "Cunningham", and the like... these names are steeped in British history and "glory", and in their view, Indians simply don't rate having esteemed British names like this. So, odd that the Japanese had a similar sentiment towards Koreans, but forced them to take Japanese names anyway. Other than that, wow, what a great class! I'm particularly anxious to see the film Baseball Days now, lol!
The information on Korea presented by Professor Kim was very interesting. I had no idea it was a Japanese colony until I started this course, now a lot of things start to make sense. The numbers presented about sexual slavery and the details were very disturbing to me. What also struck me was the fact that Koreans had to change their names and that they became practically second class citizens in their own country. Even though the Japanese occupation brought industrialization, nothing justifies all the atrocities committed. It was also interesting to know that after almost a century the U.S. and European countries are trying to make Japan recognize its accountability for all the disasters.
I always I enjoyed professor Jennifer Sung-Kim's lectures, her knowledge of Korean history is impressive. The two stories, " Lost Names," and " When my name was Keoko," gives an insight into the Japanese's occupation of Korea. I'm still shocked that the Japanese forced the Koreans' to change their names. The Japanese are the only people that I know of, that forced colonized people to do this. These two stories, reflect the despair, and shame the Koreans felt when forced to give up their ancestors name.
The Korean's cartoons intended to ridiculed New Women, are funny. The women are looking at New women for fashion advice and with fascination while the men pretend to be disgusted by their actions. These cartoons characters, are a reflection of stereotypes that affect women.
This week's lecture and readings were especially helpful for me, as I've now realized I know very little about Korean history. I was obviously aware of the occupation of Korea by Japan, but I lacked the historical context leading up to it and never fully realized the extent to which it impacted Korean culture and foreign relations, even to the present day. For example, I had very little understanding about the so called "comfort women". I knew of the horrors faced by women in China during the Japanese invasion, but had no idea about the military run brothels and forced sex slavery in Korea. This course continues to remind me how much more I have to learn.
In terms of the application of this content to my classes, I'm starting to realize that my World War II unit really should begin, and possibly end in East Asia. I'm planning to restructure my materials to be much more focused on East Asia, and to use the actions of the Japanese leading up to the war as a framework for viewing other nations. Traditionally the world wars are taught through the lens of the MAIN causes of WWI (Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, Nationalism), but only European nations are used to explore these lenses. These same concepts could easily be applied to East Asia and would offer a more diverse perspective of global politics from that time. Similarly, there are plenty of parallels between the systematic discrimination of minority groups in Europe and in Asia in the years leading up to WWII. A comparison study of these two regions would help students see the connection between rampant nationalism, increasingly powerful autocratic governments, and the dangers these pose to oppressed populations.
The part of the lecture which informed me the most was regarding the so called "comfort women". Such term is deceiving and trivial; I think the the term used by Professor Kim is more appropriate. It was enlightening to learn of heavy Korean participation in the practice of this military sexual slavery, from recruiting to kidnapping. The whole process seems wrapped in the fog of war, in which the perpetrators were able to abuse their captives with impunity. Further research, if possible given the mass burning of documents, will bring further light to the issue. It's interesting how the current political climate, which is used to serve contemporary issues not historical ones, seems to have heated up due to this war crime. I hope its due to genuine care for the redemption of these women and not for short term political points. This topic is useful for my World History and Government classes, the readings are classroom ready as well.
I was catching up with my reading and like you I found this reading very sad. It's unbelievable how this women were treated and how the father was on constant harassment by both the Korean and the Japanese. I can just imagine how they felt every day being visited by the police and being careful of everything they did to not raise suspicion for something they were not even part of. I was also appalled by the mother's arrest, how can you leave a mother of four in a prison? These government officials were certainly inhuman.
These readings reminded me of an incident that happened at my school. The school that I teach at has a 20% population of international students; among them we have Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese. We had a rally last year and to integrate our foreign students we had them perform a dance, but at the beginning they did not get along. Koreans and Chinese did not want to work with the Japanese; I just heard a comment by one of them as of why they didn’t want to, the student simply said: “you know what you did to us.” Now that I’m taking this course I know what she was talking about. I never imagined all the struggles, humiliation, tragedies, and violations; and so forth, their families went through over this period of time. There is definitely a lot of animosity among younger generations, and I don’t really blame them they must still hear stories from their grandparents.
The readings for this week would be great primary sources to bring to the classroom, especially since they revolve around women and the impact they had during Colonial Korea. I found the cartoon ads interesting, in that shows the perception of women back then, and what was valued and what wasn't. This is particularly seen on page 85, with the cartoon illustrating New Women's obsession with jewelry. For students, it would be interesting to have them analyze these images, and then compare them to modern magazines and compare/contrast how women are portrayed. This could lead to a great discussion on gender roles and how different countries have different/similar perceptions on women historically through time.
I also enjoyed reading the chapter "Thought Police Stay for Dinner." Once I heard Professor Jung-Kim's lecture on how Koreans were going to Shanghai to set up a provisional government base, it made much more sense. The lens given through the daughter is one our students would be able to connect with since the language is easy to read and comprehend. In terms of teaching this, it would be great to have the students do a secondary source informational reading on this topic, and then having them read this chapter to get a primary source first hand account on the experience of families going through this.
I think what annoys me most when I hear about war is how women are used by the military forces and rape continues to be used as a weapon against women. It is not acknowledged with any sincerity. It is a serious political issue that will not be addressed because it is a women's issue. The statue of the comfort woman is haunting as is the women who sit out in front of the Japanese embassy. Women are like shadows in so many cultures. Today we hear about sex slave trafficking in the U.S. .The changing of names is commonplace during occupations and made me think of the current occupation of Palestine..changing the signs and names of places to exterminate any traces of their culture. We did the same with Native Americans..including the reeducation camps ..shaving their hair and taking their jewelry. The US government actually chose children from the most resistant tribes..kinda keeping their kids hostage. Occupation seems to be about erasing the culture and identifiers such as names.
Linda Sue Park’s excerpt from, “When My Name was Keoko” sounds all too familiar. When visiting the motherland – to my grandmother’s home, or any of my relatives whose age granted them access to schooling under imperial Japan, they’ll tell a similar tale. Names, especially that of ones family is paramount to identity. Hence, women, when they marry keep their surname though children born from their union may don their father’s surname. The reasoning is to maintain lineage and identity. Of the stories regarding renaming under Japan’s rule, I’ve heard in my youth, the most common is the spelling of Korea, or as my relatives will assure you, “Corea”. As though to strike the soul of the oppressed nation, the spelling of “Corea” was changed to “Korea” as the letter “K” follows behind “J” – the letter that begins the name of the imperialist control whose control need to go beyond corporeal imprisonment to impair nationalistic identity. My grandmother would agree with Hildi Kang, there were Japanese who would police, according to my grandmother, everything from who you ate your rice to how you saluting the Japanese police. If you didn’t show the proper rigid form when standing or bow low enough to the ground, you were punished. And the punished varied on prestige of the Korean family, gender, and of course town. Disclaimer: For the purposing of continuity, I used the Western spelling of “Korea” than “Corea” with some reservations to its significance.
edited by cgao on 2/2/2016