Reading the Work of Yi Yang-ji from a Postcolonial and Cultural

Transcription

Reading the Work of Yi Yang-ji from a
Postcolonial and Cultural Studies Perspective
Magisterarbeit im Fach Japanologie
an der
Philosophischen Fakultät
der
Universität zu Köln
Gutachterin: Prof. Dr. Franziska Ehmcke
vorgelegt im August 2010
von
Nadeschda Lisa Bachem
Fröbelstr. 40
50823 Köln
Matrikelnr.: 4011180
Tel.: 0221/30255466
[email protected]
Erklärung
Hiermit versichere ich, dass ich diese Magisterarbeit selbständig verfasst und keine anderen als die angegebenen Quellen und Hilfsmittel benutzt habe. Die Stellen meiner Arbeit,
die dem Wortlaut oder dem Sinn nach anderen Werken entnommen sind, habe ich in jedem
Fall unter Angabe der Quelle als Entlehnung kenntlich gemacht. Dasselbe gilt sinngemäß
für Tabellen, Karten und Abbildungen. Diese Arbeit hat in dieser oder einer ähnlichen
Form noch nicht im Rahmen einer anderen Prüfung vorgelegen.
___________________________________
Ort&Datum, Unterschrift
A Note on Foreign Terms and Names





For transcription of Japanese and Korean terms the modified Hepburn-,
respectively the McCune-Reischauer-system is used.
Foreign terms that have not been lexicalised in the English language are given in
italics.
Japanese and Korean names are given in the order customary in East Asia, that is,
surname first and given name second, unless those being referred to are writing in
English.
Names of Japanese Korean writers are given either in Korean or Japanese reading
depending on their own use.
The names of Korean public figures such as politicians will be given in their usual
English transcription.
Table of Contents
1.
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................. 1
1.1
2.
CURRENT STATE OF RESEARCH................................................................................................................. 3
BACKGROUND .................................................................................................................................... 6
2.1
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND...................................................................................................................... 6
2.1.1 The Situation in South Korea ..................................................................................................... 12
2.2
LITERARY BACKGROUND: ZAINICHI CHŌSENJIN BUNGAKU ............................................................................ 14
2.3
YI YANG-JI: BIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 21
3.
METHODOLOGY: POSTCOLONIAL AND CULTURAL STUDIES .............................................................. 23
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
4.
IDENTITY ........................................................................................................................................... 25
HYBRIDITY ......................................................................................................................................... 29
MIMICRY........................................................................................................................................... 31
COLONIAL DISCOURSE AND DESIRE ......................................................................................................... 32
CRITIQUE........................................................................................................................................... 34
LITERARY ANALYSIS .......................................................................................................................... 34
4.1
NABI T’ARYŎNG: PLACING THE TEXT..................................................................................................... 34
4.2
NABI T’ARYŎNG: SUMMARY ............................................................................................................... 38
4.3
NABI T’ARYŎNG: ANALYSIS ................................................................................................................ 40
4.3.1 Kyōto .......................................................................................................................................... 41
4.3.2 Tōkyō ......................................................................................................................................... 46
4.3.3 Seoul .......................................................................................................................................... 53
4.4
YUHI................................................................................................................................................. 61
5.
CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................... 64
APPENDIX ................................................................................................................................................. 67
REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................................... 67
KANJI-GLOSSARY ............................................................................................................................................. 71
SCANS OF THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT NABI T’ARYŎNG AND YUHI.......................................................................... 75
1.
Introduction
After its phase of rapid modernization following the forced opening of the country, Ja-
pan soon established a colonial empire at the eve of the twentieth century. One reminder of
the country‟s period of expansion is the Korean minority in Japan. This minority, offspring
of Koreans who came either voluntarily or forced to Japan during the time of Japanese imperialism,1 stands in stark contrast to the myth of Japanese homogeneity.2 In Japanese, the
members of this group are called zainichi chōsen kankokujin, which literally means (North
or South) Koreans residing in Japan. For the purpose of this paper, however, I will use the
terms Japanese Koreans and Koreans in Japan interchangeably.3 Since the formation of the
minority, Koreans in Japan have been exposed to legal as well as social discrimination4
and therefore had to face a difficult relationship with Japan as well as with Korea, which
was separated into two states representing opposing world views in 1948. Accordingly,
many young Koreans continue to feel an estrangement from their perceived “home country”
while at the same time not being fully able to assimilate into Japanese society. This leads
to various conflicts of identity which heavily inform a prosperous branch of literature by
Japanese Koreans in Japanese language.
