Zainichi Literature: Japanese Writings by Ethnic Koreans 1557291802, 9781557291806

Table of contents :
Cover
Notes to this edition
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Preface
Contributors
Introduction
1. Two Essays: “Letter to Mother” and “Colonial Koreans and Peninsulars”
2. Trash
3. In Shinjuku
4. Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler
5. Lee-kun’s Blues
6. Selected Poems from I Am Twelve
7. Specimens of Families
Appendix
Back Cover

Citation preview

Notes to this edition This is an electronic edition of the printed book. Minor corrections may have been made within the text; new information and any errata appear on the current page only. Transnational Korea 3 Zainichi Literature: Japanese Writings by Ethnic Koreans John Lie, editor ISBN-13: 978-1-55729-181-3 (electronic) ISBN-13: 978-1-55729-180-6 (print) ISBN-10: 1-55729-180-2 (print)

Please visit the IEAS Publications website at http://ieas.berkeley.edu/publications/ for more information and to see our catalogue. Send correspondence and manuscripts to Katherine Lawn Chouta, Managing Editor Institute of East Asian Studies 1995 University Avenue, Suite 510H Berkeley, CA 94704-2318 USA [email protected]

December 2018

Zainichi Literature

TRANSNATIONAL KOREA 3

Zainichi Literature Japanese Writings by Ethnic Koreans

Edited by John Lie

A publication of the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. Although the institute is responsible for the selection and acceptance of manuscripts in this series, responsibility for the opinions expressed and for the accuracy of statements rests with their authors. The Transnational Korea series is one of several publication series sponsored by the Institute of East Asian Studies in conjunction with its constituent units. The other series include the China Research Monograph series, the Japan Research Monograph series, the Korea Research Monograph series, and the Research Papers and Policy Studies series. Send correspondence and manuscripts to Katherine Lawn Chouta, Managing Editor Institute of East Asian Studies 1995 University Avenue, Suite 510H Berkeley, CA 94720 [email protected] Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Lie, John, editor. Title: Zainichi literature : Japanese writings by ethnic Koreans / edited by John Lie. Description: Berkeley, CA : Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, [2018] | Series: Transnational Korea ; 3 | Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2018034053 (print) | LCCN 2018044769 (ebook) | ISBN 9781557291813 (ebook) | ISBN 1557291810 (ebook) | ISBN 9781557291806 | ISBN 1557291802 Subjects: LCSH: Japanese literature—Korean authors—Translations into English. | Japanese literature—20th century—Translations into English. Classification: LCC PL782.E1 (ebook) | LCC PL782.E1 Z35 2018 (print) | DDC 895.608/08957—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018034053 Copyright © 2018 by the Regents of the University of California. Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved. The cover image of a gate in Korea Town (Tsuruhashi), Osaka, is an adaptation of an image published by author Oilstreet on Wikimedia Commons under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Cover design by Mindy Chen.

Contents

Preface vii Contributors ix Introduction 1 John Lie 1. Two Essays: “Letter to Mother” and “Colonial Koreans and Peninsulars” 25 Kim Saryang, translated by Nayoung Aimee Kwon 2. Trash 35 Kim Talsu, translated by Christina Yi 3. In Shinjuku 55 Yang Sŏgil, translated by Samuel Perry 4. Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler 67 Lee Jungja, translated by Haeng-ja Chung 5. Lee-kun’s Blues 121 Won Soo-il, translated by Nathaniel Heneghan 6. Selected Poems from I Am Twelve 139 Oka Masafumi, translated by Youngmi Lim 7. Specimens of Families 165 Yū Miri, translated by Abbie (Miyabi) Yamamoto Appendix 183 John Lie

Preface

Zainichi (diasporic Koreans in Japan) writings contain signal achievements, but they are virtually unknown outside Japan, and, to a lesser extent, the two Koreas. Melissa L. Wender’s pioneering anthology in English, Into the Light (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2010), remains a beacon; I can only hope that others will follow this modest collection of translated pieces in order to illuminate the sea of variegated—searing and shattering—works that should be better known. There is something remarkable in the vast corpus of Zainichi literature, and it’s a pity that it has fallen between the proverbial stacks of nationalist literary scholarship. This collection is the outcome of two workshops held at the University of California, Berkeley. In organizing the workshop and making this volume possible, I would like to thank Dylan Davis, Stephanie Kim, Laura Nelson, Kate Chouta, and the staff of the Center for Korean Studies and the Institute of East Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. This work was supported by the Academy of Korean Studies [KSPS] Grant funded by the Korean Government [MOE] [AKS-2012-BAA-2102]. Thanks also to Kiri Lee, Christopher D. Scott, and Melissa L. Wender who participated in one or both workshops but were unable to contribute to this volume.

Contributors

Haeng-ja Chung is a cultural anthropologist. She received her PhD from the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is an associate professor at Okayama University. Before joining Okayama University, she taught at Colorado College, Hamilton College, and Smith College in the United States. She also conducted research on the intersection of gender and ethnicity as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and University of Tokyo. She has given numerous lectures and has published in both English and Japanese. Her publications include “Transnational Labor Migration in Japan: The Case of Korean Nightclub Hostesses in Osaka,” “‘THAT’S IT?’ How Conflicts and Confusion are Negotiated in the Globalized Contact Zone of a ‘Japanese’ Club,” and “In the Shadows and at the Margins: Working in the Korean Clubs and Bars of Osaka’s Minami Area.”  Nathaniel Heneghan is a visiting assistant professor in the department of East Asian Studies at Oberlin College. His research encompasses topics of modern Japanese literature and visual media, transnational and postcolonial theory, pop and subculture mediums, and gender and ethnic studies. He is currently at work on a manuscript that considers the changing representation of Zainichi Korean identity in postwar literature and film. Nayoung Aimee Kwon is an associate professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image, and the Program in Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Duke University. Her publications include Intimate Empire: Collaboration and Colonial Modernity in Korea and Japan (Duke University Press, forthcoming in Korean from Somyŏng Press) and a coedited volume Transcolonial Film Coproductions in the Japanese Empire: Antinomies in the Colonial Archive. She is currently translating Kim Saryang’s works into English and editing a transnational volume of critical works about his legacy.

x

Contributors

John Lie teaches social theory at the University of California, Berkeley. He has written Multiethnic Japan (Harvard University Press, 2001) and Zainichi (Koreans in Japan): Diasporic Nationalism and Postcolonial Identity (University of California Press, 2008). Youngmi Lim is an associate professor of sociology at Musashi University, Tokyo. She received her PhD in sociology from the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center and has taught at various CUNY campuses for ten years. She is currently writing a book on Japanese and Zainichi intermarriages. Samuel Perry is an associate professor of  East Asian studies at Brown University. His research brings together the fields of modern literature, translation, and cultural history as he seeks to understand the strategies by which marginalized people have contested dominant cultures in East Asia. His published work includes Recasting Red Culture in Proletarian Japan: Childhood, Korea, and the Historical Avant-Garde (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2014), and two books of translation from Korean and Japanese, From Wŏnso Pond by Kang Kyŏng-ae (Feminist Press, 2009) and Five Faces of Japanese Feminism: Crimson and Other Works by Sata Ineko (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2016). He is currently writing a monograph about Japanese literature at the time of the Korean War and translating a collection of queer Korean literature. Abbie (Miyabi) Yamamoto received her PhD in Japanese and Korean literature from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2011. She currently lives in San Diego and works as a translator and cultural consultant. Her latest research project, Girls Who Become Mothers…Or Not: Young Women and Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Japan, focuses on the Japanese shōjo (young woman) figure and how it has changed over the course of the twentieth century. Christina Yi is an assistant professor of modern Japanese literature at the University of British Columbia. She received her PhD in modern Japanese literature from Columbia University. In 2011, she was awarded the William F. Sibley Memorial Translation Prize for her translation of Kim Saryang’s “Pegasus” (Tenma). Her research focuses on the rise of Japanese-­language literature by Korean colonial subjects during the 1930s and 1940s and its subsequent effect on discourse regarding “national” and “ethnic minority” literature in postwar Japan and Korea.

Introduction

JOHN LIE In 1972 Lee Hoesung (Ri Kaisei) won the Akutagawa Prize, the most prestigious literary award in Japan.1 The event inaugurated a Zainichi Korean literature boom in Japan.2 Not only were pioneering Zainichi authors such as Kim Saryang (Kin Shiryō) and Kim Talsu republished and reread, but Lee and his peers also received renewed attention from the Japanese literary world (bundan).3 Although it is problematic to equate prestigious awards with literary influence or even greatness, it is nevertheless s­ triking 1 

Transliteration encapsulates the divides and confusions of Zainichi life. In the colonial period and thereafter, many ethnic Koreans living in the Japanese archipelago adopted Japanese pseudonyms. Even when they retained their Korean names, they employed the Japanese pronunciation: hence, Kin Shiryō rather than Kim Saryang. The problem runs deeper, however. A very common surname, usually rendered as Lee in English, is pronounced Yi in southern Korea, whence most Zainichi hailed, and Ri in northern Korea. Because of the lingering awareness that the proper (or the received Chinese) pronunciation is Lee or Ri, most educated Koreans sought to transliterate it into English as Lee or Ri (or Rhee as in the case of the first president of South Korea, Syngman Rhee, or Lie as in the case of my father). The most common South Korean transliteration is Lee, whereas that of North Korea is Ri. Furthermore, many Zainichi employ Japanese phonetics even when they speak Korean. That is, Kim Saryang in Zainichi Korean would be Kim Saryan. Given that Kim Saryang wrote and lived as Kin Shiryō when he wrote his Japanese-language texts, the historically accurate rendering should probably be Kin Shiryō rather than Kim Saryang. Given the strength of nationalist, anti-, or postcolonial convictions, however, contemporary scholars, whether in Japan or the United States, use the Korean rendering. 2  Zainichi, which means “residing in Japan,” does not necessarily refer to ethnic or diasporic Koreans; one may be Zainichi American or Zainichi Chinese. Here I use the term Zainichi as a common referent to a demographic group: postcolonial ethnic or diasporic Koreans in Japan. 3  See, e.g., Shiraishi Shōgo, “‘Zainichi’ bungaku nijūnen no inshō,” Kikan seikyū 1 (1989). There was another boom of sorts around 1940 after two Zainichi writers were nominated for the Akutagawa Prize. Bundan is a term often employed in modern Japanese cultural life, denoting a central stage for authors, critics, and publishers, who in turn constitute a concentrated and overlapping web of relations. An influential account is Itō Sei, Nihon bundanshi, 18 vols. (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1954–1973).

2

John Lie

that Zainichi writers have proceeded to win the Akutagawa Prize on several occasions: Lee Yangji in 1988, Yū Miri in 1996, and Gen Getsu in 1999. Needless to say, the list omits several others whose claim to literary eminence would be difficult to deny, including Kim Talsu, Kim Sokpom (Kin Sekihan), Kin Kakuei, and Sagisawa Megumu. If we turn to the Naoki Prize, geared toward popular works of fiction, we also find a series of Zainichi recipients: Tachihara Masaaki in 1966, Tsuka Kōhei in 1981, Ijūin Shizuka in 1992, and Kaneshiro Kazuki in 2000. Given that no estimate of the Zainichi population exceeds 1 percent of the total population of Japan, it would appear that Zainichi are overrepresented in the top echelon of the literary world.4 The accounting exercise suggests that Zainichi literature has a prima facie claim to the attention of Japanese literature aficionados and scholars.5 Not surprisingly, the secondary literature in Japanese is immense. Save perhaps for a recent surge of interest among South Korean scholars, however, there is nary any recognition of Zainichi literary achievements, perhaps even its very existence, elsewhere. It is a pity, as the body of work in and of itself continues to have literary significance, because it is an exceedingly interesting instance of diasporic literature: a phenomenon of world literature that is of great and growing interest to readers and critics. This book seeks to redress the neglect.6 This introductory essay provides a conspectus of Zainichi literature— serving as something of a truncated Zainichi literary history—and queries in particular its shifting and conflicting boundaries. Classification of Zainichiness and Zainichi literature raises the inevitable question of belonging and identity. It may very well be that these sociological considerations pollute and pervert the purity of literature—though very few have claimed that literature has no ethnonational boundaries given the inevitable importance of language—but we cannot bypass them when the very definition of a literary genre is sociological, not literary, in character.

4  The same generalization can be made for other spheres of culture and entertainment, including music and movies. A proximate reason is the manifold obstacles toward professional and other prestigious employment in postwar Japan. 5  There is a question as to whether Korean-language writings by Zainichi writers should be included in the study of Zainichi literature. The short answer, argued cogently by Song Hyewon, is affirmative (“Zainichi Chōsenjin bungagushi” no tame ni [Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2014]). It is also possible to expand the ambit of Japanese literature to include works in nonJapanese languages, most obviously Ainu, Okinawan, Korean, Chinese, and English. Needless to say, as of the late 2010s, such a perspective would be a minority view. 6  For a pioneering anthology of Zainichi literature in English, see Melissa L. Wender, ed., Into the Light (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2010).

Introduction

3

The Ambit of Zainichi Literature If we classify Zainichi literature as literary works by ethnic or diasporic Koreans in Japan, then its exemplar can be found in the distant and misty past. The first monument of Japanese literature, the eighth-century poetry compilation Man’yōshū, was not only heavily influenced by continental (what we would now call Chinese and Korean) language and literature, but also included some poems by recent exiles or sojourners from the Korean peninsula.7 It would be possible to chronicle a pageantry of ethnic Koreans writing in Japan, but it would also be a hodgepodge of disparate literary achievements, without rhyme or reason. Strong national identification did not exist before the era of modern nation-states, and the idea of national literature or even national language is something that gains credence only in the period of modern national identity.8 In any case, Zainichi literature, whether for contemporary scholars and writers or the general reading public, is perforce a colonial and postcolonial phenomenon.9 After all, only several thousand Korean subjects were residing in the Japanese archipelago at the time of Korean annexation to Japan in 1905 (Korea became a protectorate in 1905, then a full-fledged colony in 1910). Erstwhile denizens of the 7  See Kajikawa Nobuyuki, Man’yōshū to Shiragi (Tokyo: Kanrin Shobō, 2009). For early emigrants from the Korean peninsula to the Japanese archipelago, see Ueda Makoto, Torai no kodaishi (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 2013). For a transnational look at early eastern Asia, see Suzuki Yasutami, Kodai Nihon no Higashi Ajia kōryūshi (Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan, 2016). 8  See John Lie, Modern Peoplehood (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004). 9  The standard anthology of Zainichi literature in Japanese is in eighteen volumes: Isogai Jirō and Kuroko Kazuo, eds., “Zainichi” bungaku zenshū (Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan, 2006). See also Song Hyewon (Sō Keien), ed., Zainichi Chōsen josei sakuhinshū, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Ryokuin Shobō, 2014). There is a vast secondary literature in Japanese. See inter alia Isogai Jirō, Shigen no hikari (Tokyo: Sōjusha, 1979), Takeda Seiji, “Zainichi” to iu konkyo (Tokyo: Kokubunsha, 1983), Hayashi Kōji, Zainichi Chōsenjin Nihongo bungakushi (Tokyo: Shinkansha, 1991), Imu Jone, Nihon ni okeru Chōsenjin no bungaku no rekishi (Tokyo: Hōsei Daigaku Shuppankai, 1994), An U-sik, “Zainichi Chōsenjin no bungaku,” Iwanami kōza Nihon bungakushi, vol. 14 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1997), Kawamura Minato, Umaretara soko ga furusato (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1999), Yamasaki Masazumi, Sengo “Zainichi” bungakuron (Tokyo: Yōyōsha, 2003), Kim Huna, Zainichi Chōsenjin josei bungakuron (Tokyo: Sakuhinsha, 2004), Isogai Jirō, “Zainichi” bungakuron (Tokyo: Shinkansha, 2004), Nozaki Rokusuke, Tamashii to zaiseki (Tokyo: Inpakuto Shuppankai, 2008), Song, “Zainichi Chōsenjin bungakushi” no tame ni, and Isogai Jirō, “Zainichi” bungaku no hen’yō to keiju (Tokyo: Shinkansha, 2015). The secondary literature in Korean, after a belated beginning, has exploded in the past fifteen years. See, e.g., Yu Suk-cha, Chaeil Han’gugin munhak yŏn’gu (Seoul: Wŏrin, 2000), Hong Ki-san, Chaeil Han’gugin munhak (Seoul: Sol, 2001), Kim Hak-tong, Chaeil Chŏsonin munhak kwa minjok (Seoul: Kukhak Charyowŏn, 2001), Kim Hwan-gi, Chaeil tiasŭp’ora munhak (Seoul: Saemi, 2006), Hwang Pong-mo, Chaeil Han’gugin muhak yŏn’gu (Seoul: Ŏmunhaksa, 2011), and O Ŭn-yŏng, Chaeil Chosŏnin munhak e issŏsŏ “Chosonjŏk in kŏt” (Seoul: Tosŏ Ch’ulp’an Sŏin, 2015). The only major monograph in English is by Melissa L. Wender, Lamentation as History (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005).

4

John Lie

Japanese archipelago who hailed from the Korean peninsula had by and large become enmeshed in and assimilated into Japanese life; descendants of Korean Man’yōshū poets had become Japanese.10 Some Japanese denizens maintained memories of ancestral links to the Korean peninsula—indeed, it is true for the imperial household itself11—but even those who retained their Korean surnames and more or less conscious identification with Korean peoplehood did not leave substantial literary traces that disclose their ethnonational identity. It would also be possible to identify Yi Su-jŏng, who arrived in Japan in 1882 and was the pioneer translator of the Christian Bible into Korean, as sort of an ur-Zainichi literary figure. However, not only did he write exclusively in Korean, but he also expected to return to Korea after a short stay in Japan.12 Yi Kwang-su published probably the first Japanese-language modern fiction by a Korean in 1909, “Ai ka?” (Is it love?).13 It is possible to dismiss it as juvenilia, but in dealing with homoerotic desire across ethnonational boundaries, the short story remains an intriguing but neglected work by the putative founder of modern Korean literature. If we include ethnic Koreans writing in the main Japanese islands, then much of modern Korean literature would be part of Zainichi literature: from Yi Kwang-su and Yi Sang to Yi Ch’an and Yun Tong-ju. It may also be tempting to include the considerable population of ethnic Japanese who peopled the Korean peninsula during the colonial period and then returned to Japan, but no one has seriously advocated considering their works Zainichi literature.14 Put simply, ethnic criterion (being ethnic or diasporic Korean in Japan) remains the received way to categorize Zainichi 10 

We should remain cognizant of those who, even after centuries in the Japanese archipelago, retained a sense of Korean identification. Shiba Ryōtarō’s thinly fictionalized portrait of one such descendant is memorable: Kokyō bōjigataku sōrō (Tokyo: Bungen Shunjūsha, 1976). 11  John Lie, Multiethnic Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001). 12  Cf. Imu, Nihon ni okeru Chōsenjin. Yi translated a Japanese version of the Bible into Korean, becoming something of a pioneer of this important but neglected, and frequently denied, genre. To be sure, the more salient occlusion is that in virtually every account of the history of Christianity in the Korean peninsula, Horace G. Underwood and Henry G. Appenzeller, among other North American missionaries, are central. Yi, who taught Korean to both Underwood and Appenzeller—they in turn carried Yi’s translated Bible with them to Korea—remains a shadowy, neglected figure. 13  I have not been able to locate the original, which was published in Shirogane gakuhō, 1909, under the pseudonym Yi Po-gyŏng. It is readily available in Kurokawa Sō, ed., “Gaichi” no Nihongo bungaku sen (Tokyo: Shijuku Shobō, 1996). 14  The hegemonic nature of ethnonational distinction precludes the possibility of regarding a substantial body of work by ethnic Japanese writers who were reared in colonial Korea and often wrote about the experience and its allied manifestations, such as the place of Koreans in Japan. See, e.g., Kajiyama Toshiyuki, “Ri-chō zankei,” Bessatsu Bungei Shunjū (March 1963). For scholarly treatments, see Nakane Takayuki, “Chōsen” hyōshō no bunkashi (Tokyo: Shin’yōsha, 2004), and Nan Pujin, Bungaku no shokuminchishugi (Kyoto: Sekai Shisōsha, 2006).

Introduction

5

literature, however nationalistic and at times ambiguous the classificatory scheme may be. In this regard, we should recall that almost all the major bookstores in Japan placed works of Zainichi literature under the category of foreign literature, not as part of Japanese literature, presumably on the ground that ethnic Koreans were foreigners in monoethnic Japan. Liberation, or the end of World War II, marks another common dividing line: the before of colonial rule and the imperative of cultural assimilation against the after of political independence, national division, and conflicting political loyalties. That is, there is a difference between being a colonial subject and an ethnic minority. Consider, for instance, a major anthology of colonial literature, by so-called peninsular writers, that appeared in 1944. Almost no one would regard the roster of authors—most famously, Kayama Mitsurō or Yi Kwang-su—as Zainichi writers, however much they may have resided in the main Japanese islands, wrote in Japanese, and used Japanese names.15 Almost certainly the best-known ethnic Korean writer in Japan during the colonial period was Kim So-un, less for his poetic achievements and more for his Korean literary and cultural compilations.16 Yet, he too is almost always excluded from any sustained study of Zainichi literature. The colonial period presented Japan as the broad horizon against which everyone operated; however, the allegiances of ethnic Koreans may have spanned from pro-Japanese to anti-Japanese (and their beliefs and loyalties may have changed over time). After all, almost every ethnic Korean was an imperial Japanese subject, and very few were consciously and actively anti-imperialist in Japan.17 In the postcolonial period, there were distinct choices of homeland: North Korea, South Korea, or Japan. In turn, being in Japan offered distinct modes of consciousness and expectation. The curious constraint of being postcolonial Koreans in Japan—and often writing in Japanese to boot—provides a particular urgency to Zainichi literature.

On ethnic Japanese in colonial Korea in general, see Jun Uchida, Brokers of Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2014). 15  Chōsen Tosho Shuppan, ed., Hantō sakka tanpenshū (Keijō: Chōsen Tosho Shuppan, 1944). Note that perhaps the first book of literary criticism appeared in 1943: Sai Saizui, Tenkanki no Chōsen bungaku (Tokyo: Jinbunsha, 1943). In the postwar period, the foundational work is Ozaki Hotsuki, Kyūshokuminchi bungaku no kenkyū (Tokyo: Keisō Shobō, 1971). In the case of South Korea, see Kim Yun-sik, Han-Il kŭndae munhak ŭi kwallyŏn yangsang (Seoul: Ilchisa, 1974). On Yi Kwang-su, see Kim Yun-sik’s influential but devastating account, Yi Kwang-su wa kŭ ŭi sidae (Seoul: Han’gilsa, 1986). 16  For the earliest publications, see Kim So-un, Chōsen min’yōshū (Tokyo: Taibunkan, 1929). 17  For two telling narratives of proimperial ethnic Koreans in Japan, see Ko Samyon, Ikirukoto no imi (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1974), and Kim Sijong, Chōsen to Nihon ni ikiru (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2015).

6

John Lie

Not surprisingly, then, the very term Zainichi literature (Zainichi Chōsenjin bungaku) becomes common only in the 1960s.18 Hence, it is possible to consign writers active in the colonial period as proleptic figures, who in turn should be distinguished from postcolonial authors. Nevertheless, it does not require a heroic suspension of disbelief to assert and accept a line linking colonial writers, such as Kim Saryang, and postcolonial writers, such as Kim Talsu and Kim Sokpom. In fact, they are largely coevals, whose shared experience of Japanese colonialism—most importantly, living as an ethnic Korean in the Japanese archipelago—overlapped with strong Korean identification, including the desire to return to homeland, and the mastery and employment of the Japanese language. Yet, Kim Saryang returned to the Korean peninsula, started writing in Korean, allied himself with the communist North during the Korean War, and disappeared.19 Kim Talsu and Kim Sokpom, in contrast, stayed in Japan, wrote almost exclusively in Japanese, and became the founding figures of Zainichi bundan. Nevertheless, we include Kim Saryang’s piece in this book because he continued to be read by Zainichi writers, especially after his collected writings came out in the early 1970s.20 Zainichi literature is not only a sociological phenomenon but also a historically specific one.21 The very presupposition of Zainichiness encapsulated its evanescence; the overwhelming expectation was that ethnic Koreans would repatriate to the Korean peninsula in due course. Hence, Zainichi literature was fated to disappear from the outset, which is one of the main reasons that immediate postwar ethnic Korean writers in Japan called themselves (North) Korean, rather than Zainichi, authors.22 Needless to say, the curtailment of the anticipated future was made possible by the 18 

Isogai Jirō, “Dai issedai no bungaku ryakuzu,” Kikan seikyū 19 (1994). See An U-sik, Kin Shiryō (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1972). The most notable Korean-­ language work is Noma malli (in Kim Sa-ryang sŏnjip, Pyongyang: Kungnip Ch’ulp’ansa, 1955). See also Jung Beak Soo, Koroniarizumu no chōkatsu (Tokyo: Sōfūkan, 2007), esp. part 2. 20  Kim Saryang, Kin Shiryō zenshū, 4 vols. (Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 1973–1974). 21  For references to the information in the next three paragraphs, please see John Lie, Zainichi (Koreans in Japan): Diasporic Nationalism and Postcolonial Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008). For representative works on Zainichi history and culture in the past decade, see the special issue of Bessatsu Takarajima 245 (2013), Mizuno Naoki and Mun Gyongsu, Zainichi Chōsenjin (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2015), and Yoon Keun Cha, “Zainichi” no seishinshi, 3 vols. (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2015). 22  The politics of nomenclature is omnipresent in matters Zainichi. North Korea in Japanese was usually “Kita Chōsen,” whereas South Korea was often called “Kankoku.” Given the preponderant identification of ethnic Koreans in Japan with North Korea in the immediate postwar decades, the most common term was “Zainichi Chōsenjin.” It is only in the 1980s that “Zainichi Kankokujin”—usually added to the earlier term, so “Zainichi Chōsen Kankokujin”—becomes common. To avoid the confusion and unintended political allegiances, it is increasingly common to use “Zainichi Korian” (Korean), which is of course 19 

Introduction

7

neglect of the immediate past. The Zainichi population, as was the case for ethnic Koreans in the Korean peninsula, had experienced considerable cultural assimilation during colonial rule. At the same time, we should not neglect that Korean-language writings and publications were under considerable threat of censorship and even outright suppression, especially as the Japanese war effort intensified from the late 1930s. Yet by Liberation Japanese was the de facto native language for second-generation Zainichi and an official language for any ambitious first-generation Korean (in both naichi, the main Japanese islands, and gaichi, the colonies). Given the prestige of the ruling power—and one that also provided a window onto the larger world of the West—ethnic Korean writings in Japanese proliferated by the 1930s, most visibly in the proletarian literature movement.23 The red tide would soon recede, replaced by waves of Japanese nationalist and assimilationist writings. In 1941, the leading light of modern Korean literature, Yi Kwang-su, writing under the Japanese name Kayama Mitsurō, urged fellow Koreans to abandon the Korean language and embrace the Japanese. The same year Kim Saryang’s story “Hikari no naka ni” (Into the light) was nominated for the Akutagawa Prize. Yi, Kim, and many other ethnic Koreans writing in Japanese during the colonial period—perhaps the most prolific was Chō Kakuchū—constitute something of a prehistory of Zainichi literature.24 Indeed, if we had an expansive view of ethnic Korean writings in Japan, they would fit comfortably in any comprehensive account of Zainichi literary history. Beyond the colonial–postcolonial divide is the choice, however constrained, of residence and language. It is safe to say that ethnic Koreans— many of whom were fluent in Japanese and, because all higher schooling implied Japanese-language instruction, often had better command of literary Japanese than literary Korean—who returned to either North or South (or pre-division) Korea and wrote in Korean are almost always excluded from the Zainichi canon. I know of no professional writer who continued to publish Japanese-language fiction in North or South Korea. In contrast, continued residence in Japan meant that Japanese was the dominant language. Some wrote energetically in Korean, but Japanese would supersede the adoption of the English term that encompasses both North and South Koreans. See Lie, Zainichi, preface. 23  Samuel Perry, Recasting Red Culture in Proletarian Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2014). 24  For Japanese-language writings by ethnic Koreans during the colonial period, see Ōmura Masao and Hotei Toshihiro, eds., Kindai Chōsen bungaku Nihongo sakuhinshū, 5 vols. (Tokyo: Ryokuin Shobō, 2004). On pro-Japanese writings by Korean writers during the colonial period, see Shirakawa Yutaka, Chōsen kindai no chinichiha sakka (Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan 2008).

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Korean. Kim Sokpom is symptomatic. Seeking to write his magnum opus Kazantō (Volcano island, 1983–1987) in Korean, he eventually failed and went on to write seven tomes in Japanese.25 We should stress, however, that the monolingual hindsight has systematically effaced the place of Koreanlanguage writings among the Zainichi.26 We might also consider diasporic Koreans who were born and reared in the Japanese language, but went on to write in other languages, such as English for Younghill Kang and Richard E. Kim, and French for Ook Chung.27 Out of sight, out of mind: ex-Zainichi writers would shed their Japanese background, and therefore they may be discussed as part of Korean or diasporic Korean literature but almost never as part of Zainichi literature. The essentially contested criterion of Zainichi literature—beyond ethnic, linguistic, and historical—stems from a series of political and ideological orthodoxies. Whether in terms of what I call Sōren ideology or Zainichi ideology, the postwar decades featured politically correct definitions of Zainichiness. Most importantly, Zainichi identity entailed not only a commitment to homeland—however contested the seemingly simple idea proved to be, among distinct allegiances to North Korea, South Korea, or a future unified Korea—but also a strong declamation of anticolonial and therefore anti-Japanese standpoints (hence Japan was never mooted as a serious place of settlement in the immediate postwar decades). There is a tendency to divide colonial-era Korean writers as either heroic resisters to Japanese rule or misguided collaborators, but the political classification misses not only individual ambiguities and nonpolitical—indeed, aesthetic—­concerns, but also their transformation over time. Tei Zenki, almost surely the first ethnic Korean to publish a full-length novel in Japanese, began as a proletarian writer but soon converted to Japanese ultranationalism.28 He made yet another radical turn after 1945 and became a leftist. As twisted and unprincipled as he may seem in retrospect, Tei’s was not an uncommon trajectory for ethnic Korean intellectuals who lived through the turbulent mid-twentieth century. The aforementioned debut work of Chō’s, “Gakidō” (Hungry world, 1932), was a socialist-realist depiction of Korean peasants’ impoverished condition, but he became increasing pro-Japanese. He was naturalized in 1952 and henceforth wrote as Noguchi Minoru. In spite of divergent destinations, Tei and Chō are both 25 

Kim Sokpom, Kazantō (Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 1983–1987). See esp. Song, “Zainichi Chōsenjinbungakushi” no tame ni. 27  Younghill Kang, The Grass Roof (New York: Scribner’s, 1931), and East Goes West (New York: Scribner’s, 1937). Richard E. Kim, The Martyred (New York: Braziller, 1964), and Lost Names (New York: Praeger, 1970). Ook Chung, Kimchi (Paris: Le Serpent à Plumes, 2001). 28  Tei has not received much critical attention. His representative Japanese writing is Kōdō seijiron (Tokyo: Kōgakkai, 1940). 26 

Introduction

9

often excluded from the category of Zainichi literature.29 There is no point in denying their place in any consideration of ethnic Korean writings in Japanese, but their inclusion in the Zainichi canon is often tenuous because Zainichi literature was not the production of and by ethnic Koreans living and writing in Japan, but of and by ethnic Koreans who in turn were preparing for their ultimate return to homeland and engaged in anticolonial independence struggles. Given the explicit political orientation of many Zainichi writers, who overwhelmingly identified themselves with North Korea, those who were sympathetic to South Korea or insufficiently antiJapanese were not considered to be part of Zainichi literature. Being cast as pro-Japanese almost always led to their expunction.30 Sociological, historical, political, ideological, and other forces rendered Zainichi literature not only contested but also exclusionary. Paradoxical given the widespread discrimination against and disrecognition of ethnic Koreans in postwar Japan, Zainichi writers, critics, and readers were in turn wont to exclude numerous writers from their circle. Perhaps the best-selling work by a Zainichi writer in the immediate postwar decades was Yasumoto Sueko’s Nianchan (1958). Yet, it is almost never mentioned in any discussion of Zainichi literature because it is based on a diary of a young girl. Beyond its status as nonfiction lies the pervasive masculinist and patriarchal outlook of the Zainichi literary and political establishment. Pioneering postwar women writers, such as Ri Kum-ok and An Fukiko, hardly merit a mention in most accounts of Zainichi literature.31 Nianchan also violated a crucial credo of Zanichi writers at the time: the orientation toward homeland and the expectation of return. In this regard, Tachihara Masaaki was an immensely successful writer, who even touched on Korean 29 

Given Chō’s explicit criticism of Zainichi mainstream views, it is not altogether surprising that almost no Zainichi writers regarded him as “one of us” (see, e.g., “Zainichi Chōsenjin hihan,” Sekai shunjū, December 1949). His later works, such as Kuroi chitai (Tokyo: Shinseisha, 1958) and Gan byōren (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1959), dealing respectively with tuberculosis and cancer, retain considerable interest. See Yan Hisuku, “Chō Kakuchū sengo chosaku nenfukō,” Nihon Ajia kenkyū 8 (2011): 111–120. 30  The same generalization can be applied to North and South Korea as well. Anticolonial, anti-Japanese sentiments remain a largely unquestioned orthodoxy more than seven decades after Liberation. For the foundational work on pro-Japanese or collaborationist literature in South Korea, see Im Chong-guk, Ch’inil munhagnon (Seoul: P’yŏnghwa Ch’ulp’ansa, 1966). It is worth stressing, however, that collaboration was widespread. Consider the Zainichi writer Ko Samyon’s recollection of the Japanese defeat: “I was first unable to understand the meaning of the words ‘we lost.’ Within me there were words for winning and dying, but the word losing was not planted.… What does it mean for a Korean child—someone who was beaten almost every day—to feel this dark desperation in my entire being when the Japanese loss meant the liberation from oppression” (Yami wo hamu, 1:48–49 [Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 2004]). 31  See, however, Song, “Zainichi Chōsenjin bungagushi” no tame ni, especially chap. 1.

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themes, but he is usually not discussed in Zainichi literary scholarship because he underplayed his ethnic Korean identity and even sought to pass as Japanese. Ijūin Shizuka has written extensively on classic Zainichi themes—the transnational sojourn across the Sea of Japan—and has been open about his ethnic Korean origins, but he is almost always not considered part of the Zainichi literary canon. This is in part because of his immense popularity as a writer of popular fiction and essays. He has become a Japanese, not a Zainichi, writer. Similarly, the mystery writer Rei Ra is almost never discussed as a Zainichi author. Beyond their lack of explicit North Korean identification lies the perception that they are light or popular writers, unbefitting of Zainichi literature. Put differently, the sociological stress went well beyond ethnonational identification to political standpoint and moralist aesthetics. The labyrinthine nature of literary reputation casts a not only inconsistent but also flickering shadow. Kyo Nanki, or Hŏ Nam-gi, remains part of the Zainichi canon, when his remnant claim to fame is surely his leadership role in the North Korea–affiliated organization Sōren, or Chongryun. His contemporary Yi Un-sik (Ri Inchoku or Unjiku), in spite of being a fellow nominee with Kim Saryang for the 1939 Akutagawa Prize for “Nagare” (Flow), has disappeared into oblivion. Never mind that Yi was active in ethnic education and continued to write idiosyncratic but intriguing works, such as his five-volume Chōsen no yoake wo motomete (Pursuing the dawn of Korea, 1997). It is not only from the vantage point of literary value that the early contributions to Minshu Chōsen—the first periodical devoted to ethnic Korean writings, first published in 1946—provide a misleading source for Zainichi literary history.32 In any case, if we can be sure of anything about Zainichi literary history, it is that it has been embroiled in polemics and struggles among would-be Zainichi writers. Perhaps one indisputable and pioneering Zainichi literary father would be Kim Talsu, but Kim Sokpom and others have dismissed him.33 Strait is the gate of Zainichi literature. It is not just about being antiJapanese or pro–North Korean or about toeing the party line or about manifesting requisite seriousness. Criteria shift and will undoubtedly change again. Yet, what is indisputable is the overdetermination of sociological, political, and ideological factors that place a straitjacket of political correctness, however shifting, on the free-floating life of literature. It is precisely 32 

See, e.g., Hayashi Kōji, Sengo hi-Nichi bungakuron (Tokyo: Shinkansha, 1997), 8–14. See also Takayanagi Toshio, “‘Minshu Chōsen’ kara ‘Atarashii Chōsen’ made,” Kikan sanzenri 48 (1986), and “‘Chōsen bungei’ ni miru sengo Zainichi Chōsenjin bungaku no shuttatsu,” in Bungakushi wo yomikaeru, ed. Kawamura Minato, vol. 5 (Tokyo: Inpakuto Shuppankai, 2002). 33  See, e.g., Kim Sokpom, Kim Sokpom “Kazantō” shōsetsu sekai wo kataru (Tokyo: Yūbun Shoin, 2010).

Introduction

11

being against this orthodoxy that made writers such as Kaneshiro Kazuki in the post–Cold War years so refreshing. By then, the narrow circle of Zainichi literature and identity had expanded considerably. Put differently, it became difficult to reproduce the strictures of Zainichi life, which stressed the imperative of return and therefore cast Zainichi writers as exiles, delineating more about heroic combats in mainland Asia than personal struggles in Japan. Exile The pervasive sense of exile marked Zainichi literature during the immediate postwar decades. After Liberation, some two-thirds of ethnic Koreans in the Japanese archipelago returned to the Korean peninsula. The escalating Cold War and the Korean War stopped open and legal movements of people between Korea and Japan, though illegal passages continued. In fact, people from the Korean peninsula never stopped going to Japan even after Liberation and the end of the Korean War. More significantly, those who remained in Japan did not always do so out of constraint: many had children who spoke only Japanese and knew only Japan; others had roots and incentives to stay in Japan; the Korean peninsula was not only geopolitically insecure but also impoverished; and we should never ignore the humdrum reality of inertia. Yet the overwhelming consensus of active and outspoken ethnic Koreans was that they were exiles waiting for the right time to return, most commonly defined as when their homeland was unified and peace reigned. There are at least two identifiable strains of exilic identity. One line of thought suggested that ethnic Koreans happened to be in Japan but that they were fated to repatriate. Hence, they are in principle no different from Korean writers in Korea, albeit with the misrecognition that no writer in Korea would have written in Japanese. Sōren ideology—after the main ethnic organization of Koreans in Japan, which was affiliated with North Korea—was fundamentally an ideology of exile, but overlaid by North Korean allegiance and outlook. In the realm of literature, the privileged modality was to write socialist-realist works that featured anticolonial, proletarian, and other struggles, which took place usually on the Korean peninsula or places of Korean independence struggles, such as Manchuria. Representative works in this vein are mammoth epics, such as Yi Unjik’s trilogy Dakuryū (Muddy stream, 1967–1968), Kim’s aforementioned sevenvolume Kazantō, and Lee Hoesung’s hexalogy Mihatenu yume (Unrealized dream, 1972–1975). Like nearly all socialist-realist works, they are unknown to most twenty-first-century readers, and the few intrepid souls engaged in epic bouts of binge reading find them replete with long passages that

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often result in drooping eyelids. To be sure, like minimalist music that is paradoxically very long, they are not without moments of inspiration and insights. It is fair to say, however, that these works have fallen out of fashion. Most damningly, the very writers who exemplified this genre have by and large moved on to write different sorts of literature. Another variation of exilic identity manifested itself as narratives of personal struggle. Drawing on the major mode of modern Japanese literature, shishōsetsu (the “I” novel), Zainichi writers limn protagonists who face a series of contradictory demands: they should be in Korea but they find themselves in Japan; they should be in love with a Korean but are in love with a Japanese; and so on. The binary choice confronts the protagonist, encapsulating the contradictory—and presumably evanescent—character of Zainichi life.34 The classic work of this genre is Kim Talsu’s Genkainada (Genkai Strait, 1952), which follows the Korean protagonist and his travail over his relationship to his Japanese lover and life in Japan.35 Kim would spend considerable energy identifying the Korean legacy in the Japanese archipelago and working actively in literary politics (launching journals, for instance). He stands as a major founding figure of Zainichi literature.36 Exilic identity presupposed the promise of repatriation. In the immediate postwar decades, the most likely place of return was North Korea (however inappropriate geographically, since most Zainichi hailed from southern Korea). Indeed, there was a repatriation campaign, which, at its height in 1960 and 1961, moved some seventy thousand Zainichi to North Korea.37 The reputed paradise, however, turned out to be an impoverished and authoritarian country to which many Zainichi, however poor and communist, found difficult to adapt. The plausibility of return to North Korea diminished, though many Zainichi retained loyalty to Kim Il-sung’s polity long after they had resigned themselves to living in Japan. After the 1965 Normalization Treaty, South Korea emerged as a potential homeland. Yet a military dictatorship, economic backwardness, and cultural otherness rendered concrete experiences of return difficult, if not 34  This is the major motif of the important early critical work on Zainichi literature: Takeda Seiji’s “Zainichi” no konkyo. 35  Kim’s early work, Kōei no machi (Tokyo: Chōsen Bungeisha, 1948), deals with a similar theme. As suggested earlier, Kim’s tendency to engage with personal issues in the manner of the “I”-novelists of Japan, such as Shiga Naoya, left him open to considerable criticism by other Zainichi writers. 36  See especially his autobiography, Kim Talsu, Waga Ariran no uta (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronshinsha, 1977). See also the critical works by Choi Hyoson, Kaikyō ni tatsu hito (Tokyo: Hihyōsha, 1998), Shin Gisu, Kimu Darusu runesansu (Tokyo: Kaihō Shuppansha, 2002), and Hirose Yōichi, Kimu Darusu to sono jidai (Tokyo: Kurein, 2016). 37  See Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Exodus to North (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007).

