[KS] Re: Japanese Colonization Period

[Dr. John Caruso Jr.]

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Excellent points.

John

----- Original Message -----
From: "k u s h i b o" <jdh95 at hitel.net>
To: <korean-studies at iic.edu>
Sent: Saturday, September 02, 2000 10:09 PM
Subject: Re: Japanese Colonization Period


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> Dr. John Caruso Jr. wrote:
> > The Japanese tried for hundreds of years to conqueror the Koreans, then
> > later to suppress or perhaps eradicate those elements of culture that
made
> > the Korean people for thousands of years Korean.  Change their names,
>
> I forgot his name, but some king of Korea did far more than the Japanese
did
> in terms of de-Koreanizing Korean names. Unless I'm completely wrong,
didn't
> some Koryo or Choson king decide that all sun-hangungmal surnames be
> replaced by ones of Chinese origin? We are of the Park clan, and I am told
> that it is one of the few "pure Korean" family names.
>
> As for what the Japanese did, I quote Andrew Nahm: "While accelerating
> Japanization efforts through education and propaganda, Governor-General
> Minami took a significant step to Japanize the Koreans. On November 10,
> 1939, he issued the Ordinance No. 20, which, as of April 1940, 'allowed'
> (required) the Koreans to change their family and personal names to
Japanese
> form in order to bring about 'a more perfect union' between Japan and
Korea.
> Under the supplementary regulations of December 1939, however, they were
not
> allowed to copy names of Japanese emperors, aristocrats, or certain other
> important figures past or present. Fearing retaliation against those who
> refused to change their names, 84% of the Koreans (population 25,133,352
in
> 1944) changed their family names, or the reading of their family names, as
> well as their given names, to a Japanese style. Under this ordinance, the
> Koreans 'lost' their names and their Korean identity. The adoption of
> Japanese names did not, however, serve to conceal Korean identity or to
> eradicate discrimination, for all public documents, family registration
> records, and school and job applications required the Koreans to indicate
> their original family and given names and the place of the clan origin."
>
> When I point this information out, some Koreans are incredulous. This goes
> against the black-and-white version of colonial history in a number of
ways.
> First, a good four million Koreans didn't even bother to Japanize their
> names at all. Second, a *Japanese* reading of the *Korean* names (which
are
> simply *Korean* readings of Chinese characters) was an acceptable way of
> complying. Third, and perhaps most important, it didn't happen until 1939
> and 1940! For 30 out of 35 years of Japanese colonial rule, this bemoaned
> aspect of Japanese cultural extermination didn't even take place. To be
> sure, though, there were people like my grandfather who emigrated, first
to
> Japan, then to North America, in the 1920s with a Japanese passport (after
> all, he was a Japanese citizen) and he had to affix that passport with a
> Japanese name (he chose the name of a teacher whom he respected, with the
> teacher's blessing, apparently).
>
> > forbid their language,
>
> Again, this occurred in the late 1930s. For most of the colonial period,
the
> Korean language was used as a tool to indoctrinate the Korean people! How
> else would they understand the propaganda?
>
> > history,
>
> And how. To justify their absorption of Korea (and Okinawa), the Japanese
> militarists had to twist Korean-Japanese relations on its head to make it
> seem as if Koreans came from Japan and not vice-versa.
>
> > culture and make them obedient servants of the
> > Showa Emperor. Big brother - little brother syndrome.
>
> You are right. But again, most of this (e.g., mandatory Shinto worship,
> etc.) occurred in the late 1930s. This was, to my knowledge, not the norm
> for most of the colonial period. The first ten years, the amh^ukki,
> witnessed a lot of brutal suppression, the next ten years a relatively
open
> period, and the years leding up to and involving World War II one in which
> Japan desperately tried to glue the Koreans to Japan.
>
> > Today, Korean residents in Japan after 55 years are still humiliated,
> > shunned by Zaibutsu, undereducated, rarely intermarry, because many
Japanese
> > view the Koreans as a culturally inferior people suitable for second
class
> > status not citizenship.
>
> My ex-fiancee is a third-generation ethnic Korean in Japan (who,
> incidentally, left me to marry a 100% ethnic Japanese man with whom she
> worked in the Japanese school system, which goes against your points a
> little bit. Sigh) and we and her friends (who were also ethnic Koreans
from
> Japan) took considerable issue with this type of characterization. The
> problems, they say, are mostly exaggerated by the Korean press and
> agenda-builders.
>
> In turn, one would have to ask, do the ethnic Chinese in Korea, whose
> families have been here for generations, fare much better? Not at all. Are
> they even allowed to get Korean citizenship?
>
> > It is very difficult for any historian to sort out the facts you are
seeking
> > while the Japanese refuse to officially apologize or even acknowledge
what
> > they did to the Korean people during 1910-45.
>
> This is not a fair characterization either. Both PM Hosokawa and PM
Murayama
> expressed what can be taken as none other than an apology. It was the
> long-time ruling party, though, the LDP (?) that publicly insisted that
> their opinions were only their own. The problem is not Japan, the problem
is
> the right-wingers in Japan. And the Korean press knows this, but they
> downplay the "good guys" and play up the "bad guys", presenting Japan as a
> single entity caught up in a gross case of historical amnesia.
>
> Again, I submit that the problem here is only minimally because of
"Japan's"
> alleged lack of apology. More importantly, it is the attitude of the
media,
> the politicians, and the educational establishment in Korea. The kind of
> people who ignore Hosokawa's and Muryama's statements, or demand
technology
> transfers as compensation for the suffering of the so-called "Comfort
> Women". This year, 55 years after liberation, we now have a liberation
> period that is TWO DECADES LONGER than the occupation itself. Yet the
> animosity seems to worsen, and you suggest this is because of Japan? This
is
> all because the Japanese internal politics can't get their act together on
> anything? Is Korea as a whole that much of a victim? I don't think so.
>
> > If Emperor Hirohito was
> > hanged like the other Nurnberg War Crimes Trial defendants perhaps there
> > would be a more balanced view of the colonial occupation.
>
> As a Catholic, I find capital punishment to be wrong. But aside from that,
> there were practical reasons not only for not imprisoning him or putting
him
> on trial, but for allowing him to remain emperor as well. It's very
> questionable whether he was particularly involved at all in the war.
Should
> we execute him because, as some historians say, he was gleeful when Japan
> was winning? He could have done little or nothing to change events, it
> appears (although I'm receptive to opposing opinions).
>
> At any rate, Hirohito has been dead for eleven years. But the situation
has
> not changed in terms of Japan coming clean. How would his death in the
1940s
> have made things any different. The Korean powers-that-be would still have
> needed a bogeyjapan.
>
> K U S H I B O
>
>