Since the time of Japanese imperialism, Koreans in Japan have expressed their experiences and hardships literarily, and this literature is, in the overwhelming majority of cases,
marked by questions of ethnical belonging and the search for identity.
1
Concerning the difference between colonialism and imperialism, Ania Loomba holds: “In the modern
world, then, we can distinguish between colonization as the takeover of territory, appropriation of material
resources, exploitation of labour and interference with political and cultural structures of another territory
or nation, and imperialism as a global system.” (Ania Loomba, Colonialism – postcolonialism [London 2005],
p. 11.) In this way, imperialism is the “highest stage of colonialism”. (Ibid.)
2
On the origin and characteristics of Japanese nationalism and the myth of homogeneity cf. Kosaku Yoshino
(Kosaku Yoshino, “The Discourse on Blood and Racial Identity in Contemporary Japan”, in The construction
of racial identities in China and Japan, ed. by Frank Dikötter [London 1997], 199-212).
3
The Japanese term zainichi chōsen kankokujin as well as its English translation “Resident Koreans” indicate
an only temporary stay in Japan which stands in contrast to the lived reality of Koreans in Japan who have
already established residence in Japan over several generations and who are unlikely to leave any time soon.
(Matthew Königsberg, Literatur der koreanischen Minderheit in Japan: Assimilation und Identitätsfindung
[Hamburg 1995], pp. 16-18; Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt, Alles nur Theater? Gender und Ethnizität bei der
japankoreanischen Autorin Yū Miri [München 2008], p. 16). The expression “Korean Japanese” as an equivalent to for example “Korean Americans”, on the other hand, is a term that does not reflect the Japanese
case since Koreans, even if naturalized, are generally not considered to be Japanese (by neither the Japanese nor themselves), as Yasunori Fukuoka points out (Yasunori Fukuoka, Lives of Young Koreans in Japan,
transl. by Tom Gill [Melbourne 2000], p. xxxviif.). In this work, the terms “Japanese Koreans”, respectively
“Koreans in Japan” are used to imply this group’s affiliation to Japan whose members often still possess
Korean nationality or feel a tie to one of the Korean states.
4
It has to be noted, however, that the legal situation has improved remarkably since the 1980s (Chikako
Kashiwazaki, “The politics of legal status:The equation of nationality with ethnonational identity”, in Koreans in Japan: Critical voices from the margin, ed. by Sonia Ryang [London 2000], p. 28f.).
1
One approach to those problems that differs from the previous writings of Korean authors can be found in the work of Yi Yang-ji who debuted in 1982 with her novel5 Nabi
t‟aryŏng6 [A Butterfly‟s Lament] which will be the primary research topic of the present
work. Yi Yang-ji (1955-1992) was the first female author to produce on a broader scale socalled zainichi chōsenjin bungaku or zainichi bungaku,7 literature by Japanese Koreans,
and is also considered the first representative of the third literary generation of this genre.
Her novel Yuhi (1988) won her the prestigious Akutagawa Prize which makes her one of
four Japanese Korean writers to be granted this prize to the present day.8
The plot of Nabi t‟aryŏng revolves around the protagonist Aiko, a young Japanese Korean woman who experiences a tremendous crisis of identity in-between Japan and Korea.
The novel tells the story of Aiko escaping her troubled parental house to work in a ryokan
(Japanese inn) in Kyōto where she lives in constant fear of being discovered as a Korean.
As this fear materializes, she again escapes, this time back to Tōkyō, where she lives a
practice of self-destruction and paranoia before starting an ambivalent love affair with a
Japanese man twenty years her senior. After her beloved brother‟s death, she leaves to
Seoul in search for her ethnic roots.