Introduction

13

impossible. The linguistic gulf (even relatively fluent Korean speakers were marked by their Japanese accents) and the cultural chasm (incompatible notions of private space or presentation of self) made the return to South Korea painful. Far from the ideal of heroic struggles for national unification implied in the first manifestation of exilic identity, these personal, individual concerns struck closer to the experience of second- and later-generation Zainichi. Lee Kisun’s Zerohan (Zero half, 1985) and Lee Yangji’s Yuhi (1988) are among two of the many works that explore the infeasibility of return and assimilation to South Korea. Yet the difficulty or impossibility of return came to be articulated only in the 1980s; before then, the promise and the goal of return remained the unquestioned orthodoxy. There are several other dimensions of exilic ideology worth noting. Exilic identity placed Japan as a land of temporary residence. Sōren, for example, discouraged activities or interventions in domestic Japanese politics. The 1970 Hitachi employment discrimination case—from one perspective, a heroic victory over the Japanese discrimination of Koreans—was widely deemed by Sōren-affiliated figures as an unfortunate sideshow. The disregard for their future in Japan therefore accounts in part for the paucity of works dealing with Zainichi characters in Japan. In spite of considerable individual successes by athletes, singers, actors, and entrepreneurs, there was hardly a literary work that depicted, much less celebrated, them. The bildungsroman of rags to riches would be a belated phenomenon, and usually written by Japanese authors as nonfiction to boot.38 Another occluded dimension is the patriarchal and masculinist cast of exilic ideology and literature. It may be counterintuitive given the progressive cast of socialist or communist ideology, but the reality is that Zainichi women writers were underrepresented and underrecognized. I have already mentioned that the writings of Ri Kum-ok and An Fukiko remained almost invisible and forgotten. Chon Chuoru’s (Chŏng Ch’u-wŏl) poetry collection about Ikaino that had appeared in 1971 was a major exception, though its literary reputation relies more on later rediscoveries.39 Perhaps the first major postwar Zainichi woman’s novel was Son Yurucha’s Ikaino no seishun (The youth of Ikaino, 1976).40 It is fair to say that these works were neither well read nor widely discussed during the 1970s. 38 

A good example is Sano Shin’ichi, Anpon (Tokyo: Shōgakkan, 2012), which is a biography of Son Masayoshi, the founder of Soft Bank. 39  Chon Chuoru, Chon Chuoru shishū (Tokyo: Henshū Kobo Noa, 1971). A more accessible collection is Ikaino taryon (Tokyo: Shisō no Kagakusha, 2003). 40  Son Yurucha [Sŏng Yul-cha], Ikaino no seishun (Nagoya: Banryūsha, 1976). Another important work is Kin Sōsei, Watashi no Ikaino (Tokyo: Fūbaisha 1982). It is probably not an accident that the pioneering Zainichi women writers hailed from and wrote about Ikaino, the Korean district of Osaka.

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Sōren ideology and exilic identity cast Zainichi literature of the immediate postwar decades as almost inevitably political, realist, and masculine. The heart of the political rested in the house of mourning: lamenting their exile, pondering about homeland and heroic struggles, and their contradictory existence in Japan. Longing for return, almost all of the Zainichi writers stayed in Japan. The debacle of the repatriation campaign dented, if not destroyed, the possibility of return to North Korea and thinking of it as homeland, much less as paradise. In the process, Sōren ideology unraveled and became passé. Zainichi Ideology The overwhelming sense of being in exile rendered many Zainichi writers of the immediate post–World War II period as ethnic Koreans who happened to write in Japanese but expected to return to Korea and, most devastatingly, probably should be writing in Korean. Yet, it is precisely these writers—Kim Talsu and Kim Sokpom, and their slightly younger counterparts, such as Lee Hoesung—who laid claim to genuine Zainichiness and ruled the Zainichi literary establishment. What is striking is the insistent identification as not just Korean, but at the same time the impossibility of a hybrid or in-between identity. One had to be either Korean or Japanese: the pure binary precluded the possibility of being in-between or both or embracing alternative ways of identifying and being. In the appendix, I elaborate my argument, which is that the condition of possibility of Zainichi identity was precisely the acceptance of in-betweenness and hybridity: that being Zainichi was perforce being both Japanese and Korean, or being neither Korean nor Japanese. Exemplified in the incandescent works of Kin Kakuei, these concerns escaped the advocates of Zainichi ideology. Be that as it may, there is no reason to exclude these writers from any anthology of Zainichi literature. If nothing else, they were defined at once by themselves and the Japanese bundan as the quintessential Zainichi writers. It is not surprising, then, that Zainichi literature was long considered part of foreign literature, though it was mainly written in Japanese. Zainichi ideology, like monoethnic Japanese ideology, made it impossible for an ethnic Korean to be part of Japanese literary history. Zainichi ideology emerges in the 1970s, superseding Sōren ideology. It is a direct descendant of the North Korea–affiliated Zainichi establishment, which is to say the vast majority of immediate postwar Zainichi, who remained true to the dream of unification and the standpoint of antiJapanese sentiments. Yet it was also critical of the authoritarian overreach

Introduction

15

of both North Korea and Sōren and valorized the ethnonational unity of Koreans. In spite of partially embracing diasporic identity, Zainichi ideology turned out to be ephemeral precisely because it clung to the dream of return. Unable to shed exilic identity, Zainichi ideology proffered a kinder and gentler version of Sōren ideology. Put polemically, longing for home and return, Zainichi ideology misrecognized Zainichi entrenchment in Japan. The ascendance of Zainichi ideology is characterized by the journal Kikan sanzenri. Launched in 1975, the quarterly was born of Zainichi criticism of North Korea and Sōren, and its editorial board members were a who’s who of Zainichi intellectuals. Nevertheless, its orientation remained squarely on the Korean peninsula, and its patriarchal nationalist tenor echoed the doctrinaire and pedestrian character of North Korean and Sōren literature. What is undeniable is that Zainichi writers, who had written almost exclusively about socialist-realist epics on mainland Asia, shifted their gaze to Korean lives in Japan. After Mihatenu yume, Lee Hoesung turned his attention to Zainichi lives that take place in Japan, as well as diasporic Koreans around the world.41 Kim Talsu and Kim Sokpom also began to pay more attention to Zainichi lives, especially in fictional writings that teetered close to being nonfictional works.42 In the postwar period, it was a common trope of Japanese intellectuals to discuss and criticize the emperor system. Although the prewar emperor system had transmogrified into a source of symbolic power, postwar intellectuals were keen to squelch any remnants or renascences of the prewar system. In this spirit, one might say that exponents of Zainichi ideology lambasted the emperor system embedded in Sōren. Yet another might also say that Zainichi ideology reformulated the authoritarian and exclusionary mode of thought that they sought to excoriate. Given the predominance of Kim Talsu, Kim Sokpom, and others, it is not surprising that their nationalism and seriousness led to the near permanent exclusion of other Zainichi writers, such as Tachihara Masaaki and Tsuka Kōhei. It also largely ignored Kin Kakuei’s brilliant oeuvre, which provided the point of rupture from exilic to diasporic literature. That is, the postwar reckoning of Zainichi, both by ethnic Koreans and ethnic Japanese, essentialized Koreanness, fundamentally equating the place of ethnic Koreans in Japan with that of ethnic

41 

A representative work is Shiki (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 2005), which focuses on Zainichi life in the context of the far-flung Korean diaspora. 42  See, e.g., Kim Talsu, Shōsetsu Zainichi Chōsenjinshi, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Sōkisha, 1975), and Kim Sokpom, Chi no kage (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1996).

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Koreans in Korea.43 Diasporic, as opposed to exilic, literature sundered the homogeneity or isomorphism of ethnic Koreans in Korea and Japan.44 Whereas socialist-realist epics gather dust in the library shelves, some Zainichi works under what I call Zainichi ideology continue to be read. In part the interest stems from the inward turn, which explores less the perfidies of Japanese colonialism or racism, and instead focuses on external oppression and problems in the realm of Zainichi family and community. The aforementioned Lee Hoesung, after a spate of socialist-realist writings, wrote prolifically on the problem of exilic or diasporic identity. What does it mean to be Korean when one is perhaps “half” Japanese or married to a Japanese woman? What should we make of the far-flung Korean diaspora and its variegated existence? Lee’s vast output would repeatedly explore the theme of Zainichi identity.45 Another important figure was the poet Kim Sijong, who wrote extensively in prose about Zainichi identity. Although safely ensconced in exilic identity, the idea of living in both or between Korea and Japan became his major motif.46 Lee’s and Kim’s works garnered considerable critical attention, but much more widely read was the vast, sprawling oeuvre of Yang Sŏgil, whose work is included in this volume. Beginning with a loosely fictionalized account of his experience working as a taxi driver, Yang wrote powerfully but accessibly about a range of Zainichi experiences, such as the indelible accounts of the Zainichi underworld in Shinjuku nightlife.47 Perhaps his most powerful work remains the autobiographical Chi to hone (Blood and bone). The novel is at once a chronicle of his father’s struggles in Japan and his father’s seemingly limitless capacity for patriarchal vio43 

As I noted, Zainichi writings were often shelved under “foreign literature,” next to South and North Korean writers. Watanabe Kazutami, in spite of his good intentions, cannot but treat Koreans in Korea and Zainichi as part of the same population (“Tasha” to shite no Chōsen [Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2003]). 44  In many ways Lee Hoesung’s literary exploration of the Korean diaspora comes to the same outlook, but his commitment to exilic identity led him to misrecognize the insight. See, however, his vitriolic debate with Kim Sokpom (Lie, Zainichi, 144–146). 45  Representative works include Lee Hoesung, Shiki, and Chijō seikatsusha, 2 vols. (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 2005). 46  Kim Sijong, “Zainichi” no hazama de (Tokyo: Rippū Shobō, 1986), and Chōsen to Nihon ni ikiru. 47  Kyōsōkyoku (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1980) was preceded by a poetry collection the year before, but Yang has made his career as a novelist. The debut work was made into an acclaimed movie, Tsuki wa docchi ni deteiru, directed by Sai Yōichi, in 1993. It was the first popular movie since Kyūpora no aru machi (1962) to feature significant Zainichi characters. Yoru wo kakete (Tokyo: Nihon Hōsō Kyōkai, 1994) is representative among his works depicting the nightlife in Shinjuku. For an overview of his career and oeuvre, see the special issue of Yuriika (December 2000), and Yang Sŏgil, Shura wo ikiru (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1995).

Introduction

17

lence.48 Although reared in the political-intellectual milieu of Zainichi ideology, Yang’s writings would transcend the Zainichi straitjacket to reach a large and appreciative audience. Probably the best-selling Zainichi author since Yasumoto and Tachihara, Yang would not only remain open about his Zainichi background but also put Zainichi livelihood at the center of his work. In so doing, he retained in theory but severed in practice his roots in exilic ideology and identity. Zainichi ideology, though often voiced by second-generation Zainichi, was ephemeral precisely because it neither relied on the organization power of Sōren nor rejected the implausible dream of return. With the rise of second- and third-generation Koreans in Japan—almost all of whom spoke Japanese as a native language and, more importantly, became culturally assimilated, however much they continued to face formal and informal discrimination—the very notion of exile became overtaken by the reality of in-betweenness: a member of an ethnic minority without an obvious path to return or assimilation. It is from this group that some of the greatest works of Zainichi literature emerged. Beneath and Beyond Zainichi Orthodoxy The Zainichi population faced decades of disrecognition in postwar Japan.49 For much of the 1950s through the 1980s, they were ineligible for government employment or welfare. They were also systematically excluded from prestigious jobs. Police and popular harassment were common. Marriage discrimination and social ostracism were ubiquitous. Even as they were discriminated against, they were also said not to exist in monoethnic Japan. In this context, it is not surprising that Sōren proved to be a major bulwark. Most importantly, it provided financial support (when Japanese banks would not lend money to Zainichi) and sustained ethnic education (when Japanese schools were rife with bullying). Sōren schools offered Korean language instruction and sought to instill ethnic pride to their pupils. Given that some Zainichi lived far away from Sōren schools or were unable to pay tuition (Japanese public schools were free), many Zainichi lived outside Sōren’s aegis. Moreover, the growing skepticism about and criticism of North Korea led to a slow but growing rift between the ethnic organization and the ethnic population. It is not surprising that many Zainichi literary expressions occurred outside of the Sōren literary establishment or even beyond what I call Zainichi ideology. 48  Yang Sŏgil, Chi to hone (Tokyo: Gentōsha, 1998). Sai Yōichi turned it into a powerful and critically celebrated movie in 2004. 49  See Lie, Multiethnic Japan and Zainichi.

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Indeed, many prominent Zainichi writings were by rank outsiders. Their raw, searing voices spoke of their alienation not only from mainstream Japanese society but also from Sōren-based Zainichi life. Perhaps the most sensational was the correspondence of Ri Chin’u, a young man who allegedly murdered an ethnic Japanese woman and was later hanged with Pak Sunam. Beyond its depiction in Oshima Nagisa’s 1968 film Kōshikei (Death by hanging), the Komatsuskawa Incident not only attracted widespread media coverage but also made the publication of Ri’s letters a major cultural event in Japan.50 Similarly, the 1968 Sumatakyō Incident became perhaps the biggest news in that turbulent year. Kin Kirō (Kim Hiro) took people hostage and managed to coax an apology from a police chief for a racist statement he had made earlier. Beyond the dramatic nature of the incident, what made it so distinctive was that a Zainichi person, who was virtually invisible and silent during the entire decade, commanded the national stage and spoke directly of ethnic discrimination on national television.51 The 1960s was the decade when monoethnic ideology began to dominate in Japan, but paradoxically it is also the decade when Zainichi presence manifested itself in words and deeds. Ri and Kin were not professional writers, but it would be problematic to dismiss their trenchant voices. They set the stage for the efflorescence of Zainichi literature that was written by Koreans in Japan who were not part of Sōren, and they spoke directly of their experiences. The aforementioned Lee Kisun and Lee Yangji are exemplary in this regard. In particular, Lee Yangji’s lyrical but searing prose explored the interiority and linguistic complexity of Zainichi life.52 Often featuring a Zainichi protagonist in South Korea, she limns the impossibility of being either Korean or Japanese. Perhaps more than any previous Zainichi writers, she received not only a great deal of critical attention in Japan but was also avidly read in translation in South Korea in the 1980s. Won Soo-il, whose work is part of this volume, belongs to this group, with his 1987 collection centered on Ikaino, the heartland of the ethnic Korean population in Osaka.53 In the postwar decades, Zainichi writers not affiliated with Sōren often wrote about the darkness and despair of their lives. Bullied at school or discriminated against at work, they were not supposed to be in Japan. 50 

Pak Sunam, ed., Ri Chin’u zenshokanshū (Tokyo: Shinjinbutsuōraisha, 1979). See also Ogasawara Kazuhiko, Ri Chin’u no nazo (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1987). 51  Kin Kirō Kōhan Taisaku Iinkai, ed., Kin Kirō mondai shiryōsū, 12 vols. (Tokyo: Kin Kirō Kōhan Taisaku Iinkai, 1969–1975). See also Suzuki Michihiko, Ekkyō no toki (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 2007), chaps. 3–4. 52  Lee Yangji (Yi Yang-ji), Chosakushū (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1993). 53  See Won Soo-il, Ikaino monogatari (Tokyo: Sōfūkan, 1987), and Ikaino taryon (Tokyo: Sōfūkan, 2016).

Introduction

19

Hence, passing came to be the normative mode of navigating Japanese life. Yet disrecognition or illegitimacy struck Zainichi, especially young Zainichi, hard. It is at times difficult to escape the suspicion that the modal outlook and expression in the 1960s and 1970s was one of desperation and despair. Suicidal narratives—and acts—were far too frequent.54 Existing between Japan and Korea but not belonging to either, Zainichi seemed fated to disappear. The 1980s marked not only a generational change—those born in Japan as second- or third-generation Koreans had no experiential ties to their homeland as they were growing up—but also the emergence of women writers. It is not that there were no Zainichi women who wrote in the immediate postwar years, but it is not until the 1980s that prominent female voices would arise.55 As mentioned earlier, Chon was part of an impressive roster of Zainichi poets. Indeed, ethnic Koreans versified eloquently about the lives, experiences, and yearnings of Zainichi.56 Most of them—befitting the legacy of classical Chinese poetry and the popularity of short poems in Japan and Korea—were short poems. However, Lee Jungja, included in this collection, made a spectacular debut by expressing Zainichi concerns and themes through Japanese tanka (short poems) in Housenka no uta (Songs of impatiens, 1984).57 As she wrote in 1994: “My encounter with ethnicity was in the spring when I was six, teased as Korean [Chōsenjin in katakana, a Japanese script now used to denote things foreign]. . . . I passed my adolescence listening to the teasing refrain of ‘Korean, return to Korea.’”58 Another way in which the new Zainichi voices departed from the almost exclusively male chorus of the postwar decades was that they articulated distinct experiences of ethnicity or diaspora. Most of them were distant from Korean or Zainichi (Sōren) culture. That is, not only were they not exposed to the Korean language, but they were also not familiar with elements of ethnic culture, such as Korean food or Korean rituals. Some of them were hāfu (half; sometimes called daburu or double)—of mixed ancestry—and some even grew up without any knowledge of their Korean ancestry. The pioneering articulation, included in this volume, was by twelve-year-old Oka Masafumi, who committed suicide after his father,

54 

See Lie, Zainichi, esp. chap. 3. See Kim, Zainichi Chōsenjin josei bungakuron. 56  A good collection is Morita Susumu and Sagawa Aki, eds., Zainichi Korian shi senshū (Tokyo: Doyō Bijutsusha Shuppan Hanbai, 2005). 57  Housenka is pongsŏnhwa in Korean, a representative flower of the peninsula. Lee Jungja’s works were collected in school textbooks, which made headlines in the 1980s. 58  Lee Jungja, Furimukeba Nihon (Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 1994), 39–40. 55 

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Zainichi writer Ko Samyon, had published a book on the meaning of life.59 Although the precocious poet left no death notes, it became almost impossible for readers to overlook the tragic premonition of being “half” Korean and “half” Japanese (his mother Oka Yuriko was Japanese).60 Sagisawa Megumu garnered considerable attention as a young woman writer, but she did not realize that she had Korean ancestors. The shocking recognition led her to explore Zainichi thematics, such as ethnic discrimination and passing.61 Kyō Nobuko was aware of her Korean ancestry and made her debut as an essayist writing about “ordinary Zainichi”: that is, Zainichi such as herself who were not drenched in North Korean ideology or even familiar with Korean culture. Later, however, she expended considerable energy exploring Korean culture, especially diasporic music, in her long and distinguished writing career.62 Fukazawa Kai’s Yoru no kodomo (Children of the night, 1992) explored the variegated world of Zainichi: not only those acculturated to Japan but also those who held Japanese citizenship or were children of mixed marriages.63 The sheer preponderance of Zainichi written expressions since the 1980s is staggering. It would be possible to identify predominant preoccupations—encounters with ethnic prejudice and exclusion, the impossibility of assimilation and the thought of suicide, dysfunctional family dynamics and especially patriarchal violence—but what is impressive in retrospect is the considerable diversity of style and substance within the common lot of Zainichi life in postwar Japan. Differential experiences based on region and religion, gender and class, rendered any essentialized expression all but impossible. Perhaps the only essential background was the broader Japanese culture of bildung (kyōyō), which valorized great works of literature and the arts, and the immense place of books among many Zainichi youths. Perhaps Yū Miri hit upon the Zainichi propensity toward literature when she observed: “I couldn’t make friends when

59  Ko Samyon, Ikirukoto no imi. Ko would delve deeply into Buddhism after the death of his son. See, e.g., Tan’ishō to no deai, 3 vols. (Tokyo: Komichi Shobō, 1983–1985). 60  Oka Masafumi’s work was collected by his parents: Ko Samyon and Oka Yuriko, eds., Boku wa 12sai (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1976). 61  Sagisawa Megumu, “Hontō no natsu,” in Kimi wa kono kuni wo sukika (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1997). 62  Kyō Nobuko, Goku futsū no Zainichi Kankokujin (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1987). See also Kikyō nōto (Tokyo: Sakuhinsha, 2000), and Uta no okurimono (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 2007). 63  Fukazawa’s works are conveniently collected in Fukazawa Kai sakuhinshū (Tokyo: Shin­ kansha, 2015).

Introduction

21

young, so I could only talk to the dead who left books and passed away from this world.”64 Beyond Ghostlier Demarcations As I argue in the appendix, Kin Kakuei’s late-1960s work provided a critical turning point away from the illusions of homeland. Both Sōren and Zainichi ideology posited the Korean peninsula as the past and future of the Zainichi population. The utter implausibility of repatriation, whether to North, South, or unified Korea, was blithely ignored. After all, by the time of Liberation, the Zainichi lingua franca was already Japanese. With the passing of years, Zainichi who were born and reared in Japan had neither memories of nor the wherewithal to live in their putative homeland. Yet Zainichi selves, ensconced in the dogma of homeland and essential Koreanness, faced the ethnic discourses and organizations that located the future in the Korean peninsula that was at best foreign and usually alien. The appearance of the new voices in the 1980s—accompanied by the coeval antifingerprinting movement—shifted the gravity of the Zainichi population to embrace Japan as a semipermanent or even permanent home, however ambivalently. Either/or became both or in-between. Simultaneously, nascent criticisms of North Korea, South Korea, and Zainichi culture manifested themselves as more emancipatory, antipatriarchal, and even anti- or postnationalist discourses emerged. Yū Miri, who is part of this volume, and Kaneshiro Kazuki exemplify a mode of writings where Zainichi thematics commingle with much more general concerns, whether Japanese, diasporic, or even universalistic ones. Put differently, Zainichi writers could begin to shed ethnic and sociological baggage to become writers, Zainichi though they may be, who write on non-Zainichi and non-Korean characters and themes. Yū’s early work often dealt with Zainichi concerns—though Gōrudo rasshu (Gold rush, 1999) does not—but her tetralogy Inochi (Life, 2000–2002), which focuses on her life with and the death of her mentor and lover Higashi Yutaka, does so only incidentally.65 Indeed, Yū’s vast outpouring ranges far and wide from a fantasy and horror novel to a formally innovative meditation on the body and sexuality.66 It is of course possible to identity her leitmotif as Zainichi life, but her best writings easily

64 

Yū Miri, Kotoba wa shizuka ni odoru (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 2001), 148. Yū Miri, Gōrudo rasshu (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1999), which was translated by Stephen Snyder as Gold Rush (New York: Welcome Rain, 2002). See also Yū Miri, Inochi, 4 vols. (Tokyo: Shōgakkan, 2000–2002). 66  Yū Miri, Tairu (Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 1997), and Otoko (Tokyo: Media Fakutorī, 2000). 65 

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reach beyond the narrow Zainichi readership.67 The same can be said about Kaneshiro. From the Zainichi protagonist of his sensational debut novel Go (2000), Kaneshiro has written widely, including scripts for television and manga, and the police thriller SP (2007–2010).68 Kaneshiro’s fast-paced and energetic writings are a world away from the darkness and despair of suicide-obsessed 1960s Zainichi expressions. Kaneshiro and Yū are merely two of the most successful Zainichi writers in contemporary Japan. Like them, Zainichiness is no longer a conundrum or a fate. Many Zainichi writers go in and out of Zainichi thematics. Gen Getsu has shifted from his early, critically acclaimed work on Zainichi life to write a series of quasi-pornographic works on contemporary sexual lives.69 Kim Jungmyeong has written a series of historical novels that span ancient and medieval Northeast Asia.70 The partial emancipation from the straitjacket of Zainichiness occurred from the gradual reorientation of ethnic and diasporic Korean identity in Japan. Although it would be problematic to characterize contemporary Japanese society as being free from prejudice and discrimination against the Zainichi population, there is little doubt that Zainichi face greater opportunities and experience an extremely high rate of out-marriage and even naturalization. In this context, it is not an exaggeration to consider the possibility of the end of Zainichi: not because of their repatriation to homeland, but the hitherto unconsidered future of assimilation to mainstream Japanese life. Just as significant is the dynamic transformation of the ethnic Korean population in Japan. Far from being made up solely of the descendants of colonial-era migrants, there are “new comers”—South Koreans who emigrated to Japan from the 1980s, if not earlier—as well as diasporic Koreans from China and elsewhere. As a narrator in Gen Getsu’s novel notes, “In the past ten plus years, many people have settled in this town from South Korea or the Korean Autonomous Prefecture of northeastern China. Even during the economic depression in Japan, which was especially serious in Osaka, they have saved a little money, married Japanese and Zainichi, and proudly own houses.”71 Not only have many Japanese come to recognize Japan’s multiethnic constitution, but the same can be said about the diasporic Korean population in Japan. Zainichi youths in particular envisioned possibilities outside the national boundaries of both 67  Yū’s massive novel 8gatsu no hate (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 2004) is at once thematically and stylistically syncretic, though it focuses on her grandfather, an Olympic marathon runner. 68  Kaneshiro Kazuki, Go (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 2000). 69  See, e.g., Gen Getsu, Mutsugoto (Tokyo: Āton, 2006). 70  Kim Jungmyeong, Kyokai ni idento hossu (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 2003), and Kōmō no orumu (Tokyo: Shinjinbutsuōraisha, 2006). 71  Gen Getsu, Ibutsu (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 2005), 5.

Introduction

23

Koreas and Japan. As Lee Hoesung had explored the Korean diaspora, younger Zainichi writers took up the theme of Zainichi in a transnational, globalizing world. Kim Masumi’s Nason no sora (The sky of Nason) is emblematic. The novel places the Zainichi protagonist in multiethnic Los Angeles. To be sure, in spite of the considerable diversity and reflectiveness of Zainichi writings, it is striking that almost no one has explored the bright side of Zainichi life in contemporary Japan. As I mentioned before, it is difficult to find any work that celebrates the actually existing successes of Zainichi individuals. At the same time, Zainichi superiority over other ethnic minority groups, such as Burakumin or Chinese, and even Zainichi prejudice against them, remain underexplored. The modal and dominant outlook is to regard Zainichi as oppressed and victimized in Japanese history, which is of course broadly true. The post–Cold War transformations—though the Cold War has not exactly ended on the Korean peninsula—have affected not only the Koreas and Japan but also the Zainichi population. Perhaps most strikingly, the representative Japanese intellectual at the turn of the twenty-first century may very well be the Zainichi scholar Kang Sangjung. In this context, it is possible to see that Zainichi literature was a particular product of postwar Japan.72 More concretely, Zainichi writers may simply be writers in Japan, without any manifest attachment to Zainichi motifs. Lee Yongduk would be one instance of this possibility.73 Nevertheless, it would be premature to pronounce the imminent demise of Zainichi identity or Zainichi literature. Consider only the celebrated debut novel of Che Sil, Jini no pazuru (The puzzle of Jini, 2016), which traces the “puzzle” of the Zainichi protagonist’s identity struggles from her ethnic Korean school in Japan to a school in Oregon.74 Fukazawa Ushio has published prolifically, exploring contemporary Zainichi lives and identities.75 Yang Yonghi has written and directed films about the fate of Zainichi returnees to North Korea.76 As long as ethnic and national boundaries exist and cast influences and pressures on individuals, it is unlikely that meditations on them will cease. This is especially the case when hate speech 72 

John Lie, “The End of the Road,” in Diaspora without Homeland, ed. Sonia Ryang and John Lie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009). 73  Lee Yongduk (Yi Yondoku), Shinitakunattara denwashite (Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 2014), and Mukuwarenai ningen wa eien ni mukuwarenai (Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 2016). 74  Che Sil, Jini no pazuru (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 2016). 75  Fukazawa Ushio, Hansaran - aisuru hitobito (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 2013), and Hitokado no chichi e (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbun Shuppan, 2015). 76  Yang Yonghi, Ani - kazoku no kuni (Tokyo: Shōgakkan, 2012). The film based on the novel and script was released as Kazoku no kuni in 2013. See also Yang, Chōsen Daigakkō monogatari (Tokyo: Kadokawa, 2018).

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John Lie

and discriminatory statements are expressed and at times enacted against Zainichi in Japan.77 Meanwhile, the substantial and impressive body of Zainichi literature provides inspiration not only to Zainichi readers and writers, but anyone interested in colonial and postcolonial relations and identities, diaspora and its multifarious trajectories, or the entwinement of family, nation, ethnicity, and other unities and divides of human life. This volume features merely a small sample of Zainichi writings. Each translator has provided a brief note to introduce the translated piece. I can only hope that others will follow in the excavation and exploration of Zainichi literature.

77 

Lee Sinhae, #Tsuruhashi annyon (Tokyo: Kage Shobō, 2015). See also Yasuda Kōichi, Heito supīchi (Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 2015).

ONE

Two Essays: “Letter to Mother” and “Colonial Koreans and Peninsulars”

KIM SARYANG Translated with an introduction by Nayoung Aimee Kwon Kim Saryang (1914–1950; Jp. Kin Shiryō) is a remarkable bilingual writer who came of age in colonial Korea at the height of the Japanese Empire. Like many of his intellectual counterparts from the colonies, he went to Tokyo to be educated in the colonial education system. He rose to the limelight of the Japanese literary establishment as a young man and was even nominated for the prestigious Akutagawa Prize. “Letter to Mother” is a pseudo-autobiographical snapshot of this experience in the epistolary form. It was written in Japanese and published in the journal Bungei shuto (Literary capital) in March 1940, and then reprinted in The Complete Works of Kim Saryang (Kin Shiryō zenshū, 1972–1973). We do not know whether it was an actual letter Kim wrote to his own mother or if it was performatively written for the Japanese reading public. The indeterminacy of its “authenticity” raises important questions about the colonized bilingual writer’s predicament of writing for multiple audiences in the empire. The final line, which asks “Mother” to have his little sister translate the letter into Korean so that she can read it, exposes the gap between the sender and the receiver, the writer and his mother tongue, as well as the gendered and generational untranslatability produced in the colonial divide. The second essay, “Colonial Koreans and Peninsulars” (Chōsenjin and Hantōjin), also written in Japanese and published in Sin fūdo (New climate), is Kim’s musings on the issue of naming and labeling the racialized Other among us. Coursing through this essay is a question: how do subjects, especially colonized or racialized subjects, negotiate the ways in which they are being named by a racialized society? The essay embodies an uncanny coexistence of contending emotions and rhetorical devices: it appears to be both a powerful indictment of a racist Japanese society and a

26

Kim Saryang

desperate appeal to the same Japanese readership by exposing vulnerable emotions that erupt in racialized encounters. It is curious how the essay begins with an apparently strong call for change in the racist perspectives of the Japanese, then ends abruptly with a deflated conclusion that appears to re-direct the culprit to be the colonized Koreans, themselves responsible for their own plight. This seeming inconsistency in tone may have something to do with the era’s heavy censorship practices (both external and self-imposed), but we can only speculate. After the collapse of the Japanese Empire, Kim ended up “going North” during the Korean War, adding yet another layer of censorship to his works in the subsequently divided Koreas and in U.S.-occupied Japan. Until recently, Kim’s legacies have survived only in bits and fragments between the fractured postcolonial and post–Cold War histories of Japan and the two Koreas. While Kim’s prewar writings predate the emergence of the category of Zainichi literature per se, his works are often acknowledged as its indispensable colonial-era antecedent, anticipating the marginal postcolonial formation of Zainichi literature in postwar Japan. Translator’s Note

Kim’s texts are full of double entendres and word plays, making them simultaneously alluring and challenging for the translator. An avid translator himself, Kim was conscious of multiple audiences and multiple languages in every piece he wrote. How to capture the unease of a performative piece published in Japanese addressed to Mother, who presumably speaks only Korean? How to capture the varied nuances of words in a piece about the power hidden beneath those very words, where seemingly innocuous descriptors of someone’s origins or identity within one linguistic context can take on stinging and thorny significance in new ways when transliterated into another through socially imparted meanings in a racist society? These are some of the questions that still linger. On a technical note, in translating the second essay about the familiar predicament of naming and racism, and variations and unspoken nuances in naming conventions, I have left the terms in the original with glosses in the notes as needed. The question of censorship and the related question of authorship or authenticity also lingers for the translator. The abrupt shift in tone at the end of the second essay leads us to ask: how many of these words, which Kim was so careful to craft, were, in the end, his own?

“Letter to Mother” and “Colonial Koreans and Peninsulars”

27

Letter to Mother Dear Beloved Mother, So my story “Into the Light” was published in Bungei shunjū as a finalist for the Akutagawa Prize. I’m recalling that bone-chilling windy day in February on the train station platform in Heijō.1 I had that terrible cold and you were so worried about my journey ahead even as you hurried me onto the morning express, Nozomi.2 Hurry, hurry, get on, get on! During a quick stop at Shinmaku at noon, I grabbed a copy of the Osaka Asahi daily and saw the advertisement for the featured journal issue.3 I eagerly spread open the paper and a silent cry escaped me: My story, it’s published! But underneath the advert copy for the story was the following commentary by the author Satō Haruo in parentheses4: This is a work with the tragic fate of an entire people squeezed into it. I couldn’t help but ask, Really? Is this right? By then, I was already coming down with a severe fever. It wasn’t the scoop on the story’s forthcoming publication that shook me up. It had already been some time since I received Yasutaka Tokuzō’s telegram about the news.5 Dear Beloved Mother, So this is what I was thinking: Have I really written what Satō Haruo just said? I sensed that something much bigger might be lurking here behind the small story I had penned. My chest ached as if a tightly wound spring had suddenly sprung from it. These were just some random thoughts I was fretting over at the time. Of course I was the one who wrote “Into the Light,” but there was always something about that story that filled me with unease. It’s a lie. I’m still telling lies, I kept telling myself the entire time I was writing it. A number of senior cohorts and friends also pointed out some of this to me, but I just kept silent. Dear Beloved Mother, My head was filled with so many thoughts as I dragged my body onto that violently shaking train. The thought of even the remote possibility of 1 

The Japanese pronunciation for P’yŏngyang. Nozomi, the name of the train, also means “hope” in Japanese. 3  Shinmaku is the Japanese pronunciation for Sinmak. 4  Satō Haruo (1892–1964) was an influential poet, novelist, and literary critic. 5  Yasutaka Tokuzō (1889–1971) was a fellow writer affiliated with the coterie journal (doninshi) Bungei shuto that first published Kim’s “Into the Light.” Because of his father’s business, he lived in colonial Korea as a child and became instrumental in introducing colonial writers such as Kim Saryang to the Japanese literary establishment. 2 

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Kim Saryang

writing in Tokyo from then on filled me with terror. I was seventeen when I first boarded this train on another cold day in December. You came with me to the tiny station while evading the eyes of passersby. I had removed the insignia buttons from my school uniform and the cap from the junior high that I had attended for five years. You were crying uncontrollably as you wrapped your shawl around my head. I also burst out sobbing. My plan was to attend university in Beijing after graduating from junior high, and then from there, head to America. But here I was on another southbound train instead. So is this just another rebellious antic of my youth? What gave me the courage to get on that train while avoiding the suspicious gaze of others was the singular burning desire to make it to high school. As the train left the platform, I watched your back turning away from me. But this time as I left, you said you were happier than when I got the high school acceptance letter. For some reason, I would never forget your words. Some people might wonder what all this fuss was about. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that on the third-class ferry crossing the Dark Sea,6 I was suffering from a severe fever. And from Shimonoseki, I was slumped over in a near faint the entire way. Throughout the trip I kept telling myself over and over again, from now on, I must write what is really true. Dear Beloved Mother, The Akutagawa Prize awards ceremony was on the evening of March 6. I had the invitation from Bungei shunjū in hand and headed for the venue Rainbow Grill with Yasutaka Tokuzō. Allow me to tell you about that night. The event hall was quite magnificent, and in attendance were the prize judges and other literary figures. At last, the time had come, and we were seated in rows facing one another around a banquet table. Since I was there to offer my heartfelt congratulations to the winner Samukawa Kōtarō, I sat quietly in the corner.7 But Mr. Kume Masao insisted that I go up front and center and sit next to Samukawa.8 I had no choice but to leave Yasutaka’s side and head over to Samukawa. And that’s when I confirmed what I had been thinking to myself: I realized that I had met Mr. Samukawa before at a friend’s place on the night before my return trip home. 6  A reference to Genkainada (K. Hyŏnhaet’an), the Sea of Japan or the East Sea, which lies between Japan and Korea. 7  Samukawa Kōtarō (1908–1977) was the first writer from Hokkaido to win the Akutagawa Prize. His winning story “Mitsuryōsha” (Poacher) tells of experiences in Karafuto. 8  Kume Masao (1891–1951) was an influential playwright, novelist, and poet.

“Letter to Mother” and “Colonial Koreans and Peninsulars”

29

Well, isn’t this a surprise? We eyed each other and chuckled. Samukawa was my senior, both in age and in literary cultivation. Since his literary journey contrasted significantly with my own, I had a great deal to learn from him. He was an unassuming guy. In front of him sat Kikuchi Kan.9 He is a writer and the owner of the Bungei shunjū publishing company. Both of them are short and chubby. This might be rude, but it occurred to me that they made quite a dynamic duo. At first, however, no matter which way I thought about it, I was just too embarrassed about this awkward predicament of mine and was at a loss as to what to do with myself. Maybe I was never cut out to win public recognition. That time in primary school suddenly came back to me—I had rehearsed an acceptance speech for an outstanding achievement award, but when the day came I ended up not getting it. I was besides myself thinking how funny the present situation was in light of that earlier memory. What’s more, Mr. Samukawa’s father, who was seated next to him, had come all the way from Karafuto no less. It reminded me how you weren’t able to come to my high school graduation or even my college graduation last year. Mr. Yasutaka smiled at me from across the way. I couldn’t help breaking out laughing like a small child. Mr. Kikuchi Kan’s speech began shortly after that. In a rather humorous tone, he joked about how it was his strong opposition that shot down the idea of giving me the award, but seeing the two of us side-by-side, he now wished he could give me something after all. He closed with some words of encouragement for me. I must say, I wasn’t left with an altogether negative feeling. It did conjure up more memories from my primary school graduation. We then started on the dessert course. Mr. Kume Masao, who by the way resembles a straw voodoo doll, stood up and started to praise Mr. Samukawa’s work. Then he roundly praised my story. He said, just as they had given the award to two works before, Journal of Koshamain and Beyond the Castle Wall, they should have given the award to both finalists this time.10 I became so embarrassed and self-conscious I didn’t know what to do. After that, Yasutaka Takuzō stood up at the moderator’s beckoning and said some very nice things about me and also conveyed how happy you had been to hear the news. But Mr. Nagai, the evening’s moderator, told me that Mr. Yasutaka apparently suffered a great deal on my account. At 9  Kikuchi Kan (1888–1948) was a novelist, critic, and publisher, who established the influential journal Bungei shunjū as well as the Akutagawa Prize and the Naoki Prize. 10  Two winners were simultaneously awarded the Akutagawa Prize in the first competition of 1936: Tsuruda Tomoya for Journal of Koshamain and Oda Takeo for Beyond the Castle Wall.

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Kim Saryang

the request of Bungei shunjū he was about to send over ten copies of the Bungei shuto issue featuring my work. As he was climbing into the car, he apparently bumped his head and then began bleeding all the way up the stairs of the Osaka Building. He said it was his own clumsy fault, but I felt so terrible, I didn’t know what to do. I was extremely happy that day. Apparently when anyone receives the Akutagawa Prize, they all end up saying how surprised they are. As for me, I told myself that even if I did receive the prize, I would try not to be surprised. So I was even a bit disappointed in the end. Then again, as everyone said, maybe this was the hand of fate. A young writer, Ishikawa Tatsuzō, also said something similar to encourage me.11 So as I departed Korea alone, there was not a trace of the turmoil that I had felt before. I calmly whispered to myself, from now on, I will write what is truly good. I’m just wondering whether I may have been grinning too widely at the time, even though I didn’t even receive the award. There are many people in Japan who believe in Zen Buddhism.12 Some may think lesser of people who wear their emotions on their sleeve. Is Little Sister coming home soon from Keijō for spring break?13 Please ask her to translate this letter from Japanese so you can read it. So long! Colonial Koreans and Peninsulars The other day a Japanese person asked me: so what do you people really prefer to be called, a colonial Korean or a Peninsular?14 I was at a loss for a moment. On the one hand, both seemed fine, but then again, they both seemed troubling. In either case, there is a problem when the word is uttered in contempt. The problem is, at the core, the words Chōsenjin and Hantōjin are already tainted by the touch of contempt within. So then the question of what one should be called becomes even more difficult. 11 

Ishikawa Takuzō (1905–1985) was an author who won the first Akutagawa Prize in 1935. In the original text, the term used for Japan was Naichi, which means “Inner Territories.” 13  Keijō is the Japanese pronunciation for Kyŏngsŏng, the capital city of colonial Korea and today’s Seoul. 14  The original title of this essay was “Chōsenjin and Hantōjin.” Chōsenjin 朝鮮人 or チョウセンジン in Japanese usage at this time literally means “person from Chōsen” (colonial Korea) and is not a reference to the Chosŏn dynasty (1492–1910); Hantōjin 半島人 literally means “person from the Korean peninsula.” Naichijin 内地人 refers to a Japanese person and literally means “person from the Inner Territories.” The contrasting term is Gaichijin 外地人, meaning “person from the Outer Territories,” i.e., the colonies, similar to the French concept of outre-mer (overseas territories). In translating this essay about the predicament of naming and racism, and variations and unspoken nuances in naming conventions, I have left the terms untranslated and added glosses in notes as needed. 12 

“Letter to Mother” and “Colonial Koreans and Peninsulars”

31

For example, I am of course technically an imperial subject of Japan, and within this broader category, I am also a Chōsenjin.15 I do not feel inferior because of this, and on the contrary even feel rather proud. Yet, to be perfectly frank, when I am called a Chōsenjin or Hantōjin by others, I do feel a momentary sense of discomfort. I suppose this really can’t be helped. But then I also find myself carefully eyeing the other person’s face trying to read the expression written there. Ah, what a hateful predicament! If my searching eyes detect some sense of gentleness or warmth, only then am I able to drop my guard. From the beginning, the words Chōsenjin and Hantōjin have been used with contempt, so as a result people have learned to become hypersensitive perhaps even unnecessarily at times. The fact of the matter is, I am a Chōsenjin and I am a Hantōjin. I am not asking to be addressed as “that fellow hailing from Korea” or “the man who was born in Korea” or in some other excruciatingly polite and roundabout manner. But I cannot deny that being called thus is still so much less irksome to me. And so our problem persists. At the very least, if people were able to use the terms Chōsenjin or Hantōjin much more transparently, then the situation might improve. I wonder how people from Taiwan feel when they are referred to as Taiwanjin or Hontōjin.16 I know that Shinajin prefer to be called Chūgokujin rather than Shinajin.17 Then there is an even more perplexing term for Shinajin: Changkoro.18 I am not sure if the name Taijin is offensive to Taiwanjin, but it is certain that for Chōsenjin, the terms Senjin and Yobo are truly offensive to the ear.19 Of course, there are also those who seem completely unaware of the fact that the words Senjin and Yobo are offensive but continue to use them regularly. For example, the elderly woman who manages the apartment

15  All colonial subjects of the Japanese Empire were considered to be imperial subjects of Japan (Nihon teikoku shinmin 日本帝国臣民), similar to the Japanese. 16  Taiwanjin 台湾人 means “person from Taiwan”; Hontōjin 本島人 means “native islander.” Hontōjin is a term that is used to distinguish the indigenous or aboriginal people of Taiwan from the mainland Chinese settlers in Taiwan, Gaihonjin 外本人. 17  China was demoted from being referenced as Chūgoku 中国 (the Middle Kingdom) to the derogatory term Shina 支那 (originally a neutral phonetic transcription of the Sanskrit word Cīna चीन ), as it was declining in the regional and global context at the time. 18  Changkoro チャンコロ is an even more derogatory name for Chinese. Here Kim uses the katakana script reserved for foreign transliterations. 19  Taijin 台人 and Senjin 鮮人 are abbreviated variations for Taiwanese and Koreans. Yobo ヨボ is a derogatory term for Koreans believed to be a pidgin derivation of the general term Koreans used to call people (Yŏbo 여보).

