To further clarify Ted's note:
<div>It was generally used by GI's and not by Koreans. It was also</div>
<div>mispronounced and sounded like "yoeboe" (e.g.,</div>
<div>"My yobo doesn't like it when I'm TDY."</div>
<div>Oddly enough, that camptown pronunciation is now</div>
<div>also often used in Hawai'i, though certainly not with</div>
<div>the same meaning. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>On another note, there's also a fairly awful (though decent for the</div>
<div>genre) novel of the title, which Milan Hejtmanek pointed out to</div>
<div>me years ago:</div>
<div><a href="http://www.worldlanguage.com/Products/The-Yobo-A-Novel-of-Korea-by-Whalen-M-Wehry-English-104560.htm">http://www.worldlanguage.com/Products/The-Yobo-A-Novel-of-Korea-by-Whalen-M-Wehry-English-104560.htm</a></div>
<div><a href="http://www.worldlanguage.com/Products/The-Yobo-A-Novel-of-Korea-by-Whalen-M-Wehry-English-104560.htm"></a>It's $199 on Amazon!</div>
<div><br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Theodore Hughes <th2150@columbia.edu><br>
To: koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws<br>
Sent: Mon, Aug 10, 2009 12:44 pm<br>
Subject: Re: [KS] historical uses of the Korean term YO^BO<br>
<br>
<div id="AOLMsgPart_0_75565856-0771-4999-aff3-9e7d3361d527" style="margin: 0px;font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Sans-Serif;font-size: 12px;color: #000;background-color: #fff;">
Just to clarify, and in response to several queries outside of the <br>
list, the usage of "yobo" I refer to in my previous post is camptown <br>
specific, appropriated in G.I./camptown Korean in the third-person, <br>
related, I am guessing, more to the second-person term of endearment <br>
similar to "honey" in "standard" Korean than to the pejorative "yobo" <br>
used by Japanese settler colonialists (although we probably can't rule <br>
out a connection to the latter). My sense of the Japanese colonialist <br>
usage, at least as it appears in colonial-period Korean literary texts, is <br>
that it is not so distant in meaning from the various racist terms we <br>
encounter so often in Euro-American colonialism. <br>
<br>
Ted Hughes <br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Quoting Theodore Hughes <<a href="mailto:th2150@columbia.edu">th2150@columbia.edu</a>>: <br>
<br>
> In the post-1945 camptown context, the term "yobo" used to refer to <br>
> live-in Korean sex workers, often paid on a monthly basis in cash or <br>
> black market profits (sometimes a combination of the two) to service <br>
> U.S. military personnel. <br>
> <br>
> Ted Hughes <br>
> <br>
> <br>
> Quoting <a href="mailto:dmccann@fas.harvard.edu">dmccann@fas.harvard.edu</a>: <br>
> <br>
>> We know how it was used between spouses in the 1960's, yes? Do we >> know the song <br>
>> "Hey," by Julio Iglesia? It just puts into song form what people >> do with that <br>
>> word when they wish to speak fondly to one-another. We also know >> how it can be <br>
>> used for quite the other way effect as well. Probably the same effect, by <br>
>> extension, with the phrase "Hey you:" falling intonation, one thing; equal <br>
>> strong emphasis, something else entirely. I noma: Boston pronoz >> for the former <br>
>> Red Sox player. But I digress. <br>
>> <br>
>> DM <br>
>> <br>
>> <br>
>> Quoting Richardson <<a href="mailto:richardson@dprkstudies.org">richardson@dprkstudies.org</a>>: <br>
>> <br>
>>> All, <br>
>>> <br>
>>> I'm also interested in the use of "yobo" as a derogatory term for <br>
>>> Koreans as used by Japanese. Currently reading "The Clan Records: Five <br>
>>> Stories of Korea" by Kajiyama Toshiyuki, I very recently ran across the <br>
>>> term in two of three chapters read so far. Up to now I'd thought <br>
>>> perhaps the author had misremembered some phrase, but it seems not. From <br>
>>> page 12 of the book; <br>
>>> <br>
>>> Despite the slogan "Japan and Korea Unified," the Japaneses scorned <br>