In this thesis, I plan to examine from which factors the identity crisis of the novel‟s protagonist is triggered. In doing so, I will rely on concepts of postcolonial and cultural studies, predominantly on the work of Homi Bhabha (b. 1949) and Stuart Hall (b. 1932). Those
theories reject the Cartesian idea of identity as being consistent and original and instead
suggest the subject as being influenced by different, even conflicting discourses, or, relying
on Bhabha‟s expression, as being marked by hybridity. As Elisabeth Bronfen and
Benjamin Marius note in the introduction of their volume Hybride Kulturen, ”[d]as Subjekt
ist Knoten- und Kreuzungspunkt der Sprachen, Ordnungen, Diskurse, Systeme wie auch
der Wahrnehmungen, Begehren, Emotionen, Bewußtseinsprozesse, die es durchziehen.“9 I
5
When using Western labels such as ‘novel’, ‘literature’, or ‘fiction’, one should bear in mind that Japanese
writing traditions have a completely different background and history and Western concepts should be applied with caution in the Japanese case (Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit, Was heißt: japanische Literatur verstehen? Zur modernen japanischen Literatur und Literaturkritik [Frankfurt a.M. 1990], p. 10).
6
The novel is the only one of Yi Yang-ji’s works to bear a Korean name; the Japanese transcription is Nabi
taryon.
7
Some scholars like Isogai Jirō (Isogai Jirō, “Hen'yō to keishō: ‘zainichi’ bungaku no rokujūnen”, Shakai bungaku 26 [2007], 32-46) apply the two terms differently according to generational characteristics but following Iwata-Weickgenannt (2008, p. 17 fn. 8), I use the terms alternately instead of in this slightly judgemental
way.
8
Apart from Yi Yang-ji, Japanese Korean Akutagawa-awardees are Ri Kaisei (b. 1935), Yū Miri (b. 1968), and
Gen Getsu (b. 1965) (Iwata-Weickgenannt [2008], p. 39).
9
Elisabeth Bronfen and Benjamin Marius, “Hybride Kulturen: Einleitung zur anglo-amerikanischen
Multikulturalismusdebatte“,
in
Hybride
Kulturen:
Beiträge
zur
anglo-amerikanischen
2
will explore in how far contradictory ideas concerning ethnic belonging, gender, and familial ties imposed on the protagonist cause her suffering. In particular the ambivalent powerrelations between her and the other Korean and Japanese characters in the story undermine
the idea of a monolithic cultural identity, as I will show. In addition to this, I plan to work
out whether the ending of the novel can be read as ethnic conciliation, as the narration suggests.
For this purpose, I will draw a comparison to Yi Yang-ji‟s Akutagawa Prize-winning
novel Yuhi. In this piece, the supposed reconciliation with Korea as the home country as
presented in Nabi t‟aryŏng fails when the protagonist virtually flees back to Japan after not
having been able to adapt to the Korean way of living.10 In several ways, Yuhi can be read
as a kind of sequel to Nabi t‟aryŏng and I thus will elaborate on the apparently contradictory endings of both novels and how far they really have to be considered as opposing
when relying on the postmodern conception of identity as fluid.
1.1
Current State of Research
Research on zainichi bungaku is relatively spare, in the West as well as in Japan.11
Three monographs in Western languages treat the topic of literature by Japanese Koreans
in a broader manner: Matthew Königsberg‟s pioneer work Literatur der koreanischen
Minderheit in Japan: Assimilation und Identitätsfindung,12 published in 1995, undertakes
an overview of the main topics and common characteristics of zainichi literature based on a
rich body of primary texts and quotations. Four authors, Yi Yang-ji being one of them, are
each treated in a separate chapter. Königsberg analyses Yi Yang-ji‟s pieces Yuhi and Koku
[Core, 1984].
The only English-language monograph dealing with the topic is Melissa Wender‟s
Lamentation as History: Narratives by Koreans in Japan, 1965-2000.13 Six authors are
treated; the chapter on Yi Yang-ji deals with her novels Kazukime [The Diving Maiden,
1983] and Koku. Finally, Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt‟s dissertation on Yū Miri, Alles nur
Theater? Gender und Ethnizität bei der japankoreanischen Autorin Yū Miri,14 has to be
mentioned. While the main focus of this monograph naturally lies on the work of Yū Miri,
Multikulturalismusdebatte, ed. by Elisabeth Bronfen, Benjamin Marius and Therese Steffen (Tübingen
1997), 1-29, p. 4.
10
Iwata-Weickgenannt (2008), p. 153.
11
For a detailed discussion of the current state of research cf. ibid., pp. 42-50.
12
Königsberg (1995).
13
Melissa L. Wender, Lamentation as History: Narratives by Koreans in Japan, 1965 - 2000 (Stanford, Calif.
2005).
14
Iwata-Weickgenannt (2008).