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where I live says, “Hey, there was that, what’s his name, Mr. Senjin, who came by again today.”20 I spent my high school days in Kyūshū Prefecture. There was a gentleman there who might have even mistook Senjin as a term of endearment or some such because he kept calling me that over and over, to my speechless dismay. Such stories may induce a sardonic grin, but for us, the words Senjin, Yobo, “Yobo-Yobo-like,” and so on trigger an instinctively allergic reaction. It appears that those who despise Chōsenjin in particular seem to know no other vocabulary than Senjin and Yobo. Then there was the following incident: I had an old high school friend from Kyūshū who is now a high official in Korea. In high school, we were on a train together when he suddenly started shouting angrily at three men who had been talking among themselves across the aisle: “What . . . I am a Chōsenjin. So what of it?!” He was a towering man of six feet, with deep-set eyes and dark brows. He had a slight stutter but his words held tremendous weight. When he was angry, he appeared like Guan Yu, the warrior from the classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The men, who appeared to be merchants of some sort, shrunk back at first then quipped, “Oh ho. I see, so you are the honorable Monsieur Senjin.”21 And so our problem persists. The following story pertains to me even more directly. On another occasion, when I was a high school sophomore, I had taken ill and was on a break from school. I was returning home and was about to board the ferry at the Shimonoseki port.22 I was feeling quite sick and the station was very crowded, so even though I was just a student, I decided to indulge and take the second-class overnighter. Early the next morning, the ferry arrived in Fusan.23 The inside of the boat was swarming with passengers preparing to disembark. A porter clad in white scurried about labeling bags as passengers handed them over. He bowed to each passenger as he affixed labels on everyone else’s bags, but he did not seem at all inclined to take my bag. He kept saying, Please wait, wait just a moment. I’m a bit busy here, another porter will be here soon, would you mind just waiting before disembarking, and so on and so on, with such nonstop nonsense. . . I finally lost my temper and ended up exploding, Are you really not going to tag my bag?! The bastard finally tagged Senjin-san. San さん is an honorific suffix attached to names. Adding the honorific to the derogatory term Senjin causes special consternation. 21  Go-Senjin-sama. The prefix go and suffix sama indicate honorifics. Adding them to the derogatory term Senjin deliberately pokes racist fun. 22  A port city in southern Japan commonly used for travel to and from Korea. 23  The Japanese pronunciation for Pusan. 20 

“Letter to Mother” and “Colonial Koreans and Peninsulars”

33

it, muttering under his breath reluctantly. I instructed him, My last name is Kim, don’t make a mistake. He replied, Yes, I know, of course, and appeared to be scribbling the name down. I noticed, though, that he had not bothered to jot it down in his log, but there was nothing else I could do at that point. I swallowed the anger rising inside and descended from the deck. After purchasing a northbound express train ticket, I sat down and waited for my bag. But the bag delivered to me was labeled Yobo—One Count (But this pertains to the bag only). Maybe it was because I was still young back then, but my face blanched and my body began shaking all over. Throwing down the bag, I rushed off the train. I felt like giving the boy a good thrashing and tossing him overboard. I tried to climb back onto the ferry again, but this was not allowed. I waited and waited. But my express train was about to depart, and in the end, the bastard did not alight from the ferry. I never rode the second-class ferry again after that incident. Maybe this was an especially egregious case, but you hear of so many other similar stories on the Shimonoseki-Fusan Connector. Something truly must be done about this. To think that the situation is so terrible starting from the ferry crossing over to Korea! In these times, when Asia is being called to unify, and when the Naisen ittai slogan of Japan becoming one with Korea has become a political and ethical necessity, we most certainly want to put an end to this type of scenario altogether.24 Above all, the road to Naisen ittai should begin by making efforts so that the names Chōsenjin or Hantōjin will not be automatically associated with any needlessly derogatory undertones. The terms Senjin and Yobo are simply unacceptable in today’s political climate. These two words must disappear posthaste from the lips of Japanese settlers living within colonial Korea. But the derogatory term Senjin still frequently appears even in official documents today! Even written next to the term Naichijin the word Senjin appears woefully haphazard. Even so, it is true that after the Manchurian Incident, the references about Chōsenjin did change to a much more civil nature.25 First of all, major papers around Tokyo and Osaka began to replace Senjin with Chōsenjin or Hantōjin. One cannot underestimate how much impact even such a small change has had to salve the sensibilities of Koreans. In the past when reading the newspaper, I would feel aversion when my eyes happened to land on the word Senjin, no matter how small the type Naisen ittai 内鮮一体 was the ubiquitous imperial slogan calling for Japan and Korea to unify. 25  The Manchurian Incident refers to the sabotage of the Manchurian Railway in 1931 that was used as a pretext for Japan to invade China. 24 

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or obscure its placement—even in a remote corner of the page. It was very strange how quickly the word would immediately strike my eyes without fail, as if a sharp laser had been shot forth. I would then read on anxiously, thinking, oh damn, now what?—feeling as if a bug was crawling over my back the entire time. Is this because I had become an overly sensitive individual? Or is it because of some original perversion in my personal character? I think not. Even today, when I read an article about Chōsenjin this or Hantōjin that, I become anxious and even offended, but in fact, I have learned to read with much less strain behind my eyes than before. And so the topic of Chōsenjin and Hantōjin has come as far as this. Come to think of it, the term Hantōjin began to emerge after the Manchurian Incident, and it appears that some people were using the term as their way of expressing camaraderie or intimacy. When we consider this, we can see that even some Naichijin have become aware that the word Chōsenjin has a derogatory nuance associated with it. But even a term such as Hantōjin, which is spoken with an attempt to create a sense of intimacy, still resonates as a half-baked negative echo with us Chōsenjin. Of course, the culprit does not lie in the word in and of itself. And the problem arises foremost from the shameful way of life that the Chōsenjin themselves have lived. So as long as it is not a purposefully racist term such as Senjin or Yobo, it is fine whether one is called Chōsenjin or Hantōjin. When I was traveling in Beijing last year, the people of Shina [Shina no hitotachi] called us Gaoliren or Hanguoren.26 The terms stood out to me, and I found them refreshing at first. But after a few days, even these names did not appear as a laudatory appellation. While writing this, I sense that the problem has become much more complex, strange, and troubling. My personal view is that it is much more natural, and as a matter of fact, makes more sense to refer to Chōsenjin as Chōsenjin rather than Hantōjin. In the end, it seems that there is nothing more to be done other than for Chōsenjin to work hard to improve their own lives materially and physically, in order to avoid a sense of shame and to be able to live with pride and without embarrassment. This is the most fundamental way to reclaim the meaning behind the expressions Chōsenjin and Hantōjin.

Gaoliren 高麗人 (Jp. Koraijin; K. Koryŏin) and Hanguoren 韓國人 (Jp. Kankokujin; K. Hangugin). 26 

TWO

Trash

KIM TALSU Translated with an introduction by Christina Yi

Kim Talsu (1919–1997; Jp. Kimu Darusu or Kin Tatsuju) is widely recognized as one of the most prominent Zainichi Korean writers of his generation. Born in Korea but raised primarily in Japan, Kim remained in Japan after the end of the Fifteen Year War (1931–1945) and became heavily involved in leftist politics and literary culture there. Much of his early fiction, including the short story translated here, celebrated the end of the Japanese Empire while also attempting to come to terms with its enduring legacies. Indeed, throughout his writing career Kim would consistently call attention to the impossibility of fully separating the colonial past from a “post”(colonial/war) present, particularly given the neocolonial configurations that emerged through the partitioning of the Korean peninsula and Allied Occupation of Japan (1945–1952). Kim first published “Trash” (Gomi) in the Japanese literary coterie journal Bungei shuto (Literary capital) in 1942 as a short, humorous sketch about a Korean colonial subject making his living in mainland Japan as a scrap collector. He later revised and republished the story in 1947 in the journal Minshu Chōsen (Democratic Korea), of which Kim was also the primary editor and cofounder. The revised edition featured a more nuanced portrait of the central protagonist and his relationship with the other Korean characters who populate the story. It also foregrounded the oppressiveness of the wartime climate, turning the narrative into a critical exploration of the imbrications of Japanese imperialism and capitalism. Although the Korean protagonist of “Trash” works hard to turn the junk he collects in metropolitan Japan into capital to be used to buy land in Korea, the narrative constantly underscores the fragile contingency of any “success” gained by working within, rather than without, the systems of imperial control. In the final line of the story, for example, the protagonist yells out “Aigu!” The Korean interjection is glossed in that instance as “I’m happy,” even though

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in an earlier passage it had been used as an expression of distress. Which interpretation are we to believe? How are we to understand the function of the narrator/translator here? In ending the story on such an ambiguous note, Kim deliberately makes visible the seemingly transparent relationship between reader and text, asking us to consider the linguistic, social, and political fractures of postwar Japan. Translator’s Note

This translation is based on the postwar version of “Gomi,” printed in The Collected Fiction of Kim Talsu (Kim Talsu shōsetsu zenshū, 1980), which closely follows the postwar version published in Minshu Chōsen in 1947. Any major discrepancies between the 1947 and 1980 versions are marked in the notes. Trash Before he gained the rights to the trash from U Dock Company, Hyŏn P’algil was a constant source of trouble for the police.1 He showed up at police headquarters so often it was as if he were visiting family.2 If P’algil hadn’t returned home before dark, people in the neighborhood would say, “Guess he’s gone off to ‘pay his respects’ again.” Back in Korea, P’algil had spent four years dreaming of Japan as he toiled on a tenant field always on the brink of collapse. When he finally managed to make his way over, he thought he had landed in paradise. The constant visits he had made to the village police over those four years in order to receive his travel permit seemed like a small price to pay in hindsight. Once he had been kicked in the head by a Japanese constable who hadn’t liked the way he bowed, but he was so grateful to be in Japan he would have willingly bowed to that man again if he could. Setting out with his trash cart, he found there was money to be made everywhere. Truly, there were treasures thrown out on the street no matter where you looked. In his village he might slave all day and only make a mere forty or fifty sen, but in Japan he could make twice that if he worked hard for it. Work hard: that was the one principle that guided him in everything he did. In the village it hadn’t gotten him very far, but he was sure it would be a different story here. And so he spent every waking moment working. 1  In the Bungei shuto (1942) and Minshu Chōsen (1947) versions, the character’s name is not glossed. The Kim Talsu shōsetsu zenshū (1980) version glosses his name as Pyon Parukiru, but that may have been a typographic error; later published versions use Hyon instead. 2  The word used for “family” is honke, or “main house.” The implication that P’algil is like a member of a branch house (bunke) paying his respects to the main house ironically echoes Japanese colonial discourse in which Korea was presented as a branch house “returning” to the head house of Japan.

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P’algil was convinced that people in Japan lived richly. He never once considered what he did to be theft. He had been born and raised in a mountain village where there was nothing to steal, even if you had wanted to. Once, as a child, he had plucked a persimmon from a neighbor’s tree without permission, but that was as close as he had ever gotten. In Japan, all kinds of things were left next to the trash containers outside people’s houses (the first time he ever saw such containers was in Japan), like dirty aluminum pots with holes in the bottom. He took these things on the assumption they were household goods no one wanted anymore. So, as you can see, his “stealing” was done with no ill intention, and in the firm belief that those around him had wealth to spare. Sometimes he was confronted by the mistress of the house or a maid, but because he couldn’t understand what they were saying, he simply bowed and scraped his way past them. P’algil found all sorts of things in the trash containers, so lavishly built from dazzlingly white concrete. There were times when he found nearly brand-new socks that had been thrown out because of one small hole, or white bed sheets stained from a child’s bedwetting. So it made sense when he assumed a cloth diaper blown off a clothesline was trash, too. One thing he feared above all else, though, was the police station. It was much larger than the local substation, and it was filled with important men in shiny uniforms. The sight flabbergasted him. He was detained there so many times he finally gave up trying to figure out what was trash and what wasn’t. Unexpected cracks began to appear in his once iron-clad principle, and he abandoned the rag-picking business. By the time he figured out that you couldn’t light a cigarette with an incandescent light bulb as you could with an oil lamp or candle, no matter how much more brightly it shone, and that you could in fact touch the bulb without burning off a finger, he had managed to learn a handful of Japanese phrases. This meant he could now barter with people directly for their goods as a scrap collector. Being a scrap collector was considered one step above being a rag-picker, but P’algil couldn’t care less about the distinction. The only change he cared about (and hated) was the fact that he couldn’t begin working at the break of dawn anymore. If he went too early he would sometimes get a bucket of old rice water thrown at him by the wife or maids of the household who were preparing the morning meal in the kitchen; sometimes they even screamed when they saw him, mistaking him for a thief. Even so, P’algil’s cart was always piled high with goods by the end of the day. He consistently ranked first or second among his fellow scrap collectors, and the local broker was more than happy to let him wear the uniform of the trade, a short cotton coat with white lettering on the collar. The younger men—the ones who tried to attract the maids by growing out

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their hair and slicking it back with grease—would sometimes complain about him behind his back. “How does an idiot who can’t even speak the language manage to get so much stuff? Damn bastard,” they’d grumble. You could say that P’algil possessed a strange talent in that respect—and not just for scrap collecting, as he was the one who set his sights on the industrial waste produced by U Dock Company. The rights to the waste from U Dock belonged to a man named Nojiri. Once a day (recently sometimes even twice a day, as U Dock had stepped up its production since the Incident on the continent3), the industrial waste was sent away in a trash barge and then dumped in the shoals of the U-shaped bay by the dockyards. But that didn’t mean that it was simply being thrown away. On the barge, Nojiri and a handful of his employees sifted through the waste for any “scraps” (though often they were more than scraps) of iron, copper, brass, aluminum, gunmetal, and so on; the remaining waste was then dumped. The materials that ended up in the water were then sifted through a second time by a different group of people. In the beginning one household of fishermen had undertaken the task, but now there were around seven or eight such households who had a tacit understanding with the barge. The families had formed a kind of village right by the shores of the U-shaped bay. The town in which U Dock Company was located followed the natural line of the bay, and was surrounded on three sides by hills characteristic of the peninsula. It was said that the town had great historical significance, being the place where the first black ships came to open up Japan, but aside from the rolling hills there was nothing to recommend it over any other factory town.4 The only thing that made it rather unusual was the existence of this group of fishermen. The village was cut off from the mainland during high tide, making it inaccessible to anyone who didn’t have a boat. If you waded a bit in the waters of the bay, using the rocks that jutted around the Hachiman Shrine on the outskirts of town, you would be able to catch a glimpse of the village scattered along the shoals of a shallow valley.5 The seashore was dyed red from the scrap iron and other junk that littered the water, and the waves were constantly capped with filthy froth. The fishermen used their boats to chase after the old rags and rusty iron pans that 3 

A reference to the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. The town is Uraga. In 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Uraga Bay with a fleet of warships (the infamous “black ships”) with the goal of establishing U.S.–Japan trade relations—by force if necessary. His visit is commonly understood as one of the events that precipitated the end of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1867 and subsequent Meiji Restoration. U Dock Company most likely stands for Uraga Dock Company. 5  Hachiman Shrine was a Shinto shrine dedicated to the martial deity Hachiman. 4 

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streamed from the barge and wore underwater goggles to dive for the scrap metal that had sunk to the bottom of the bay. The scrap collectors called the village “Higashi” [East], with emphasis on the first syllable, “Hi,” perhaps because it sat on the eastern tip of town or because it had naturally come to be called that way. To the scrap collectors, Higashi was both a stage and an arena, a place where the best of the best gathered to compete for goods and show off their bargaining skills. By the time P’algil learned about Higashi, the Incident on the continent had taken on the contours of an outright war, and people were being urged to dig in their heels against the enemy. Scrap iron and even regular junk were declared crucial to the war effort, and so recycling and collection services were dutifully taken up by women’s associations, youth organizations, and other groups. As a result, an increasing number of scrap collectors found themselves out of a job. Some of them switched to construction work or other manual labor. However, because the value of scrap iron and other such materials increased precipitously during this time, those who had the means to buy up goods could make a small fortune in no time at all. Scrap collectors who could no longer buy from households began to flock to Higashi, which was like a junk shop on a much bigger scale. Naturally, the bidding wars grew fiercer as a result, as did the fights that broke out among scrap collectors competing with each other. It wasn’t unusual to have the bids climb not only close to wholesale prices but sometimes even higher than them. The fishermen of Higashi were able to generate a steady profit from these price fluctuations. Of course they could always have gone directly to the scrap metal brokers, but they found it was more profitable to let the scrap collectors compete among themselves for the goods, which were locked up in storage sheds the fishermen had built specifically for that purpose. How did the scrap collectors make a profit then, if they bought the junk at such high prices? The answer lay in their scales. If two or more scrap collectors got together, the conversation would inevitably turn into a discussion about new scale tricks: “Ya know, some city councilor or someone was saying that Japan might start an even bigger war than the one we’re in now, so scrap iron’s gonna get more and more expensive. Yesterday I got told, it’s fifty sen for eight pounds or else the whole thing’s off. Then he had the nerve to bring out a furnace rod. That gave me no choice, so I did my ‘foot’ move, like this, and got it to eleven pounds. The guy gave me a fishy look . . .” and so on. The number of scrap collectors grew, and not just in Higashi. The housewives grew shrewd from interacting with so many of them, and it became quite rare that you could buy something at a rate below the wholesale price. But even if you could get away with manipulating the scales in town, it was a different story in Higashi. Not

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only were the fishermen experienced with scales due to their profession, they also became increasingly aware of the scrap collectors’ tricks, which meant that you might get duped yourself if you didn’t keep your wits about you. The scrap collectors found themselves waging fierce battles over scale manipulation techniques. Hyŏn P’algil of course knew the basics. At times he even won the day with some audacious move others found difficult to imitate. He wasn’t really part of the “techniques” crowd, though; his trump card was his tenacity. Once you showed something to him, he wouldn’t rest until he had it, be it stacks of old newspapers or empty bottles or old rags or whatever. But even P’algil could do little about the shrinking availability of goods due to the efforts of the collection groups, and he too saw the pile of junk in his cart grow smaller and smaller every day. P’algil became anxious. He roamed around like a madman. He set out farther and farther afield. He couldn’t understand why the housewives who had always sold their junk to him suddenly began collecting trash so carefully, their sleeves all tied up with strips of cloth that had characters he couldn’t read written on them. They said it was for the war, but it wasn’t as if war could make everyone into scrap collectors, could it? He was terrified of the prospect. He grew more haggard with each passing day. It was right around this time that P’algil learned about Higashi. One evening, he appeared at Hachiman Shrine with an air of great excitement about him. Wiping away the sweat that poured down his face like muddy soup with the palm of a hand, he set down his cart and took out his scales and a gunnysack. After surveying his surroundings, he headed in the direction of Higashi. Most likely he had heard of the place from someone in the neighborhood. Having failed to get people to sell their junk to him, he had probably been told, “Try going over there. Guys like you buy tons of things from there every day. I bet you’ll find plenty of things you want.” No doubt that person had explained the reason for the fishermen’s bounty too. The tide was rising by the time P’algil arrived, which meant that everyone else had either already left or else was in the midst of packing goods onto boats. The fishermen had odd smiles on their faces as they watched P’algil wade through the water with noisy splashes. The other scrap collectors knew they had to leave before the tide began to rise. If they came late, the fishermen deliberately drew out the bargaining process until the tide rose, trapping everyone on shore. The fishermen knew they would win if that happened, because without their boats a scrap collector had no other means of getting home. The scrap collector would be forced to buy the junk at astronomically high prices, because the fishermen had an ironclad rule where they would only transport paying customers. It might have been possible to catch a ride with a fellow scrap collector, but on the fishermen’s

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boats only those who had bought something were allowed. That is how savvy the fishermen were when it came to the scrap collectors. Like a dog who is able to locate his prey by instinct, P’algil rushed about the village sniffing for treasure. When he saw what was inside the storage sheds, his heart gave a great leap. Crammed inside broken trash drums and boxes were iron, brass, copper, aluminum, and other valuable metals. The heaps of oil rags weren’t too shabby, either. P’algil was filled with joy. He thought back to the first time he came to Japan, and the police constable from home who had been his first great benefactor. He decided he owed just as much to the old man who had told him about this place. Why couldn’t he have run into him sooner? What rotten luck! But it wasn’t too late to take as much as he could to the wholesalers now . . . In his head, P’algil was already thinking of the junk as his own. “Sell to me . . .” P’algil went over to a fisherman who was sorting through the scrap metal in front of his shed. It was rare for different metals such as copper, brass, and bronze to be separated out beforehand; scrap collectors usually did the work themselves, and profited from what they could salvage. This fisherman, however, was carefully sorting even the brass from the less valuable gunmetal, which was almost identical in color. P’algil sensed this was going to be a tricky business. “Yeah, we’re selling,” came the offhand reply. “Oh! Sell to me.” “How much will you pay for iron?” “Eighteen sen,” P’algil said courteously. It was a considerably generous offer, just four sen away from the going rate. He was hoping he could offer a lower price next time. But the fisherman didn’t even try to haggle, merely waved his hand. “Eighteen sen five rin.” The fisherman shook his head without pausing from his work. “Nineteen sen.” Another shake of the head. “I’ll buy for twenty sen. Sell to me for twenty sen.” “Clear off! You’re in the way.” In a flash P’algil remembered his scales. “I’ll give you twenty-two sen!” That was the wholesale price. The fisherman raised his eyes and studied P’algil’s disheveled state. “Do you even have any money?” he asked. “I have money, I have lot of money!” P’algil frantically thrust his hands into his money belt, contorting his waist left and right like a bizarre parody of a belly dancer as he rummaged around. P’algil flashed a wad of bills at the fisherman, and just as quickly hid the money back in his belt with the same contorting hip motions.

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“It’s twenty-four sen. If you don’t like it, you can leave,” the fisherman announced, and then pretended to go back to his work. No doubt he would have called P’algil back if he did try to leave. “OK!” P’algil agreed. “Twenty-four sen, OK!” They then settled on prices for the brass and copper, which all ended up being higher than the wholesale prices. Others who saw what was going on rapidly brought out their goods too. P’algil bought enough to fill his cart to the brim. Seven or eight spectators had gathered around him. Large beads of sweat formed on P’algil’s forehead. He trembled as he prepared himself for the next move. He took out his fifty-pound scale from its bag. He latched the trash drum that held the scrap metal to the scales with a lock that dangled from a chain. Blood rushed to his face. He tried to wrap the chain around the scale beam, but the fisherman from before promptly stopped him. Bursts of laughter came from the crowd. The fisherman gave P’algil a sign to continue. P’algil looked at the fisherman with a strange, wretched smile on his face. It looked like he was on the verge of tears. P’algil put the lock on again and positioned his scales. Another burst of laughter. P’algil was trying to push the trash drum up with his right foot. The fisherman kicked at his foot. P’algil lost his hold on the drum, and both tumbled to the ground. Someone gave him a blow to the head. “Look at this bastard, trying to make trouble for us! Unruly bastard.”6 “Put it all back in the shed!” A punch came. A kick. Transformed from a group into a mob, the fishermen laughed as they punched and kicked him. “Aigu, aigu . . . ” Wailing, P’algil knelt down on the sandy soil and bowed over and over in first one direction and then another. This was the most terrible experience of his life. The thought came to him that he might not make it home alive. The faces of his wife and children flashed through his mind. “Hurry up and beat it, you bastard!” someone shouted, kicking him in the chest. P’algil was knocked backward. As he tumbled, he accidentally swung the heavy scale counterweight into his own face. The fishermen roared with laughter. P’algil fled. He had only gone a few feet, however, before he realized he had left behind his gunnysack, which was worth as much as one yen and fifty sen. Like a mad cow, he instantly reversed course. The fishermen 6  Here, the Japanese for “unruly bastard” is futei yarō. It is meant to deliberately echo futei senjin (unruly Koreans or malcontent Koreans), an ethnic slur that was commonly employed by the police and other extensions of the Japanese colonial apparatus to describe what they saw as a recalcitrant, dangerous, politically radical, or otherwise undesirable Korean. This scene, along with other strongly anticolonial passages, is not in the 1942 version.

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who had laughed as P’algil ran away were gone. As soon as he found his gunnysack, still right where he had left it, he took to his heels again. One of the younger fishermen, spotting P’algil’s fleeing figure, grabbed a nearby bamboo stick and began chasing after him. He soon caught up, and gave P’algil a heavy blow from behind. P’algil ran. The young fisherman, who had a large burn scar on his face, was frenzied with rage. Oh god, the tide was rising! P’algil was convinced the whole universe was trying to kill him today. He ran to the waves in a panic. The angry fisherman with the bamboo stick was still chasing him, joined by five or six of his peers. P’algil threw himself into the water, but the young fisherman followed. Blows rained on his back. P’algil was sure he was done for. Born in a mountain village, he had never learned how to swim. The fisherman waded into the water until he was knee deep, but he retreated to the shore when his stick could no longer reach P’algil. On shore, he and the other fishermen began lobbing stones at P’algil, laughing as they did so. A large mudstone fragment bounced off P’algil’s head, but he barely even noticed. The tide was now up to his chest, and all his concentration was dedicated to keeping afloat. With a loud wail, P’algil began bawling like a child. He didn’t have the luxury to even register the fact that stones were crashing into the water all around him. His body rose and fell with the waves. Each time he felt himself being lifted by the water he shut his eyes, prepared for the worst. And each time he found himself still alive, he gave out another wail. Despite all this, he somehow managed to hold onto his scales and gunnysack with one hand, using the other hand to grasp at the sheer rocks that jutted out from the sea. Blood dripped from the wounds on his face and disappeared into the swirling tide. P’algil put a foot between two slabs of rock, choking on a gulp of seawater. A wave carried his body and slammed it against a boulder. P’algil clung to it desperately. Step by miserable step, he made his way through the waves. When he finally reached the shore, he coughed up the seawater he had swallowed and then shook his body all over. A steady drip of water fell from his body onto the path as he walked up the stairs to Hachiman Shrine, dragging his water-logged gunnysack behind him. It was already well into the evening, and the rays of the setting sun touched only about one half of the long flight of stairs. When he reached the top, he flopped down, letting his scales and gunnysack fall where they were. He cradled his head and began to weep quietly. He was miserable. He felt a sudden horror at the way he made a living. It was a bad life—wasn’t it bad? It was bad . . . A horrible sense of doubt rose up in him, and he felt his faith in this way of life falling to pieces before his eyes. P’algil thought of home. For the first time, he was struck with a small feeling of homesickness. A memory popped into his head of how he used

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to plow the village fields with oxen. Sometimes he even sang as he worked. His wife Sunii would carry his lunch over from the poplar woods, balancing the basket on her head . . . P’algil abruptly raised his face and scanned the horizon before him, looking toward what he thought was the direction of Korea. He stared dully at the sky with tear-grimed eyes. Suddenly his gaze sharpened on something. It was the trash barge. He stared at the barge, his mouth wide open. The barge had just come from the factory, and it was piled high with junk. There were three laborers on the boat, busily sifting through the mound, and the setting sun lit up the faces of the boatmen as they plied the oars towards Higashi. P’algil was struck with an inspiration. The gloom cleared from his face and his eyes began burning with ambition. As he leaned forward unconsciously, his bottom slipped off the edge of the stair with a thud. It made no difference; his mouth stayed open, he still craned forward, and his eyes never left the barge. That’s it! Everything from Higashi comes from that boat. I need to make it mine! Hyŏn P’algil was not the first person to have seen the barge, and certainly not the first person to have come up with this idea. At the bare minimum, you could say that every scrap metal broker from Y City and U Town had thought of it at least once before, not to mention anyone else who knew about the trash barge and the village of Higashi. A broker with some clout in Y City had tried leveraging his connections with a certain city councilor from U Town to persuade the people in charge at U Dock Company, but to no avail. Precisely because the negotiations (and their failure) had been conducted in secret, once word leaked out people began speaking of the relationship between the company and Nojiri in almost mythological terms, as something inviolable and even inevitable. Those who knew the value of that trash barge resented how Nojiri’s generosity extended only to hiring two or three scrap collectors with good business sense to sort through the junk. There was no other way to get in on the deal, or so everyone had come to believe. It was common knowledge that if you had the right skills and knowledge to sort through the junk, you could ride the current wave of rising prices with big results. The relationship between Nojiri and the company was apparently so strong not even the city councilor could undermine it. Nojiri had been a low-ranking employee of U Dock when he discovered a way to improve a certain part in the shipbuilding process. The grateful president, a vice admiral with a generous spirit, offered to give Nojiri anything he desired as a reward for his services. “I want your trash,” Nojiri replied. The president laughed long and hard. “You’re a man of small ambition,” he said, and laughed again. But not even the city councilor knew that Nojiri had managed to become a major stockholder in the company because of that trash. Of course, there was no way that Hyŏn P’algil could have known

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that fact, either. He had heard, however, that the man who owned the trash was named Nojiri and that he lived in U Town. He assumed Nojiri must be some kind of VIP. Hyŏn P’algil had been in Japan for about two years now, but during that time he was able to buy less than half an acre of paddy fields and only one dry field in his hometown. When he crossed the Genkai Sea from Korea to Japan, he had made a resolution to himself and his wife Sunii: he wouldn’t rest until he had enough money to buy at least two and a half acres. He didn’t care if people called him a beggar in Japan, or even if he became one in reality. He’d gladly endure it all if that’s what it took. Like many of his fellow travelers, he had left all his concerns about honor and appearance back in Korea. His heart was set. Only when he had bought up enough land would he return home; only then would life truly begin. Crawling into bed, P’algil starting daydreaming as always. The leaky ceiling, streaked with water stains like sheets soiled from a child’s bedwetting, transformed into a movie screen upon which he could project his fantasies. P’algil was still young. His hair might have been thinning, but he was only thirty-two years old. Gazing at the papered ceiling, he always thought the same thing. When he returned home, he would find his younger brother, who had been working as a tenant laborer since he was a small child, and together . . . Climbing the mountain behind the village, he can see his very own fields spread out below in a wide green expanse. His brother looks so small from up here. He wants to shout down to him . . . P’algil realized he had yelled aloud. In embarrassment he pulled the blanket over his head. In that warm, pitch-dark space, he wanted that trash barge more than ever. His chest tightened with resolve, and tears blurred his vision. When he thought of his bleak life as a tenant laborer, all those other countless hardships he had had to endure . . . He had to get that trash barge, even if he lost a leg in the bargain. (He worried that successfully bargaining with Nojiri might actually involve getting a leg cut off.) Suddenly P’algil was hit with a gloomy thought, one that threatened to shatter his resolve. What if, while he was daydreaming, someone else had thought up the same plan? Worse—what if that person was already negotiating with the man named Nojiri at this very moment? P’algil bolted upright. His face was drenched with sweat, and his eyes gleamed with a strange light. His wife Sunii woke up beside him. She half rose, alarmed at his wild state. Their two sons continued to sleep peacefully in the bed between them. “What is it?” she asked in concern. Her words seemed to act as a spur. P’algil abruptly got up. “We’re in trouble!” he shouted, as he threw on the clothes that lay beside the bed. Then he flew out the door without another word, leaving a baffled Sunii behind. Once outside, P’algil broke into a run. There was a hilly road along

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the coast that went from his village, located on the outskirts of Y City, straight to U Dock. The world was still hushed with sleep, and the waves broke against the cliffs in steady intervals. The road rose up whitely against the blackness of the night, and the lone figure of Hyŏn P’algil sped off into the distance as if the road itself was pulling him along. P’algil ran. He cleared the tunnel and began to climb the hill. By the time he approached the top, his breath was labored, and he felt like he might collapse. Thankfully, going downhill was easier. As he made his way down, doubt began to creep in. His feet were like lead. He came to a standstill. He had assumed that Nojiri would be at the factory, working to get the trash onto the barge. But on second thought, he realized there was no way Nojiri would still be there at this time of night. P’algil had heard that Nojiri lived in U Town, but he didn’t know exactly where. Ahh! Stupid! He hit himself in the head with his fist. When P’algil finally found Nojiri’s house, the sun had not yet risen. An old woman had showed him the sinographs that made up Nojiri’s name and told him to look for a house with a white nameplate that had those characters on it. When he found the house, he set his cart down and stood in front of the gate, staring intently at the nameplate for a good long while. All of his hopes depended on that name. He had never learned how to read, but he knew he would never forget the two characters that made up “Nojiri.” P’algil moved his cart about two meters away. He spread his gunnysack on the cart and sat down on it, feet crossed and arms folded. He fixed his gaze on the entrance to Nojiri’s house. The sun rose. Factory workers on their way to work passed by. A large wild dog appeared. It cocked its head at the man sitting so meekly on the cart and decided to investigate. It pushed its wet nose against P’algil’s knees, sniffing inquisitively, but soon went on its way after realizing it would get no response. Some time passed. A noisy group of schoolchildren walked by. At around ten o’clock, the door to the house opened for the second time, and at last a man who could be Nojiri came out. He was around fifty years old, and he wore a suit and carried a walking stick. P’algil leapt off the cart and ran past the man. He went up to a woman walking from the opposite direction and asked if that man was Nojiri. Indeed, replied the woman, and P’algil immediately spun around and flung himself at Nojiri’s feet. He grabbed one of Nojiri’s legs and clung to it desperately. Nojiri was taken back. “What on earth?” Struggling to get free, he gave P’algil’s head a smart blow with his walking stick. “Sir, please . . . Please, sell me th-the boat!” P’algil cried in clumsy Japanese. “The boat—” No matter how many times Nojiri struck him or tried

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to shake him off, he kept his hold on Nojiri’s leg, clinging so tightly it was as if he meant to burrow into it. A bewildered Nojiri began swinging his stick not only at P’algil’s head but also his bottom, torso, and legs, but with no effect. He stopped when he realized P’algil wasn’t putting up a fight at all. “What are you talking about? Spit it out!” “The boat, the boat . . . No one can beat me . . . I’ll buy at high price, s-sell to me . . .” At last Nojiri understood what the man before him was trying to say. P’algil gazed up at him with an imploring expression, his eyes brimming with tears. Blood gushed out of various wounds on his face. By now it was midday, and a circle of spectators had formed around them. They listened with amazement to the woman from before as she explained the situation. P’algil still clung to Nojiri, rendering him immobile. Nojiri was at a loss to respond to P’algil’s broken entreaties, but he gestured to P’algil to stand up. “You can come inside, at any rate,” he said. “I’ll take a look at your wounds.” And with that, he ushered P’algil into his home. * * * I was relaxing in my study as I always do after dinner, lingering over a cigarette and not thinking of much in particular. I had a habit of sitting like this for hours at a time. At the time of these events, I was using a Japanese name and working—without much enthusiasm—as a reporter for a local newspaper company in Y City. Every day I went to the police or walked around town, writing up the latest news on gambling rings or thefts or other crimes. Sometimes if there was a fire I followed the firefighters to the scene. I was your average city news reporter, in other words, with four colleagues. As a condition for being hired I had to use my Japanese name, but because at my core I was one of those “inscrutable Koreans” I wasn’t allowed to report on the local government or anything like that. That was fine with me, though. I even occasionally wrote stories about Korean gamblers or thieves without remorse. The police didn’t really warm up to me at first, but they came to treat me with a certain amount of fairness. The police chief, who prided himself on his ability to do headstands, got so used to me that he would do his prized party trick at company parties even if I was there. In gaining the trust of the police, I became a person of some influence. At least, that’s what the Koreans struggling to survive in Y City believed. An endless stream of people came to my house with their problems, such as the mother of a thirteen-year-old boy who had been caught and detained by the police for shoplifting a blouse for his younger sister, who couldn’t

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go to school because she had no suitable clothes to wear; and the wife of a man who drank too much and got into fights all the time. Sometimes I got outrageous requests, such as the time a man who wanted to open up a new business asked me to bribe the police chief for him. Not all of the issues involved crime, however. People sought my help in getting licenses, registering the births of their children, navigating death and cremation procedures, writing letters on their behalf (this was the most common request) . . . My child is starting school this year; could you go to the parent-teacher meeting for me? My teenage son has been acting out lately, and he could use some good advice. My wife has run out on me for the third time. And so on and so on. As it turns out, most of my time was spent running around trying to help the people who came to me rather than doing my actual job. My editor couldn’t help showing his annoyance whenever I turned in only two or three articles out of the six I had been assigned for the day. My coworkers made fun of me with nicknames like “Custody Officer,” but I couldn’t afford to let it get to me. After all, the only one who could really understand me was me.7 I sensed the shōji door being quietly slid open behind me, so I turned around. The door was steadily moving, but I could see neither the person’s face nor hands. A curious tension filled me, and I started to stand. The dark face of Hyŏn P’algil popped into view as he peered into the room. He gave me a quick bow, anxiously twisting his hat in his hands. “You startled me!” I told him. “What’s wrong? Come on in.” Seeing P’algil always made me smile despite myself. Not out of condescension or amusement, but from a vague sense of cheerful pleasure. I knew P’algil long before all this business with the U Dock trash barge made him famous, having bailed him out several times in the past from Y Station and U Station. The news that he had succeeded in gaining a monopoly on U Dock’s industrial waste surprised me of course, but it also filled me with more of that cheerful pleasure. P’algil continued to fiddle with his hat with a restless energy. It seemed like he was feeling apologetic for not having come earlier to pay his respects. Suddenly he stepped into the room and sat crossed-legged on the floor with a thud. “P-Please,” he choked out, “please help me! I’m

7  The 1980 version cuts out several lines from the 1947 version describing the role of the narrator in the community, and the pleasure he takes in helping out his fellow Koreans. The 1947 version ends this paragraph with the following lines: “They were all honest people, dedicated to returning home the moment they had saved up enough money. I wanted to spend my entire life writing about these people. That was what I was dedicated to.”

