[KS] historical uses of the Korean term YO^BO

[Theodore Hughes]

Just to clarify, and in response to several queries outside of the
list, the usage of "yobo" I refer to in my previous post is camptown
specific,  appropriated in G.I./camptown Korean in the third-person,
related, I am guessing, more to the second-person term of endearment
similar to "honey" in "standard" Korean than to the pejorative "yobo"
used by Japanese settler colonialists (although we probably can't rule
out a connection to the latter). My sense of the Japanese colonialist
usage, at least as it appears in colonial-period Korean literary texts, is
that it is not so distant in meaning from the various racist terms we
encounter so often in Euro-American colonialism.

Ted Hughes





Quoting Theodore Hughes <th2150 at columbia.edu>:

> In the post-1945 camptown context, the term "yobo" used to refer to
> live-in Korean sex workers, often paid on a monthly basis in cash or
> black market profits (sometimes a combination of the two) to service
> U.S. military personnel.
>
> Ted Hughes
>
>
> Quoting dmccann at fas.harvard.edu:
>
>> We know how it was used between spouses in the 1960's, yes?  Do we   
>>    know the song
>> "Hey," by Julio Iglesia?  It just puts into song form what people    
>>  do  with that
>> word when they wish to speak fondly to one-another.  We also know    
>>   how it can be
>> used for quite the other way effect as well.  Probably the same effect, by
>> extension, with the phrase "Hey you:" falling intonation, one thing; equal
>> strong emphasis, something else entirely.  I noma: Boston pronoz     
>> for  the former
>> Red Sox player.  But I digress.
>>
>> DM
>>
>>
>> Quoting Richardson <richardson at dprkstudies.org>:
>>
>>> All,
>>>
>>> I'm also interested in the use of "yobo" as a derogatory term for
>>> Koreans as used by Japanese.  Currently reading "The Clan Records: Five
>>> Stories of Korea" by Kajiyama Toshiyuki, I very recently ran across the
>>> term in two of three chapters read so far.  Up to now I'd thought
>>> perhaps the author had misremembered some phrase, but it seems not. From
>>> page 12 of the book;
>>>
>>>    Despite the slogan "Japan and Korea Unified," the Japaneses scorned
>>>    the Koreans.  Even Japanese children showed contempt, using
>>>    expressions like /yobo/, which Koreans deeply resented.  A Koran
>>>    word, /yobo/ originally meant "hello," but in the mouths of Japanese
>>>    ti implied "you slave."
>>>
>>>
>>> V/R,
>>> Richardson
>>>
>>>
>>> Todd Henry wrote:
>>>> Dear all:
>>>>
>>>> I am currently completing an article on colonial racialization with a
>>>> focus on how Japanese settlers and journalists appropriated the native
>>>> term "yo^bo" to derogatorily refer to colonized Koreans, particularly
>>>> lower class laborers.  I am also analyzing Korean critiques to this
>>>> racialized usage of "yo^bo," but am not completely satisfied with the
>>>> explanations they (the Korean critics) give as to the social etymology
>>>> of this term.
>>>>
>>>> I would, therefore, be interested in any scholarship (or other
>>>> information) that deals with how this term was used during the late
>>>> Cho^son period and into the colonial period.  It would also interest
>>>> me to hear more about post-liberation/colonial uses of "yo^bo" and if
>>>> they had anything to do with the sort of derogatory usages I have been
>>>> investigating from the colonial period.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks in advance for your guidance and help.
>>>>
>>>> Todd A. Henry
>>>>
>>>> Korea Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow (2008-9)
>>>> Korea Institute, Harvard University
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> Assistant Professor in Residence
>>>> University of California-San Diego
>>>> Department of History
>>>>
>>>> Humanities and Social Sciences Building Room 3008
>>>> 9500 Gilman Drive
>>>> La Jolla, CA 92093-0104
>>>>
>>>> Phone: (858) 534-1996
>>>> Email: tahenry at ucsd.edu <mailto:tahenry at ucsd.edu>
>>>> Webpage: http://historyweb.ucsd.edu/
>>>>
>>>
>> <https://mail.ucsd.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=2b030e9cd5804b7496e5a95e1f07afb0&URL=http%3a%2f%2fhistoryweb.ucsd.edu%2f>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> Get back to school stuff for them and cashback for you. Try Bing now.
>>>>
>>>
>> <http://www.bing.com/cashback?form=MSHYCB&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MSHYCB_BackToSchool_Cashback_BTSCashback_1x1>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Theodore Hughes
> Assistant Professor of Modern Korean Literature
> M.A. Program Coordinator
> Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
> Columbia University
> 407 Kent Hall
> New York, NY 10027
>
> Tel: (212) 854-8545
> Fax: (212) 678-8629



-- 
Theodore Hughes
Assistant Professor of Modern Korean Literature
M.A. Program Coordinator
Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
Columbia University
407 Kent Hall
New York, NY 10027

Tel: (212) 854-8545
Fax: (212) 678-8629