3
the introductory chapters offer a very detailed, systematic overview of zainichi bungaku
and its history.
There is a variety of Japanese publications, albeit small, on the literature of Koreans in
Japan. I will, however, only mention two publications which are the most important for my
work. Kim Hun-a, a South-Korean scholar, published her monograph Zainichi chōsenjin
josei bungakuron [Theory of Resident Korean Women‟s Literature]15 in 2004. After some
introductory chapters which give background on zainichi bungaku as well as the previous
research on the matter, she chronologically discusses several female writers in detail. In the
chapter on Yi Yang-ji, Nabi t‟aryŏng, Koku, and Yuhi are examined. In addition to this, in
2007 the journal Shakai bungaku16 dedicated a special issue to the topic. Especially Isogai
Jirō‟s article on the history of literature by Japanese Koreans 17 will be of interest for this
work.
Concerning Yi Yang-ji specifically, three articles exist in Western languages. Carol
Hayes in her piece Cultural identity in the work of Yi Yang-ji (2001)18 works on Nabi
t‟aryŏng and Yuhi. However, while pursuing the topic of cultural identity, Hayes leaves out
postcolonial theories altogether which offers much room for further research. In 2007, the
articles Beyond language: Embracing the figure of „the Other‟ in Yi Yang-ji‟s Yuhi19 by
Catherine Ryu and Verena Nakamura-Methfessel‟s Die japan-koreanische Schriftstellerin
Yi Yang-ji: Eine Initiatorin der neueren zainichi Literatur; Leben und Schreiben zwischen
zwei Asien 20 were published. Both deal with Yuhi in more detail while NakamuraMethfessel also offers synopsises of five further pieces by Yi Yang-ji.
The majority of Japanese articles on Yi Yang-ji concern Yuhi, but there are to my
knowledge three pieces which deal with Nabi t‟aryŏng exclusively or among her other
work. Kin Katsumi in her article Yi Yang-ji no sakuhin ni miru zainichi chōsen, kankokujin
no minzoku ishiki [Japanese Korean‟s Ethnic Consciousness Seen in the Work of Yi Yangji, 2000]21 studies apart from Nabi t‟aryŏng, Koku and Yuhi as well and elaborates on the
protagonist‟s (and Yi Yang-ji‟s) relation to their Korean origin when trying to find them15
Kim Hun-a, Zainichi chōsenjin josei bungakuron (Tōkyō 2004).
Shakai bungaku 26 (2007, tokushū: "zainichi" bungaku; kako, genzai, mirai).
17
Isogai (2007).
18
Carol Hayes, “Cultural identity in the work of Yi Yang-ji”, in Koreans in Japan: Critical Voices from the
Margin, ed. by Sonia Ryang (London 2000).
19
Catherine Ryu, ‚”Beyond language: embracing the figure of 'the Other' in Yi Yang-ji's Yuhi”, in Representing the Other in modern Japanese literature: a critical approach, ed. by Rachael Hutchinson and Mark Williams (London 2007).
20
Verena Nakamura-Methfessel, “Die japan-koreanische Autorin Yi Yang-ji: eine Initiatorin der neueren
zainichi Literatur; Leben und Schreiben zwischen zwei Asien“, Asiatische Studien LXI (2007), 497-520.
21
Kin Katsumi, “Yi Yang-ji no sakuhin ni miru zainichi chōsen, kankokujin no minzoku ishiki“, Bukkyō daigaku
sōgō kenkyūsho kiyō 7 (2000), 135-157.
16
4
selves. Ch‟oe Hyo-sŏn deals in his article Yi Yang-ji Nabi taryon: „taryon‟ no shōtai o otte
[Yi Yang-ji – Nabi t‟aryŏng – Following the True Form of the “t‟aryŏng”, 2002]22 entirely
with Nabi t‟aryŏng and attempts to investigate the protagonist‟s grudge and examines how
it is resolved. Finally, O Ŭn-yŏng‟s piece Zainichi chōsenjin ni totte “ibunka” to sono
shintai kankaku: Yi Yang-ji no sakuhin o tōshite [“The Other Culture” for Resident Koreans and its Corporal Sensation: through the work of Yi Yang-ji, 2005]23 examines the experience of estrangement as presented in Nabi t‟aryŏng, Kazukime, and Yuhi and shows
how it is connected to the description of bodily reaction and sentiment.