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doomed!” He wrinkled up his dark, filthy face and began to sob uncontrollably like a child. “It surely can’t be worth crying about. What happened? Did you get into a fight?” I had heard a little about how the Higashi fishermen went into a fury when P’algil secured the rights to the trash barge, and thought he might have gotten himself into a feud. P’algil shook his head. “You need to help me. We’re gonna starve. The boat doesn’t make any money at all . . .” P’algil and Nojiri had settled on five hundred yen per month, which included storage fees, for exclusive access to the trash barge. The news of Hyŏn P’algil’s success was received with astonishment, and not just by the Higashi fishermen. The scrap collectors of Y City and U Town were collectively struck dumb by the news. The brokers had slapped their knees and taken their defeat with good humor at first but soon found themselves consumed with envy. The Higashi fishermen banded together and made an appeal to Nojiri and the company heads, arguing that their livelihoods had been stolen from them. Nojiri summarily dismissed them: “You and I never had a formal contract—and in any case, it’s about time you gave up this parasitic life. Aren’t you fishermen? Go out and fish! Given the gravity of the current situation, we all need to contribute our services to the best of our abilities. We can’t afford to let anything that can be used—even trash— sink to the bottom of the sea. Fortunately that P’algil character doesn’t know how to do anything but work, and he’s honest with his money. He doesn’t let even one tin scrap fall into the sea, and I like him for it.” They got the same response from U Dock. The fishermen sent defamatory letters about Hyŏn P’algil to the police in an attempt to get him arrested, but in the end they found they had no choice but to reluctantly mend their nets and go out again in search of fish. P’algil’s strategy to deter his competitors and deflect attention from himself was to go around moaning, “The boat doesn’t make any money” and “I’m going broke,” to anyone who would listen. In fact, he had visited certain households for precisely that purpose. Nojiri’s storage shed was located right where the fence around the factory ended. A plank connected the shed to the trash barge in the sea. P’algil sorted out the iron, copper, oil rags, and other valuable materials from the rest of the junk on the barge with a shovel or bamboo rake and then carried them into the shed. P’algil and his wife Sunii got up every morning before the sun rose and worked until the sun set, usually without even taking a break for lunch. Because the boat came to the factory frequently these days, P’algil often spread his gunnysack on the ground in the shed and worked long into the night, even sleeping in the shed when he needed to. He dreamed the same dream every night. He was buying a strong, big

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bull with thick horns. His younger brother, still not used to the new bull, was being dragged around in the fields . . . P’algil smiled innocently and twitched his nose as he dreamed. One day, he received a visit from a man named Sŏ Minhŭi. “How are things going?” the smartly dressed Minhŭi asked without preamble as he looked speculatively around the shed, which was piled high with scrap metal. P’algil sprang up from his work and immediately blocked Minhŭi’s way. “It’s been terrible,” he said in a fluster, and launched into his standard spiel. “I’m going broke. Really, I lose money every day.” Sŏ Minhŭi was an insurance agent who lived in U Town. Each day he made sure that his hair was immaculately combed and that his suit was perfectly pressed, and he spoke Japanese with an almost flawless accent. He was a man who could easily pass as Japanese. He was also married to an older Japanese woman, which might have been part of the reason why he was hired by A Life Insurance to be the director of their branch office in U Town, despite being Korean. “You’re going broke?” “It’s terrible. I’m broke. I’m thinking I might return everything to Mr. Nojiri and go back to bartering.” P’algil instinctively knew that a person like Sŏ Minhŭi, with his expensive clothes and leather briefcase, could only mean trouble. He had heard rumors there was a Korean in the town who had as much power as a village head, and suspected this might be the man. He didn’t care if he was kicked or punched or insulted by a Japanese person, because he knew he would never give in to them, but he was afraid of Koreans. Koreans knew everything about each other; there was no playing dumb with your fellow countryman. He needed a more powerful weapon than the phrases he usually used. But his head had gone fuzzy, and the right words just wouldn’t come. A few days ago, Sŏ Minhŭi had been visited by a short man in his fifties just as he was preparing to leave the office. The man introduced himself as a local merchant named Nakamura and then nonchalantly proceeded to sign up for a ten thousand yen insurance policy, paying for the first year in one lump sum right on the spot. It wasn’t the first time someone had come to the office to sign up for a contract, but such events occurred two or three times a year at most, and almost never for a policy worth as much as ten thousand yen. Sŏ Minhŭi owed his early success to all the contracts he had sold to other Koreans, but by the time he became the branch director he had already exhausted that particular customer base. Nakamura showed up right during the time when Minhŭi was beginning to worry he might be a one-hit wonder—just another typical Korean. He looked at the

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monthly sales performance chart that hung on the wall, and the numbers posted there were a wake-up call. He was a man who found great meaning in being an employee of A Life Insurance and in dressing the part. Sŏ Minhŭi was handing over the receipt for Nakamura’s payment when Nakamura casually mentioned he belonged to Nakamura Goods. “There’s something I’d like to discuss with you,” he said. “Would you let me take you out to Yamashiro-ya? It’s just down the street . . .” Nakamura Goods was one of the largest Japanese-run salvage shops in U Town. When Nakamura mentioned Yamashiro-ya, a fancy Japanese-style inn and restaurant combined, Sŏ Minhŭi began to wonder what was really going on. Sensing a potentially lucrative business opportunity, however, he readily agreed to go. He hoped this might develop into something greater than being the branch director of an insurance company. When he first came to Japan he had toiled at all kinds of menial work, including hawking ginseng and miracle cures to people on the street. He was sick to the teeth of that life. At the restaurant, Nakamura explained the situation with Hyŏn P’algil and the trash barge. Smirking over his sake cup, Nakamura let it be known that he was prepared to give Sŏ the receipt and forget the contract had ever happened. Those are the events that led to Sŏ Minhŭi’s visit to P’algil at the storage shed. “If it’s really going that poorly, I’d be happy to take all this off your hands. You’d be amply compensated, of course.” “Oh!” P’algil found himself bowing out of sheer fear. His face blanched, and he began to shake all over. Sŏ Minhŭi already knew all about P’algil’s tactics. According to Nakamura, there was no telling what treasures might be unearthed from the trash once Nakamura had access to the factory through the trash barge. P’algil didn’t have the same capabilities. For this reason Minhŭi intended to throw his lot in with Nakamura. “How about it? I’ll pay you. I’m giving you a good deal.” “Oh!” P’algil was having difficulty speaking. His legs felt wobbly, and his whole body continued to shake. “So how about it? You keep saying you’re going broke. We have resources that you don’t.” “Oh! Well . . . Two days. Please give me until the day after tomorrow. P-please . . .” “I can’t really wait, but . . . OK. I’ll come again in the morning. Without fail.” P’algil nodded, swallowing down tears. “Oh! U-until then . . .” He stood like a statue as he watched the stylishly dressed Sŏ Minhŭi leave the shed. He couldn’t stop the trembling in his legs. He felt as if the land he had so

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painstakingly saved up for had been blown away by a typhoon before his very eyes. He thought he was doomed for sure. P’algil found himself unable to concentrate on his work. He gravely stroked the mountains of tin plate scraps and metal that surrounded him. At length he embraced the trash drum that held his most valuable copper scraps. He couldn’t sleep. He wept. “I know Sŏ Minhŭi. He doesn’t seem to be the type of person who’d do such a thing, though . . .” “No, he did. He wants to steal everything away from me. Please help me, I’m gonna starve to death. I’m not making any money.” P’algil was still trying to sniff back messy tears as he talked. A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth as I looked at him, but it soon vanished when I turned my mind to Sŏ Minhŭi. Sŏ Minhŭi was a man who was constantly trying to hide his ethnic origins. As a result he tended to avoid the other Koreans in the community, and my own interactions with him were mostly limited to short hellos on the street or the bus. He held only disdain for his people, without quite realizing that his disdain was also a kind of self-contempt. The next day, I went to see Hyŏn P’algil at his storage shed. I had heard descriptions, of course, but it was something else to see it with my own eyes. Scrap metal and dirty rags filled every nook and cranny of the shed. P’algil’s wife was busy at work on the trash barge docked just outside, her body smeared with grime and oil. It was an extraordinary mound of trash. Here and there you might find things that had no use, like lime, but for the most part it was a trove of scrap iron, copper bits, and oil rags. I suppose large factories could afford to be generous. A line of ships stretched out along the overlooking dock, and the area was full of activity: the sound of hammering filled the air; cranes rumbled on the ground; engines groaned; and people scurried across the space like ants, blue sparks showering from their tools as they worked. P’algil was so agitated by the time I arrived he could barely concentrate on his work. He stood rigidly on the plank that extended from the boat to the dock, facing the direction of the land. I watched P’algil as I waited for Sŏ Minhŭi. I felt the usual smile hovering on my lips, but the mood was too serious for a smile. I was struck with a certain sadness, looking at P’algil. Suddenly his body began to tremble violently as he stood on that plank. I glanced behind me and saw that Sŏ Minhŭi had arrived and was looking right at me. “How’s it been?” I said, walking toward him. “Well, now . . . If you’re in this race, I can see I have no hope of winning. Yes . . . I see now.”

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“I’m sure you have your reasons for doing this, but you can see for yourself what this means to him. Just look at him, shaking like that. Why not give him some peace of mind?” Sŏ Minhŭi seemed embarrassed. “Yes, I see . . . I give up. I know I can’t win. In return, let’s go out for a drink. Please give me that at least.” He took out a decorative handkerchief and blew his nose, looking like he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. As soon as I heard Minhŭi capitulate, I walked onto the plank and clapped P’algil on the shoulder. “There’s nothing to worry about,” I told him. “He says he won’t ever come back here, so let’s concentrate on working hard and returning home.”8 “Ah!” P’algil let out a strange shout. He leapt up, tumbling into the sea with a huge splash. “Aigu (I’m so happy)!” he cried, as he flailed about in the water like a madman. “Aigu (I’m so happy)!”

8  In the 1947 version, this line reads, “He says he won’t ever come back here, so work hard and return home soon.” The word used for “home” is kokyō but is glossed to read kuni (country). The word is unglossed in the 1980 version.

THREE

In Shinjuku

YANG SŎGIL Translated with an introduction by Samuel Perry

Born in Osaka to Korean parents originally from the Korean island of Cheju, Yang Sŏgil (b. 1936) began writing for the Zainichi poetry journal Azalea (Chindalle) in his youth before withdrawing from the publishing world for some twenty years. “In Shinjuku” (“Shinjuku nite”) is the first chapter of a longer work called “Aftershocks” (“Yoshin”), which Yang published in 1978 in the journal Literary Outlook (Bungei tenbō) and later included in his debut collection, Rhapsody (Kyōsōkyoku, 1981). It appears as a separate story in the 2006 Anthology of Zainichi Literature.1 Several of Yang’s later works have been adapted as films, including most famously the semiautobiographical Blood and Bones (Chi to hone, 2004). One partial English translation of “In Shinjuku” ends up excising almost all of the passages that deal with the political struggle of the Zainichi community, which is crucial for understanding the key conflicts in Yang’s story. Korea’s experience as a former Japanese colony, as well as the relationship of the Zainichi Korean community to the Japanese Communist Party and to Japanese immigration law, go a long way toward explaining the particular longing for homeland, the seemingly gratuitous violence, and the tortured masculinity that often play an important role in Yang’s works, including this story. The piece opens with a scene that takes place in Tokyo’s red-light district, Kabukichō, located in the heart of Shinjuku.

1 

“Shinjuku nite,” in “Zainichi” bungaku zenshū, ed. Jirō Isogai and Kazuo Kuroko (Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan, 2006), 7:31–41.

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In Shinjuku As we approached the Fūrin Kaikan building from Shinjuku Boulevard, my friend Han Sŏnghyŏng and I caught sight of an unusual spectacle. A tall, slender woman dressed in neon-green tights had brazenly lifted her leg horizontally into the air, and was pumping her foot into a man in a suit. Especially impressive was her beautifully curvaceous hip, which extended from her raised thigh to her tight fleshy buttocks, bulging out in relief beneath the streetlights. On the point of running off, the man in the suit was stopped short by another woman who quickly assumed the pose of a boxer and threw him a left hook. In his effort to dodge the blow the man lost his footing and tumbled over. It was a gruesome sight to witness these women spring upon the man so ferociously, their done-up hair in a state of disarray, their high-heels dangling from their fingers. If standing there watching the man get beaten up was no less cold-blooded, no one else, needless to say, seemed ready to come to his rescue. Astonished by it all, I simply stood there transfixed, while beside me a con man or perhaps a pimp of sorts started laughing uncontrollably. When the injured man finally managed to retreat, painfully clutching his gut, the women proceeded to shower him with curses. “Better stay the fuck away, asshole!” It was only then, after hearing their menacing voices, that Han Sŏnghyŏng and I realized the two women were in fact queers. “Crushed by two homos. How pathetic!” said Han Sŏnghyŏng. “Nah, you’ve got it all wrong, man. Those two homos are real dudes. They’ve got moves that’d put us both to shame,” I said. “And besides, they’re jacked.” Still somewhat winded, the two queers cheerfully broke out into a peal of laughter. For them, this was business as usual. They rejoined their posse of pimps and comrades on the street corner and began to ply their trade again, gliding up and down the street flirtatiously. Perhaps they deemed us hillbillies from the way we dressed, or maybe we’d stared at them all too eagerly, but the larger one with the stumpy neck approached us, entangling himself between me and Han Sŏnghyŏng like a piece of seaweed. “Well hello boys, where we all headed tonight? Don’t ya wanna have a bit of fun?” Han Sŏnghyŏng smirked oddly, as though he weren’t necessarily opposed to the idea. Given that he was somewhat tipsy, small pools of desire, I noticed, had even welled up in the corners of his eyes. Shortly thereafter, however, we began searching for a place to replenish the booze in our sobering bellies, and swam through a labyrinth of chaotic alleyways, lined with bars, pubs, taverns, and other filthy shacks, all awaiting their next customers. The streets were filled with the fragrant stench of piss, vomit, semen, blood, and broken teeth, a stench that hovered over the ground like a noxious gas. Long-haired hippies in trendy

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clothes—androgynous beasts of who knows what sex—were squirming to the beat of Soul II Soul’s latest tracks. The ordinary folk, meanwhile, milled about. There were giant totem poles spewing flames from gaping mouths, and neon lights on the fritz popping on and off. “It’s your lucky day, Mister. Opening night. And no panties on the girls tonight! We’ll show you a good time if you come on inside . . .” One guy, dressed in a bow tie, hounded us relentlessly. And if only for an instant the racy words rolling off his silver tongue managed to corner two drunks, wobbling in front of a house of mirrors. He was a quick one, I’ll give him that! Suddenly, we heard a gut-wrenching moan coming from behind a hedge in front of a love hotel. A woman had curled up on the ground, hugging her stomach, and a yakuza-like punk was now grinding his foot into her bloody-lipped face. She let out a horrible scream as passersby circled around, keeping their distance but intent all the same on observing the curious scene. The small-time thug then dumped a bucket of trash onto the gruesome face of the woman, who proceeded to clutch onto his leg. The man turned to the spectators. “This ain’t no circus, you idiots! Get the hell outta here,” he barked. “Pigs like him make me sick. Though back in the day we’d never walk away from something like this. We’re finally over the hill, I guess?” Han Sŏnghyŏng, suddenly the feminist, now sympathized with the plight of the tortured woman, even if his words were tinged with self-regret. Once we’d made our way through the public square in front of Koma Theater, we paused before each poster mounted on the theater wall, observing each one scrupulously. The wall was a veritable panel of penance, its stills of women moaning with pleasure, their heads thrown back. “Look more like acrobats if you ask me. You ever screw like that? Way back when, I used to try out new moves out of curiosity. But now I’d slip a disk if I ever did that. Hell, they can do it upside-down, underwater, however they want. But me, I go barnyard style—too lazy to take off my pants. Pretty soon, at any rate, I’ll be too old for sex . . .” If these were his thoughts on the matter, Han Sŏnghyŏng’s eyes soon shifted to the backside of the woman walking in front of us, wiggling like a young sweetfish. “Now, that’s the kinda ass that gets me stiff. Morality’s one thing, but there ain’t nothin’ I can do about this. The more I try to keep it down, the more it wants to jump right up. Just like the revolutionary masses, my friend, when they’re getting all oppressed and shit.” Several dozen crabs were lined up in front of a shop where cooks clad in headbands were barbecuing skewers of jumbo shrimp, clapping their hands and shouting, “Welcome, welcome! Come on in!” Drawn by their spirited cries, we entered the shop. Taking a seat at the counter, we looked over the menu, a long list of delicacies from the sea. But first off we ordered

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some beer to quench our thirst. And sure enough, after just a few swigs, good old Han Sŏnghyŏng started jabbering nonstop. When the food was delivered, he declared, “It’s on me tonight. So eat on up,” pushing plate after plate in my direction. Fatty tuna, squid sashimi, seared skipjack, filleted prawns, salmon stew, and chilled raw flounder. For someone like me who ate like a bird, just looking at the food amassed on the countertop was enough to make me sick. Han Sŏnghyŏng stared at the seafood in front of us and clicked his tongue in disappointment. “What is this crap? Doesn’t look anything like the samples out front,” he turned around unabashedly to face the staff, as if to gripe, prematurely, about the food he hadn’t tasted yet. Whether short of booze, or just an appetite, something had riled the heavy drinker’s gut. “Back home on Cheju we’d never touch rotten fish like this. But you’ve never been there, have you? Well, I pity the man who knows nothing about it . . .” Han Sŏnghyŏng continued at length, noting how bad he felt for me before launching, more typically, into a series of childhood memories. About the masses of crabs crawling across the beach, turning the entire coastline red at low tide, as far as the eye could see. About the mighty shape of Mount Halla, which looked like the flexed bicep of a strapping man. About the hot springs gushing around the island’s coast, and all the schools of sardines, the color of tarnished silver, that leapt across the sea. Han Sŏnghyŏng could sometimes see in his dreams the sight of whole villages going out to catch this fish with baskets, buckets, and scoops in every hand. People hauled in so much fish they had to dry them, salt them, and even use them as fertilizer in the fields. Pumpkins, melons, eggplants, and gourds, they all grew like monsters in rich fields like this. It made perfect sense to say the men on the island were lazy as shit. After all, who needed to work in a place like this? Might as well pull out some local brew, play a bit of chess, and spend the afternoon taking a nap. It was the womenfolk who did the real work anyway, tilling the fields, diving the seas, giving birth to the kids. And this was all one tiny part of almighty Nature for these ancient folk, who had no values of their own to guide them but for the raw magma of life itself, which moved via fire, water, and the shifting constellations, and circled through their human veins until each turned to ash and at long last sank into the great earth. His nostalgic feelings would flicker so vividly in his mind’s eye that even decades later Han Sŏnghyŏng could conjure up a picture of his very first love, as he drifted off into a state of dreams. I myself had nothing to call my own. No family, no hometown. Han Sŏnghyŏng’s words swept me away like a wind blowing across the empty steppes. Dizzyingly, his story continued to twist and turn with leaps and bounds. We Zainichi had to make money as long as we lived in Japan. Who else, after all, could we expect to help us out? We had to band together as a

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group, each of us doing whatever he could. Only then would we manage to forge an unassailable organization, he argued, and to build for ourselves a “golden castle with iron-clad walls.” “So you’ve got a job as a taxi driver. But tell me this: how long can you go on living like an octopus, chewing off your own legs in order to survive? That’s no job with a future. Which is why I’ve always said you should come and work for me. I know you look down on moneylenders, but as a business it’s hard to beat. Tell me, who turns his nose up to cold hard cash just because it comes from someone in the trade like me? Money talks, my friend. Might as well be written on the wall: you got no money, you got nothing at all. And this is Japan, where capitalism’s the name of the game. Anyone pretending to keep their hands clean—do everything just right—well, they’re opportunists if you ask me, no different from the petit bourgeoisie. When it comes to the spirit of self-sacrifice, hell, Koreans don’t know shit.” Whenever Han Sŏnghyŏng mentioned the word self-sacrifice, a shiver inevitably went down my spine. Not because I disagreed with his theory—we should earn money like capitalists and plan like socialists— that was fine with me. But the Japanese Communist Party had long since repudiated the idea of self-sacrifice with its policy reversal of the Sixth Congress, and listening to Han Sŏnghyŏng invoke the term by way of this bizarre conclusion was unsettling. We’d been innocent back then. The solution to life’s contradictions was easily distilled into the simple notion of revolution. How had we come to doubt it? In the springtime of our youths we’d been wanderers in search of absolute values. In a sense, we were still searching. But at the end of the day what exactly was resolved? Had we simply been holding out, hoping time would be on our side? Or had we merely become experts at making excuses and deceiving ourselves? Whatever happened, after all, to comrade Kang Miung? Where did he go, and how is he getting by now? What about Kim Ch’waeyŏng . . . and Kang Ch’ŏlbu . . . ? “‘What’s going to happen to me?’ you ask. Well, that’s beyond the point. I’m nothing but a pawn in a game chess—that much I do know. The nature of human relations under capitalism will continue to desecrate me with all its filth, and eventually it’ll do me in. The battle between revolution and consciousness here in Japan is like the race between Achilles and the tortoise—man will never overcome the beast.”2 No matter the sacrifice, Han Sŏnghyŏng contended, our emphasis had to be in uniting the homeland. If 2 

The purported progenitor of dialectical thinking, Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea, offered up as a paradox an imaginary race between the swift-footed Achilles and a slowmoving tortoise, to whom Achilles has given a head start. Theoretically speaking, according to Zeno, the former will never catch up with the latter if distance and time are infinitely divisible. The suggestion here is that efforts to unify the divided Korean nation should be prioritized given that revolution in Japan was not on the horizon.

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the present state of affairs continued much longer, we’d fall victim to the dirty tactics of the United States, Japan, and Park Chung Hee. Eventually we’d have to duke it out, he started yelling, so why not just fucking get it over with? “I mean, you never know what’ll happen when people are backed into a corner. I get the chills just thinking about it. Kim Dae Jung gets kidnapped, Mun Segwang tries to assassinate Park Chung Hee—and this is just the tip of the iceberg.3 Park might end up sacrificing another five million Koreans. Who knows what he’ll do if war breaks out again—drop the atomic bomb maybe, or even the hydrogen one? That little Hitler is capable of anything.” Han Sŏnghyŏng’s copper complexion flushed a deeper shade of red. After scraping up the bottom of the pot, he shoveled what remained of the fish and vegetables inside his mouth, chomping down on it with his healthy teeth. His playful gluttony—and the wild swinging of his appendages along with it—was a delightful sight to behold, I must admit. Nearly all the seats inside the place were occupied. Two students from a college infamous for acts of violence had stationed themselves diagonally across from us. Their baggy uniforms, flipped-up collars, and gangster-like pompadours were proof enough of their vulgar efforts to attract attention. But in the cavernous sockets of their shifty eyes there shone not a twinkle of intelligence. In the raised seating area behind us a veritable army of beauties, serving a banquet, babbled on in high spirits, puffing on cigarettes and emptying pots of sake. Just then, from the opposite side of Han Sŏnghyŏng, came the voices of a middle-aged gentleman and a slightly older man. The latter was going on about how Taiwanese and Korean women really knew how to serve their men: not only were they hardworking, but they were also good in bed. This was the typical talk of overseas sex tourists. One of the men would occasionally lean into the other’s ear—as though conducting a secret negotiation—and start snickering obscenely. It was just enough to rub Han Sŏnghyŏng the wrong way. “Did I ever mention,” began the older man, in a tone that was almost wistful, “that I was stationed in South Kyŏngsang during the war?” By this point Han Sŏnghyŏng was all ears. The man had belonged to the 184th Regiment, but apparently spent most of his time swimming in a nearby river, playing a lazy game of cards, and 3  On August 8, 1973, dissident politician (and later president) Kim Dae Jung was abducted in Tokyo by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, drugged, and brought back to Pusan by boat. Allegedly, only intervention by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, which pursued the boat, and the American ambassador to Korea kept the KCIA from assassinating Kim. Zainichi Mun Segwang attempted an assassination of President Park Chung Hee on August 15, 1974, at the anniversary celebration of Korean liberation from the Japanese, held in the National Theater. A later attempt on Park’s life was successful.

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polishing his Murata rifle. He was now talking about a particular summer day, shortly after lunchtime. The regiment he belonged to kept half a dozen pigs, a few chickens, as well as a goat in a separate, fenced-off area, and the scene he painted was nothing short of idyllic. Into this, however, walked a Korean coolie attached to the regiment, who had come to feed the livestock. Nothing was covering his lower extremities but for a pair of pants that were shamefully threadbare, while his upper torso, fully exposed to the elements, appeared supple and well-tanned—with the kind of skin you might find on a whip made of proper leather. With little else to keep them busy, the Japanese soldiers usually came and went as they pleased, stopping by the animal pen to smoke a few cigarettes and shoot the breeze. But on this particular day one of the soldiers suggested they try convincing the coolie to mount the female goat. Craving a bit of excitement, the soldiers readily consented to the man’s proposal, and they proceeded to entice the coolie with three packs of Hikari. Now, the Korean coolie had been accustomed to collecting the soldiers’ used cigarette butts, or else rolling up dried grass with newspaper to make his own makeshift smokes. After initially hesitating, however, he found three packs of Hikari cigarettes a temptation he simply couldn’t resist. And so it was here in this outdoor theater of sorts that the ever-so-rare spectacle of bestiality found an audience. Forcing the unwilling goat into submission, the coolie inserted his member from behind, and then using his hips began an exercise of vigorous pumps. Here, the middle-aged gentleman, listening to the older man’s story with undivided attention, leaned into the table, and asked, “So, what happened next?” “Oh, it was classic. You see, the goat then narrowed her eyes, knelt forward, and started to go baaa, baaa.” “She had a good time of it then,” chuckled the middle-aged man, his eyes sparkling with a lecherous twinkle. “I wonder. Maybe so,” said the older man with a smile. It was at this point that Han Sŏnghyŏng, looking appalled by what he’d just heard, inserted himself into their conversation. “So what happened after that?” “After that?” asked the older man, somewhat perturbed by the unexpected intruder, but not yet mindful of the meaning of Han Sŏnghyŏng’s words. “You mean to the goat? Well, there’s not much more to tell. That was the end of it.” “Surely that wasn’t the end of the story. Isn’t there a sequel?” Han Sŏnghyŏng was clearly implying something with this line of questioning and the older man replied with bewilderment. “A sequel? I’m not sure what you mean.” “You know, the part when all the village girls are gang raped, for example, and then slaughtered, or when a kid gets decapitated by some guy testing out his new sword. Oh, I’m sure there’s plenty more to tell . . .” The man was now alarmed.

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“What exactly are you saying, sir? There was no reason for us to do anything of the sort.” “Well, you’ve got to admit it was pretty common over there in China and Korea. I mean, wasn’t it?” “No, sir, you’ve got it all wrong. Our regiment never fired a single bullet.” “Oh, I see. You never fired a single bullet. So is that supposed to mean that it wasn’t a crime to force a poor coolie into fucking a goat? Well, as a Korean myself, I find your story not only despicable, but unforgivable. To me, that was an act of pure evil—on par with gang rape and mass murder. But clearly you have a different take on the matter.” As soon as Han Sŏnghyŏng identified himself as a Korean, the older man fell silent, his humiliation making him bitterly regret the words he had just spoken. It was the middle-aged gentleman, however, who seemed utterly bewildered by the animosity he sensed in Han Sŏnghyŏng’s assigning of blame. He proceeded to make excuses for his older friend. “Now, I can understand why this was not a pleasant story from your perspective. But I assure you it was just the alcohol talking, and you certainly needn’t make such a big stink over it. Japan is at peace now, and all of us coexist happily.” “Happily? I hardly think so. The Japanese detest Koreans. We’re the scum of the earth from your perspective.” “Well, I for one certainly don’t think that way,” replied the middle-aged gentleman, adjusting his posture as though to affirm his incorruptibility. There was something rather comical in the gesture. Just then the two students across from us, whose ears were glued to each word of our argument, raised their voices with a cobra-like hiss. “Shit, I’ve heard enough from you kimchi crackers. Quit your whining, and go back home, why don’t you? What gives you the right to boss us around here in Japan? Huh?” “Like my friend here says. You got a problem, and we’ll take you on anytime. You just say when.” Their provocative words succeeded in pushing the short-tempered Han Sŏnghyŏng over the edge. “Oh, so you wanna have a bit of fun, do you? You little punks!” Han Sŏnghyŏng jumped to his feet, smashed a beer bottle on the counter, and thrust the broken rim into the air like a dagger. Suddenly the whole room fell silent. The first to be shaken were the two men sitting next to Han Sŏnghyŏng, who quickly fled to the front of the restaurant. Two or three of the cooks then jumped out from behind the counter. The floor was now flooded with both cooks and customers trying to break things up between us and the half-assed students. But we weren’t about to swallow our pride until we’d landed the punks a crack or two across the jaw. After a bit of pushing and shoving we heard a patrol car drive up with its siren blaring.

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Tipped off by the two men who’d run outside, the policemen finally approached us. “These two?” asked one cop, turning around to address the older gentleman. “Yes, they’re the ones,” replied the middle-aged man, pale-faced now, and pointing to us with his index finger. “All right. Let’s take you boys down to the station.” There was no question whatsoever as to who the guilty party was. “Hold on a sec. You’re not going to haul away those punks over there?” I tried to draw the policeman’s attention in their direction, but he grabbed my arm instead of answering, and pulled me away. “We’ll take down your statement at the station.” All eyes were focused on us now. I noticed in the crowd gathered around us the faces of two kind-hearted gentlemen: I had seen them somewhere before. But then suddenly there appeared before me several other faces, which broke through the shell of my present consciousness: someone called after us, and we turned around only to see a thousand different eyes, and then arms, tearing us to pieces—these were the faces of a crowd that slaughtered more than five thousand Koreans after the Great Kanto Earthquake. Brought back to the present, I found myself riding in a patrol car for the first time in my life, and when we entered the station, countless pairs of sadistic eyes proceeded to peel off our skin, layer by layer. An obese man with no revolver and looking the part of a superior grabbed onto his belt and hoisted up folds of his flesh. Toothpick in action, dislodging food from his teeth, he sauntered over. “Alright, so what’s happened? What’d they do?” His arrogant tone of voice lay bare his lowranking status—he was the sort of guy who sits on a high horse looking down on all others. “Drunken brawl,” said the cop who had marched us inside. Off-duty officers hovered around us like a swarm of flies, a hidden desire to slowly savor the taste of freshly caught prey showed vividly on their faces. They sat us down in front of a desk and began the interrogation. “Names.” The policeman ordered, initiating his effort to confirm our identities. “My name is Yang Chŏngung.”4 “Yang Chŏngung? Ah . . . so, you’re from over there?” The policeman turned toward Han Sŏnghyŏng now, eyeing him suspiciously. “And what about you?” “. . .” Han Sŏnghyŏng looked away, and then lit a cigarette. The cops took out their ballpoint pens and scrutinized our faces. 4  It is unclear from the characters how Yang would have pronounced this name—which bears a similarity to the name the author himself often went by—but the characters do suggest possible pronunciations that would be recognizably Zainichi.

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“You’ve got your alien registration cards on you, don’t you? Let’s see them.” Han Sŏnghyŏng and I turned to each other. We were not carrying our registration cards. And there was nothing unusual about it. It’s easy to forget the card when you’re changing clothes or switching jackets. “Forgot to carry their cards, huh? Sounds to me like they’re asking for trouble.” These malicious words from a superior came from somewhere off to the side. “OK, give me your address.” I myself lived in Mishuku, and Han Sŏnghyŏng, in Nippori. “Hmm, opposite sides of town. Well, what about a phone number where I can contact someone?” Both of us lived alone. “So, basically, we have no way of proving who you are?” Han Sŏnghyŏng and I could do little but snicker at the banality of the man’s reasoning. Of course, we had friends who could confirm our identities. But the idea of asking someone to find our alien registration cards and bring them to police station in the middle of the night was just plain stupid. Having to carry them around with us in the first place was already extremely unpleasant. “I trust you boys have read the precautions printed on your alien registration cards. Or maybe you haven’t? That’s a bit careless though, isn’t it? You should at least know you’re supposed to carry the things around with you. Explain to me why don’t you have them? We’re not talking a driver’s license, here. This sort of thing can get you deported.” The logic of the man’s threats rested on a particular assumption: that one of the most trivial of everyday matters—forgetting something, for example, or being a bit careless—amounted to something criminal. Being Zainichi Korean meant that our ability to remember, to pay attention, to do anything at all was already subject to criminalization. At this point Han Sŏnghyŏng raised his voice to object. Why had they arrested only us, and let those students go free? The way the cops were going about their jobs was clearly prejudiced. Two sides are always to blame in a fight, after all. And Han Sŏnghyŏng had no intention of answering any questions until this particular issue was clarified to his satisfaction. The head honcho now looked ready to regurgitate something from the sewer-like recesses of his potbelly. His face suddenly flushed, and saliva began to drip from the sides of his greasy lips. “The issue of the fight has already been settled. Which is why the students have been allowed to go free. You are now under questioning for your violation of the immigration law. What about that don’t you understand?” The policeman now spoke as though this new infraction were the very reason we’d been arrested in the first place. Nevertheless, Han Sŏnghyŏng proceeded with his objections: we never have and never will accept the validity of alien registration cards. The Japanese government arbitrarily ignores our fundamental civil rights, forcing us to carry ID cards as though they were dog tags draped around our necks.

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The Japanese imperialists continue to make false accusations against us, and to infringe on our fundamental right to self-determination. The demand that we show our alien registration cards itself constitutes a crime. It distorts the historical truth and amounts to a criminal act of immense proportion. Cutting off the head honcho before he could speak, Han Sŏnghyŏng pressed on with his objections. Do you even know what it means to be a Zainichi Korean? I mean, how do you think we got to Japan in the first place—where we’re subject to all your scorn, all your discrimination, and all this needless questioning? Do you boys even care what brought us here today? Or do you simply have more fun defending the crimes perpetuated against us by all your fellow Japanese citizens? Oh, the government of Japan sang a good song of friendship with its neighbors all right. Then it marched across the globe, robbing the hair off our asses. And after all that, you now have the nerve to proclaim, “No trespassing on Japanese soil.” Never has Japan hesitated to label other people thieves precisely so it can call itself a paragon of the legal process. This shameless behavior disguises its own vice under the banner of justice. So how about you tell me this: are those half-assed students back at the bar your idea of law-abiding citizens? Or maybe those pathetic, hypocritical businessmen who turned us in? Do you really think the public prosecutor’s office is a paragon of justice? Or even the judiciary? And the pack of dogs they keep around to protect them? The police and the legislature are all cunning little creatures living in the same hovel, who won’t tolerate the cry of a single human soul. But the soul, let me tell you, is unstoppable—just like the blood coursing through it. As Han Sŏnghyŏng spoke, he held his fist raised into the air, foam flying from the corners of his mouth. It was reminiscent of the fervid orations he’d once delivered as a former organizer. The officers had expected us to get on our knees and plead for forgiveness, so they now felt betrayed by Han Sŏnghyŏng’s provocations. The head honcho’s patience had come to a breaking point, and the sound of his voice soon resounded through the building like a broken bell. “I’ve heard enough! We haven’t brought you here to listen to your excuses. The law has no place for them. We’ve been here for an hour already, and we still haven’t gotten your name. This is a willful obstruction of our official investigation: ‘Interference with a public servant in the execution of his duties.’ And if you insist on being uncooperative, we have ways of dealing with you. So what I’m saying is: don’t piss off a cop! We can always hand you over to the South Koreans, and save ourselves some grief. Unless you’re dying to stay here for a couple of nights, of course.” Imitating perfectly the tone of his superior, a young cop just out of training proceeded to poke his nose into our faces. “You idiots broke the law. And if you’re living in Japan you have to obey Japanese law. What’s so hard about getting that into your thick skulls? I’ll bet a couple days in the slammer will teach you

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a thing or two. You’re sure as hell not going home tonight so you’ll have plenty of time to reconsider.” Having completely encircled us, several of the man’s colleagues began taunting us and snickering. “Nah, let’s make it a week in the slammer?” “Or how about we send them off to the Ōmura Detention Center? Heh-heh.”5 “Well, that’s awful classy. But let’s not waste taxpayers’ money on travel, okay? I already pay my share handsomely.” Han Sŏnghyŏng’s retort dripped with sarcasm. “Chief, I say we lock ’em up for the night and look into it tomorrow. It’s a complicated case,” said the cop who’d brought us in, with a twirl of his nightstick. “Hmm . . .” The chief folded his arms, as though pondering the situation. “Maybe that’s best. Let’s do it.” It was too much trouble, it seemed, to say anything more. The policemen standing guard on either side grabbed a hold of my arms to take me away. I tried to pull myself out from their grip. “This is an abuse of authority!” I shouted. “What abuse of authority? You’re the ones who broke the law,” objected one, squeezing my arm even tighter. Having already belted out a long series of lectures, Han Sŏnghyŏng suddenly squatted to the ground. When the policeman prodded him from behind him, he finally stood up, rather meekly. It was then that a peculiar stench suddenly filled the room. “Hey, what’s that smell? What is it?” They started sniffing the air to locate the stench, and track it to its source. The policeman assigned to Han Sŏnghyŏng then peered into Han’s face, “Is that you?” No sooner had Han Sŏnghyŏng replied, with a straight face, “Yes, it is,” then he slowly unbuckled his belt, inserted his hand down into his pants, and pulled out a large brown clump of shit. Standing there in front of the dumbfounded cops, an intrepid smile now rose over his lips as he smeared it over his face, and then onto his torso. “Stop it! Stop it!” shouted the policemen, now in a panic. Eyeing them from the side, Han Sŏnghyŏng reached into his pants for still more shit, and proceeded to smear it on the chairs, on the desk, on the filing cabinet—everywhere.

5  The Ōmura Detention Center, located in Nagasaki Prefecture, was a well-known site used for detaining war refugees and other “illegal” Koreans during and following the Korean War.

FOUR

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

LEE JUNGJA Translated with an introduction by Haeng-ja Chung Translator’s Note Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler, published in 1991, is a collection of 390 tanka poems by Lee Jungja, a Japanese-born Korean from the city of Iga in Mie Prefecture.1 Nagune means “traveler,” and taryong means “lament” in Korean. Some poems highlight visible and invisible characteristics of law, history, and livelihood in Japan. Others capture the poet’s struggle in the dichotomous framework between Korea and Japan or between the generation gaps imposed on her. Some poems show her attempt to transcend such contradictions, and others express the moments of joy in between. Due to space constraints, only selected poems are translated here. A Japanese tanka poem consists of upper phrases (five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables) and lower phrases (seven syllables, seven syllables). This succinct format, like that of haiku poems, may allow multiple interpretations, and I often had to choose one among many possibilities. I placed my translation along each original poem, so that readers may entertain their own interpretations. My translation tries to represent the tanka style by dividing each poem into five lines, although in the original each poem is printed vertically in a single line. It is a challenge to convey the possible meanings of a poem or the intention of a poet while retaining the effects of this particular format and sounds.  I used lowercase throughout the translations to show the nuances of the original poems. For example, in tanka, the subject I is often assumed or suggested. However, in English translation, it is hard to omit the subject. See Lee Jungja 李正子, Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler ナグネタリョン：永遠の旅人 (Tokyo: Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 1991). 1 

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Therefore, I used a lowercase i to represent this difference. Furthermore, some of Lee’s tanka poems capture the struggles and sufferings of lives that are not neatly confined by the national borders that governments try to impose on people. Therefore, I use lowercase for a country and nationality against the convention. For example, Korea/Korean and Japan/Japanese are replaced by korea/korean and japan/japanese. I hope this unconventionality invites readers to question assumed categories, such as nation and state. In addition, I use italics when a word is written unconventionally in katakana (katakana being one of the writing systems of Japanese, along with hiragana and kanji). In this translation project, I have two goals in my mind: (1) to introduce Japanese tanka poems to a wider audience, and (2) to model how a collaborative translation project between a faculty member and undergraduate students might work. This is my first attempt to publish translated poetry, and it is the fruit of assignments given to my anthropology and East Asian studies students at Hamilton College and Smith College. Some students had already studied university-level Japanese language, but their proficiency level varied. Other students had never taken any Japanese language courses and knew little Japanese. The latter group of students were in my courses because they were interested in specific topics, such as Japanese culture or cultural anthropology. Since most students had little or no exposure to Japanese tanka, it was demanding for both the instructor and students, as I anticipated. An interesting discovery was that the translation process was somewhat exciting and even therapeutic for both, at some points if not all the time.  In order to overcome the language challenge, I came up with the following approach: First, I read all the tanka out loud in Japanese in class, so that students could appreciate the sound of the original poems of 5-7-5-7-7: five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables, seven syllables, seven syllables. Even those students who had never studied Japanese requested that I read the tanka in Japanese when I asked the class if I should keep reading the poems in their original language. I also gave them my literal, rough translation. Then, I discussed the social context, historical background, and cultural nuances of each poem. I also created lots of opportunities for students to ask questions and exchange their ideas. After students came up with their draft translations, we shared our work and exchanged ideas both in class and via online platforms, such as Blackboard and Moodle. These were new learning experiences for students. One student had never studied Japanese, but the process of understanding tanka was so soothing that he wanted to continue reading tanka on his own, even after the course ended. This student also said that he introduced the tanka to

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

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his father. Another student was assigned to translate tanka into English for a local government in Japan where she found a job after graduating from college. She said that the course had provided excellent preparation for her new job. My reunion with her in Japan reminded us that a college education can be useful in ways you do not expect. I would like to thank all the people who were involved in this translation project. I would particularly like to thank those at the University of California, Berkeley. Professor John Lie, who took the initiative to develop this important project, hosted a workshop at the University of California, Berkeley, and showed invaluable support and patience to edit and compile this book. Kate Lawn Chouta offered wonderful copyediting. I also would like to thank workshop participants and administrative staff, my former students, and the anonymous reviewers who offered insightful comments and suggestions. Of course, all errors are mine. Finally, I show my gratitude to readers who picked up this book. I hope readers can feel the excitement and enjoy the therapeutic effects as I did while reading, translating, and revising. I also hope that those who can read Japanese will visit Lee’s original book and other anthologies to enjoy more of her tanka and find your own favorite poems.

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Lee Jungja Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler Chapter 1. Japan If I Turn Around (ふりむけば日本)

潮ざかい Between the Tides (pp. 12–14)

その海の果てはふるさとふるさとの大地はふたつ鳥は通えど homeland lies on the other end of the sea although birds may fly free back and forth homeland is divided into two うず

お

朝鮮のおとこの胸に埋めえぬ身の堕ちゆくは潮ざかいなる unable to root myself in the embrace of a korean man the body is pulled under into an eddy of colliding currents 愛しきれぬ日本の国のその国のアナタと結ぶ渇くナミダに japan, the country unable to fully love i bind myself to you of that country with dried tears

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

落魄の母 Poor Mother (pp. 15–17) くりや

秋の灯のこぼるる廚に母と煮る青唐辛子からく匂うや in the kitchen the light of autumn is pouring the green chilies i cook with my mother smell spicy

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雪あかり Snow Light (pp. 18–21) ね ふる

ハングルをつまずき読めば失いし身にとめどなく鈴の音震う as i read the korean alphabet clumsily the sound of the bell trembles incessantly within my body that lost ふかぶかと羽をたためる鳥の絵の李朝白磁の雪ふりしきる paintings of the bird that calmly folds their wings snow falls on and on the white porcelain of the lee dynasty

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

喪失者 The Person Who Feels Loss (pp. 22–24) あ

もの言えぬくちびるうすく生れ落ちてすなわちそれより喪失者なる i was born with thin lips that are muted in other words i have been deprived since then

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耳鳴り Tinnitus (pp. 25–27)

日本人朝鮮人も信じ切れぬこころ踏みつつうたう歌あり there is a poem generated while stepping on the heart that can fully trust neither japanese nor korean

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

しなう身 Bending Body (pp. 28–29)

宿命のごとく傷つけ合う言葉交わしどこまでか日本人と我ら how far japanese and we exchange words that hurt one another as if it is destined 踏み迷う心の果てに歩みきて愛さむとする日本の風 i have walked all the way on the verge of my wondering heart i attempt to love japan’s wind

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さくら列島 Archipelagos of Cherry Blossoms (pp. 30–32) たた

やよいよいやみ

桜讃えたたえてやまぬこの国の弥生宵闇しんそこ寂し in this country that is endlessly praising the cherry blossoms i am lonely from the bottom of my heart in the march dusk

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

白き花 White Flower (pp. 38–39) す

いた

ほ

酸ゆくなりしキムチ炒める指さきのなに欲るごとぞほそき力は dainty fingertips that are frying the kimchi that has gone sour what does the thin power want?