>>> the Koreans. Even Japanese children showed contempt, using <br>
>>> expressions like /yobo/, which Koreans deeply resented. A Koran <br>
>>> word, /yobo/ originally meant "hello," but in the mouths of Japanese <br>
>>> ti implied "you slave." <br>
>>> <br>
>>> <br>
>>> V/R, <br>
>>> Richardson <br>
>>> <br>
>>> <br>
>>> Todd Henry wrote: <br>
>>>> Dear all: <br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> I am currently completing an article on colonial racialization with a <br>
>>>> focus on how Japanese settlers and journalists appropriated the native <br>
>>>> term "yo^bo" to derogatorily refer to colonized Koreans, particularly <br>
>>>> lower class laborers. I am also analyzing Korean critiques to this <br>
>>>> racialized usage of "yo^bo," but am not completely satisfied with the <br>
>>>> explanations they (the Korean critics) give as to the social etymology <br>
>>>> of this term. <br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> I would, therefore, be interested in any scholarship (or other <br>
>>>> information) that deals with how this term was used during the late <br>
>>>> Cho^son period and into the colonial period. It would also interest <br>
>>>> me to hear more about post-liberation/colonial uses of "yo^bo" and if <br>
>>>> they had anything to do with the sort of derogatory usages I have been <br>
>>>> investigating from the colonial period. <br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> Thanks in advance for your guidance and help. <br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> Todd A. Henry <br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> Korea Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow (2008-9) <br>
>>>> Korea Institute, Harvard University <br>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------ <br>
>>>> Assistant Professor in Residence <br>
>>>> University of California-San Diego <br>
>>>> Department of History <br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> Humanities and Social Sciences Building Room 3008 <br>
>>>> 9500 Gilman Drive <br>
>>>> La Jolla, CA 92093-0104 <br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> Phone: (858) 534-1996 <br>
>>>> Email: <a href="mailto:tahenry@ucsd.edu">tahenry@ucsd.edu</a> <<a href="mailto:tahenry@ucsd.edu?">mailto:tahenry@ucsd.edu</a>> <br>
>>>> Webpage: <a href="http://historyweb.ucsd.edu/" target="_blank">http://historyweb.ucsd.edu/</a> <br>
>>>> <br>
>>> <br>
>> <<a href="https://mail.ucsd.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=2b030e9cd5804b7496e5a95e1f07afb0&URL=http%3a%2f%2fhistoryweb.ucsd.edu%2f" target="_blank">https://mail.ucsd.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=2b030e9cd5804b7496e5a95e1f07afb0&URL=http%3a%2f%2fhistoryweb.ucsd.edu%2f</a>> <br>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ <br>
>>>> Get back to school stuff for them and cashback for you. Try Bing now. <br>
>>>> <br>
>>> <br>
>> <<a href="http://www.bing.com/cashback?form=MSHYCB&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MSHYCB_BackToSchool_Cashback_BTSCashback_1x1" target="_blank">http://www.bing.com/cashback?form=MSHYCB&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MSHYCB_BackToSchool_Cashback_BTSCashback_1x1</a>> <br>
>>> <br>
>> <br>
>> <br>
>> <br>
>> <br>
>> <br>
>> <br>
>> <br>
> <br>
> <br>
> <br>
> --> Theodore Hughes <br>
> Assistant Professor of Modern Korean Literature <br>
> M.A. Program Coordinator <br>
> Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures <br>
> Columbia University <br>
> 407 Kent Hall <br>
> New York, NY 10027 <br>
> <br>
> Tel: (212) 854-8545 <br>
> Fax: (212) 678-8629 <br>
<br>
<br>
--Theodore Hughes <br>
Assistant Professor of Modern Korean Literature <br>
M.A. Program Coordinator <br>
Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures <br>
Columbia University <br>
407 Kent Hall <br>
New York, NY 10027 <br>
<br>
Tel: (212) 854-8545 <br>
Fax: (212) 678-8629 <br>
<br>
</div>
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