The relative scarcity of academic literature on zainichi chōsenjin bungaku in general
and Yi Yang-ji in particular calls for further research. As the first female author of zainichi
bungaku as well as the first representative of the third literary generation, Yi Yang-ji‟s fiction can be considered an important contribution to Japanese literature and therefore deserves further attention. In addition, postcolonial theory has hardly been applied to Japanese Korean literature although it can be considered a promising approach to tackle the issue. Of Yi Yang-ji‟s fiction, the little-studied novel Nabi t‟aryŏng seems most suitable for
being examined from this methodological perspective (as will be shown below) which is
why it constitutes a valuable research topic.
This work will be structured as follows: First, I plan to give a historical overview on the
issue of Koreans in Japan. Moreover, some background on the situation in South Korea,
primarily in the 1980s when the novel was written, will be delivered. Next, I will locate Yi
Yang-ji‟s work in the literary context of zainichi chōsenjin bungaku, elaborate on the different developments over three literary generations and subsequently provide a rough outline of her biography. The introductory chapters will be concluded with an elaboration on
the concepts of postcolonial and cultural studies‟ thought that form the basis of the then
following literary analysis. The main part of this work will be structured according to the
three chief settings of the novel, Kyōto, Tōkyō, and Seoul, hereby roughly following its
chronological course. Finally in the conclusion, I will summarize my findings and specify
what can be drawn from them.
22
Ch’oe Hyo-sŏn, “Yi Yang-ji Nabi taryon: "taryon" no shōtai wo otte“, Ryūkoku daigakuin bungaku
kenkyūka kiyō 24 (2002), 31-42.
23
O Ŭn-yŏng, “Zainichi chōsenjin ni totte no "ibunka" to sono shintai kankaku: Yi Yang-ji no sakuhin o
tōshite“, Nagoya daigaku Nihongo, Nihon bunka ronshū 13 (2005), 169-189.
5
2.
Background
2.1
Historical Background
Korea and Japan have a long common history marked by cultural exchange on the one
hand and military aggression culminating in the colonisation of Korea by Japan on the
other. In the following, I will deliver a brief overview of prior Korean-Japanese relations,
the time of colonial empire as the cause of a formation of a noteworthy Korean minority in
Japan and finally pursue their history into the present in order to embed the novel into its
historical background.
Changsoo Lee and George de Vos 24 outline several historical preconditions for the
Japanese-Korean relationship until colonial times and beyond. Some archaeological evidence suggests, for example, that Koreans and Japanese actually have a common origin, a
hypothesis that is fiercely rejected in the popular opinion. 25 During the Japanese Nara
(710-794) and Heian period (794-1185), contact was primarily peaceful and ties of prosperous cultural exchange existed between the two countries.26 A serious setback to the relations were two brutal attempts to invade Korea by Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598) between 1592 and 1598. While the first endeavour was terminated by Chinese intervention,
the second one only ended upon his death.27
The next major collision in Japanese-Korean history was the Treaty of Kangwha in
1876, the first step towards colonizing Korea. It was signed after an incident that was initiated by the Japanese military a year prior which gave justification to compel an unequal
treaty.28 After protecting its interests in Korea first against China in the Sino-Japanese War
in 1894-95 and then Russia in the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-05, Japan made Korea a
protectorate in 1905 before completely annexing the state in 1910.29 This was a new dimension in Japanese imperial endeavours since after previously having ensured supremacy
over traditional Japanese spheres of influence like the Ryūkyū-archipelago or Karafuto,30
Japan for the first time annexed an independent state with a foreign people.31
24
Changsoo Lee and George de Vos, eds, Koreans in Japan: Ethnic Conflict and Accommodation (Berkeley,
Calif. 1981).
25
Changsoo Lee and George de Vos, “Koreans and Japanese: the Formation of Ethnic Consciousness”, in Koreans in Japan, ed. by Lee and de Vos, 3-20, pp. 3-10.
26
Ibid., pp. 11-13.
27
Ibid., pp. 14-17; John Whitney Hall, ed., Early modern Japan, The Cambridge history of Japan. Vol. 4, general ed. John W. Hall … (Cambridge 1997), pp. 265-290.
28
Marion Eggert and Jörg Plassen, Kleine Geschichte Koreas (München 2005), pp. 111f. , see also Fukuoka
(2000), pp. 3f.