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〈地の塩〉 “Salt of the Earth” (pp. 40–43) うべな

〈地の塩〉と告げられ肯いがたかりき植民地の子とし帆を張る我ら it is hard to agree even being told we are the “salt of the earth” we spread out our sails farther as children of the colony あずかり知らぬ歴史とし去る靴の音傷つきやすき日本人きみも refusing the past the sound of your leaving footsteps you are also the Japanese who easily get hurt たい

朝鮮人そのことのまえ母の慈悲母の胎よりさずけられたる before being korean i was born from mother’s womb given by mother’s mercy

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

朝鮮の母 Mother of Korea (pp. 44–45)

夏あらし吹き荒れてなおしずかなる心よ朝鮮の母はいつわらぬ even though the summer storm blows wildly with a calm mind the korean mother does not lie

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父の朝鮮語 Father’s Korean Language (pp. 50–52)

いさかいて言葉うしなうとき父のつねの呪文のごとき朝鮮語 whenever my father loses his words during argument his korean tongue always sounds like an incantation シン セタリョン

さながらに身勢打鈴となる父の朝鮮語やはり呪文かしれぬ as it were my father’s speech transforms into a life lamentation his korean might be an incantation after all シン セ タ リョン

身勢打鈴となる美しき朝鮮語われは思うままに話せず beautiful korean language that transforms into a life lamentation yet i can’t speak it as i wish

チャンゴ タ

つ

まが

長鼓打つ憑かれむまでに打つ音に紛いて風のなかの父の声 i play the korean drum as if possessed my father’s voice mixed with the drumming sound in the wind

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

ふりむけば日本 Japan If I Turn Around (pp. 53–55)

靴ぬぎてひとりたたずむすすき野のむこうは祖国ふりむけば日本 taking off my shoes as i am standing alone my fatherland is just over silver grass i see japan if i look back

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Lee Jungja Chapter 2. Proof of Humans (人間のあかし)

ひとりよがり Complacency (pp. 58–60)

戦後すなわち敗戦後とぞこだわればたちまちわれの語尾あらくなる if i insist postwar means postdefeat ends of my words become harsh 日本人らしさの規定そこよりのナショナリズムに疎外されおり the nationalism informed by the definition of japaneseness alienates me ひとりよがりの平和うたがうこともなく四十二年は日本人のもの without doubting their self-righteous peace the past forty-two years are owned by the japanese people

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

きんしゅう

錦繍の野は日本のいろ平和のいろ平和のいろは排外のかおり the colorful fields resemble the color of japan the color of peace this color of peace smells the fragrance of exclusion

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権力 Hegemony (pp. 61–63)

友のゆび子のゆび吾がゆび罪もたぬゆびがなにゆえ虐げられぬ the fingers of my friends the fingers of my children the fingers of my own why must the innocent fingers be abused じゃくじゃく

寂 々 と指の痛みのとめどなし耐えがたきまでに真実を問う all by my lonesome the pain of my fingers is endless i ask the truth to the unbearable point すみ

鉛筆をにぎれる指を墨黒く塗らるる母は耐えがたかりき my children’s fingers which meant to be holding a pencil are soaked in black ink it is unbearable as a mother 美しき日本の野にものぐらく権力があり　ある日寂しむ in the beautiful japanese fields a hidden power lurks darkly one day i am lonely

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偽善者 Hypocrite (pp. 68–69) いろ

〈偽善者〉と告げくる手紙読む窓にあかねの彩のうつろいており i read a letter that comes to say “you are a hypocrite” by the window the color of madder red is transforming 〈テンノウ〉の歌詠む指紋拒否者などナルシスト、 マゾヒスト、シマグニの奴隷 even you have refused to be fingerprinted you still write the “emperor’s” poems2 therefore, a narcissist, masochist and a slave of the island country

2 

For detailed discussion of the relationship between tanka and the Japanese emperor (tenno) system, see Mitsuko Uchino’s works: Tanka to tennōsei [Tanka and the Japanese emperor system] (Nagoya: Fuubaisha, 1988); Gendai tanka to tennōsei [Modern tanka and the Japanese ­emperor system] (Nagoya: Fuubaisha, 2001); and Tennō no tankawa naniwo katarunoka: Gendai tanka to tennōsei [What do Japanese emperors’ tanka tell: Modern tanka and the Japanese emperor system] (Tokyo: Ochanomizu Shobou, 2013).

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拒否の群れ Refusing Herd (pp. 70–73) うず

コスモスの埋むる野辺を見しことが唯一なりき祖国というは as for the fatherland the only thing i saw was the wild fields densely covered by cosmos 日本人らしさをときに呪文としわれは無口にも饒舌にもなる making it the mantra occasionally to behave like the japanese people i can be both muted and talkative す

か

この国のほかに住み処はもてざりし或る日まぶたの重さまで問う i cannot have anywhere else to live outside of this country one day i even question the weight of my eyelids おうなつ

なみだ

たの

「押捺を拒否します」くり返すときこぼれ落つる 泪 よ祖国になに恃むべき “i refuse to be fingerprinted” when i repeat oh, tears, which fall down my cheek what should i rely on my fatherland for

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

時代のなか生き継ぐ指の傷深くさらして拒否の群れつづくなり in the era by exposing the deep scars on our surviving fingers a refusing flock follows one after another

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人間のあかし Proof of Humans (pp. 74–76)

ふるさとに還れぬものの骨の音　骨の孤独と人の孤独と the sound of the bones of a person who cannot return to the homeland the loneliness of the bones and the solitude of the person いのちかけて今さら守る何ありや骨に沁み入る日本の風 is there anything worthwhile to protect while risking my life? the japanese winds sink deep into my bones エ グッ カ

『愛国歌』を聴きつつ正座するわれは膝になみだを落としていたり sitting straight with my legs bent and listening to “the patriotic song”3 i noticed my tears were dropping onto my knees

3 

Egukga, meaning the national anthem of South Korea.

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

不透明にかさねられたる日本の論理あるいは我らをおとしめ japan’s logic layered without transparency otherwise undermines us with disdain たどたどと人間のあかし問い継ぎて思考の果てに拒む〈法〉あり clumsily continuing to ask for proof of humanity at the end of my thoughts there is a “law,” which rejects

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挫折 Setback (pp. 77–79)

理解されぬ思いと知りて書く手紙このわびしさはたとえがたかり hard to describe this dreariness of writing a letter knowing that my feelings are not understood と

さぼう

と

MもKも訪わぬ茶房を今日も訪い刑事四人がクリスマスケーキ買う neither M nor K visit my tearoom yet the four detectives visit again today and buy a christmas cake びこう

コーヒーをたておえしとき平安はもっとも鼻腔をひたしくるなり a waft of peace is seeping deep into my nose mostly right after fresh coffee has been made

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

橋のかなた Far Beyond a Bridge (pp. 80–83)

寂しさに身動きならず橋のかなた活動家となりし君が振る旗 loneliness petrifies me i see the flag waved by you who have become an activist far beyond the bridge かがやきを増しきて論理説く君をやや卑屈となり見送るわれか slightly becoming servile i send you off who preach logic while shining brighter and brighter もと

組織もたぬことさまざまに寂しめど桟橋の下の潮鳴りの音 without belonging to any organizations i am lonely in many ways yet i hear the sound of the tide under the pier

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タイムリミット Time Limit (pp. 86–88) おうなつ

押捺を乞う声おもく耳に鳴る父はおそらくわれよりも寂し a voice which begs for a fingerprint resonates heavily in my ears my father is perhaps lonelier than i am 滅びるのか滅ぼされるのか日常にかく人間の残酷を見き i wonder if we will perish or will be perished in the quotidian i have seen this human cruelty

燃ゆるとは怒れることにほかならぬ湯のなかわれは四肢伸ばしおり being passionate is no different from getting angry i am stretching my limbs in the bath ま

神のみが知る真実と虚偽の間を生かされておりわれと我らは i and we are let to live between truth and falseness only god knows the distinction

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

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スクラム Scrum (pp. 89–91) よ

会報の届くそのまま焼くわれは長く挫折の手のひらに依る as soon as the newsletter arrives i burn it immediately i hinge on my palms by a sense of failure for a long time スクラムを組めずひとりの指守るこの指いかほどの価値もつものよ because i cannot form a scrum i protect my finger alone i wonder how much value this finger has

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吹雪ける町 Town of Snowstorm (pp. 94–95) ぬか

〈捕えられてよいか〉声高き父のまえ額を垂れつつ答えがたかり “is it ok to be arrested?!” in front of my father who raises his voice it is difficult to reply while my forehead is hanging low な な そじ

捕えられても今さら失うものはなき七十路の父の嘆くよりほか even if i am arrested i have nothing to lose anymore except lament of my father in his seventies みぞれ

捕えられても生き方に変わるものはなき 霙 まじりの雨に鳴る窓 despite being arrested i see no change in my way of life the rain mixed with sleet causes the windowpane to rumble ふ ぶ

あ

出頭命令迫る吹雪ける町ここにたしかに生れしことの不思議に the subpoena is approaching under the snowstorm the wonder of it i certainly was born here in this town

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

人さし指の自由 Freedom of the Index Finger (pp. 96–99) かぞ

十四の春より数えがたきまま塗る墨かげりふかき真実 since the spring of age fourteen the truth has been difficult to count to be painted darkly as black ink eclipses おうなつ

あらが

語尾すこし強め押捺乞う声の 抗 いがたきまでに老いしが stressing the end of the sentence slightly the voice begging for my fingerprint i become too old to resist 夏ふたつ越えて敗れ去るわれは満面笑みのまえに黙しつつ after two summers have passed i end up leaving defeated in silence faced by a full smile 人さし指の自由人間であることの自由につねに墨塗られつつ freedom of the index finger freedom as a human being are always marred by ink

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びこう

口角のふるえ隠せば鼻孔よりにじむ悔いともナミダとも思う when i conceal the trembling corners of my mouth i wonder what spreads from my nostril is regret and/or tears つづまりはわれを裏切るわれの手が夕ベ夕べに放つ匂いに in the end my hand betrays me due to an odor emitted every evening ただ人でありたきことの貫けぬ梅雨の晴れ間を湧く雲の朝 my wish to be just an ordinary person cannot be fulfilled the morning clouds spring through at a sunny moment of the rainy season ぬか

と わ

今われに言葉は尽きて額伏せて押す人さし指の永遠にかえらぬ running out of words now i put my forehead downward my index finger inked and pressed down will never return forever

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

「和製」の民 People “Made-in-Japan” (pp. 100–104)

「押しました」葉書数枚書きながら書けぬ一枚は師のやさしさに “i submitted my fingerprint” while i was writing a few postcards there is one card i cannot write due to my teacher’s kindness ムグンファ

誰のせいにもあらぬ自らに敗れたる無窮花咲きのこりいてほの白き nobody’s fault i was defeated by myself korean hibiscus remains blooming and glowing white dimly 闘いのもなかの群れの傷のまえわれの卑劣はためされている in the middle of the fighting crowd in front of wounds my turpitude is being tested 国の意思は民の意思ともおもうとき枕を叩きうずくまりゆく when i think the will of the nation is also the will of the people i hit a pillow crouching down

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こののちをいかなるさまに燃ゆるべき吾もわれらも「和製」の民よ after this in what way should i be passionate we are all people “made-in-japan”

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無念 Resentment (pp. 105–109)

すきやきの残りに作るビビムバブをキムチの色に染めている子の my child is cooking bibimbap in leftover sukiyaki by dying it the color of kimchi 十六となる子世のものをまだ見ぬ子何に意味もつ指のその紋 a child turning sixteen is a child who is not full-fledged yet what meaning do the prints of the finger have ひ

耳小さくうなじに曳きて光る汗うつむく今し子が指紋押す the glimmer of sweat drips from his small ear to his nape the child looks down and the fingerprint is pressed now と

水流をかさね不透明となる歴史この不思議さは人を解かざる history which becomes opaque by piling up the layers of the current this mystery un-relieves people

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梅雨はげし遅れ小さく花咲かす白きトラジのけぶれる真昼 midday amid the tempestuous rainy season in the haze of belatedly bloomed small white korean bellflowers らち

日本生まれの日本育ちの母と子の外人手帳は意志になき埒 alien registration cards of japanese-born and japanese-raised mother and child are against their intentions ご い

〈生まれたらそこがふるさと〉うつくしき語彙にくるしみ閉じゆく絵本 “if i am born here, this is my home country” i am closing the picture book while suffering from this beautiful phrase

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

時の旅人 Time Traveler (pp. 110–113) さぼう

ひとりこもる部屋を持ちたし机など置きたし茶房の隅に読みつぐ i wish for a room with a desk and such to retreat into i continue reading in the corner of my tearoom ほうこう

秋さかり昭和さかりを彷徨す地球にふるさと持てぬものたち the peak of autumn the height of the showa era those who cannot have a hometown on this earth wander around 人の子人の母にて時の旅人や　辿るふるさと持てぬわたくし as someone’s child someone’s mother and a time traveler i cannot have a hometown to trace

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Lee Jungja と わ

Chapter 3. Eternal Traveler 永遠のナグネ

騒乱の町 Town of Uprising (pp. 116–118) う

なみだ

シュプレヒコールくり返す頬のおさなさよ政治に倦めどなお 泪 ぐむ repeated slogans yelled by childlike cheeks make me cry although i get tired of politics 血垂らして街路にうずくまるみれば思い尽くしてわが膝を抱く when i see them dripping with blood and squatting down on the avenue i hug my knees with all my heart

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

海の墓 Grave of the Sea (pp. 119–121)

あざやかにきみ解く謎は韓国の陰謀結論づけてただ笑む you judge and just smile by concluding a mystery you brilliantly solve is a conspiracy theory of south korea

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ソ ジュンシク

五月のひかり：徐俊植の釈放 Light of May: The Release of So Junsik4 (pp. 126–128)

解かれたる人の意外にうすき肩海越えて差す五月のひかり the released person has unexpectedly thin shoulders the light of may points beyond the sea 時代の子チョーセンの子陥穽より解かれしを聞けば泣けるだけ泣く child of the era child of gook i just cry and cry when i hear he was released from the pitfall ふか で

夢に想う祖国花野はまぶしきに旅の子ら愛の深傷を負えり the fields of flowers i think of homeland in my dream are glaring the children of journey bear the deep wounds of love

4 

So Jungsik was a Japanese-born Zainichi Korean who was arrested in South Korea after being accused of being a North Korean spy.

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

昼ぼたる Daytime Firefly (pp. 129–131)

ソウル五輪に関わりあらぬ日常に父母の十円募金のかさよ the seoul olympics have nothing to do with everyday life donations of my parents’ ten cents are bulky 讃美してやがてかなしくなるまでに五輪は遠しとおし父母には the olympics are far beyond the parents’ reach to the extent that they eventually become sad after praising かぞ

食いはぐれしものが募金のかさ数うここに死にゆくといつより決めて those who can hardly feed themselves count their pennies to donate they have decided to be dying here since some time or another ここに死ぬと決めて写真を撮る母はうすき髪結い正装をする deciding to die here my mother ties back her thin hair puts on a formal dress and is photographed

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渡れぬ河 The River That Cannot Be Crossed (pp. 132–136) なみだ

泪 もろくなりしを告げあう受話器には混じるソウルよりの中継 telling each other we become flimsily moved to tears through the phone handsets that are entangled with the broadcast from seoul 大方は聞きとりがたきハングルに肩しずめつつ呼吸していぬ because i can barely understand korean i have realized that i dropped my shoulders and failed to breathe そうしん

ロス五輪ソウル五輪の差異もたぬ痩身にして子の色白き the los angeles olympics or the seoul olympics makes no difference to a slim child with fair skin 体感のまえに時空の果てしなく首都はぬれおり糸引く雨や endless time and space before bodily sensation long threads of rain the capital city is soaked

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

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射程 Shooting Range (pp. 144–147) やっかい

天皇制ファシズムという厄介さ二十四時間を侵されており troublesome called as imperial fascism we are being invaded for twenty-four hours ばっこ

さう

た

ショーワ、しょうわ、昭和の跋扈か発酵か目尻の左右に溜まれるナミダ shōwa, shouwa rampancy or fermentation of the shōwa era tears gathered in the corners of both my eyes

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きつね火 Will-o’-the-wisp (pp. 152–153) ゆ

天皇逝き李王妃が逝き逝く春の月は謎よりふかき色みす the shōwa emperor has passed away queen lee has passed away a passing spring moon exposes deeper color than a mystery ミン ビ

コジョン イウ ン パン ジ ャビ

閔姫、高宗、李垠、方子姫はかなきは天球までを揺れるきつね火 queen min, king kojong prince lee un, princess pangja transience is like a wavering will-o’-the-wisp moving to celestial spheres

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

喪章の都市 City of Mourning Sign (pp. 154–157)

ハンド・イン・ハンド歌う北京の学生に重なる祖国の若き群れたち the young herd of my homeland overlaps the students in beijing who sing “hand-in-hand” あわれ東洋中国祖国　片陰にトラジの蕾はふくらみやまぬ pity poor orient china homeland underneath the shade buds of bellflowers do not stop growing 祖国というどうしようもないものをキャタピラの影ふいにおそろし impossible thing called the fatherland caterpillar’s shadow fear unexpectedly emerged こんなふうに身近に感じてしまう中国なにか錯覚しているわたし i feel close to china like this somehow i am having an illusion

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異邦人 Aliens (pp. 159–161)

囚われのひとりに投げるわたくしの意思表示さえ異邦者のもの even the expression of my intention thrown to one of the imprisoned is that of an alien ま

統一よ成れわたくしのいのちある間にあるだけの愛からまわりする reach unification while i am still alive the whole of my love just goes round and round

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

秋景色 Autumn Scenery (pp. 162–165)

たなぞこを重ね木犀の花に寄る〈亡びぬ愛などあるものでしょうか〉 pressing palms together i beseech fragrant flowers of the sweet osmanthus “can there be such a love that does not perish?” いだ

びりょう

抱かれてなお漂えりかたわらに鼻梁たかき君はたれの恋人 even though i am embraced i am still drifting beside you the high bridge of your nose whose lover are you? 野のにおい花のにおいに充ちながらふたりいる時眉さみしかり being fulfilled with the fragrance of fields and flowers when we are together eyebrows are lonely れもん

がんしゅう

檸檬匂う宵耐えがたき 含羞 よはじめて長き手紙を書きぬ the evening with lemon fragrance unbearable embarrassment i wrote a long letter for the first time

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おそらくはわたくしの負け秋景色傷つくことなら慣れているはず probably i lose the autumn scenery i am supposed to be used to getting hurt

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

輪舞 Round Dance (pp. 180–183)

遠い遠いまだなお遠い分断の地図に輪舞の幻を見る farther and farther yet farther away i see the illusion of the round dance on the map of the division 抱擁のあらわになだれ合うさまよ未知のドイツに重なる故国 the scenery of the people rushing forward and embracing openly unknown germany mirrors my homeland 「統一」の文字乱舞する終日を音なき雨が町濡らしおり throughout the whole day the letters of “unification” are dancing freely silent rain is soaking the town ね

ウリ マ ル

花火の音消す歓声が焦がれ待つ耳に語尾つよき韓国語となる the sound of fireworks erased by the cheers long and wait our language korean sounds strong at the end of words

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うつむ

ねた

俯 きて少し妬みてニュース見るブランデンブルグに吹く風や風 facing downward with a little envy i watch the news wind in brandenburg the wind blows and blows

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

やさしき法律 Gentle Laws (pp. 184–187)

民ら病む病むに気付かぬこの国の春のひかりは充ちて花咲き the people are sick this country is unaware of the sickness the light of spring fills and flowers bloom れんぎょう

祖国まぼろしいつの日もわれは迷いびと連 翹 の黄に野はそよぐとも homeland illusion at any day i am a wanderer even though the yellow of forsythia sways the fields かいな

人を人とし思うやさしき法律を腕をひらき夢にみるかな opening my arms i dream of the gentle laws that conceive of people as people

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チョゴリの子 Children in Korean Costumes (pp. 188–190)

隣人と思えばくずれおちる髪襲われているチョゴリの子らが when i think as neighbors collapsing hair children in chogori korean blouses are under attack 裂かれたるチマの悲鳴を聴く夜はからからと鳴るふたつの鎖骨 at night when i hear the screams of the torn chima korean skirt two collarbones clattering together crack crack 子を生みき祖国知らざる子を生みき母はひそかに天に罪問う i birthed a child who does not know the homeland i birthed a child this mother covertly asks heaven about her sins

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

ウリナラや身の丈ほどに燃ゆれども届かぬ父も吾も旅の子 urinara5 our country although fire flickers as tall as we are neither father nor i can reach both are the children of the journey

5 

Urinara means “our country” in Korean.

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タリョン

ナグネ打鈴 Nagune Taryong (pp. 191–198) ユ ヒ

ねいろ

聴き分けている「由煕」の声われの声見うしないたる者の音色と i am distinguishing “yuhi’s” voice6 my voice as the sounds of the people who have gotten lost ユヒ

と わ

「由煕」は永遠のナグネ敗れてわたくしはひとり見ているこの世のひまわり “yuhi” is the eternal traveler defeated alone i am watching the sunflowers of this world かえ

父の花　子の花　母の花が咲く土に還れぬナグネの花は father flower child flower mother flower bloom the flowers of nagune traveler cannot return to the soil

6  Yuhi is the protagonist of the novel titled Yuhi, which received the prestigious Akutagawa Award for literature in 1989. See Lamentation as History: Narratives by Koreans in Japan, 1965– 2000 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005) for more information.

Selected Poems from Nagune Taryong: Eternal Traveler

かえ

うず

シンセタリ ョン

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タリョン

還れざる花は乳房に埋めおく身勢打鈴はナグネ打鈴よ into the breast i bury and leave the flowers which cannot return lamentation of life is a sojourner’s lamentation

FIVE

Lee-kun’s Blues

WON SOO-IL Translated with an introduction by Nathaniel Heneghan

“Lee-kun’s Blues” (“Ri-kun no yūutsu”) was published in 1987 as part of Won Soo-il’s debut short story collection Ikaino Story—The Women from Cheju (Ikaino monogatari—Chejudo kara kita onnatachi). Won has since produced two immensely entertaining and idiosyncratic novels, AV Odyssey (1997) and All Night Blues (2004), as well as a compilation of anecdotes about his mother’s struggles to raise a family as a Korean immigrant in Osaka, Ikaino Tallyon (2016). Not particularly well-known or prolific, Won thus exists as a minor author of “minor literature.” Perhaps more so than any other Zainichi Korean author, however, Won’s works exhibit a single-minded commitment to the documentation of the cultural space of Ikaino, Osaka’s Korean ethnic enclave, and its formative position in the Zainichi collective imagination. This is most evident in “Lee-kun’s Blues,” wherein the titular protagonist posits Ikaino as the true “hometown” of the young generation of Zainichi Koreans for whom Cheju Island exists not “as a place to call ‘home’; it was only a place to visit.” Ikaino, in the mind of Lee, constitutes a unique syncretic space that is neither Korea nor Japan, but is made of cultural fragments of both, emblematic of the increasing hybridization and decenteredness of Zainichi Korean identity in general. Readers familiar with the Zainichi canon will note more than a passing resemblance to Kim Sa-ryang’s important prewar work “Hikari no naka ni” (Into the light, 1939). Both stories feature young Korean teachers—Kim’s at a primary school and Won’s at one of the ubiquitous cram schools—who conceal their ethnic identity by working under a tsūmei (Japanese assumed name) but whose ambivalence about this act is amplified by an encounter with a fellow Korean student. Knowing Won’s keen awareness of his position in the Zainichi literary tradition, this allusion is clearly intentional. As a fictional work, Won’s story is remarkable in that it is both reflective and prescient, linking the protagonist’s crisis with the struggles of the prewar

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generation while hinting at a “third path” away from the determinism of homeland and identity politics. Kawamura Minato reads Won Soo-il’s work as an expression of “creolization” (kureōruka) for the free intermingling of Japanese and Korean language as well as the Kansai and Cheju dialects that permeates its text. Sadly, this element is invariably lost (or at least muted) in translation, despite every reasonable attempt to preserve it, short of compromising the text’s readability. “Lee-kun’s Blues” was also adapted into a feature-length drama in 1990 for NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) and retitled Leekun’s Tomorrow (Ri-kun no ashita), presumably because the yūutsu of the original title, which can be more literally translated as “gloom” or “depression,” was deemed too morose for a general audience. The remake contained important alterations and additions, including the perhaps inevitable conversion of Lee-kun’s love interest to a Japanese woman. Won has been open about the crippling writer’s block that accounts for his relatively modest literary output over the years; nevertheless, this should not obscure his position as a critical bridge between the older generation of writers such as Kim Sok-pom and Ri Kaisei and the “new Zainichi” authors of the 2000s like Kaneshiro Kazuki and Gen Getsu. Lee-kun’s Blues On the Takarazuka Line, where one can still find traces of Japan’s earliest settlers, there is a station called Hattori. This is where the Kinoshita family relocated after making a small fortune on their women’s clothing business, leaving their old house in Ikaino behind. Yonshi, the head of the Kinoshita household, in his days of being dirt poor, used to dream of making a little money and going back to Cheju Island. Although Japan was in name a foreign land, once he had succeeded in business and held some property, that dream began to seem illusory. For Yonshi, Cheju was no longer a place to call “home”; it was only a place to visit. It’s been firmly established since time immemorial that, given money and time, a man will next seek out women. In Yonshi’s case, he used the clever pretense of scouting locations for a branch factory in Cheju. While Yonshi sampled the modern and refined young women of his hometown, his son Masaumi grew up in the Hattori station vicinity. Pu Yonyuni, her personality as rugged as the volcanic rocks of Cheju, knew full well that her husband Yonshi used the striking quality of his member to attract women. And yet she lacked the figure herself to create a sexy flirtatiousness that would evoke either passion or interest. Still, there remained an inner dissatisfaction in him that was hard to appease.

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From a young age, the pudgy Masaumi received constant chiding from Yonyuni. When he ate too much, his mother would say, “My God, what a glutton!” When he made a trivial mistake, she would say, “What an idiot.” But Masaumi’s biggest misfortune was his resemblance to his father. “You’re just like a crooked stamp of your father,” his mother would say to him, apropos of nothing. Masaumi’s natural diffidence coupled with the distress brought on by his mother’s hysteria generated a lack of guts that only grew as his body did. Already with an immense body and a timid disposition in first grade, the mumbling Masaumi was given the nickname “Dumb White Pig,” owing in part to his pale skin. Even as a ninth grader, this nickname still clung to him like dog shit. Realizing somewhat belatedly that Masaumi’s grades would not be good enough to get into a decent public high school, Yonshi searched frantically for a cram school in their area. Locating a “Yearning for Learning” center near the Tenjiku River cemetery, Yonshi turned to Yonyuni. “Take Masaumi and register him in this class,” he ordered. “You might as well throw money into the ocean,” she said. But Yonyuni’s protestations were not enough to change Yonshi’s mind. Resigned to the task, she dragged the reluctant Masaumi to the Yearning for Learning registration desk. There were two reasons for Masaumi’s reluctance. The first was that wherever Yonyuni was, she always talked as if she were still in Ikaino. The second was that he knew that this cram school was full of classmates who called him “Dumb White Pig.” If possible, he’d much rather go to the cram school in front of the train station. When he expressed this wish to Yonshi, he smacked him on the head and yelled, “If it’s in front of the station, you’ll just sneak off to the arcade! That’s no place for studying!” Despite their differences, his parents seemed to agree on this count. “That’s right. We’re already throwing money away on cram school. I don’t want to throw money away on video games too,” Yonyuni added. Yonyuni strode into the Yearning for Learning offices the same way she strode into the Korean marketplace. To her disappointment, the front desk was completely unmanned. Arguably too small to call an office, the confines were deserted, the desk scattered with miscellaneous documents. Looking beyond the front desk, she spotted cigarette smoke floating in from the back. “You wait here,” Yonyuni said to Masaumi and charged into the back unceremoniously.

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On the corner of a desk piled with textbooks, workbooks, loose worksheets, and other odds and ends, Yonyuni found a half-consumed cigarette smoking in an ashtray. With an air of self-righteous indignation, Yonyuni went to put it out when she heard a voice from behind her. “May I help you?” She turned around to find a female employee standing in front of her with a puzzled expression. “What do you mean, ‘May I help you?’ Take a look at this!” The employee looked at the still burning cigarette Yonyuni held between her fingers. “It’s Mr. Yoshimoto again.” “This is ridiculous.” “I do apologize,” the employee bowed in remorse. “It’s not your fault,” Yonyuni said. “If you’re gonna blame anyone, blame—” Yonyuni was cut off before she could complete the sentence. “That would be me,” said Mr. Yoshimoto, suddenly appearing. With just one glance, Mr. Yoshimoto could instantly tell that Yonyuni was from Cheju. This natural talent came with his being born and raised in Ikaino. In the past, Mr. Yoshimoto thought that he would teach under his given name, Lee. But despite the legacy left behind by the pioneers that built this town, it was still a foreign land. “‘Mr. Lee’ is fine, but it can be somewhat confining. It’s better to go with ‘Yoshimoto’ and live free of worry. If you play along, the Japanese can be surprisingly tolerant.” Partially through the persuasion of Mr. Yanai, who was assigned to the Yearning for Learning Academy before Lee, he decided to go by Mr. Yoshimoto. This Mr. Yanai, who Lee-kun had admired so much during his student days, at one time published an extremely unique paper, “The Paradox of Divided Nations,” in the K University journal. Lee recalled being moved by the lucidity of Yanai’s argument. Judging by the content of the essay, Lee speculated that Yanai—who was enrolled in the law department—was studying political science, but he was actually way off. Yanai’s true ambition was to become a lawyer. “We’re constantly constricted by laws and yet we’re forced to find our way in Japanese society through the legal acquisition of official qualifications. This is yet another example of paradox,” he’d say. Being raised in Ikaino, Lee couldn’t deny the appeal of a utilitarian sensibility. But it was Yanai who helped him grasp his own position within the sphere of reason. Lee decided to pursue a career as a real estate appraiser, his job as a cram school teacher being only a temporary measure. Still, he

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found the cram school trade to be far too constraining. It was one thing for him to suppress his freewheeling Ikaino attitude, but the stress of not being able to use the Korean he worked so hard to learn in college was nearly unbearable. However, the truly unbearable events were still to come. “That lady really caught me off guard yesterday, “ the female office worker said, glancing up at Lee. “Yeah, that must have been something of a culture shock for you.” “It really was.” “Then again, if you start going out with me, you’ll be in for even more of a culture shock.” “Mr. Yanai says you have female trouble, so I think I’ll pass.” “Ah, gimme a break.” Lee-kun sighed and, resting his head (affectionately dubbed “rooster head” for its distinctive hair style) on one elbow, sank deep into thought. If one took the features of James Dean and remade them with a seasoning of garlic and red-pepper paste, you’d have a pretty good sense of Lee’s appearance. This is why, for Lee, any run-in with a thug with a perm would have to result in a fierce stare down. Lee would, of course, eventually back down, feigning nonchalance. No matter how confident he was in his own toughness, he couldn’t afford to mess with professional gangsters. The phone rang. Kita-chan answered it in a pleasant voice, then called Lee over with a meaningful look in her eyes. “It’s for you, Mr. Yoshimoto.” Lee sprang to the receiver. “OK, got it. Be there in a minute.” He hung up the phone, receiving a cold glare from Kita-chan. “I knew you had female trouble,” she said. “What are you talking about?” Lee protested out of habit, but in the back of his mind he thought, “She couldn’t be more right.” The current source of Lee’s female trouble was Im Honmi, a shopgirl at S Department Store from Lee’s native Ikaino. Honmi had alternated between North and South Korean–affiliated high schools before ultimately ending up at S Department Store. The startling thing was that her good looks and flawless fair skin could have easily led to a career as a fashion model. And her voluptuous hips were enough to attract the gaze of even the most devout Buddhist disciple. Unfortunately, Lee had not yet had the pleasure of wrapping his arms around those voluptuous hips. To Im Honmi, Lee-kun was like an expensive bottle of spirits, kept behind the bar. She always called up Lee immediately after one of her dates. Her partners on these dates were usually the

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spoiled sons of local business owners (pachinko parlors, cafés, bars, BBQ joints, love hotels) who seemed like they had money, but who could not compare to Lee in terms of either looks or intelligence. “Kanho, you’re the best man I know.” “Yeah, no kidding,” was Lee’s unhesitant response to this telling phrase from Honmi, though the blatant posturing of his act struck him as somewhat terrifying. Such was the extent of his self-consciousness surrounding the whole macho routine. And yet he had not gotten so much as a kiss out of it. To top it off, Honmi was Mr. Yanai’s niece. In other words, Lee was under the close scrutiny of the protector of “The Paradox of Divided Nations.” At one point, Mr. Yanai spoke to Lee about the situation with his niece. “If you plan on marrying her, you’re free to kiss her or do whatever you want,” he said to Lee who had an incredulous look on his face. “Sonbei, you mean to say I need a legal basis for even one kiss?” “As long as nations exist, you need a legal basis for everything,” was Mr. Yanai’s reply. Lee breathed a heavy sigh, as the sensuous figure of Im Honmi floated into his head in the midst of class preparations. “Mr. Yoshimoto. Kinoshita Masaumi—the boy who came yesterday— has been assigned to Class A.” “OK, thanks,” responded Lee brightly. It’s only natural that he be assigned to the lowest Class A, Lee thought, since Masaumi’s placement test showed him scoring a two out of five in all five subjects. He recalled Masaumi’s cram school registration yesterday with a complacent smile. Kita-chan began by explaining in a polite manner that the standard for Yearning for Learning was at least a three in all subjects, tacitly suggesting they withdraw his application. Yonyuni responded by protesting in a loud voice more suited for the Korean market in Tsuruhashi. “Isn’t that what cram school is for—to help kids who have bad grades? That’s why I brought him here in the first place! I didn’t want to bring him ’cause I thought it would be like throwing money in the ocean, but his teacher told him that at this rate he won’t be able to get into high school. So his father looked all over for the best cram school and decided on this place. What do you think’ll happen if we go home emptyhanded? Both the boy and I are gonna get knocked senseless, that’s what! Then it will be on your head.” “I can’t take responsibility for that.” “Well, if you can’t take responsibility you better just let him in.” “I just thought that without the basic skills, he’s going to have a hard time following the class.” “He goes to school. You have nothing to worry about.”

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“I don’t know . . .” Seeing Kita-chan rendered speechless, Lee decided to intervene. Feeling a common Ikaino kinship with Yonyuni, who had no compunction about browbeating her counterpart until she got her way, he was on the verge of calling her onmoni until he caught himself. “Okāsan, for the time being all he has to do is take the entrance exam.” But this approach also proved counterproductive. “You say, ‘for the time being,’ but you’ll just be testing how smart he is, right? I know this boy better than anyone and I can tell you how smart he is. So for now you can hold your nagging.” Lee was about to say, “Chansori animunida—it isn’t nagging”—but through sheer power of reason he managed to restrain himself. In the end, as a prerequisite, they agreed to admit him into the school, treating the entrance exam as a mere formality. Looks like it’s going to get interesting around here, Lee-kun thought with another sheepish grin. Of course he had no way of knowing just how much of a mess it would be. The darkness that descended like a raven on the Tenjiku River cemetery combined with the dark crimson of the western sky to create a surrealist impression. Feeling poetic, Lee-kun moved toward the window. Reflected in the fluorescent light of the classroom window were the faces of cram school students working on a study question alongside the face of Rooster Head. Lee-kun gazed at his own visage with the pretentious air of Jean-Paul Belmondo. “Not bad at all,” he thought narcissistically. The vague outline of a passenger jet emerged out of the twilight darkness, bending its nose to descend into the crimson western sky. The crystal glimmer of the pilot’s light somehow transformed the crude commercial airliner into an exotic extraterrestrial object. That something so mundane could change into something supernatural was a testament to the magic of light. “Mr. Yoshimoto, I see you looking out at that airplane there. Have you ever been on one?” Kato Yumi, seated near the window, posed this question with an air of mischief. With a face seemingly too mature for an eighth-grade girl, Yumi stared intently at Lee. Something hot ran through the core of Lee-kun’s body. Feeling rattled, Lee returned her gaze, knowing that it would be the end of him if he wavered here. “I took one in high school,” he said. “Domestic or international?” “International,” he said, realizing only afterward that he had just fallen into Yumi’s trap.

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“So, what country did you go to?” “What country? You know, Hawaii, London, Paris. Places like that.” “Rooster Head is lying!” At the sound of Mizoguchi Hitoshi’s voice from the back, the classroom suddenly erupted in chaos. At this rate, there’s no way I’ll regain control, Lee thought. All I can do is wait it out until they expend all their energy. Kato Yumi gazed at Lee again with a satisfied smile of victory. “I guess I have female trouble after all, goddammit,” Lee thought to himself before initiating a crackdown on the state of anarchy. The first step was the blood sacrifice of the instigator, Mizoguchi Hitoshi. Lee-kun took a rolled-up copy of the workbook and smacked him on the head. “Hey, I wasn’t the only one!” came the invariable protestation from the instigator, the agony of defeat at being the only one punished. Lee glared at him. “You’re the one who started this whole thing,” he shot back. But of course Mizoguchi was called the instigator for a reason. He wasn’t about to be shut down that easily. “It’s because Rooster Head was talking to girls again,” came the counterattack. “What are you talking about? I was just answering a question.” “You’re supposed to answer without lying though.” “Who was lying?” “You’ve never been on a plane, but you still say you went to London and Paris.” “It was just a joke.” “Yeah, right.” “That’s enough!” At Lee’s fierce intimidation, the once-active flock fell into silence. “I’m going to read out the answers now, so listen carefully.” Lee read the explanations in an aggravated tone, his head swimming. Of course, as the instigator pointed out, Lee had never been to any such place as Hawaii. But he had been on an international flight before—to Cheju Island. He wondered what would have happened if he’d told Yumi, “I went to Cheju Island in Korea,” instead. The potential consequences were obvious. “Rooster Head is Korean!” would go the malicious gossip. This would render his donning of the mask of “Mr. Yoshimoto” completely superfluous. How much better it would be if he had gone by Mr. Lee from the start . . . Then again, as long as he was Mr. Yoshimoto, the possibility of the taunt “Korean Rooster Head” remained moot. This is, above all else, why he had no choice but to act out the part of either court jester or autocrat. Lee let out a depressed sigh. As if on cue, the students declared in unison, “Teacher, class is over!” The quartz clock that hung above the

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blackboard—wedged in between a timeline of Japanese history—indicated 7:40. Students began throwing their books into their backpacks, preparing to rush out of the classroom. The speed of their actions was impressive. In moments like these, the authority of the teacher was completely useless. Lee brushed back his rooster hair and, glaring at the students, delivered his address. “Hey, everyone, listen up. This classroom is like a kingdom. And who decides what time it is in the kingdom? The god of that kingdom. Class isn’t over until God says it’s over! You got that?” “Ha-ha, the chicken thinks he’s a god,” laughed Mizoguchi, holding his belly. The others joined in the laughter. Lee was half-laughing too, of course. “Teacher, if you end class now, I’ll let you take me out on a date.” With Kato Yumi’s follow-up attack, the group erupted in even greater laughter. “You better not, Yumi. That rooster beak is sharp, you know.” Mizoguchi’s biting remark added even more fuel to the fire. The desks rattled with laughter as students got up to leave the classroom. At this point it was either eat or be eaten. Lee-kun rose for a counterattack. “So you’re jealous, huh, Mizoguchi?” The presumably startled instigator merely looked back coolly. “The rooster is the one who’s jealous,” he shot back. With that, the more experienced Lee was dealt a crushing defeat. “What the hell am I doing?” thought Lee, lamenting his own immaturity. The congestion in the hallway between classes was worse than the train platform at rush hour. Bodies dashing out of the classroom collided with the bodies rushing in to secure their favorite seats, while future masturbators in training, their exuberant howls echoing through the hallway, bumped up against girls standing stock-still engrossed in their fashion magazines, interrupting the flow of traffic. Then there were the third-rate hooligans who followed one of their friends, hurrying into the restroom like a bolting rabbit, to switch the lights on, off, on, off, as if trying to turn the place into an impromptu disco. There was even a stereotypical nerd propped up against the wall, oblivious to the world around him, hard at work on his English vocabulary—all of this reflecting the complex fabric of human relations. Kato Yumi, gazing at Lee as he erased the blackboard, murmured in a soothing tone, “Teacher, you’re really amazing.” This did not escape the attention of the Maki Junko contingent, already lined up in their favorite seats for the next Class A session. This is going to be bad, thought Lee. Sure enough, the Junko contingent grinned in amusement. Gimme a break, grumbled Lee to himself.

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He turned to Yumi with a half scowl. “Hurry up and go home, will you?” he said. “Home is boring,” she said with a sidelong glance. Obeying the old proverb, “Wise men steer clear of danger,” the chalkcovered Lee-kun gathered his textbook and notepad and attempted to swiftly make his way out of the room. On the verge of exiting, he heard festival-like chanting coming from outside the door. “Heave-ho, heave-ho. White Pig, heave-ho. Heave-ho, heave-ho. Big Dummy, heave-ho.” To this accompaniment, a mortified Kinoshita Masaumi appeared before Lee. The sense of disorientation of a new student combined with the diffidence and squirming self-consciousness unbefitting a boy of his size was bound to become the subject of endless mockery. Upset at the sight of a fellow Zainichi being the butt of a joke, Lee lashed out. “What the hell is going on here? Hurry up and get in the classroom!” Although it seemed that the fire of the group’s festival had been snuffed out, it was immediately rekindled at the sight of Kato Yumi. “Behold! The recipient of the Dumb White Pig’s unrequited love hath arrived!” declared Sugishita Hideki. If Maki Junko were the emperor, he was the second in command. “Yumi-chan, Yumi-chan,” his cronies called after her repeatedly. Notorious troublemaker Yokoi Taichi, effecting an effeminate voice, joined in calling, “Yumi-chan, Yumi-chan.” The ridiculousness of the scene forced a strained laugh from Lee in spite of himself. Kinoshita Masaumi, the subject of all this ridicule, turned bright red like a boiled lobster while Kato Yumi, the recipient of Masaumi’s so-called unrequited love, could only look away in sadness. There are so many doomed loves in this world. Without knowing the details, Lee had the ominous feeling that this was one of them. He looked at Masaumi, reflecting on his own painful experiences. Pushed forward by Sugishita Hideki’s cronies, Masaumi inched closer to Kato Yumi. Looking like he might burst into tears at any moment, the sight of the boy struggling to stand his ground was both touching and painful. Lee grabbed Masaumi by the arm, holding him back. “Take a seat,” he ordered. “Before I sit down, I have something to say to Yumi,” said Yokoi Taichi, impersonating Masaumi in his effeminate voice. “Why don’t you go talk to the headstones at the Tenjiku River cemetery,” Lee said to him, smacking him lightly on the head. This transformed Yokoi into a petulant child. “The rooster hit me!” he said, bursting into mock tears.

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“Bull-y-ing! Bull-y-ing!” The group chanted in unison at Sugishita’s direction. “This is ridiculous.” Lee urged Yumi forward in his own attempt to leave the room, making it look as if the two were leaving together. Once again Yokoi didn’t miss a beat. “Please don’t do anything to Yumichan, Mr. Rooster. It’ll hurt the Dumb White Pig’s feelings.” This yielded another eruption of laughter. Lee-kun felt a pang in his heart. What kind of teacher allows himself to be manipulated by his students like this? “Here’s the thing. You can drive your students, but you can never let them drive you. You have to pull them into your ring and make them play by your rules.” Lee recalled these words of wisdom, which Mr. Yanai imparted to him at some point in time before they faded into the recesses of his consciousness. Kinoshita Masaumi sat diagonally in front of the empress Maki Junko’s contingent and directly in front of the second-in-command Sugishita Hideki’s cronies. He attempted to contract his body to fit the standard-sized desk and chair but couldn’t help squirming uncomfortably. The surrounding group eyed Masaumi with devious looks. Finishing roll call, Lee gestured to an empty seat in the front row by the window. “Kinoshita, why don’t you sit here?” “But, Mr. Rooster, even a pig should have freedom of choice.” At the incitement of Sugishita, Lee had unwittingly put the students in the driver’s seat once again. But somehow he managed to restrain himself. “Why isn’t Kinoshita angry about this?” Lee wondered irritably. Reminding himself that he couldn’t assume the role of Kinoshita’s protector, he suppressed his irritation. “Turn to page fifty-three of your history book,” he said. “What, we’re starting class already? C’mon, teacher, tell us a funny story,” said Maki Junko in a desperate voice unbefitting an empress. Lee attempted to avoid this push-and-pull battle by launching into homework answers, but of course things would not go so easily. Undeterred, Maki Junko followed with a different approach. “Teacher, I have a question.” As a teacher, Lee was obligated to listen, no matter how stupid the question. “OK, what is it?” he said, going through the motions. Maki, glancing furtively at Masaumi, said, “Where is the singer Cho Yong-pil from?” Lee, tired of telling lies, brushed back his rooster hair and tried to conceal his anxiety, but one glance at Masaumi hanging his head in shame, his bright red face reaching a boiling point, rendered him speechless.

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“Cho Yong-pil is from the same country as Kinoshita,” interjected Sugishita. With that, Sugishita’s cronies and Maki Junko’s contingent shouted in unison, “Ko-re-a!” Tears began to form in Kinoshita’s eyes. He gripped both sides of the desk, his immense constricted body quivering uncontrollably. Unable to bear it any longer, Lee grabbed a brand new piece of chalk and wrote “Counting Song of People’s Rights” on the board. Number 1: All people are equal Everyone has the same rights That’s what makes us people. Number 2: In this free world There are still some people who remain ignorant What a pity this is. A wave of silence washed over the dumbfounded students, but after a few seconds the chatter returned. “What the hell does that mean?” they said. The perpetually insensitive Maki Junko, using it as an excuse to run wild, urged Lee to start singing. A feeling of shame gradually overwhelmed Lee. “I’ll sing for you later,” he said. “Maki, try replacing ‘people’ with ‘races’ in the first line, tell me what you get.” As directed, Maki read, “‘Number 1: All races are created equal.’” Lee stopped her. “I don’t have to explain this to you, right? There are no superior or inferior races,” Lee said. “My dad says that the Japanese Yamato race is the best.” With Sugishita Hideki’s words, Lee felt the ghost of Japanese imperialism pass through him. Lee amended the lyrics in his head. “Number 2: In this international world / There are still some people who remain ignorant / What a pity this is,” he thought to himself. Some time after class ended, the bell sounded from a nearby elementary school. The sound, embodying a harmonious combination of rage, regret, and sorrow, echoed through the walls of the classroom. The classroom window, illuminated by neon lights, reflected a cheerless scene of empty desks scattered with paper scraps, eraser shavings. Lee-kun pushed his chair into his desk and stood at the window. Aside from the pitch-blackness of the Tenjiku River cemetery, the nighttime

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cityscape of this foreign land that stretched before him exuded a vague feeling of neither acceptance nor rejection. Gazing at the sky west by northwest of the international airport, Lee fixated on a point just south of a glimmering star and became immersed in thoughts of Cheju. As if working a jigsaw puzzle, Lee attempted to consolidate these memories into a unified concept he could call “homeland.” But if the blood that ran through his veins dictated that he acknowledge Cheju as his homeland, his natural homeland was none other than Ikaino. And this Ikaino figured as an extension of the same foreign land that exuded the vague feeling of neither acceptance nor rejection. Come to think of it, the water from the Un Canal that traversed Ikaino also flowed in from a foreign land. Though he was raised in Ikaino, the TV shows, radio programs, movies, comic books, and other cultural materials were all of foreign origin. Even the scene of the Korean market symbolic of Cheju that was such a part of his mental fabric had become intermingled with the Japanese folksong “My Hometown.” (“A mountain where the rabbits are delicious / A river full of carp.”) Following in the footsteps of the departed students, Lee descended the building’s staircase only to run into Masaumi’s mother, Yonyuni, at the entrance. The sight of her filled him with the familiarity of having returned to Ikaino, soothing his frayed nerves. Yonyuni, oblivious to Lee’s delicate sentiment, immediately fired away. “I knew we never should’ve put him in cram school.” Lee, as if hit by a punch, unconsciously retreated a few steps. “What’s the problem, okāsan?” he asked, though using the term okāsan to refer to Yonyuni, a woman who seemed to personify kimchi, was so strange as to disrupt his very sense of language. Yonyuni glared back at Lee’s dazed expression. “Urichibe Masaumi hasn’t come home yet,” she said.1 Lee-kun glanced at his watch reflexively. The hands that appeared beneath the dim streetlights indicated 11:30. If class ended before the bell from the elementary school rang, it meant that about two hours had passed. “Do you have any idea where he went?” “If I did, I would’ve gone there a long time ago.” “I see,” nodded Lee, feeling like a fool. Then, in a half-hearted attempt to redeem his honor, said, “I’ll drive my car around and look for him.”

1 

Urichibe means “our.”

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“I should hope so,” said Yonyuni, her glare as hard as stone. So much for pleasantries, thought Lee, gazing over Yonyuni’s head at the cars passing by on the main drag. “What are you doing? Let’s get going! Where’s your car?” Yonyuni dashed off, with Lee following close behind. I can’t keep doing this, he thought with a good-natured groan. Lee stepped into his proudly purchased brand-new sedan and, glancing at Yonyuni in the passenger seat, revved the engine and sped off. Yonyuni snapped back in her seat. “Whoa, slow down, will you?” she said. “Mianhamunida, omoni.” Unconsciously, Lee apologized to her in Korean. “Wait, are you from the homeland?” Yonyuni’s tone instantly softened. “That’s right.” “Where’s your kohyang?”2 “Cheju Island.” “Really? You’re from Cheju?” Yonyuni clapped her hands together. “This car runs great!” she said, overjoyed. Lee-kun explained in brief the events leading up to Masaumi’s disappearance, yielding a groan from Yonyuni. “My boy is such an embarrassment,” she grumbled. Lee circled the streets of this unfamiliar land that mixed buildings that looked like relics from an earlier agricultural age with modern condos. A glow from the American-influenced twenty-four-hour supermarket bathed the darkness while Lee plunged into a narrow alley that bordered the ­eerily silent Tenjiku River cemetery. The headlights of Lee’s car gradually exposed the cemetery headstones that had been illuminated only by the naked twenty-watt bulbs of the skinny poles attached to the riverside guardrail. Lee shivered with the eerie feeling of having entered the nether world, but his companion Yonyuni showed no signs of being affected. “She’s a tough one,” he thought, popping a Seven Star cigarette into his mouth as a means of distraction. The flame that appeared with the dry flick of his cheap hundred-yen lighter flickered before quickly burning out. Focusing all of his strength into his thumb, Lee attempted to summon the flame from the lighter again. “Is this really a time to be smoking? Look over there!” Startled by Yonyuni’s voice, Lee slammed on the brakes. The car’s headlights pierced the darkness, revealing a motionless figure with head hung low, blurry like some distant nebula light years away. Before Lee could utter a sound of recognition, Yonyuni said, “That’s my Masaumi.” 2 

Kohyang means “hometown.”

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Losing her footing on the gravel, Yonyuni looked as if she were about to fall flat on her face before Lee grabbed her by the arm. “Komapsumnida,”3 she said. Yonyuni gathered herself and barged forward, her body absorbing the beams of the headlights. She headed toward the base of the ring of light where Masaumi stood. Lee recognized her resourceful gait, the same as all Korean mothers in Ikaino. In Lee’s mind the Tenjiku River that flowed by their side was suddenly transformed into the Un Canal that traversed Ikaino, giving him an eerie feeling. But Lee’s deep reverie only lasted a few seconds. Yonyuni’s diminutive frame appeared to burrow into Masaumi’s chin and a dull thud resounded, overwhelming the sound of the engine’s idling. Her shoulders exuding rage, Yonyuni gazed up at Masaumi as he clutched his cheek. Lee ruffled his hair and dove confusedly between the mother and son. “Outta the way, nichan.” Yonyuni addressed him roughly, holding her gaze on Masaumi. Lee responded in a restrained voice. “We’re all in the same boat here.” A warm breeze passed through the Tenjiku River cemetery just as Masaumi’s wails became audible. “And you call yourself a man?” At Yonyuni’s shout, Masaumi let out a hiccup and began sobbing. “My god, why did I have to give birth to such a sissy? Why are you so embarrassed of being Korean?” To Yonyuni, who thought it natural that a child as vigorous as Hong Gildong be born from her sturdy loins, the fact that she instead had a son who ran off to the cemetery where he stood motionless like a dummy figured as one of the seven wonders of the world. “I don’t wanna go to cram school,” cried Masaumi with another hiccup. Realizing this was the first time he heard Masaumi speak, Lee-kun was instilled with a new sense of shock. “If you wanna quit, quit! But I can’t be responsible for what your father says.” “I don’t care what he says!” “You tell him yourself then.” “I will!” With that, Masaumi suddenly quit his sobbing and breathed a sigh of relief.

3 

Komapsumnida means “thank you.”

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“Kinoshita, you can quit cram school, but I’m not sure it will really solve your problem,” advised Lee. “Sensei, you have no idea how I feel.” “What are you talking about? Your teacher is one of us.” Masaumi stared in wonder at Lee, deeply shocked by this unexpected revelation. “You used to live in Ikaino, right? That’s where I grew up.” As if suddenly grasping the secret behind a magician’s sleight of hand, Masaumi next turned his gaze to Yonyuni. “Don’t you want to work hard at your studies so you can go to college like your teacher?” Yonyuni’s voice assumed a soothing tone, like the calm of the sea after a storm. Masaumi just stood there blankly. “But . . . I’m stupid,” he said. At this self-deprecating remark, Yonyuni’s voice became a tidal wave again. “Oh, my god. Your father might be a dog, but you’re even lower than a dog!” “Don’t say that, omoni.” While attempting to protect Masaumi, Lee also found himself infected with a certain rage. Were Masaumi his own little brother, he probably would have given him a good thrashing a long time ago. He played out this scene in his mind, thinking, “How can you be such a loser?” Perhaps because the engine had been running for so long, the headlights started to dim. For a moment, Lee considered killing the engine. But if he killed the engine, they would lose all the light that came with it and would once again be plunged into darkness. Forget it, he thought to himself, and turned his gaze back to Masaumi who stood just outside the field of the dimming headlights. “You can yell at me all you want. I’m gonna go to a place that’s not Korea or Japan.” “Where the hell is that?” Yonyuni’s cross-examination attempted to attach meaning to Masaumi’s words. For Yonyuni who had always lived in the concrete physical world, this abstract space—“not Korea or Japan”— that Masaumi spoke of in a frantic yet vague tone could only exist as an actual place, perhaps somewhere in the middle of the ocean. Lee could hear the rough breathing of Masaumi who was enclosed in the darkness of this strange landscape and stood otherwise motionless as if he had become a headstone himself. The tense silence expanded like a supernova, threatening to swallow up Lee in the process. Images of the creation of the universe flashed through his mind like electric sparks. The sound of a motorcycle gang racing down the nearby highway pierced their ears and shook the ground before fading into the distance. As the ear-splitting

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noise gave way to silence, the sound of Masaumi’s sobs once again became audible. “If you’re gonna cry, cry at home.” “I’m not going home.” “Where are you going then?” “Somewhere that’s not Korea or Japan.” “Where the hell is that?” With the thought of putting an end to this eternal refrain, Lee approached Masaumi in a semimenacing manner. The black quivering mass slipped out of Lee’s grasp and ran headlong into the guardrail, attempting to fall sideways into the river below. “What the hell are you doing?” screamed Lee, grabbing on to Masaumi’s corpulent body. Yonyuni rushed to his aid, grasping her son firmly by the belt. “Calm down, Kinoshita!” “Is this what you mean by not Korea or Japan? The bottom of the river?” The strength of Yonyuni’s voice had a power that vastly dominated Lee’s. “She’s from Cheju, all right,” he thought, with a vague sense of admiration. “That’s right. I’m going to the bottom of the river. I’m sure you’ll be happy when I fall down and die.” “You’re not gonna die in this river—there’s not enough water. All you’ll get is a bump on the head. If you really wanna die, you’ll have to go to another river like Kanzaki or Yodo or Aji.” “I don’t wanna go that far.” “Let’s go home then.” “Aren’t you gonna tell dad that I tried to jump in the river?” “Why would I do that?” “I dunno.” “I’m no spy, so quit your worrying.” “OK.” Despite this odd resolution, Lee figured that all’s well that ends well. He placed a hand on Masaumi’s shoulder and said, “Hang in there, buddy.” “OK.” Masaumi nodded calmly, as if suddenly snapping out of a trance. Lee-kun felt something hot in the core of his body. His car, having been idling for so long, appeared to rally, letting out a loud roar. The headlights suddenly grew brighter, illuminating Masaumi’s body to reveal a faint smile on his face. In parting, Yonyuni grasped Lee’s hand in hers. “Nichan, Masaumi will be going back to cram school tomorrow, so please look after him for me.” “I’m not go—, “ Masaumi began to say, but swallowed his words at a glare from Yonyuni. “You can count on me.”

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Lee-kun brushed his hand through his hair and patted his chest as he saw off the mother-son pair who seemed for all the world like a comedic duo you might see onstage at Kadoza or Umeda Kagetsu. The pair cut through the layered darkness of this foreign land before finally disappearing from view. Lee sped off toward Ikaino in excellent spirits, but when he—the same Lee who only moments ago uttered the inspiring line, “Hang in there, buddy”—began to look back on past events, he let out a depressed sigh. “What a mess,” he thought with a strained smile, then switched on the FM radio.

SIX

Selected Poems from I Am Twelve

OKA MASAFUMI Translated with an introduction by Youngmi Lim

The poems of Oka Masafumi (1962–1974) were published posthumously by his parents, Ko Sa-myeong (Kō Shimei) and Oka Yuriko. One summer evening on his way home from school, Oka Masafumi threw himself from a high-rise apartment complex in his neighborhood. He was just twelve years and nine months old when he killed himself, leaving behind only a notebook of poems. At the time of Masafumi’s death, Ko had just launched his professional writing career with the award-winning publication of his autobiography What “To Live” Means (生きることの意味). As Ko recalled, “Masafumi’s death was about half a year after I published What “To Live” Means. I had been looking into the bitterness of life, delving into some thoughts about what makes life worthy of pursuing in spite of that bitterness, which I finally put together in a book titled What “To Live” Means. If this is what irony in life means, what could be a more cruel irony than this?”1 Masafumi’s parents met through their involvement in the Japanese Communist Party and faced the challenges involved in a cross-national relationship. Ko, inspired to become a writer at the time of his marriage to Yuriko, grew up in Japan but was of colonial Korean descent. Yuriko graduated from college in an era when only a handful of women did so and became a full-time teacher. At the beginning of their marriage, they were mostly dependent on Yuriko’s salary. Masafumi was born seven years after his parents’ marriage. Initially, the couple was hesitant to raise a child while still trying to come to terms with I thank James M. Raeside, Rie Sauté, and anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions, and John Lie for making this project and related workshops possible. 1  Ko Sa-myeong, “A Postscript,” in Oka Masafumi, I Am Twelve, new ed., edited by Ko Samyeong and Oka Yuriko (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1985), 177–195.

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a cross-national marriage between a former colonizer and a former colonized. Ko and Yuriko decided against a legal marriage so that Masafumi could have Japanese nationality at birth. In 1962, when Masafumi was born, Zainichi Korean legal status was precarious—it was only in 1965 (for those who declared South Korean nationality) and 1981 (for those who were stateless Koreans or declared North Korean nationality) that Zainichi Koreans were granted permanent residency.2 Japanese law at the time recognized only paternal transmission of Japanese nationality (the 1984 amendment, acknowledging maternal transmission of nationality, took effect in 1985). Illegitimate birth was the only way Japanese mothers with foreign spouses could pass on Japanese nationality, as the principle of nationality transmission was exceptionally recognized by maternal lineage. I am not sure if it is fair to classify Masafumi’s poems as Zainichi Korean literature. What I might be doing is just one-sidedly consuming his poetry from a rather essentialist frame of mind—anyone with Korean lineage in Japan, regardless of one’s self-identification, is labeled a Zainichi Korean. With this reservation, however, Masafumi’s poems could well illustrate uncertainty about being a Zainichi Korean and growing up in the 1960s and ’70s, many years before an identity claim such as being both Japanese and Korean received any recognition. What follows is a translation of selected poems. I try not to overemphasize poems delving into life and death. The combination of Chinese characters, hiragana, and katakana is exactly the way it was written by Masafumi. Unconventional use of katakana could possibly be an emphasis as well as a convenient separation of nouns without using kanji. The last poem is titled “I Am Not Dying.” There were sixty-six poems, of which I translated thirty-nine. I did not shuffle the chronological order of the poems as they appeared in the collection. Let me begin with the very first poem, which shows the excitement of having one’s own room.

2  The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) is not recognized by the Japanese state. From the Japanese administrative viewpoint, North Korean allegiance is de facto statelessness.

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Selected Poems from I Am Twelve (Bokuwa jūnisai)

ぼくのおしろ

My Castle

ぼくのおしろは何よりも とてもりっぱなおしろ ギターがころがって ラジオはベッドの上 やぶけたジーンズ イスの上 ポスターはかべから わらいかけている クリスマスにもらった オセロゲーム 今では色もはげてきました これがぼくの おしろの家来です (pp. 15–16)

My castle is a more

となりの犬

My Neighbor’s Dog

となりの犬がほえました あそびたいといって ほえました ぼくはこの犬が大スキです くさりをはずしてくれって ほえる犬よりかは (p. 17)

The next-door neighbor’s dog just barked

Splendid castle than anything The guitar just lies there The radio is on the bed My torn jeans On the chair From the wall my poster Is smiling at me The Othello game I was given at Christmas: Their colors are fading now These are the attendants of my castle

I want to play It barked I love this dog Much better than a dog Whose bark says Undo my chain, please

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せい春のたび立ち

Youthful Departures

ほらせい春のたび立ち！ まっかな太陽 のぼる太陽 でっかい太陽 ほらせい春のたび立ち！ でっかいあお空 高いあお空 まっさおな空 ほらせい春のたび立ち！ かなしい気がする うれしい気がする 不安な気がする ほらせい春のたび立ち！(pp. 20–21)

Behold, I set out for youth!

みちでバッタリ

A Chance Meeting on a Path

みちでバッタリ 出会ったヨ なにげなく 出会ったヨ そして両方とも 知らんかおで とおりすぎたヨ でもぼくにとって これは世の中が ひっくりかえる ことだヨ あれから なんべんも この道を歩いたヨ でももう一ども 会わなかったよ (pp. 22–23)

We met by chance

Bright red sun Rising sun Huge sun Behold, I set out for youth! Huge blue sky High blue sky Pure blue sky Behold, I set out for youth! I feel a bit sad I feel a bit happy I feel a bit anxious Behold, I set out for youth!

on a path! Just like that, We met! And passed each other by Pretending not to see! But for me This turned everything Upside-down! Since then I’ve walked along this path Many, many times But I never met you Even once!

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おこられました

I Was Yelled At

おこられました なぐられました でもぼくはまだ一度も おこられてうらみはもちません それは反せいしているのでしょう そんけいしているのでしょう 今もぼくはすがすがしい (p. 24)

I was yelled at

バイオリン

The Violin

バイオリンの音色が なりひびいています 世界一きれいな音です それに合わせて 花がおどります 風がうたいます 本当にいい音色です でもぼくは バイオリンはひけません でも心でひいているんです (p. 25)

The tone of a violin

I was struck But still not once Have I held a grudge Perhaps it’s because I see my fault Perhaps it’s because I respect It holds me up, refreshed, even now

Echoes around The most beautiful sound in the world In time with it Flowers dance The wind sings It really is a nice sound But I Cannot play the violin Except in my heart

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空のすべり台　

A Slide in the Sky

つらいくさとりがおわり ズキンとするこしをあげて みれば 空に七色のすべり台が あった じっとすべり台を みていると スーとひきこまれる くものかいだんを のぼり 七色のすべり台を すべる ほしのかぜをひきさき はてしなく すべっていく…… ろうどうあと そんなことをかんがえたりする

After the hard work of weeding is done Straightening my aching back I look up To find a slide of rainbow colors In the sky As I stare at the slide I am pulled steadily upward I climb up A staircase of clouds I whizz down On the slide of rainbow colors Sliding down Endlessly . . . Tearing apart the wind of stars After hard labor I often imagine such things as that

(pp. 30–31)

ごめんなさい

I Am Sorry

一つぶのなみだは 一てきの雨にあたいする 思いちがいのなみだは 雨上がりの葉からほとばしる 一てきの雨にあたいする ごめんなさいというほほえみは 雨上がりのにじにあたいする (p. 38)

One teardrop is worth One raindrop Tears coming from misunderstanding Are worth one raindrop Shooting from a leaf Right after a rainfall A smile that says, “I’m sorry” Is worth a rainbow right after rainfall

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太ようのつかい

The Messenger of the Sun

毎日出る太ようにむかって ぼくは前しんする 地平せんのかなたは いったい何時間でいけるのか けんとうもつかない 太ようのおどり子たちには いつあえるのだろうか 太ようのつかいが ここにいるというのに 海のむこうの太ようを つかみとるために ぼくはまたあなのあいたくつを あやぶんでいる (pp. 40–41)

I am advancing toward The sun that comes out every day I don’t have the slightest idea How many hours it will take To get to the end, the far side of the horizon When can I meet The dancers of the sun Although right here is The messenger of the sun In order to seize hold of The sun beyond the ocean I am worrying again About the hole in my shoe

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そうぞう

Imagination

かあさんがあんでくれた 青セーターは ピチッときまる これに 白のマフラーをまくと まるでアラン・ドロンみたい

The blue sweater

アメリカ帰りの おばさんがくれたバンドは ピチッときまる これに やぶけたジーンズをはくと まるでブロンソンみたい

The belt

げんかんよこの 自分をみ いつもそうぞうする (pp. 46–47)

I always imagine this

Mom knitted for me Is a perfect fit If, with this, I wear a white scarf I will look just like Alain Delon

My aunt brought me from America is a perfect fit If I wear Torn jeans with this I will look just like Bronson

As I stand inside the front door of our house And look at myself

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ひとりもの

A Loner

おれはどうせひとりもの べつにこどくなんかじゃねえ でもおれはたびをする おれはどうせひとりもの なにかをもとめたいから たびにでるんじゃねえ ただ　ただ　エート おれはどうせひとりもの だからやさしさも　あいも なんにもいらねえ ただ自分自身に ほえつづけ　かたりかけ…… なにを かんがえてりゃいいんだ！(pp. 48–49)

Anyhow I’m a loner Not especially lonely though, right But I go on trips Anyhow I’m a loner I do NOT go on trips Because I am seeking something Yet, yet, well, um, Anyhow I’m a loner So I don’t need Kindness or love, all right I do NOT need anything I just keep howling and talking To myself . . . What the heck Should I think about?!

じゆう

Freedom

はてしなく広がる大地 よるはほしをかがやかし ひるは太ようをかがやかす すみきった空には 青いトリがはばたいて ぼくのかたにとまる オオ！　自由だ！

The earth, boundless and wide

なんていい名なんだ！ じ・ゆ・う！ ぼくの目には 大地と空とトリがはっきりとうつっている

What a great name!

(pp. 50–51)

Causing the stars to shine at night Causing the sun to shine in the day In the pure clear sky Blue birds flutter Landing on my shoulder Ah! Freedom!

F-R-E-E-D-O-M! The earth, the sky, and the bird Are clearly reflected In my eyes

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Oka Masafumi

ゆうれいかな？

Is It a Ghost?

なぜなんだろう あいつの前って ゆうれいがいるのかナ？ 悪口をいわせる ゆうれいが まったくあいつは ちょうのう力者

Why, I wonder

またたくまにぼくの目は 光をうしなう たのしさをわすれる まったくあいつは チョーノー力者 (pp. 52–53)

Instantly, my eyes

りょこう前

Before a Trip

そうかいにはしる電車 青々した山、海 すみきった空 りょこう前のそうぞう (p. 56)

The train is moving with cheerful speed

Is there a ghost Before him? Making him speak ill of me That guy must really have Supernatural powers

Lose their sparkle Forget all fun That guy must really have SUPERNATURAL powers

Bluest blue mountains, the ocean The pure clear sky What I imagine before a trip

Selected Poems from I Am Twelve

149

ちっこい家

A Teeny House

ぼくは でっかあ～い家より ちっこ～い家のほうが スキだ しょうじやガラス たたみなどに なんとなく 人間のアイが 人じょうが こもっている でっかい家の こおりのような つめたさがない…… (pp. 60–61)

I prefer a teeny house To a humongous house Sliding screens, glass windows Tatami floor Things like those Contain Human LOVE as well as Human feeling There is none of the icy coldness Of a humongous house . . .

[Parents’ footnote: A poem written after Masafumi’s trip alone to his uncle’s home in Kitakyūshū]

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Oka Masafumi

ゴットン・ゴロン

Rumbling and Rolling

すがすがしさに まけてしまったアサ もう村の小工場の音が 春のおどり子たちと 一しょにきこえる さびしげな音だ ゴットン・ゴットン のんびりした音だ ゴロン・ゴロン 赤レンガにかこまれた 工場の中は くさくてまっくろけっけ…… その中ではたらいて まっ黒になってる人たち でもなぜか 目だけが光って…… いままでつめたかった レンガの すき間からくる風が このごろ とてもあたたかい ゴットン・ゴロン ゴットン・ゴロン (pp. 62–63)

The morning That has given itself to freshness The noise of a small factory in the village Can already be heard Together with the spring dancers A lonely sounding noise Rumbling, Rumbling A laid-back noise Rolling, Rolling Inside the factory Surrounded by red bricks Everything is smelly And pitch black . . . The people working inside, Have turned pitch black But for some reason Only their eyes shine . . . Drafts coming through cracks in the brick wall Which had been cold Are very warm These days Rumbling and rolling Rumbling and rolling

[Parents’ footnote: A poem written after Masafumi’s trip alone to his uncle’s home in Kitakyūshū]

Selected Poems from I Am Twelve Ｔシャツ 「そろそろ用意しようか」 といった 半そでのＴシャツがもう 手もとにある きょねん 長そでみたいだったのが 今ではフツウ このＴシャツは メキャベツより しんせんだ！ 海のにおいがしたり みずうみのにおいがしたり 川のにおいがしたり なまりのにおいがしたり まったく いそがしいＴシャツだ (pp. 73–74)

151 A T-Shirt “Why don’t we get it out [for the season]?” That Short-sleeve T-shirt is already Here in my hands Last year It was like a long-sleeve one Now it is normal This T-shirt is Fresher Than Brussels sprouts! It smells of the ocean And smells of a lake And smells of a river And smells of lead, What a Busy T-shirt It is Indeed

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春雨

Spring Rain

春雨 なんて気もちよいんだろう 春雨 なんてさびしげな音なんだろう ザーッザーッ こんな音じゃない シトシト　サァーサァー まるで女のナミダみたいで なんだかとっても さびしくなって カサをささないで はしってみたい 大声を出して ののしってみたい 太ようを よびもどしてみたい 春雨…… ぼくの今の気持と同じだ (pp. 79–80)

Spring rain How nice it feels Spring rain What a lonesome sound Zaaat Zaaat? Not like that sound at all Shitoshito saaa saaa It is like a woman’s tears For some reason It makes me very lonely I want to try Running Without an umbrella Shouting out loud I want to try Cursing I want to try bringing back The sun Spring rain . . . Is exactly how I feel now

フーセン

A Balloon

フーセンが だんだん しぼんでいく (p. 82)

A balloon is Deflating Little by little

Selected Poems from I Am Twelve つばき つばき おちてしまうとみんなは 「ワアきたない」 という はじめの 美しさもわすれてしまって (p. 83)

153 A Camellia Flower A camellia flower Once it falls to the ground, Everyone says, “Ew, how dirty,” The beauty of the beginning Is completely forgotten

風

The Wind

風はいちばんのけいけん者 風はいろんな物を見て そして聞いている 風が先生だったら どんなにいいだろう カーテンが風をつつむ 経験をつつんでいるのと同じだ (p. 88)

The wind is the most experienced The wind has seen many things And heard many things How nice it would be If the wind were my teacher The curtain wraps up the wind Wrapping up the wind is the same As wrapping up experience

ためいき

A Sigh

ためいきばかりついている 自分がおかしい ためいき　たいくつ おもしろくない 雨の日の午後 体に カビがはえるときって どういうとき？ こういうとき…… (p. 89)

I, who do nothing but sigh, Am strange Sighs, boredom It is not fun A rainy afternoon When Does mold grow On your body? At times like these . . .

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小まどから

From a Little Window

小まどから アイツは　いつも オレをみつめる なんだかとっても オレを気にしている なにかもとめる 目をしている 目がまるで 花びんになったみたいだ よし花びんに花をいれよう そして花をさかせてみよう それを お前がもとめるのなら (pp. 92–93)

From a little window He is always Staring at me Somehow He is bothered by me His eyes say that he Wants something It is just as if his eyes Have turned into a vase All right then, let’s put some flowers in that vase And let the flowers bloom If that is what You desire

自分

The Self

たくさん人がいると 自分がきちがいになる そして人は 自分だけがきちがいと 思っている つまり みんなが自分のことを きちがいと 思っているのだ (p. 94)

When there are so many people The self will become a mad person And one Will think Only oneself is mad Which means All people think That they themselves Are mad

Selected Poems from I Am Twelve

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へや

My Room

たびから帰り 自分のヘヤを みつめてみると どこもちがっていないのに なんか ちがう風におもわれる (p. 95)

Returning from a trip

人間

A Human

人間ってみんな百面相だ (p. 96)

Any human has hundreds of faces

ひとり

Being Alone

ひとり ただくずれさるのを まつだけ (p. 97)

Being alone

Staring at My room Nothing is different But somehow Somewhat different, it seems

Just waiting for Myself to collapse and disappear

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じぶん

Myself

じぶんじしんの のうより 他人ののうの方が わかりやすい みんな しんじられない それは じぶんが しんじられないから (p. 98)

Another’s brain

海

The Seaside

なつ　シネマでみた ラブ・ストーリーが わすれられなく 海へ行ってガールハント そうそう シネマの中のバックも 海だった でもあれ セットじゃねえの バカにこことくらべて きれいだぜ そんなことより ガールハント (pp. 99–100)

Summer: I saw in a cinema

Is easier to understand Than my own No one Can be trusted That’s because The self Cannot be trusted

A love story I cannot forget So here I am At the seaside chasing girls Oh, yes One scene of the movie Was also at the seaside But wait Wasn’t that just a stage set It’s so silly to compare it with here It’s so beautiful here And, more importantly, Chasing girls

Selected Poems from I Am Twelve

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ぼくの心

My Heart

からしをぬったよ 体に そうしたら ふつうになったんだ よっぽどあまかったネ ぼくの心って (p. 105)

I rubbed some mustard

おっくうな日

Lazy Day

雨の日 月よう　土ようのアサ とってもおっくうな日 こうゆう日は 風のあたるところで アイスティなんぞを のんだりしながら ロシア語の べんきょうするのが 一ばんだ (p. 106)

A rainy day

On my body Then It became normal My heart, of course, Must have been way too sweet and trusting

Monday, Saturday morning A very lazy day On a day like this The best thing To do is To study Russian, While drinking Something like iced tea In some breezy spot

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Oka Masafumi

リンゴ

An Apple

あそこのリンゴ あと数分で おちるでしょう じっとみてます じっとみてます

The apple over there

リンゴは もうえだと くっついていないかも しれないのに

That apple

おちません おちません

It won’t drop

なんだかみていると まぶしくなります リンゴが日光に 反射するからですか？ それとも

As I keep watching

It will drop In a few minutes I am watching still I am watching still

Might already No longer be attached To the branch

It won’t drop

Somehow, I feel it gets brighter Is that because The apple reflects The sunshine? Or

あのしんぼうづよさが まぶしいのですか？ じっとみてます じっとみてます (pp. 107–108)

Is it that patience That is so bright? I’m watching still I’m watching still

Selected Poems from I Am Twelve

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きみ

Darling

君はいつも 音楽がスキだったね キミのすきな人は バッハ　ヘンデル シューベルト　メンデルスゾーン ビートルズ　カーペンダーズ そしてぼく

You always

きみは みどりのワンピースが とても似合っていたね とても回りのビルと たいしょう的だったよ

You

きみはぼくが かってあげたかさを 天気の日もさしていたネ

You opened

きみは「さよなら」 と 一言かいた おき手紙をおいて いってしまったね

You wrote just one word

でもぼくは なかなかったよ だって 世界なんてせまいもの (pp. 111–113)

But, listen, I

Loved music Your favorites were Bach, Handel, Schubert, Mendelssohn, The Beatles, The Carpenters, And me

Looked so nice In that green dress You made a complete contrast with The surrounding buildings

The umbrella I bought for you Even on sunny days

“Bye” And left a note And just went away

Did not cry After all, The world is so small

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Oka Masafumi

ねむれないよる

The Nights I Cannot Fall Asleep

ねむれないよる コーヒーをのんで よけい ねむれなくなったりして (p. 114)

The nights I cannot fall asleep

ねむれない夜

The Nights I Cannot Fall Asleep

ねむいと思ったとき ねむんないのも ひとつのかんがえかも しれないよ ずうっと ねむってないと 目がさえるもんさ

When you feel sleepy

けむたいよ いまのけむり そのけむりを 手ではらいのけようと するやつが多い そのまま 目にしみていいから 手ではらいのけないやつが いるか (pp. 121–122)

How smoky

I imagine drinking coffee Which makes me even less Sleepy

It might be An idea Not to sleep at all If you don’t sleep at all You will become Wide awake

Is this smoke Many people Try to drive the smoke away With their hands Is there anyone Who would let the smoke sting their eyes And not try to drive it away With their hands?

Selected Poems from I Am Twelve

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無題

Untitled

にんげん あらけずりのほうが そんをする すべすべ してた方がよい でもそれじゃ この世の中 ぜんぜん よくならない

Rough-hewn people

この世の中に 自由なんて あるだろうか ひとつも ありはしない

Is there such a thing

てめえだけで かんがえろ それが じゆうなんだよ

Think it through

かえしてよ 大人たち なにをだって きまってるだろ 自分を かえして おねがいだよ

Give it back to me,

きれいごとでは すまされない こともある まるくおさまらない ことがある

There are things

Are more likely To lose out It’s better To be smooth But that Will not make the world A better place At all

As freedom In this world? There is none At all

On your own That’s Freedom, I’m telling you

Grownups! What, you ask? What else But myself Give myself back I beg you!

That cannot be Simply glossed over. There are things That cannot be brushed away

162 そういう時 もうだめだと思ったら 自分じしんに まけることになる

Oka Masafumi

On those occasions If you think you no longer can stand it Then you end up Losing to yourself

心のしゅうぜんに いちばんいいのは 自分じしんを ちょうこくすることだ あらけずりに あらけずりに…… (pp. 123–126)

The best way To settle your mind Is to keep sculpting your own self Roughly Roughly . . .

無題

Untitled

けりがついたら どっかへ さんぽをしよう またくずれるかも しれないけど (pp. 127)

When this gets done I will go For a stroll To somewhere Although I might Collapse again

Selected Poems from I Am Twelve

163

ぼくはうちゅう人だ

I Am a Creature from Outer Space

ぼくは うちゅう人だ また 土のそこから じかんの ながれにそって ぼくを よぶこえがする (p. 128)

I am

ぼくはしなない

I Am Not Dying

ぼくは しぬかもしれない でもぼくはしねない いやしなないんだ ぼくだけは ぜったいにしなない なぜならば ぼくは ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ ・ じぶんじしんだから (p. 129)

I might

A creature from outer space There is A voice calling me From the depths of the soil Again As I drift along the current of Time

Die But I cannot die Or I just don’t die I am the only one Who will never die BECAUSE I am MYSELF

SEVEN

Specimens of Families

YŪ MIRI Translated with an introduction by Abbie (Miyabi) Yamamoto

Yū Miri (b. 1968) is one of the most prolific and commercially successful writers in contemporary Japan, and has authored novels, plays, and essays. She debuted as a playwright in 1988 and received the prestigious Kishida Drama Prize in 1992 with Uo no matsuri (Festival for the fish). In 1997, she received the significant Akutagawa Prize with Kazoku shinema (Family cinema) and has continued to win many prizes and awards for both her scripts and prose. Much of her writing is often perceived to be autobiographical or at least factually based. This perception is supported by the similarities between her essays (presumed to be factual) and novels. That she was sued for invading the privacy of a woman who claimed to be the model of the protagonist of her first novel, Ishi ni oyogu sakana (The fish that swims in the stone; 1994), only further justifies this view. These presumptions, however, have been challenged by some critics who, among other things, point to Yū’s comments where she revealed that her essays are a place for her to develop ideas for fiction rather than to record factual events.1 Thematically, Yū’s writings often revolve around families and, in particular, dysfunctional family relations. She is unusual among Zainichi Korean writers who publish under an obviously Korean name in that she has not published many works focused on explicitly Zainichi Korean issues, such as citizenship, history, the Korean peninsula, and border-crossing. Since she gave birth in 2000, however, these themes have grown in centrality within her corpus of work. Her literary style is sharp, elegant, and realistic. She is a writer who is able to inscribe her narratives with the subtle details that infuse them with 1 

For more on this view, see Nagaoka Morito, Yū Miri “Yū Miri” to iu monogatari [The story called “Yū Miri” by Yū Miri] (Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan, 2009).

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Yū Miri

a compelling sense of reality. Her similes, which are highly original and evocative, are of particular note. The following essays are unusual within her corpus for their explicit and central treatment of more “typical” Zainichi Korean issues and the frequent usage of Korean terms. However, in that they appear to be autobiographical, they are consistent with her overall style. In these early works, one sees that her Korean heritage colors her past, but is not explanatory or determinative of her present life. These short essays were originally published in the weekly magazine Shūkan Asahi (Asahi weekly). They were part of a series called Kazoku no hyōhon (Specimens of families) that ran from July 1993 to December 1994. The first two sections (untranslated here) tell stories of the conflicts within families, while the third section (translated here) focuses on her family of origin, and portrays many issues and behaviors associated with individuals in the Zainichi Korean community. Glosses of Korean terms have been given as in the original essays. Shinoyama Kishin and My Father “Hey, Dad? Do you know the photographer Shinoyama Kishin?” “I do.” “He says he wants to take photos of us.” I talked into the receiver loudly, enunciating each word distinctly. I called my father because Mr. Shinoyama said he wanted to take our photo for a portrait series he runs in the men’s magazine Brutus. My father works at a pachinko parlor. Whenever I call him the noise rushes into my ears like water, so I take a deep breath as if I were standing on the edge of a diving board. “What kind of photos?” he asked. “Photos of us side-by-side in a pachinko parlor.” “And the outfit?” I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly. “What am I supposed to wear?” He didn’t want to be photographed in his pachinko parlor uniform. “Oh, uh, he said that you could just wear your nice dress suit.” Like a popular celebrity might speak when talking to his agent, my father said, “OK. Well, let me know when the schedule’s finalized. Talk to you later!” and hung up, leaving a lively and cheerful voice I’ve never heard before ringing in my eardrums. That day, my father came late; he didn’t show up even after the scheduled time of ten thirty. Thinking that he might still be asleep, I called him at home wiping my clammy forehead, but he wasn’t there.