29
Peter Duus and John Whitney Hall, eds, The twentieth century, The Cambridge history of Japan. Vol. 6,
general ed. John W. Hall … (Cambridge 1997), p. 227.
30
The southern half of Sakhalin occupied by Japan
31
Duus and Hall (1997), p. 224.
6
Although modelled after and heavily influenced by European imperialism, there are
several aspects that make the Japanese case distinct.32 First of all, Japan had almost been a
victim of Western colonial activities itself. In addition to that, its imperial expansion occurred well into its industrial revolution and was not a result of it, like in the West. By and
large, Japanese imperialism was much more driven by security concerns than by economic
needs.33 Unlike in Europe, the state was the main actor and did not respond to, for example
the efforts of business people who in the Western case were often pioneers. Another point
worth bearing in mind for the purpose of this work is the geographical and cultural proximity of Japan to its colonies and the fact that, compared to most Western imperialism,
colonizers and colonized subjects were virtually not distinguishable by their outward appearance.
Generally, Japanese colonial politics were marked by two rather contradictory tendencies that alternately prevailed during the different phases of Japanese imperialism. The first
one was directly inherited from European colonialism and displayed social Darwinist
thought on racial supremacy of some peoples that thus had the right to dominate the “inferior” races. The second one was distinctly Japanese and infused with thoughts of panAsianism or Asian kindred and claimed that Japan as the superior nation had the moral obligation to guide its Asian brother countries into enlightenment and integrate them into the
Japanese “family” under the emperor.34 It is also worth noting that the concept of a heterogeneous society and the idea of a common Korean-Japanese origin were much more accepted in colonial times than in the post-war period.35
The annexation hit Korea, a nation of at least a thousand years of common cultural tradition, hard, especially as animosities between the countries had existed since Hideyoshi‟s
attempts to invade.36 Strict control was enforced over the colony37 and a severe exploitation of the country began.38 Koreans became second class citizens with Japanese nationality. Even if living in Japan, their household registry had to remain in Korea, thereby marking the difference between colonial subjects and Japanese proper.39 The exploitation of Korean agriculture led to extreme poverty while in Japan labour shortage emerged with the
32
Duus and Hall (1997), pp. 217-223.
Economic interests were important, but emerged only after the empire was established (Duus and Hall
[1997), p. 223).
34
Duus and Hall (1997), pp. 237-241.
35
Kashiwazaki (2000), pp. 16f.
36
Eggert and Plassen (2005), pp. 131f.
37
Duus and Hall (1997), p. 227.
38
Eggert and Plassen (2005), pp. 132-135; Fukuoka (2000), p. 4.
39
33
7
eve of World War I.40 Hence, many Koreans came to Japan where they worked in mining
or railroad construction. Koreans were exposed to discrimination, while hostilities existed
on the Japanese and on the Korean side alike.41 Nevertheless, in 1920 around 40,000 Koreans already lived in Japan.42 While the first wave of Korean immigrants consisted mainly
of young males, from the late 1920s on they began fetching their families, thereby establishing a more permanent living in Japan.43
Meanwhile in Korea, anti-Japanese sentiments rose under the oppressive occupational
regime, leading to the emergence of a liberation movement in 1919 which was brutally put
down. Japanese leaders, however, realized they had to take action against Korean resentments both in Korea and at home in order to preserve stability. Thus in 1920, naisen yūwa
(“Domestic Korean harmony”) was officially proclaimed and mutual-aid organizations like
Sōaikai (“Mutual Care Association”) were provided with financial support to tackle radical,
especially communist, tendencies among Koreans.44
One stain on the memory of Koreans in Japan up to the present day is the massacre following the Great Kantō Earthquake on 1 August 1923. In the chaotic situation following
the disaster, right-wingers as well as the newspapers spread rumours about Koreans having
poisoned the wells, starting fires and raping women leading to a pogrom in which more
than 6,000 Koreans were killed by a Japanese mob.45
Extreme events like this which prove the hostility towards the minority none withstanding, in 1925, male suffrage was established for Koreans living in Japan.46 From the mid1930s, the efforts of forcefully assimilating Koreans into Japanese society grew. Organizations like the Sōaikai were replaced with the government-run Kyōwakai (“Harmonization
Association”) to which all Korean labourers in Japan automatically became member and
which served as a powerful means of social control. Through this, the Japanese administration attempted to turn Koreans by and by into loyal subjects of the Japanese emperor.47
Another of these efforts, under the slogan kōminka (“turning [Koreans] into the emperor‟s
people”), was sōshi kaimei (“make a surname and change one‟s forename”) which forced
Koreans under threat of severe penalties to take on a Japanese name. Thereby the tradi40
Changsoo Lee and George de Vos, “The Colonial Experience, 1910-1945”, in Koreans in Japan, ed. by Lee
and de Vos, 31-57, pp. 34-36.