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Then he appeared without a word of apology, and confidently walked right up to Mr. Shinoyama: “I wonder if this is okay? I brought another one too.” He showed Mr. Shinoyama his brand-new suit. He had been to the barbershop. When Mr. Shinoyama said, “That’s great,” my father then pulled his gold-rimmed glasses up onto his forehead, and asked, “And the glasses?” peering into Mr. Shinoyama’s face. “Better to wear them,” Mr. Shinoyama replied, to which my father nodded approvingly, as if to say, of course. Those glasses were his most prized possession. When Mr. Shinoyama said, “Dad, your tools,” my father smoothly glided by the photography equipment and received his tools like a baton (one a small silver hammer, and the other a stick with a pachinko ball on its tip) from (probably) a subordinate and came back with a big smile on his face, as if to say, I am so glad I’ve been a pachinko handler all this time. My father tightly held his tools and took a stance like a boxer. “Your dad is so theatrical and funny,” said Mr. Shinoyama, but my lips were frozen in a stiff half-smile like a basting yarn. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to burst into laughter or into tears. “Your hands! Higher up!” Mr. Shinoyama shouted to compete with the surrounding noise. I turned around again, even while thinking I really shouldn’t. My father was holding the tool up high like a drumstick. Aghhhh . . . Inside, I let out a voice like a balloon with a hole in it. The photo shoot ended well, but . . . My father announced in a serious tone, “There’s a Chinese restaurant I know of just around here so let me show you the way by car.” Fifteen minutes later, my father’s car in the front didn’t look like it was stopping anytime soon. The three cars just kept running quietly on residential streets. Half an hour later, we finally arrived at the restaurant. On the table of the private room of the top floor of the restaurant, there were napkins, plates, and glasses for each of us already laid out. My father said, “I did some photographing when I was young too, but nowadays the photographs you get from expensive cameras and disposable instant cameras are the same.” Mr. Shinoyama didn’t change his expression a bit and said, “Leica and the rest, they’re all the same nowadays. That’s why I show off with these big-deal-looking ones like I used today.” My father kept carrying on and started lamenting the computerization of pachinko platforms saying that when machines evolve, humans lose the chance to show off their skills. Then Mr. Shinoyama said, “You know, I just bought a massage chair the other day. It’s fabulous. I don’t need a masseuse anymore.”

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“Sensei, which manufacturer’s was that?” “Oh, it’s called ‘National Rubby-Dubby.’” “How much is that Rubby-Dubby?” “The Rubby-Dubby is five hundred thousand yen. But I bought it for two fifty.” “OK, Miri, you go see the president of National tomorrow. And if you say, ‘I don’t know what kind of commercials you are putting on air, but it is much more effective to have Shinoyama Sensei go around telling people that National Rubby-Dubby is the best. My father also bought one because of that,’ then Shinoyama Sensei would get some advertisement royalties.” Everyone burst out laughing at my father’s words, but he was dead serious. Without touching any of the food or drinks, he just talked and talked about how he wanted to become the president, how he had been a virgin until twenty-seven, but then one day he decided to live it up and hunted down numerous women, and on and on . . . A bottle of Shaoxing wine was finished, and then two. It was now time for Mr. Shinoyama to be back in the studio, but his face was flushed. My father started telling old tales of the time my mother left him fifteen years ago, “My Wife, Oh, She Left Me, Oh.” “You must have gambled too much in horse racing,” said Mr. Shinoyama. An agonized smile spread over my father’s gloomy face and he said, “I’ve never drowned in gambling.” When we were done with the meal, my father took out a bunch of ten thousand yen bills from his inside pocket and handed one to each person saying, “This is to cover your transportation costs.” Everyone said, “Huh?” and fumbled with the bill, but Mr. Shinoyama just smiled and said, “Oh my, I get the same ten thousand yen as everyone else?” and simply put it in his pocket. My father said, “Oh, it’s only a joke” and chuckled. Feeling grateful to Mr. Shinoyama for going with the flow, I chuckled along with my father like a warbling pigeon. Lychees In eighth grade, I started running away from home a lot. The first time I went to Enoshima. It was in the middle of the winter and I remember it was so cold that when I sighed my breath felt warm. The police would have caught me if I wandered about at night, so I slept in the elevator of an empty vacation condo with the sign “Vacancies Available” hanging outside. The custodian found me. His wife didn’t ask me anything and just gave me rice balls and tea. Then she took out some lychees from the freezer and peeled them for me. While letting the lychee melt in my mouth I told them my father’s home phone number (my parents were separated).

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Ten years later I went to see this custodian couple. I had found out that they were managing a campsite in Kujūkuri. They were living in a small trailer and said, “It feels like we’re traveling—it’s fun,” and smiled at each other. “You know, my husband used to work at a company. One day, when we were taking a walk on his day off, we saw that white condo. Then, he said, Wouldn’t you like to live in a place like that?” They took turns talking, like they were on a seesaw. “We asked a real estate agent we knew to introduce us to the owner of the condo and,” “then, he quit the company!” They said another reason was because she did not get along with their son’s wife. “We don’t like fighting.” “Right, me and him, neither of us like fighting. We moved from the condo to here also,” “because there were so many vacation condos being built. Then we got stuck in between the condo owner and the residents who said that the condos destroyed the surrounding scenery.” “So we decided to become the custodians here.” I looked around the trailer, which looked smaller than my studio in the city. “Everything’s within arm’s reach. It’s quite comfortable.” The warm summer rain started coming down. They looked at the rain hitting the small window of their trailer and said, “Oh, there are going to be cancellations.” “Yup, I bet there will be,” like they were going around in a circle. “We have a dream.” “This time we want to live in the mountains, instead of by the ocean.” “I wonder if we should do some live-in work in some inn in the mountains . . .” Their faces were calm and displayed a faint smile of deep repose. I wondered if a couple over sixty could live in a cabin in the mountains. The wife stood up and took out a frozen lychee from the freezer. When I ate the lychee, my memories from ten years ago spread in my mouth and I blushed. The couple opened the door and kept waving their hands at me with the trailer door open, even though that let in the violent horizontal rain. Maybe this elderly couple were the real runaways, I thought. If I could abandon my house and become free, then . . . WeMayNotBeThatBad Teenage girls pass through my little sister’s apartment. These girls are running away from troubles they only hint at and come to my sister’s apartment. They wait there sleeping in a small six-mat room, bumping into each other’s legs and arms, until the punishing summer rays weaken, without even a fan. When I opened the door to my sister’s room, the two girls who were lying around suddenly stiffened. U, with a round face and a bobbed girl’s cut, had her lips tightly closed like a boy. L, with a bobbed cut and a bare

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nape, lacked eyebrows and eyelashes. Whatever I asked, U refused to open her mouth and just stared at me as if to say, “If you come any closer, I’m going to bite you,” and L just cocked her head to the left and gazed outside the window. A few days later, my sister called. “U is an only child from a rich family. Her father is a dentist and her mother is a hygienist. She has been refusing to go to school since third grade. She refused to talk so she was taken to a psychiatrist, to a school for kids like her, to the head of some weird new religion, and stuff like that. She said that at each of these places, everyone would smile when they saw her. U said that really scared her.” I was stunned when I heard this because I, too, had tried to smile hard when I saw her. Anyone would be afraid of a stranger coming up to her with a forced smile plastered onto her face. “What’s strange is U’s dad. The other day, I visited U’s home. Whenever I spoke to U, her father, who was sitting right next to her, would answer instead, speaking at the speed of a machine gun. I asked U if it was always like that. She said that her dad always spoke instead of her at home so she could never get a word in edgewise.” I sandwiched the phone receiver between my shoulder and ear and wiped the sweat off my hands with the hem of my T-shirt. “How about the other girl?” “That’s my classmate from elementary school. L’s also an only child, but with her, the problem’s her mother. She was a tiger mom and the head of the PTA. When L’s hair started falling out in second grade, her mom attributed it to bullying and made a fuss.” “Was she being bullied?” “Not at all. The doctor apparently said that it must have been caused by psychological reasons. L’s hair fell out to the very last strand and then even her eyebrows and eyelashes fell out. So she wears a bobbed-cut wig, and before she goes out, her mother pencils in the eyebrows and attaches fake eyelashes.” “If it’s a psychological issue, don’t you think it can be cured?” “I don’t think she’s going to get better as long as she lives with her mother.” My sister’s voice was not one tone: it was a mix of sympathy for the girls and a mischievousness shadowed with a hint of superiority as if to say, “ItMayBeThatOurFamilyIsNotThatBad.” Komo I saw my komo, whom I had not seen in a long time. Komo means your father’s sister in Korean. I ran into my komo in front of the house. I stiffened, thinking that she would lecture me about something or other, but instead, she just stared at me and would not open her mouth. I could no longer bear her stare and said, “Komo, it’s been awhile! You’ve gotten greyer.” One

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displeased line appeared on her forehead and she politely acknowledged me with a slight bow. Then she went back up to the second floor. A while back, Komo and my mother were like cats and dogs. Komo lived on the second floor with a Japanese guy, but would often come to the first floor. The first floor only had two six-mat rooms. Every morning, she would shake awake my father who slept hugging my mother and say, “Hey. Wake up! Come on. Hey!” One day, my mother got so angry that she closed off the stairs leading to the second floor with some plywood, a hammer, and nails. Often, sewage water would shower down from the second floor along with Komo’s exclamation of “Aigo—.” It was the toilet water overflowing. My mother would then fling rough-sounding Korean curses upstairs that sounded like corrugated roof tiles rubbing together. Komo would sometimes ask us, “Hey, you guys, who do you like better? Your aboji (father) or omoni (mother)?” Both of us always answered, “I like dad better,” because that way, she would give us her thousand yen she kept stashed in her drawers. Komo plowed the ground of a park with a spade and hoe and planted vegetables for making kimchi. She also kept over a dozen chickens in our small yard and slaughtered them any time there was an occasion to celebrate. People in the neighborhood association complained, borrowing strength from the staff members of the sanitation department they brought along. Komo and the guy on the second floor huffed, “Are you telling us to starve?!!” The guy on the second floor was an engineer at a large electric company. He had a son with his ex-wife, but she had left him and disappeared with their son. While he was looking for their whereabouts, he met Komo and began living with her. The man’s only hobby was to photograph stone images of the Buddha. He once took me to a mountain far away when I was still young. We followed him almost in tears because of the cuts we got on our arms and cheeks from the sharp bamboo leaves. Once there, he pushed his shutter button over and over again in front of the headless stone Buddhas, falling apart after years in the wind and rain. Once when I was riding the bus, I saw an old lady near my stop start fighting with the bus driver because she wanted to bring her two-wheeled cart onto the bus. I was with my classmate, S. “It’s a beggar. Eeeewwww!” Hearing S jeer at the old lady somewhere in the distance, my gaze fluttered off outside the window, acknowledging Komo. I made a fist in the pocket of my uniform and slowly melted into S’s laughter. When I returned home later that night, my sister said, “Komo knew you were there.” Apparently, Komo had let out a depressed sigh: “That girl’s a lost cause. She’s just like her mother.”

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The Bicycle I gave my younger sister the bicycle I had just bought. That was three winters ago. I was addressing envelopes for invitations to a play when my sister called to chat. I was lying limply, utterly exhausted, ready to conk out. “Oh, it’s you. Yeah?” I answered in a cold, hoarse voice. “Help me address these envelopes.” “I’ll come over with K. You know, she has good handwriting.” “Isn’t K studying for entrance exams?” K, who had been living at my sister’s for six months, was studying for the college entrance exam full-time. She was supposedly determined to enter a medical program to become a psychiatrist. K and my sister met in elementary school, but at first they did not get along. K, who was one of the two co-class presidents, ordered her minions to put my sister’s indoor shoes and gym clothes in the incinerator. Then she laughed at my sister, saying, “what a flake” when she was being scolded by the teacher, who asked, “You forgot something again!?” When they were in fifth grade, K’s mother committed suicide, leaping off the veranda of their apartment. Apparently it was because she was worn out from caring for K’s younger brother, who had a mental disability. Around that time, my family fell apart. My mother and I had left home, so my sister had to assume responsibility for all the cooking and cleaning. K and my sister quickly became close. My sister did not tell my mother the date of her graduation, but my mother thought to herself, “I should at least attend the graduation ceremony . . .” and called the school and went. My mother recounts that my sister and K stayed apart from the herd of parents and children taking pictures with their graduation diplomas in hand. At the corner of the school yard by the jungle gym, they were holding hands and leaning onto each other like wilted flowers. K became worn out by taking care of her brother, who would smash the windows and run outside shrieking, so she ran away to my sister’s apartment. After that, she never returned home. Her father decided to admit her brother to an institution. After I finished addressing the invitations, I decided to walk my sister and K back to her apartment in the next town over so I went to the bicycle lot—on the newly bought bicycle. “Where did you get that?” “This? I bought it.” “Why do you need a bicycle? You live so close to the train station.” My sister threw a sideway glance at K. “It would be convenient for shopping and stuff if we had a bicycle, wouldn’t it, K?” They were waiting for my next words.

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“Fine. I will give it to you,” I said in a grumpy voice. My sister sat on the saddle and K grabbed onto her waist. The bicycle sailed between the houses. Ice-cold air wrapped around the two bodies. I shrank away in the cold, but at the same time, I felt like the pain coated onto my head and throat from smoking too much was brushed away. The following spring, K got into her top-choice medical program. Answering Machine My hanme (grandmother) left me a message on my answering machine. “Miri, it’s your hanme. I want to talk to you. Let’s have some dinner together; I’ll treat you. When you get back, give me a call. Your hanme’s in Shibuya. The number is 008214. I’ll be waiting. It’s Hanme.” I thought, What phone number has six digits? But I tried it anyway. As I expected, an emotionless female voice flatly said, “The number you called is no longer in use.” My mother told me Hanme was in South Korea. I wondered if she had gone senile. But whatever it was, I was sure she was short of money. When my mother was five, Hanme left her family for a man. Fifteen years later, people were not even sure whether she was dead or alive. Around the time my father and mother married, Hanme appeared. She said the guy abandoned her. For a while, she stayed in the house all the while complaining of how small and dirty it was, but one day she suddenly disappeared—with the diamond ring and platinum necklace my mother kept in the drawer of her mirror stand. Hanme pawned those for money and had a breast-enlargement operation. She was fifty. A few years later, she tumbled back to our house looking like a rainsoaked cat. I once took a bath with her. Her breasts were scarred. I asked my mother about it in the kitchen. “What happened to Hanme’s breasts?” “They got burned. She spilled tempura oil on herself by mistake. Dad tried to take her clothes off and cool it with water, but she was so embarrassed that she wouldn’t take off her clothes.” My mom’s hands, cutting kimchi, were bright red. Hanme heard of Hanbe’s death in Japan. Hanbe (grandfather) had returned to his hometown in Korea when he found out he had terminal cancer, but Hanme did not follow him—she did not like the countryside. About five years ago, Hanme came to my sister’s apartment. She moved in her furniture bit by bit, and finally settled in. “I’m going to take this watch to the shop for you because it’s broken,” she said and pawned the watch that my sister received as a birthday gift

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from our father. Once, she filled an empty XO bottle with cheap brandy and sold it to my mother for a high price. “That’s not what a mother does,” my mother cried as she poured the liquor into the sink, but she too left her family for a man. My mother’s sister also married and divorced three times. My sanchuns (uncles) say, “That woman can just die in the streets.” My mother’s real estate business and my imo’s (maternal aunt’s) high-interest lending shop both went bankrupt when the economic bubble burst. Hanme must have no one to depend on. I wonder where she is now. She should be turning eighty soon. I rewound the tape and played back Hanme’s voice on the answering machine again and again, while remembering what my sister and I promised each other. Let’s never have children. The Boy Who Could Not Cross Over to America I was in elementary school when my imo came back to Japan with her two children. My cousin R was three years old and E had just turned one. It was no wonder that Imo, who had spent her youth in Japan and had studied hair styling in France after graduating high school, could not stand living in the Korean countryside. “I had nothing to talk about when I was with Mr. Lee (her husband).” I taught kick-the-can and the Japanese nursery song “Kagome Kagome” to R, who could not speak Japanese. R forgot Korean in half a year and the first words baby E spoke were Japanese. Imo worked at a Korean hostess club and saved up enough money to start a small beauty parlor. Mr. Lee came to Japan for them, but Imo said to my mother, “Tell him I’m definitely not going back,” and refused to see him. Mr. Lee decided he would come back for them after achieving academic success that Imo would approve of, so he studied ferociously and entered Seoul National University. He even went abroad to Harvard. The signature on his monthly letter to her changed to Mr. Ree. Imo pushed beyond her means to put R and E in an American school. Imo also became involved with a married Japanese man who then started staying over on the second floor of the beauty parlor. The photograph on the shoe rack, of Mr. Ree holding the newborn E, glared down at the man’s shoes at the doorway like an owl. Nights that the man did not visit her, Imo told the boys stories about Mr. Ree. “The only person whom I’ve ever fallen in love with is your ­aboji, Mr. Ree.”

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A letter saying that he “wanted to live with the children” arrived from Mr. Ree, who had now received his doctoral degree in electrical engineering. My cousins went to America and transferred to a high school in Massachusetts. E was supposed to stay in America until graduating high school, but came back to Japan in just half a year. He had developed a bald spot on his head. According to the phone call from R, who stayed in America, the cause was E not getting along with his half-siblings. (Mr. Ree had an American wife and two children.) E started rebelling against Imo. When Imo said something to him, he would hole up behind a barricade he made of a desk and drawers, shriek like he had punched his own stomach, and yell, “I don’t want to hear a thing you say!” Less than a week before E was to compete in a varsity meet, he got into trouble. He was a sprinter. He broke into the next-door neighbor’s house from the second-floor window while they were out and stole their wallet. The neighbors found him when they returned home, at which point E jumped out of the window and broke his leg. I heard that even when the police came, E kept his head low and stayed wound-up as if he was waiting for the gunshot at the starting line. Families That Naturalized My freelance writer friend tells me that approximately five thousand Zainichi Koreans naturalize each year.2 Sanchun was a long-distance trucker. I used to like riding in his heavy truck when I was young. When he lifted me up to the driver’s seat from his shoulders, I felt my heart flutter like I was about to get on an amusement park ride. Sanchun married the daughter of a freight company president. At that point, he naturalized and started to dislike my calling him “Sanchun.” One summer break, my mother and I went to stay over at Sanchun’s house in Hachiōji. The large yard had a pond and when Sanchun clapped his hands from the bridge over the pond, koi that were worth a couple of hundred thousand yen each came up to the surface. My mother kept gasping and saying, “How lovely.” At dinner time, when I said, “It’s kalchi!” pointing at the cutlass fish on the table, Sanchun put his finger on his lips and shushed me. “Say ‘cutlass 2 

“Naturalize” here means the process of becoming a Japanese national.

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fish.’ You have no idea who is listening where.” He frowned at me, but then proceeded to cover the kalchi with a thick layer of kochijan (Korean hot soy paste). The day after we went back home, Sanchun called my mother. “Hey, did you use Korean outside the house? People in the neighborhood are looking at me funny since you guys left.” “No, I didn’t.” “Ask the kids too.” “The kids can’t speak any Korean,” my mother said matter-of-factly. Apparently, he then replied in an uptight voice that it must have been because she came dressed looking like a hostess. After that, we stopped visiting Sanchun at his house. Sanchun’s company went bankrupt when the bubble economy burst. Sanchun sold the house and moved to a four-and-a-half-mat apartment with his wife and began a ramen stand with her to clear his debt of almost 100 million yen. Another story of a family that naturalized: the missionary school that I went to was a so-called princess school and had many girls from blue-blood homes. In my class, there was a girl who was the daughter of one of my mother’s acquaintances. The entire extended family had naturalized, and they all used their Japanese names. Her family ran a love hotel close to Yamashita Park. She was always falling asleep during class. My mother told me that my classmate was in charge of “changing the sheets” with her elementary schooler brother so that her parents could save on hiring employees. She also worked shifts at the front desk, so she could never get enough continuous hours of sleep. When I was clearing out my desk and locker after being expelled from the school, this girl—whom I had never talked to—suddenly burst into tears. When I came back home, I found that she had sent me a bouquet of flowers. A piece of paper fell out onto the carpet. Poppies bloom red Lilies bloom white Miri, you should bloom in your own beautiful color. The New House My sister and I have beepers. Our father gave them to us. My father calls the beeper any time of the day—whether it is the middle of the night or barely dawn. “When I call him back he’s so annoying—prodding into what I’m doing where, saying I must be using the beeper he gave me to get in touch with guys . . .” My sister sounded fed up.

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We started ignoring the beeper even when our father’s phone number appeared on it. Once the beeper beeped and I called my father after ignoring it for many months. “I’m going to build a house for all of us to live in. I want you to look at the blueprint I decided on with the architect today.” He sounded serious. “Sorry, Dad, I’m busy right now. Can you maybe fax it?” But he insisted that things would be unclear unless we talked in person. I went to the pachinko parlor my father worked at. In such a rush that he didn’t want to waste time going somewhere else to talk, he drew an invisible line on the glass case where the prizes were kept and explained, “The room for you and Eri (my sister) is on the second floor. Here. It’s eightmats. The six-mat room next-door is for Haruki and Haruo (my brothers).” “But I’m not going to live there. Eri and Haruo also . . .” “There is a kitchen and bathroom on the second floor too so that you can bring over friends.” “I don’t need a kitchen. When I eat, I’ll eat with you downstairs, Dad.” I was getting anxious trying to figure out how to explain to him that I couldn’t live with him without hurting his feelings. But my father’s eyes lit up at my careless words, “I’ll eat with you.” “OK. So, I should make a study for you instead of a kitchen. I’ll get the contractor to build a big bookshelf on the wall.” “Dad, because of my work—” “You will need a bed, right?” “No, I don’t. Dad, look . . .” Suddenly I wondered if he was planning to build a room for my mother. I knew that my father and mother had met up a month earlier. She had told me. “Look, Mister, let’s not build a cheap house like that and instead, let’s build a top-quality office building five stories high. The first floor can be my real-estate agency office; the nonresidential floors we can rent out.” “Do you want to start over with all of us?” “What are you smoking?” she replied. “I carefully locked away the divorce papers you sent me in a safety box ten years ago, but I’ve now made up my mind to sign them!!” He apparently flew into a fitful rage, but my mother has yet to receive the papers. “It will be done by the end of May so you and your sister should come help out with the packing.” I replied ambiguously and my father squeezed my hand tightly, encouraged by my ambiguous response. I wondered if my father seriously

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thought that he could really revive a family that has fallen (the only way it can be described) by building a house. Imagining my large eight-mat room empty except for a humongous bookshelf, I shuddered and started walking toward the train station. A few months later, the house was built. My father bought a ruby ring costing the healthy sum of five hundred thousand yen at a neighborhood pawnshop and drove his car to Kamakura where my mother lived. When she came out to the doorway, he said to her, “Let’s start over. I want you to take this as an engagement ring,” but she did not accept it. I heard this from my brother and called Kamakura shocked. She giggled at the other end of the line, saying, “Well, you know, that ring that he bought, it was so tacky.” From now on my sister and I promised each other we will ignore the beepers even when they go off. We were sure that we would be forced to live in this newly built house if we were to set even one foot inside. Then my sister called: “Brother says that all of us and Dad have to go to the city ward office to change the address on our alien registration forms.” “What? Why do we all have to go together? That can’t be true. Besides, I’m busy tomorrow.” My sister’s voice became prickly as she said, “I said the same thing, but then Brother started throwing a fit. If you aren’t going, you tell him yourself.” So we decided on a time and place to meet and hung up. My father forced us to change our addresses on the alien registration form to the address of his new house and then said, “I’ll take you to Yokohama Station,” and pushed us all into the car as we were trying to catch the train back to our homes. I suddenly noticed a Weekly Asahi sticking out of the dashboard. My father cannot read or write Japanese so he has my brother read my publications to him. “The family stories you write are humdrum. They also lack the exact part people want to know about: how the families can improve—there’s no point to the stories if you don’t tell them that.” “But if she wrote out all of that, it’d be boring,” my brother suddenly interrupted from the passenger seat. Whenever my father saw one of my plays, he would go home mumbling, “Your play lacks a ‘revolution.’ People won’t be moved by things that are hopeless.” I wondered if for my father building a house no one would live in was proof of a “revolution.” While I was thinking about things like that, the car coasted into an unfamiliar neighborhood. We had arrived not at the station, but at the new house.

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The Aunt Who Went to Paris I left the café and walked with my back to the station, but then stopped because I realized it was raining. I had not noticed my hair and shoulders dampening in part because it was a misty rain, but also because I had been so tired from all the troubles that kept cropping up. I raised my hand to stop a taxi. The moment the door was about to shut, I heard a voice squeal, “Miriii. Miriii. Oh, oh! Miriii.” A woman riding a bicycle with TOKYU HANDS vinyl bags on the handlebar and bike rack was calling out—it was my imo. “How are you, Miri?” “I’m about to go to Kagurazaka for work. How about you, Imo?” “I’m going to open a Korean barbeque shop in Yoyogi Uehara. Don’t tell your mom. She’s just going to tell me I can’t possibly do it if she finds out.” Imo laughed metallically. When she was twenty, she went to Paris without a penny to her name to study hair design quite seriously for a couple of years. This is why I had a very hard time associating her with a Korean barbeque eatery. She used to prance about Motomachi in Yokohama in blue jeans with a charcoal grey turtleneck, holding a baguette wrapped in a red paper bag. She looked stylish and cool even to a child’s eye. I later heard that she said to my mother and father many times, “I’m not getting married or having kids. Please let me adopt Miri.” I remember going to Isetan with her about twenty years ago and eating chocolate parfait together. “When I impulsively buy expensive clothes, I think ‘oops!’ but when you buy a chocolate parfait, you really can’t mess it up,” she said with a completely straight face as she lapped up the whipped cream on the parfait, and I burst out laughing. When Imo married and had children, I felt betrayed. We had made a pinky promise to live in Paris, just the two of us. “We’re opening in a week so come on over!” I remembered Imo’s cooking, which was way beyond what could be considered unskilled—raw slices of daikon radishes and cut carrots, a chilled soup (?) made by mixing black sesame and milk in the juicer. “After the advance payments on this place, I’m completely out of money. I still had to buy a lot of things. So I just charged it all on the credit card. I still have to get all this stuff for the store before the card maxes out.” Imo then hastily rattled on about how she sold her popular beauty parlor to help with the debt her lover’s company incurred, but that he had a stroke and could no longer leave his wife’s house, and so on.

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The driver let out an annoyed cough so I said to Imo, “I’m going,” and closed the window. Imo crossed in front of the taxi. The wind blew off the hood of her mouse-grey colored raincoat and exposed her grey hair. She is three years younger than my mother, so that makes her forty-five . . . I averted my eyes from her bike as we passed her and just stared at the wipers that continuously flicked the raindrops away. Why I Stopped Seeing My Sister This series is modeled on actual families, but so far I have not received any complaints. Just once, when I wrote something based on my sister’s friend, I received an angry call from my sister. “I won’t be able to see K anymore!!” However, because I kept introducing characters based on my sister and the people around her in my essays and novels, she finally stopped seeing me. Then, I heard a rumor that my sister, an actress, was appearing nude in movies, so I called my mother’s in Kamakura. “Is Eri home?” “Oh yeah, she said she was going on location for a week,” my brother was talking to me while munching on potato chips or something. “Are you getting paid properly?” He is the only salesman for my mother’s real estate firm, Heisei Enterprises. He’s twenty-one. “I think this month I’m going to. Why are you asking? You’re going to give me money? The rumor is that this year you’re going to give out the New Year’s money presents.” I hadn’t talked to my younger brother in six months. When you hit your mid-twenties you barely see your family. Adding up the times I’ve seen my family this year alone, I’ve seen my mother once, my father twice, my first younger brother once, my second younger brother zero times, and my sister two or three times. That’s it. My mother sometimes faxes me property brochures for stand-alone homes in the city: “A 9-minute walk to Shibuya Station. Unbeatable location.” “A 15-minute walk to Sangenjaya Station. Previously owned house. Full of natural light.” At first, I was just throwing them out thinking it was some kind of a mistake, but once, when I looked at the top edge, it said “heisei_enterprises.” Was she trying to do business with her own daughter? But does she really think that I can afford a property close to 100 million yen? One day, a woman who had business dealings with my mother called and invited her over for a visit. When my mother visited the mansion this woman lived in, the woman began talking about her only son who had just

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committed suicide in the spring and begged her, crying, to have his story be written up in Specimens of Families. I said to my mother, “I’m sorry but this is ending after the coming installment. If it starts up again, then I will go hear her story.” That’s right; this serial is ending today with its seventy-first installment. It’s hard even for me to believe that this serial—originally intended as thirteen installments (with two interruptions)—lasted until today. When I spoke with Mr. Inoue Hisashi, he had clipped out a few of the installments from Specimens of Families and had them in his organizer.3 This made me very happy. Mr. Inoue kindly said, “Fifty or a hundred years from now, this will become a valuable historical resource. It will illustrate how Japanese families were at the beginning of the Heisei era.” A few literary editors have said, “It’s almost wasteful that you submit a four-page essay every week based on material you can turn into short stories.” Families, these mysterious microcosms—I will keep collecting their specimens on trains and in bars.

3 

Inoue Hisashi is a venerated writer and playwright.

APPENDIX

Zainichi Recognition: Kin Kakuei in the 1960s

JOHN LIE

In virtually every considered reflection on Zainichi literature, the year zero is the end of colonial rule. First-generation ethnic Koreans, especially those who arrived in the Japanese archipelago as children, began to publish energetically during the colonial period. Again, it would be misleading to insist on the fundamental discontinuity before and after 1945, but post-Liberation Zainichi writings had several notable characteristics. Most importantly, they were part and parcel of the heroic and epic aesthetics of socialist realism.1 Almost all ethnic Koreans who remained in Japan became aligned with North Korea, whether because of its political legitimacy as an anticolonial force or its substantive efforts to provide ethnic education and livelihood assistance. As I noted in the introduction to this volume, ethnic Korean writings in Japanese for the first two decades after 1945 featured socialist-realist works of heroic struggles, frequently in Manchuria and elsewhere in continental Asia. These works have been largely forgotten, and are rarely now included in the canon of Zainichi literature. It is worth stressing that a considerable body of ethnic Koreans writings in Korean— both before and after Liberation—has been largely neglected and unfortunately lies outside the purview of this volume. What remains from the early post–World War II decades are Zainichi writers who sought to portray the conflicts, both geopolitical and interpersonal, of postcolonial subjects. The division of Korea, embedded in turn 1  The immediate post-1945 years recapitulated the dominance of proletarian literature in the 1920s and 1930s. In both time periods, we can observe the primacy of politics and the model of socialist literature based on the Soviet example. On the Russian model, see, e.g., Edward J. Brown, Russian Literature since Revolution, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), and Katerina Clark, The Soviet Novel, 3rd ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000). In this regard, there is something of a family resemblance between North Korean literature and Zainichi literature in the 1950s and 1960s.

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in the Cold War, provided a tension-filled context of Zainichi lives, tossed and turned among intra-Korean and superpower conflicts. Kim Talsu’s Genkainada (Genkai Strait), published in 1954, is representative. The trope of the ocean separating the Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago symbolizes the tensions and contradictions of Zainichi lives. In Kim’s case, it plays out both internally—the inevitable force of assimilation to Japan—and externally—the doomed romance with a Japanese woman. Kim Sokpom’s magnum opus Kazantō (Volcano Island) was published over a period of fourteen years in seven volumes. Its continuity to the socialist-realist mode—the novel revolves around the 1948 uprising on Cheju Island—makes it almost a work of North Korean literature, albeit written in Japanese and with a considerable dose of Japanese literary influences, including the inevitable stress on the interiority of the protagonist. Similarly, Ri Kaisei’s (Lee Hoesung’s) epic Mihatenu yume (The unrealized dream), published between 1975 and 1979, twins individual struggles with political conflicts on the road to Korean unification. As tempting as it is to pigeonhole the two Kims and Ri in the crucible of socialist realism, it would wreak considerable havoc on their oeuvre. Each wrote, more or less, about the experience of Zainichi lives in Japan and their inevitable vicissitudes and transformations. Put differently, it would be deeply problematic to exclude them from any consideration of Zainichi literature. Nevertheless, my contention is that Zainichi literature was born belatedly in the late 1960s in Kin Kakuei’s series of stories. To appreciate fully the conceptual space that Kin opened—where Zainichi literature flourished—it would be worthwhile to take a theoretical detour. That is, we need to think through what it means to be writing as a conscious ethnic minority in the language of the majority and the erstwhile colonial power. Theoretical Detour In Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s influential book on Franz Kafka, they develop the concept of minor literature and declaim its revolutionary potential. Drawing on several pages from Kafka’s diary entry of December 25, 1911, on the literature of small nations, the French theorists highlight three characteristics. Rather than being a product of a minority language, “minor literature” is “rather what a minority does with a major language.”2 For Deleuze and Guattari, minor literature is not the literature of a minority in a minority tongue or a nascent national language. They paraphrase Kafka in order to underscore the particular paradox that leads to its genesis: 2 

Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Kafka: Pour une littérature mineure (Paris: Les éditions de minuit, 1975), 29.

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“the impossibility of not writing, the impossibility of writing in German, the impossibility of writing otherwise.”3 If the particular conundrum of being a minority propels minority writers to express themselves, they must nonetheless do so in the language of the majority. Yet for a minority, the majority language is a “paper language”; its artificiality contradicts the Romantic idea of language as the soul of the people. Devoid of an organic link with language, a minority crafts minor literature with the tool of the majority. Thus, the group that develops minor literature is deterritorialized: living and working in mainstream society but marginalized and uprooted from it. Beyond deterritorialization, there are two other critical features of minor literature: its political nature and the conflation of the individual and the collective. For Deleuze and Guattari, the social context of minority existence shapes its literature. The politicization of minor literature is mandated by the reality that a minority inhabits a “tiny space.” Whereas the wide expanse of majority existence enables individual concerns merely to reverberate with other individual affairs, the narrow horizon of minority life forces individual matters to connect with politics. A minority, for Deleuze and Guattari, literally occupies a small space or a narrow social circle; thus, even a domestic squabble or a tawdry affair, precisely because it concerns everyone in a “tiny space,” becomes a matter of politics. If the tiny space mandates the politicization of minor literature, the paucity of talent renders every individual utterance to assume the form of collective enunciation. In other words, the individual-collective conflation implies the thoroughgoing essentialism of the minority population and minor literature. In contrast, exponents of major literature float above the gravity of the collective, free to speak for themselves without the burden of politics or the onus of representing the collectivity. In the case of minor literature, the talented few perforce transact “the affairs of the people,” especially so in forging an “active solidarity” of the group.4 The small size of the population (and therefore of the talented) conflates the individual and the collective just as much as the tiny space politicizes every utterance. Finally, Deleuze and Guattari locate the potential for rupture and revolution in minor literature. Because every expression is at once politicized and represents the collective, minor literature discloses the “revolutionary condition within major (or established) literature.”5 The revolutionary potential of minor literature corresponds to the sociology of the minority population: marginalized and oppressed. The social reality of minority 3 

Deleuze and Guattari, Kafka, 29. Deleuze and Guattari, Kafka, 30. 5  Deleuze and Guattari, Kafka, 33. 4 

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life generates minor literature that is deterritorialized, politicized, and essentialized. Territorialization, Politicization, and Essentialization Deleuze and Guattari are right to rescue Kafka’s oeuvre from the clutch of those who wish to consign it to the realm of the Oedipal or the metaphysical. We should neither lay his work on the Procrustean bed of psychoanalysts nor propel it into the clouds through religious or philosophical hot air. In imbuing his work with social and political concerns, the French theorists seek to restore Kafka to the all-too-human world to which he, like the rest of us, belonged. Nevertheless, their concept of minor literature makes little sense of Kafka or Kafka’s oeuvre. What does it mean for minor literature to be deterritorialized? What makes something major or minor? Territorialized or deterritorialized? If there is anything in world history that deserves the moniker of major literature, then surely it would be Latin works in the Roman Empire. Yet Latin literature was hardly territorialized, except in the rather loose but grand correlation between a vast region and a cosmopolitan language. Should Juvenal and Martial—both born in what is today Spain—be considered exponents of minor literature (as they composed in the cosmopolitan, “artificial” language of Latin)? Territorialization or deterritorialization is a historical process; there is nothing stable about language and identity. In the context of shifting national boundaries and dynamic population movements, the sense of what is major and what is minor language or ethnicity remained far from fixed even in the twentieth century. In the 1911 diary entry that Deleuze and Guattari use, Kafka himself pointed to Jewish literature in Warsaw and contemporary Czech literature, not the German of Prague, as examples of minor literature. In other words, minor literature for Kafka is a literature of “small” nations written in a nonmajor language. Kafka’s primary point is that size is not a particularly salient variable in the valorization of literature: “a literature that is not in fact broad in scope can develop and produce the manifold benefits of literary activity,” which includes “the unity of national consciousness.”6 Although he acknowledges that “small” literature may lack great, dominant figures, a Goethe—a writer of unquestioned greatness and influence—may in fact limit his successors by the sheer “power of his works.”7 Indeed, for Kafka, literature is neither major nor minor, neither territorialized nor deterritorialized, but merely and essentially literature.8 In this spirit, surely no one would suggest that Joseph Conrad in 6 

Franz Kafka, Tagebücher (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch, 1994), 1:243–244. Kafka, Tagebücher, 1:247. 8  See Stanley Corngold, “Kafka and the Dialect of Minor Literature,” College Literature 21 7 

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England or Vladimir Nabokov in the United States sought to develop a minor literature. Deleuze and Guattari would be right to insist that Kafka had various political commitments. Yet whatever Kafka’s personal inclinations and ideologies—he has been enlisted for causes ranging from Bolshevism to Zionism—it seems dubious to regard him as an essentially political writer. Their understanding of politics as subversion or revolution may work for Karl Kraus but not Kafka. This is especially so if the cause of politicization was in fact the narrow confine of minority existence. Is it the case that his struggles with his father, for example, led to the politicization of his consciousness along the lines of Mao Zedong claiming that his belief in class struggle was born of his conflict with his father? And that Oedipal conflict in turn touched the small Jewish community in Prague? Yet that would be tantamount to mistaking Kafka’s urban existence, however inflected by the Jewish community of Prague, with that of the proverbial village. Kafka’s adult life instantiates the wide horizon of urban cosmopolitanism rather than the narrow existence of ethnic particularism.9 Although Kafka’s writings often provoke claustrophobic reactions in readers—recall the confinement of Gregor Samsa in his bedroom, reflecting in part Kafka’s sense of entrapment in living in his parents’ apartment until he was thirty—his life and work are hardly confined to a “tiny space.”10 Cosmopolitan geographical references—from the Great Wall of China to the African jungle—may render Kafka’s work deterritorialized but they do not underscore Deleuze and Guattari’s claim about the narrow social confines of minor literature. In any case, the physical reality of “tiny space” pales in significance to the profound expanse of imagination. As Kafka noted in the last of his Zürau aphorisms: “It isn’t necessary that you leave home. Sit at your desk and listen. Don’t even listen, just wait. Don’t wait, be still and alone. The whole world will offer itself to you to be unmasked, it can do no other, it will writhe before you in ecstasy.”11 And it would be the height of monomania to see politics and politicization as the primary thematic of his oeuvre, which is redolent with paradoxes and parables, nightmares and daydreams. Finally, what does it mean to say that Kafka should somehow represent the collective? What is the exact group to which he belongs or for which (1994): 89–102. Cf. Scott Spector, Prague Territories: National Conflict and Cultural Innovation in Franz Kafka’s Fin de Siècle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 27ff. 9  Reiner Stach, Kafka: Die Jahre der Entscheidungen (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 2002), 51–53. 10  Stach, Kafka, 20–23. See also Peter-André Alt, Franz Kafka: Der ewige Sohn (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2005), 322–329. 11  Franz Kafka, The Zürau Aphorisms, ed. Roberto Calasso, tr. Michael Hofmann (New York: Schocken, 2006), 108.

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he writes? German-speaking Jews of Prague? Central European Jewry? Deleuze and Guattari’s assertion elides disjunctures that would be generated from differences in gender or generation, educational or occupational experiences, or the sheer vagaries of individual lives. Kafka’s characters are typically shorn of ethnic or regional markers, and they can hardly be said to represent a collective, except perhaps as a representative of humanity. To consider a writer as idiosyncratic as Kafka as enunciating for the collective would surely have struck his fellow Jews in Prague as perverse. As Kafka noted in his diary on January 8, 1914: “What do I have in common with Jews? I have hardly anything in common with myself.”12 Thus, as much as Deleuze and Guattari seek to restore Kafka from fanciful critics, their attempt to circumscribe the domain of minority literature misrecognizes his primary inspirations and aspirations. Misreadings, to be sure, may provide insights, but they may also merely denote misrecognition. Deleuze and Guattari’s hermeneutic misprision is hardly unique and is in fact symptomatic of the theoretical hubris that animates contemporary literary theory. Consider another classic effort to make sense of nonmajor literature: Fredric Jameson’s attempt to arraign the “third world.” In an oft-quoted passage, he confidently claims: “Third-world texts, even those which are seemingly private and invested with a properly libidinal dynamic—necessarily project a political dimension in the form of national allegory: the story of the private individual destiny is always an allegory of the embattled situation of the public third-world culture and society.”13 In boldly characterizing the contours of third-world literature as the literature of national epic, Jameson not only misses the majority of actual existing literary works written in the “third world”—from Flaubertian novels of adultery to Dostoevskyan tales of passive-aggressiveness, much less Kafkaesque tales and parables—but he also manages to collapse them into an unwieldy, residual category that includes everything that is not Western (majority) literature. His wild overgeneralization may make some sense of Lu Xun or Sembène Ousmane, but what of Tanizaki Jun’ichirō or Naguib Mahfouz? It seems the oddest sort of binary to assert a categorical distinction and opposition between “major” and “minor” or the “West” and the “rest.” Deleuze and Guattari or Jameson do not exhaust the gamut of literary theory, but it would be difficult to gainsay their prominence and influence let alone their representativeness. The obvious riposte would be to invoke Edward Said’s Orientalism and its profound influence on literary studies. 12 

Kafka, Tagebücher, 2:225. Cf. Jean-Pierre Gaxie, Kafka, prince de l’identité (Paris: Joseph K., 2005). 13  Fredric Jameson, “Third World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism,” Social Text 15 (1986): 65–88, 69, emphasis in the original.

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Yet the project of decolonization or the critique of ethnocentrism has not advanced much beyond theoretical theatrics and political pronouncements. Consider perhaps the most impressive work on world literature published in the past decade: Pascale Casanova asserts the autonomy of “literary space” or “literary field” from political economy.14 Yet Casanova does not deviate from the underlying master narrative of nationalism that begins with early modern Europe. The book begins with a discussion of du Bellay; and in so doing she is silent on the transnational reaches of major literatures, whether medieval Latin or classical Chinese, or distinct literary forms and traditions that existed independently of the recognizably European genre.15 The discussion of minor literature rehashes Deleuze and Guattari’s analysis.16 In contrast to Deleuze and Guattari, Zainichi identity—as a form of minor literature and diasporic identification—arose precisely in abjuring the political and the collective. The course of recognition arose from the state of disrecognition, but it would be an act of misrecognition to see the pathway as being pioneered by the sort of political-collective discourse suggested by Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of minor literature. Disrecognition The Japanese colonization of Korea in 1910 and the resulting population movement from the Korean peninsula to the Japanese archipelago spawned the ethnic Korean minority presence on the main Japanese islands.17 Although most ethnic Koreans returned to their putative homeland after the end of World War II, some six hundred thousand remained in Japan. Led by an ethnic organization with strong links to North Korea, ethnic Koreans in Japan regarded themselves foremost as Koreans. The ideology of repatriation stunted the development of diasporic or minority identity among them. Yet by the 1960s, linguistic and cultural integration into mainstream Japanese life made repatriation profoundly problematic. Why then was the assertion of ethnic or minority identity so belated among ethnic Koreans in Japan? Beyond the statistics and the structures of discrimination, ethnic Koreans in Japan suffered from their fundamental illegitimacy: disrecognition, or 14 

Pascale Casanova, La république mondiale des lettres (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1999). Franco Moretti’s five-volume collection Il romanzo devotes but a smattering of articles to non-European traditions and forms (Torino: Giulio Einaudi, 2001–2003). It also underemphasizes important precursors of the form, such as Genji monogatari, and nonnational genres. 16  Casanova, La république, chap. 6. 17  The next three sections draw on my Zainichi (Koreans in Japan): Diasporic Nationalism and Postcolonial Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), chap. 3. 15 

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lack of recognition. Here I use the term recognition to refer to a complex of attributes—the fact and the rights of existence, or possibly even esteem and love—that endows people with a sense of rightful existence and legitimate life. Disrecognition is precisely the absence of these attributes. In the prewar period, ethnic Koreans may have been deemed inferior but they were recognized as a familiar group with their rightful, though inferior, place in Japanese society. In the postwar period, though the legacy of colonial hierarchy was slow to dissipate, ethnic Koreans lost their legitimate place in a Japan that now regarded itself as a monoethnic society.18 That is, they were often not even recognized in the sense of acknowledgement of even their very existence. In spite of the invariable variability of individual experience, colonial hierarchy and its postcolonial legacy rendered them as objects of dislike, disenfranchisement, and degradation: in short, disrespect and disrecognition. They lacked what T. H. Marshall calls social citizenship: “the right to share to the full in the social heritage and to live the life of a civilized being according to the standards prevailing in the society.”19 They were discriminated against, but monoethnic ideology dismissed their very presence. Ethnic Koreans were not welcome in Japan; they should not have been there; and, in the dominant monoethnic ideology, they did not exist in Japan. The most emblematic expression of disrecognition is that the group name doubled as the racial epithet. For Kim Talsu, born in 1919, and for Lee Jungja, born in 1947, the earliest memory of discrimination is being teased for being “Korean” (Chōsenjin).20 As early as 1930, Kim Talsu encountered a chorus of “Chōsenjin!” on his first day out in Japan.21 There was no welcome, only disrecognition. The baffling situation is expressed well by Fujiwara Tei, whose bestselling 1949 memoir depicted her family’s arduous return to Japan after the end of the war: “We were called Japanese. No one got angry about it since it was obvious. Yet, when we called Koreans ‘Koreans,’ they got very angry.”22 What was puzzling to the colonizer was profoundly obvious to the colonized: Chōsen signified undesirable attributes and traits: the usual racist litany of dirty, smelly, lazy, and stupid. The 18 

John Lie, Multiethnic Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), chaps.

4–5.

19 

T. H. Marshall, “Citizenship and Social Class,” in Citizenship and Social Class, ed. T. H. Marshall and Tom Bottomore, 1–51 (London: Pluto, 1992), 8. 20  Kim Talsu, “Waga bungaku e no michi,” in Shuki = Zainichi Chōsenjin, ed. Kim Talsu and Kang Jeon, 15–27 (Tokyo: Ryūkei Shosha, 1981), 20–21; Lee Jungja, Furimukeba Nihon (Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 1994), 39. 21  Kim Talsu, Waga ariran no uta (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1977), 44–45. See also Hirose Yōichi, Kimu Tarusu to sono jidai (Kyoto: Kurein, 2016). 22  Fujiwara Tei, Nagareru hoshi wa ikiteiru (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 2002), 60.

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Korean word, after all, is Chosōn, not Chōsen; only a Japanese person would employ what for native Korean speakers is an odd-sounding word, a signifier of colonial conquest. Furthermore, the utterance was an illocutionary act that embodied the will to dominate and discriminate. The seemingly innocuous nomenclature disclosed the history and sociology of Japanese colonialism. Name was one of the most salient issues in the making of Zainichi identity. As Denise Riley puts it: “the name hovers at some midpoint between the tattoo and the state register.”23 For Zainichi youth, it is neither fixed nor singular but the question weighs constantly and heavily nonetheless. No wonder that the reigning temptation, as articulated in Lee Chong Hwa’s discourse on muttering (tsubuyaki) is to “resist everything that names.”24 In Sagisawa Megumu’s story, “Meganegoshi no sora” (The sky through the spectacles, 2001), Naran bemoans her “strange” Korean name yet later experiences the pain of using a Japanese name as she hears ethnically insensitive comments by her best friend. When a fellow student asks a senior who goes by her “real name” why she has such a “strange name,” she matter-of-factly answers that it is because she is Korean. “The simple fact told as fact momentarily pierced Naran’s spirit.”25 It is this simplicity—that ethnic Koreans might have ethnic Korean names—that long eluded the Zainichi population in monoethnic Japan. The sense of Japanese superiority and Korean inferiority that developed during the colonial period persisted in the postwar period. Not only were ethnic Koreans considered poor—and its associated attributes, such as dirty and smelly—but they were also associated with criminality and treachery. They therefore needed to be contained and excluded. Whereas the adult world politely prevented ethnic Koreans from joining their games for power and wealth, the childhood world frequently unleashed physical and symbolic violence. Teasing and bullying were staples of recess activities at school. School authorities often averted their gaze from naked displays of exclusion and intolerance. A twelve-year-old Zainichi student committed suicide after encountering exclusion. Whereas his classmates called him “dirty” and “stupid” and admonished him to “die,” the school authorities denied the existence of bullying or discrimination.26 Things Korean, whether food or language, were sources of shame. Self-hatred, hatred of things Korean, and guilt for hating the self and the 23 

Denise Riley, Impersonal Passion: Language as Affect (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005), 117. 24  Lee Chong Hwa, Tsubuyaki no seiji shisō (Tokyo: Seidosha, 1998), n.p. 25  Sagisawa Megumu, “Meganegoshi no sora,” in Sagisawa Megumu, Byūtifuru nēmu (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 2004), 7–112, 62. 26  Kim Chanjung, Kokoku kara no kyori (Tokyo: Tabata Shoten, 1983), 16–20.

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group stirred many Zainichi psyches, damned to ponder endlessly the irresolvable question of identity. Not surprisingly, like the twelve-year-old schoolboy, a popular solution was self-mortification. It is rare to encounter a Zainichi growing up in the dark decades of disrecognition who did not contemplate suicide at some point, and disheartening to realize the striking series of Zainichi suicides, including Sagisawa Megumu, discussed earlier, and Kin Kakuei, discussed later. Disrecognition was the dominant Japanese attitude toward ethnic Koreans in the first quarter-century of the postwar period. The third-generation Zainichi Son Puja was born in a Burakumin village in Nara in 1941. Growing up, she was mercilessly teased for being Korean, so much so that she “came to hate [my] mother” and told her: “Kill me. Why did you give birth to me as a Korean? . . . I want to die.”27 She thought continuously of suicide as a schoolgirl. By the time she married at twenty, she had changed her job twenty-two times, often having to leave her job after her Korean ancestry was divulged. Yet the tragedy was that Korean ancestry or ethnicity meant little, if anything, to Zainichi children. As Arai Toyokichi described his Zainichi life course: “I started writing short stories when I was a highschool student / But I still cannot read han’gŭl [Korean script] / The first time I held the Certificate of Alien Registration / It was like a spy movie and I didn’t think I could show it to others . . . / I wanted to vote / But I did not have suffrage / I couldn’t get used to the name Pak that I used only at the local authorities . . .”28 Rejection and dejection, ethnic discrimination but cultural assimilation, all weighed heavily among Zainichi youths who came of age in the postwar period. It is a common and sentimental position to believe that it is corrosive to the soul to dominate or discriminate; if true, many a Japanese came to personify social evil in the postwar period. What is certain, however, is that the structure of disrecognition had corrosive effects on Zainichi psyche. One of the enduring motifs of Zanichi literature is the violent father. Yang Sŏgil’s 1998 novel Chi to hone (Blood and bone)—later made into an awardwinning 2003 film directed by Sai Yōichi—is a wrenching rendition of a son’s memory of his alcoholic, violent, wife-beating and mistress-keeping father. As Yang writes in his memoir: “Whenever I recall my father, I cannot understand what he was thinking of as he led his life. He never once loved his family. In particular he looked down on women and sought to express his existence by wreaking violence.”29 Whatever the place of 27 

Son Puja, Aisurutoki kiseki wa tsukurareru (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 2007), 47. Arai Toyokichi, “Taegu e,” in Zainichi Korian shi senshū, ed. Morita Susumu and Sagawa Aki, 316 (Tokyo: Doyō Bijutsusha Shuppan Hanbai, 2005). 29  Yang Sŏgil, Shura wo ikiru (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1995), 10. 28 

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colonialism-­induced poverty and ethnic discrimination in making sense of the traumatized and traumatizing father figure, there is little doubt that ethnic Koreans who lived in prewar Japan were marred by intraethnic problems of conflict and crime, patriarchy and violence. The involution of disrecognition did not merely affect the emasculated, inebriated patriarch. Inferiority complex was pervasive, leading to a denial of Korean ancestry—and even hatred toward parents as in the case of Son Puja—and to the unwelcome embrace of Japanese identity. In the volatile mixture of prevailing poverty, ethnic isolation, and traditional patriarchy, postwar memories of the prewar Korean ghetto life are replete with incidences of alcoholism, domestic violence, and other social dysfunctions. They would also find contemporary counterparts in Zainichi literature: sexual violence, family dissolution, gambling addiction, substance abuse, alienation and anomie, murder and mayhem, and parricide and incest. Instances of mental illness, from depression to suicide, afflicted Zainichi lives. It is also not coincidental that the representative Zainichi writer Kin Kakuei and the representative Zainichi intellectual Kang Sangjung both suffered from stuttering. Indeed, the stutter, with considerable sexual overtones, becomes a burden that must be urgently overcome, even more so than the division of the putative homeland, in Kin’s “Kogoeru kuchi.” Suicidal narratives—and deeds—are ubiquitous in Zainichi fiction and autobiography. Needless to say, it would be hopelessly reductive to blame disrecognition for Zainichi mental illness—one would be foolhardy to dismiss nonsociological sources of psychological problems—but the ferocity of disrecognition made the reduction at once plausible and meaningful to Zainichi themselves. Misrecognition The Zainichi population faced the infeasibility of returning to Korea, the implausibility of being Japanese, and the impossibility of being otherwise. Zainichi were condemned—as the “second-generation” Zainichi writer O Rimjun, born in 1926, put it—to struggle to “escape from being half Japanese [and] to become Korean.”30 The possibility of a hybrid status— both Korean and Japanese—was not seriously mooted as they urged the embrace of Koreanness, albeit in Japan and not in Korea. Rather than assimilation or repatriation, Zainichi faced the choice between Japanization or Koreanization. The decision was either/or, but not both, in-between, or beyond.

30 

O Rimjun, Zainichi Chōsenjin (Tokyo: Ushio Shuppansha, 1971), 195.

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Only a minority pursued the path of assimilation and naturalization. Only 233 Koreans were naturalized in 1952, and throughout the 1960s there were only several thousand cases per year. It would be tempting to blame the xenophobic policies of the Japanese government. Between 1952 and 1985, the Japanese government projected an ethnoracially homogeneous vision of Japanese society: one race, one ethnicity, one nation. In effect, only people who can claim blood descent—and preferably pure at that—­deserved Japanese citizenship. In general, citizenship, race, ethnicity, and nationality were all conflated: the obviousness of Japaneseness underscored monoethnic ideology. Furthermore, the Immigration and Naturalization Bureau was often culturally insensitive and bureaucratically recalcitrant, and therefore appeared arbitrary and authoritarian, though the same charges of being tedious and odious could be cast on most government bureaucracies. Yet we should not cast all the blame on rebarbative Japanese policies and practices. Having assimilated culturally, most ethnic Koreans hesitated to take the next step. Zainichi resistance reflects not only the instinctive anti-Japanese sentiments but also the nationalist mindset that precluded the possibility of in-between identity. The category of Korean American or Korean Canadian is widely accepted where the question of citizenship is decoupled from that of ethnic identification. Given the essentialist mindset that asserted homogeneous Japan and Korea, the very possibility of an in-between identity was dismissed. The world of either/or manifested itself in one of Aesop’s tales—which were immensely popular in postwar Japan—that sticks deepest in my memory from my school days in Japan in the 1960s. The bat, which was neither of land nor of air, was banished from both sides. The dreadful destiny of the lonely bat was a moral allegory for everyone, Zainichi included. The possibility of recognition resided in being Japanese or Korean. As Kim Kyongdok recalls, he spent his four years in college pondering, Hamlet-like, “to be Korean or to be Japanese.”31 The question was: are you Japanese or are you Korean? Which side are you on? Colonial and historical memory made naturalization a gesture of national betrayal, an act of treason. As late as the mid-1980s, the Zainichi intellectual Yoon Keun Cha declared: “In essence ‘naturalization’ is on the same line as the past Japanization [kōminka] policy that ignored the historical existence and subjectivity of ‘Zainichi’ and their dignity as human beings.”32 That is, naturalization is a continuation of the colonial policy 31 

Kim Kyongdok, Zainichi Korian no aidentiti to hōteki ichi, new ed. (Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 2005), 86. 32  Yoon Keun Cha, Ishitsu to no kyōzon: Sengo Nihon no kyōiku, shisō, minzokuron (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1987), 195.

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of assimilation, which in turn was a defining feature of Japanese colonialism. Because naturalization required the adoption of Japanese-sounding names (based on approved Chinese characters) until the 1990s, it reprised the 1940 edict that outlawed non-Japanese names (sōshi kaimei) for Japanese imperial subjects. Naturalization also mandated compliance with the Japanese practice of household registration (koseki), which became transposed to the traditional Korean landlord practice of lineage registry (chokbo). In the name of the Confucian—and Korean—value of venerating ancestors, naturalization implied a brutal uprooting of the family tree and a sacrilegious affront to the ancestors. Never mind that lineage registry was a province of the landed elite: the group that was underrepresented in the Zainichi population, at least according to the received Zainichi historiography. More prosaically, Japan remained the ideological enemy that had never atoned for its colonial-era brutalities—or continuing maltreatments and injustices—and therefore had not been exonerated. Colonialism is apparently never having to say “sorry”: for a society in which “sorry” is ubiquitous, the Japanese government has been remarkably intransigent in its refusal to proffer formal apology for historical wrongs or contemporary mistakes. Thus, going to the Japanese side is tantamount to a denial of Zainichi experience and ethnicity. The expected costs of ethnic betrayal frequently outweighed the anticipated benefits of switching sides. Naturalization did not ensure the end of disrecognition. Like Burakumin who were indisputably Japanese citizens but continued to suffer discrimination, citizenship did not promise an impregnable defense against prevailing discrimination. That is, naturalization offered another form of passing, albeit with a government imprimatur. Yet could the blemish be repaired by cosmetic, bureaucratic overlay? Far from becoming truly Japanese, a naturalized Zainichi might still fear the exposure of one’s rejected ancestry. The palimpsest of naturalization could not ensure the permanent expunction of ethnic origins. Simultaneously, the “convert”—the traitor—would lose Zainichi community support. Naturalization thus threatened the very definition of Zainichi. Retaining Korean nationality was the only legitimate way to be Zainichi. This was literally true in the sense that the population figures of the Zainichi depend on the census, which in turn only has categories for foreigners. Because neither the Japanese government nor social scientists systematically collect data on ethnic diversity—according to monoethnic ideology, what would be the point?—there are only Japanese nationals and Korean nationals. To be a Japanese citizen means to assume Japanese ethnicity as well. The logic of Japanese government demographers was shared by most ethnic Koreans. Nationality was a sticking point (kodawari), the last redoubt

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of Koreanness. Naturalization was tantamount to exchanging the soul of Koreanness for that of the ideological enemy. The ideology of monoethnicity affected both ethnic Japanese and ethnic Koreans. The vocabulary of blood purity was frequently invoked by Zainichi to shun intermarriage and to resist naturalization. In effect, the belief in ethnic essence—presumably carried by “blood”—accompanied the pursuit of purity. Yet the boundary line that separates the two groups inevitably leaves impurities, not least from colonial-era intermarriages. The corrosive consequence of the search for purity manifests itself most dramatically in the narrowing circle of people with true ethnic essences. Lee Hoesung’s 1975 novel Tsuihō to jiyū (Exile and freedom) exemplifies the trap of essentialism. A naturalized protagonist is married to an ethnic Japanese woman. Tokio constantly reflects upon and regrets his choice of naturalization and remains ambivalent about miscegenation: his “mixed” son. He contemplates regaining his Korean nationality and undergoing vasectomy. He wishes he could answer the query—why is he naturalized?— by responding that he had hoped to convict the criminal Japanese nation but in fact he did it for the sake of his brother’s employment: “If it suited my brother, I would have been happy to become an Eskimo.”33 He cannot quite believe in his Japanese wife’s lack of prejudice against Koreans and attributes her concrete love (“I love you—Tokio—not because you are Korean or Japanese”) to her idealism. Thoroughly assimilated, Tokio nonetheless remains imprisoned in the essentialist cage; he believes he is in exile underground. He hopes to end his “exile” as a “tunnel man” by reclaiming his ethnicity and living above ground (chijō no ningen). The binary of Korean and Japanese precludes a diasporic identity that Lee would explore in his later novels (see the introduction). Both Zainichi and Japanese reproduced and reinforced the ideological chasm between them. Postwar Zainichi writers, such as Kim Talsu and Kim Sokpom, used the Japanese language to stoke anti-Japanese passions. The sympathetic Japanese critic, in turn, would write that: “Zainichi writers’ Japanese works . . . are not ‘Japanese literature.’ In this sense, one cannot but find it insensitive to find the novels and criticisms of Kim Sokpom or Lee Hoesung in the Japanese literature section in bookstores.”34 In the early twenty-first century, it is common to find their work categorized under “foreign literature.” Moreover, even those who explicitly expressed a preference for the Japanese reading of their names, such as Kin Kakuei, are instead referred to using the Japanese version of the Korean pronunciation

33  34 

Lee Hoesung, Tsuihō to jiyū (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1975), 34, 35, 115, 262. Isogai Jirō, Shigen no hikari (Tokyo: Sōjusha, 1979), 209–210.

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(i.e., Kim Hagyon).35 The wonder is why anyone would have thought that this form of exclusion or essentialism is more sensitive than the symbolic inclusion of Zainichi writers in the realm of Japanese literature. What seems so elusive is the critique of ethnic essentialism or, simply put, the possibility of being in between Korea and Japan: Zainichi identity. The Cunning of Recognition As early as the 1940s, a third of Koreans in Japan could not speak Korean fluently. By then, the existence of the second generation had prompted some ethnic Koreans to remain in Japan after the end of the war. It is not surprising, therefore, that Zainichi politics in the immediate postwar years frequently focused on domestic, Japanese issues, ranging from ethnic education to working conditions. By the mid-1950s, however, the primacy of the Cold War and geopolitics had decisively shifted the Zainichi focus away from Japan to homeland. Systematically excluded from and disrecognized by Japanese society, the Zainichi population in Japan sought repatriation. Exilic identity misrecognized Zainichi experience already by the 1960s. In the late 1950s, Pak Cheil had insisted that Zainichi returnees to the Koreas would arrive as immigrants, and the concrete experience confirmed the chasm between homeland and diaspora.36 Alienation was certainly the modal response to the experience of actual return, whether to North or South. At the same time, ethnic Korean organizations in Japan were losing their influence over the Zainichi population. The ideology of repatriation was certainly in decline by the late 1960s. By then, some Zainichi began to discuss openly their future as permanent residents in Japan: as Zainichi, rather than as Korean. The possibility of Zainichi identity presented a break from the binary of being Korean or Japanese: the third way beyond repatriation and assimilation as a distinct category and a viable identity in Japanese life. The nascent identification as Zainichi can be seen in Zainichi literature. The second-generation Zainichi writer Lee Hoesung, for instance, won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 1971 for “Kinuta wo utsu onna” (A woman striking a washing board), a depiction of his mother in prewar Japan. Yet while the “boom” in Zainichi literature around 1970 recognized the relative autonomy of Zainichi experience, the main stage remained very much outside of Japan. Whether Kim Talsu’s Genkainada (Genkai Strait, 1954), Kim Sokpom’s Kazantō (Volcano Island, 1983–1997), or Lee 35 

Kawamura Minato, “Hen’yō suru ‘Zainichi,’” in Nihon bungeishi, ed. Sadami Suzuki, 8:219–225 (Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 2005). 36  Pak Cheil, Zainichi Chōsenjin ni kansuru sōgō chōsa kenkyū (Tokyo: Shinkigensha, 1957), 131–137.

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Hoesung’s Mihatenu yume (The unrealized dream, 1975–1979), the principal publications of Zainichi literature locate the primary action on the Korean peninsula. Although Lee’s Akutagawa Prize–winning story is often read as the establishment of a distinctive Zainichi literature, there was a decisive forerunner: Kin Kakuei’s “Kogoeru kuchi” (The frozen mouth, 1966).37 It is a work on Zainichi life, by a Zainichi writer, that takes place squarely in Japan. In a critical passage, the applied chemistry graduate student describes his commute to his university laboratory as the time to read books on Korea. “Although I am Korean, I still can’t understand Korean,” says the protagonist, who observes that he cannot “recover” (kaifuku) his Korean identity because he was born and reared in Japan, so he can at best “awaken” (kakusei) or “acquire” (kakutoku) it.38 At the same time: “No matter how I look Japanese, and feel and live the same way as Japanese, I study in order to realize that I am definitely not Japanese.” Neither Japanese nor Korean, he believes that his effort to awaken his ethnic identity can at best be “ideal” (kannen) and not “actual feeling” (jikkan). The actual feeling leads away from the question of either/or to the answer of neither. Pioneering events, opinions, and voices, such as Kin’s story, appeared in the 1960s. Perhaps the most sensational and proleptic manifestation, albeit expressed negatively, was the sensational criminal case in 1968 known as the Kim Hiro or Sumatakyō Incident. Kim Hiro (Kin Kirō) shot two Japanese gangsters and then held some eighteen people hostage for nearly four days. When he was given a chance to air his “motives,” he spoke to the national media about ethnic discrimination: surely Kim’s indictment of Japanese disrecognition reached a larger audience than any prior—and possibly later—Zainichi voice. Kim had dropped out of elementary school after experiencing endless teasing by his classmates as “dirty” and “barbarian”; he was even beaten by his teacher.39 Leading an unstable life of deadend jobs and recidivist crimes, he began to read voraciously, from Greek philosophy to economics, in prison.40 Relentlessly pursued by yakuza for unpaid loans, Kim decided not only to kill the collector but also a police officer who had made openly racist statements. Retrospectively, at least, Kim declaimed: “I wanted to appeal the ethnic problem. . . . This was my destiny.”41 Remarkably, he succeeded in coaxing an apology for the racist statement from a police chief on national television. Later, his mother testified at his trial: “I thought that someone had to do something about it. It just 37 

Yamasaki Masazumi, Sengo “Zainichi” bungakuron (Tokyo: Yōyōsha, 2003) 95–96. Quotations are from Kin Kakuei, “Kogoeru kuchi,” in Kogoeru kuchi (Tokyo: Kurein, 2004), 34. 39  Kin Kirō, Kin Kirō mondai shiryōshū (Tokyo: Kin Kirō Kōhan Taisaku Iinkai, 1968), 1:6–7. 40  Abe Motoharu, Kin Kirō no shinjitsu (Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Kankōkai, 2002), 18. 41  Kin Kirō, Ware ikitari (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1989), 101. 38 

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happened that my Hiro did it.”42 “It” was what I have called disrecognition: the accumulated anger against disrespect and discrimination. In Kin Kakuei’s 1969 story “Manazashi no kabe” (The wall of the gaze), the Zainichi protagonist hits the wall of national difference as his Japanese girlfriend leaves him and his professor suggests either leaving the country or naturalizing. He comes to realize the pervasiveness of the “gaze.” In reflecting on the Kim Hiro case, he feels that “the gaze sprung up across Japan, and never before had it poured into one place, one person.”43 He continues: “What was Kin Kirō [Kim Hiro] trying to shoot down? It must be that gaze. If so, then Kin Kirō was pointing the rifle not only at Japanese but also Koreans like me, who incorporate that gaze within.” The protagonist concludes that Kim’s action was “justified resistance” and compares it favorably to the actions of those, such as himself, who are “afraid and cowardly [and] flee from the gaze.” Kim’s mother and Kin’s character were not the only people to believe that Kim was attempting to shoot at “the gaze” itself. Kim’s defense attorneys stressed the evils of Japanese imperialism and their legacy in the mass media, the police, and indeed Japanese society tout court: “This case is an ‘ethnic problem’ created by the crime against Korea by the Japanese state and society.”44 In fact, there was a harbinger of the Kim Hiro case: the Komatsugawa Incident. The eighteen-year-old Ri Chin’u allegedly raped and killed two women in 1958, and was convicted and executed four years later. Although it is unclear whether he was in fact guilty of the crimes, it is clear that he became the Zainichi Bigger Thomas. Arrested on the thirty-fifth anniversary of the post-Kantō earthquake massacre, Ri faced a Japanese police, judiciary, and mass media that had an entrenched preconception of Korean criminality. Like Kim, he grew up in an impoverished background and suffered discrimination without community support. The prevailing ethnic Korean opinion bemoaned his lack of ethnic education that had presumably led to the crime.45 As in Kim Hiro’s case, the main ethnic organizations sought to distance themselves from the disgraced Korean. Pak Sunam, whose correspondence with Ri became a minor literary sensation, was expelled from Sōren in 1962 because she persisted in communicating with him.46 He was an autodidact who repeatedly stole works of world literature and declaimed himself, like Camus’s Meursault, to be a motive42 

Kawata Hiroshi, Uchi naru sokoku e (Tokyo: Hara Shobō, 2005), 4. Quotations are from Kin Kakuei, “Manazashi no kabe,” in Tsuchi no kanashimi (Tokyo: Kurein, 2006), 289, 290. 44  Kin Kirō Bengodan, Kin Kirō mondai shiryōsūū (Tokyo: Kin Kirō Kōhan Taisaku Iinkai, 1972), 8:289–301. 45  Fujishima Udai, Nihon no minzoku undō (Tokyo: Kōbunsha, 1960), 32. 46  Nozaki Rokusuke, Ri Chin’u nooto (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō, 1994), 189–190. 43 

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less murderer, leading the Japanese scholar of French literature to dub him the Japanese Genet.47 Indeed, he became the proverbial floating signifier to which writers and intellectuals inscribed their favored literary works and motifs. The Komatsugawa Incident and the ensuing trial occurred in the late 1950s and the correspondence between the alleged rapist-murderer and Pak Sunam was first published in 1963 (Tsumi to shi to ai to [Crime and death and love]). In spite of Ri’s conversion to Catholicism and his insistence that neither “poverty” nor “ethnicity” explained his crime, the Koreanist Hatada Isao’s ethnonational reductionism—“We can say that Ri’s crime is the microcosm of Zainichi destiny”—encapsulated the prevailing, predominant opinion.48 The suicide of Yamamura Masaaki is similarly reduced to his exclusion from both Japanese and Koreans as a naturalized Zainichi, but he explicitly indicts poverty and inequality, “inhuman education,” and revolutionary Marxists’ “violent rule” in his suicide note.49 Nonetheless, their impact as “ethnic lessons” on the Zainichi population would slowly seep out in the course of the 1960s. As a Zainichi man wrote to an ethnic Korean newspaper in 1972: “When the Ri Chin’u incident occurred, I was shocked that my secret had been excavated. I instinctively thought that Ri Chi’u killed a man because he is ‘Korean’ and he was executed because he is ‘Korean.’”50 Although the Japanese public opinion was not ready to read the Komatsugawa Incident as a consequence of disrecognition, it belatedly became, like the Kim Hiro Incident, a negative expression of Korean powerlessness. Sensational violence came to exemplify the hopeless situation of Zainichi—no exit—but it would also not be an exaggeration to say that the two cases, a decade apart, shook some Japanese and many Zainichi people into considering and acting on the problematic status of Zainichi in Japanese society. What distinguished the two incidents was the considerable level of Zainichi and ethnic Japanese mobilization that probably staved off Kim’s death sentence. The impact on the Zainichi population was profound. Suh Sung’s 1972 testimony during his spy trial highlighted the two cases as “the concentrated expression of the contradiction of the livelihood or reality of Zainichi society.”51 They articulated Zainichi identity: negatively as murderous rage against a society that did not recognize 47 

Suzuki Michihiko, Ekkyō no toki: 1960-nendai to Zainichi (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 2007), 58–59,

76.

48 

Pak Sunam, ed., Ri Chin’u zenshokanshū (Tokyo: Shinjinbutsuōraisha, 1979), 39, 105. Yamamura Masaaki, Inochi moetsukirutomo, new ed. (Tokyo: Daiwa Shuppan, 1975; originally published 1971), 242–243. 50  Quoted in Lee Sun Ae, Nisei no kigen to “sengo shisō” (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2000), 45. 51  Suh Sung, Gokuchū 19 nen (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1994), 56. 49 

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them as legitimate. It is not an accident that the two Zainichi perpetrators were bereft of language and community; neither spoke Korean nor had any sustained ties to the ethnic population. Their situation recalls the fate of German-speaking Jews who, in the words of Paul Celan, had to “go through dreadful deafening, go through the thousand darknesses of deathdelivering speech.”52 Ri and Kim both sought to learn Korean in prison. The wayward passions of the souls smoldering in disrecognition stirred the Zainichi population and Japanese society at large, but their individual criminal acts could not cross the threshold to ethnic acknowledgment and recognition. The more positive articulation of these proleptic passions and cunning anticipations of ethnic recognition had to wait until the 1970s. Kim Hiro’s shooting and kidnapping, as well as the trial that followed, were by no means the only newsworthy events at the time. In 1969, Zainichi high school students protested their teacher’s use of discriminatory language—the teacher had called a student yotamono (delinquent)—and in so doing affirmed their Zainichi pride and decided to use Korean names.53 In the following year, the naturalized Waseda University student Yamamura Masaaki committed suicide, as I discussed earlier. Most significantly, in 1970 Pak Chonsok sued Hitachi, which had dismissed him following the disclosure of his ethnic background, and won the ensuing lawsuit in 1974. What is remarkable in retrospect is Sōren’s hostility to Pak’s struggle: why would a Korean sojourner worry about employment discrimination in Japan? Only those who intended to stay in Japan would care enough to support Pak’s cause. A leader of a Zainichi youth group angered his elders by expressing the opinion that “the place where we are living is here in Japan . . . and we must emphasize Zainichi.”54 The youth organization condemned his statement as assimilationist and demanded his resignation. Nonetheless, the Hitachi case opened a decade of legal struggles: the Zainichi equivalent of the civil rights years in the United States. As we will see, the Zainichi population and its supporters made a series of striking court victories that restored the social, civil, and political citizenship rights that they had lost in the immediate postwar years. By the late 1960s, then, individual Zainichi were articulating their grievances as Koreans in Japan. The critical insight, articulated presciently and profoundly by Kin Kakuei, was that younger Zainichi by the 1960s had “no ethnic consciousness, ethnic subjectivity to lose”; rather, both Korean 52  Paul Celan, “Ansprache anlässlich der Entgegennahme des Literaturpreises der Freier Hansestadt Bremen,” in Gesammelte Werke (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983), 3:186. 53  Kin Shōichi, “Senkō yo, shikkari sarase,” in Zainichi Chōsenjin no shomondai, ed. Katsumi Satō, 33–39 (Tokyo: Dōseisha, 1971). 54  Satō Katsumi, “Nozomareru jiritsushita kankei,” Kikan sanzenri 12 (1977): 48–53, 50.

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and Japanese influences and identities exist and are inextinguishable but he cannot be reduced to either.55 Indeed, Zainichi occupy a special place— “Being on both ends of the gaze, he can understand it”56—that makes possible “true emancipation.” As the Zainichi character in the story concludes: “Born in Japan, educated in Japan, living in the Japanese environment, and where I will continue to live, I cannot escape the Japan within myself. I cannot escape my destiny as someone who is neither Korean nor Japanese, or Korean and Japanese—Isn’t that all right?”57 These individual harbingers would find collective expressions in the course of the 1970s. As assimilation advanced, ethnic identity was asserted. The first generation’s concern for homeland politics became superseded by the second and third generations’ interest in Japanese life. It is possible to bypass disrecognition by disengagement, but recognition can be won only through engagement. By the 1970s, moreover, there were visible discontents with ethnic Korean organizations’ support of the dictatorial regime in the South and Sōren’s unreflexive support of North Korea’s bureaucratic centralism. In their stead, new social movements and intellectual currents encouraged ethnic mobilization. In response, the ethnic organizations began to focus on the issues affecting the Zainichi population in Japan. But these actions could not stem Zainichi desertion from the mainline ethnic organizations and the two Koreans. That is, Zainichi began to see themselves as independent of and beyond the national division. By 1978, Pak Sunam, who two decades earlier had sought to instill ethnonational consciousness in Ri Chin’u, would write of the “doubleness of [Zainichi] existence”: “If we are ‘not Japanese,’ ‘not Korean,’ we are ‘Japanese’ and ‘Korean.’”58 Beyond North and South, neither Korean nor Japanese: therein lies the germ of Zainichi identity. The Misrecognition of Deleuze and Guattari Let us return to the concept of minor literature. To repeat, Deleuze and Guattari stressed deterritorialization, politicization, and essentialization. The potential for revolutionary rupture resides in minor literature precisely because of the effort of the talented few to employ the major language for the purposes of the (necessarily) politicized, collective enunciation of the minority. As I have argued, they misread Kafka, and their framework does not illuminate the genesis of Zainichi identity. 55 

Kin Kakuei, “Ippiki no hitsuji,” in Tsuchi no kanashimi (Tokyo: Kurein, 2006), 547–554,

553.

56 

Kin, “Manazashi,” 292–293. Kin, “Manazashi,” 293. 58  Pak, Ri Chin’u zenshokanshū, 455. 57 

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Deterritorialization. Kafka himself defined minor literature as a literature of “minor” language and people. Misunderstanding may generate creative insights, but Deleuze and Guattari’s claim that the instigator of minor literature has an “artificial” relationship to the language of the majority is as misleading for Kafka as it is for Ri Chin’u, Kim Hiro, and Kin Kakuei. For these Zainichi men, the Japanese language is all they had. Although they may have been deterritorialized in the sense of being marginalized from or oppressed by mainstream society, the same claim cannot be made regarding the language. In the case of Zainichi literature, Japanese had been the language of expression at least since the end of World War II. Until Kin Kakuei, however, most Zainichi writers, whether Kim Talsu or Kim Sokpom, had a much more complicated relationship with the language of the colonial masters and sought to people their work with ethnic Koreans, going so far as to ground them in the Korean peninsula. They were, then, consciously “deterritorialized.” Yet their self-fashioning was essentially Korean, carrying the nationalist tradition of realist literature. Ironically, it was a nondeterritorialized writer who crafted something like “minor literature” that made a fundamental rupture from the conservative organizations and literary traditions. Kin Kakuei’s transformative literary work was in turn foreshadowed by the criminal acts of Ri Chin’u and Kim Hiro. These criminal acts were proleptic articulations of the sort of rupture that Kin would articulate in his literary works. Politicization. Deleuze and Guattari’s claim about the essential politicization of minor literature is right insofar as it describes the state of ethnic Korean literature in Japan in the 1960s. The major ethnic Korean writers were almost always politicized, almost always left, in the way that Deleuze and Guattari would recognize. Kin Kakuei, however, sought to extricate his writings from the politicized milieu of the ethnic Korean world (and Japan at large). His radical departure irrupted as private meditations, albeit on things that inevitably had larger societal repercussions. Deleuze and Guattari stressed the “tiny space” that necessitated politicization. Indeed, the Japanese literary world—bundan—was a crowded and intimate social space that included ethnic Korean writers in the margins. The same characterization can be applied to the ethnic Korean population at large, many of whom continued to live in ethnic ghettoes well into the 1960s. Yet the writer to establish Zainichi literature hailed from outside the narrow ambit of Japanese literary figures and the Zainichi world. Kin was, in fact, relatively independent of the Japanese literary world and from ethnic Korean organizations in Japan. The social condition of possibility of Kin’s breakthrough was precisely to extricate himself from the tiny space and the politicization that was rife within. In this regard, the two signature

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criminal acts of ethnic cunning occurred outside of the tiny space of minority existence. It is precisely in breaking out of the minor space that a new literature and a new identity emerged. Essentialization. Finally, Deleuze and Guattari stress the conflation of the individual and the collective in minor literature. Yet Kin Kakuei consciously did not speak for the Korean population in Japan when he proposed the radical and revolutionary insight of ethnic recognition. In eschewing the ideology of repatriation touted by the major ethnic organizations and the ideology of naturalization promoted by the Japanese government, Kin sought to pave the third way: ethnic Korean identification within Japan. The individual enunciation—though it reverberated and developed into a collective one over the next several decades—emerged exactly as a highly individualized voice, independent of other writers who claimed to speak for the collective. The two criminal acts I discussed were by two Zainichi men who were alienated from the ethnic community. The French theorists’ claim regarding the paucity of talent seems misleading in this regard. If anything, the ethnic Korean population produced a great many writers, many of whom sought to be precisely the sort of figure who would pen politicized literature that spoke for the collective: to be the Korean Gorky or Lu Xun. The abundance of talent, in fact, led to the conflation of the individual and the collective. Kin’s revolutionary rupture was made possible by forsaking any effort to speak for the people. Thus, Deleuze and Guattari’s description and explanation of minor literature are deeply flawed. Indeed, their misrecognition is symptomatic of the hubris of theory, literary or social. Confident of their mastery and foresight, their lofty speculations bear little resemblance to the world that they claim to illuminate. It reminds one of the children described by Kafka: “They were offered the choice between being kings and being royal envoys. Like children, they all wanted to be envoys. This is why there are so many envoys chasing through the world, shouting—for the want of kings—the most idiotic messages to one another. They would willingly end their miserable lives, but because of their oaths of duty, they don’t dare to.”59 Who will educate the envoys? Zainichi Literature Contemporary literary scholarship has taken a scholastic turn that privileges theory and analysis. It is not my desire to bemoan the current state of an academic discipline but to observe that in the oft-justified revolt against philology, new criticism, and other previous scholarly styles and 59 

Kafka, Zürau, 48.

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modes there have been unfortunate consequences. The explicit critique of Eurocentrism, as I suggested earlier, has become accepted in theory but not in practice. More sinister is that the valorization of theory, of which Said’s critique of Orientalism was a significant landmark, has paradoxically entrenched Eurocentric outlooks.60 Not surprisingly, French theorists and their epigones tend to be more familiar with European literature and there has arisen something of a structure of dependence—literary colonialism—in which non-Western literatures perforce pay obeisance to the very Eurocentric theory that simultaneously claims to deconstruct Eurocentrism. More mundanely, the stress on theory has ostensibly transcended the humdrum activities of translation and introduction. That is, little, if any, scholarly rewards are meted out to scholars who engage in the elementary tasks of introducing new works of literature, especially in the painstaking form of rendering non-English-language works into English (or other languages). Symptomatically, translation studies has emerged as a subfield of literary studies but principally as a matter of theoretical lucubration.61 This volume, then, is in part a modest riposte to some of the trends in literary studies—and hence the theoretical stress of this appendix—but more importantly it is meant to present some of the stimulating Zainichi writings in Japanese to Anglophone readers. Seemingly against my argument here, I have included ethnic Korean writings in Japanese before Kin Kakuei. Needless to say, there is no point in denying the existence or salience of ethnic Korean writings in Japanese before Kin or even 1945. If nothing else, Kim Saryang is widely regarded as something of the founder of Zainichi literature and his work has had a long afterlife. Whatever the merit of this or any other genealogy, the purpose of this collection is to introduce some of the vast outpouring of ethnic Koreans who wrote in Japanese in the past century.

60  There is a lively debate on the contemporary movement for world literature. See David Damrosch, What Is World Literature? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), Christopher Prendergast, ed., Debating World Literature (London: Verso, 2004), and Emily Apter, Against World Literature (London: Verso, 2013). Cf. Fritz Stich, Goethe und die Weltliteratur (Bern: Francke, 1957). 61  See, e.g., Lawrence Venuti, ed., The Translation Studies Reader, 3rd ed. (London: Routledge, 2012), and Susan Bassnett, Translation (London: Routledge, 2013).

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY INSTITUTE OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES The Institute of East Asian Studies was established at the University of California, Berkeley, in the fall of 1978 to promote research and teaching on the cultures and societies of China, Japan, and Korea. The institute unites several research centers and programs, including the Center for Buddhist Studies, the Center for Chinese Studies, the Center for Japanese Studies, the Center for Korean Studies, and the Group in Asian Studies. Director: Associate Director:

Kevin O’Brien Martin Backstrom

CENTER FOR BUDDHIST STUDIES Chair: Robert Sharf CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES Chair: You-tien Hsing CENTER FOR JAPANESE STUDIES Chair: Dana Buntrock CENTER FOR KOREAN STUDIES Chair: Laura C. Nelson GROUP IN ASIAN STUDIES Chair: Aihwa Ong

The Spread of the Korean Language

The Spread of the Korean Language Through the Korean Diaspora and Beyond

You and Ha INSTITUTE OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES

TK FINAL 1.31.indd 1

Edited by Clare You and Yangwon Ha TK 2

INSTITUTE OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ● BERKELEY

TRANSNATIONAL KOREA 2

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