41
Ibid., pp. 36-44.
42
Kashiwazaki (2000), p. 18; Lee and de Vos, as well as Fukuoka point out that even before the annexation,
around 790 or several thousand Korean labourers had already lived in Japan. (Lee and the de Vos [1981], p.
32; Fukuoka [2000], pp. 3f.)/ Still, most came from the 1920s.
43
Fukuoka (2000), pp. 4f.
44
Kashiwazaki (2000), p. 19; see also Fukuoka (2000), p. 5.
45
Lee and de Vos (1981a), pp. 21-28; see also Fukuoka (2000), p. 4.
46
Kashiwazaki (2000), p. 18.
47
8
tional Korean kinship system based on clan membership was abandoned in favour of the
Japanese one, which depended on family affiliation.48
Labour shortage in the growing war industry was met with the National Manpower Mobilization Act in 1939. Until then, Koreans had come voluntarily to Japan, even if the immigration was caused by the poor living conditions in their home country, but now they
were forced, from 1941 on through the use of labour recruiting stations in Korea. By the
end of World War II approximately 822,000 Koreans had been brought to Japan. 49 Generally, men had to work in the industries relevant for warfare or serve in the military; countless women were forced or tricked into prostitution.50 The final step of involving Koreans
in Japanese warfare was the introduction of conscription in Korea in 1944.51
On the other hand, there was some effort to better integrate colonial subjects into the
Japanese empire and grant them more rights. For example, moving the household registry
to Japan was allowed in 1944; in the same year, some social improvements were enforced
and in 1945, the extension of suffrage to the colonies with a tax payment condition was
decided upon. Due to the end of war, however, those plans never came to fruition.52
When Japan unconditionally surrendered in 1945, 2.3 million Koreans were living in
Japan of whom most left immediately. However, around 600,000 remained in Japan during
the first wave. Apart from restrictions on the amount of valuables one could bring to Korea,
more important were reports of floods, famine, poverty, and riots, as well as news of Koreans who had returned to their home country wanting to come back to Japan led to hesitation to repatriate right away.53 Those remaining in Japan were stripped of their right to vote.
In the absence of an international agreement on the status of their nationality they were
nevertheless officially Japanese nationals until the San Francisco Peace Treaty came into
effect in 1952. The Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) considered that
they were to be treated as “liberated people” but only as long as security concerns, especially regarding the issue of communist tendencies, allowed it.54
48
Fukuoka (2000), pp. 5-7.
Lee and de Vos (1981b), pp. 52-54.
50
Up to 200,000 women were systematically forced into prostitution in military brothels. Up to the present
day those women, who are euphemistically called ianfu (“comfort women”), never received full compensation from the Japanese government. (Amnesty International, ed., Japan: sechzig Jahre warten; Gerechtigkeit
für die Überlebenden des japanischen Systems militärischer sexueller Sklaverei [Tübingen 2006]);
51
52
Lee and de Vos (1981b), p. 56; Kashiwazaki (2000), p. 20.
53
Changsoo Lee, “The Period of Repatriation, 1945-1949”, in Koreans in Japan, ed. by Lee and de Vos, 58-72,
pp. 58-60.
54
49
9
At this point, it seems worth shortly elaborating about the two competing organizations
shaping the Korean community in Japan.55 In 1945, the League of Koreans (Chonryŏn)
was founded with the aim to help Koreans repatriate. Soon, however, Chonryŏn became
absorbed into the politics of the Japanese Communist Party and Koreans thus came to be
regarded as a security threat by the SCAP. In 1946, the Mindan (Association for Korean
Residents in Japan), a nationalist, anti-communist organization for Koreans formed, but
Chonryŏn remained the far more influential institution until it was abolished in 1949. In
1955, its successor organisation Ch‟ongnyŏn (General Federation of Korean Residents in
Japan) was founded, emancipated from the JCP and having the well-being of Koreans as
it‟s main incentive. Ch‟ongnyŏn understood itself as North Korean-affiliated and only then
did the Mindan begin to see itself as the representative of South Koreans in Japan.56
In 1947, Koreans in Japan were made subject to the Alien Registration Ordinance. They
had to renew their residential status every four years, had their fingerprints taken, were required to carry their Alien Registration Card with them at all times and produce it on demand. On top of that in 1951 the Immigration Control Order was brought into effect and
created a further hurdle for Korean residents.57
Following the partition of Korea alongside the 38th degree latitude in 1948 and the Korean War in 1950-1953, Koreans in Japan came to terms with the prospect of a possible
longer stay because of the unfavourable situation at home.58
When the San Francisco Peace Treaty went into effect in 1952, all Koreans who had not
applied for another nationality were made practically stateless, especially in absence of
diplomatic relations between Japan and either of the Koreas.59 In addition to this, as foreign nationals Koreans did not have access to social services such as support for those who
had suffered losses during the war or had fought for Japan. 60 The Korean minority soon
became a concern for Japanese authorities. Naturalization was difficult and for people of
communist orientation virtually impossible. Most Koreans equated nationality with ethnic
heritage and did not desire to become Japanese citizens, for they would have considered it
treachery to their Korean origin.61 In cooperation with the North Korean Red Cross in 1959
55
Although they have lost influence in recent years, see Fukuoka (2000), p. 22.
Lee (1981c), pp. 61-72; Changsoo Lee, “Koreans under SCAP: an Era of Unrest and Repression”, in Koreans
in Japan, ed. by Lee and de Vos, 73-90, pp. 83-90; Kashiwazaki (2000), pp. 24f.
57
58
Ibid., p. 20.
59
Ibid., pp. 22f.
60
Fukuoka (2000), p. 12.
61
Kashiwazaki (2000), p. 26; Lee (1981d), p. 83.
56
10
a movement for repatriation to North Korea was undertaken and until 1967 almost 100,000
people were shipped to the Korean peninsula.62
In 1965, Japan and South Korea took up diplomatic relations. To South Korean nationals “treaty-based permanent residence” was granted, while the situation for those who
identified themselves with the North remained uncertain.63
By the mid-1960s, the Japanese government realized that the Korean minority was there
to stay. Since a large unassimilated group is perceived as a constant security threat for a
state, brochures encouraging naturalization were published. At the same time, the administration had little incentive to naturalize Koreans who were not fully assimilated since that
would have made them harder to control: “They had therefore two motivations that were at
odds with each other: the long-term goal of the incorporation of immigrants through assimilation, and the maintenance of preventive measures for potential security problems.”64
Hence, naturalization numbers remained relatively low.65
From the 1980s, several improvements were made for Koreans permanently residing in
Japan. In 1979, the Japanese government had ratified the International Covenants on Human Rights, followed by the UN Refugee Convention in 1981 which forced it to change
existing legislation in order to fulfil the agreements.66 Consequently, in the same year the
Immigration Control Act was revised which henceforth granted “exceptional permanent
residence” to North Koreans.67 Also in the 80s, conditions for housing and employment as
well as access to social welfare gradually improved.68 In 1991, all treaties under which
subjects of former colonies were treated were combined and they acquired the uniform
status of “special permanent residents”.69
In 1992, another impediment for Japanese Koreans fell: a partial reform of the Alien
Registration Law exempted permanent and special permanent residents from giving their
fingerprints with the renewal of their residential status; a much-maligned practice that had
led to various demonstrations and protests throughout the 80s. In addition, foreign nation-
62
Most Koreans in Japan originally stemmed from the south, but its administration had failed to concern
itself with its overseas nationals and so Pyŏngyang took advantage (Changsoo Lee, “The Politics of Repatriation”, in Koreans in Japan, ed. by Lee and de Vos, 91-109).
63
Fukuoka (2000), p. 19; Kashiwazaki (2000), p. 26.
64
65
Ibid.
66
Ibid., p. 28.
67
Fukuoka (2000), p. 19.
68
69
Fukuoka (2000), p. 19.
11
als were allowed to work as teachers. But even today, public administrative posts are denied to them.70
Since the 1980s and 90s, Japanese Koreans increasingly became assimilated into Japanese society. In the span between 1952 and 1996, there were about 200,000 naturalizations.
Intermarriage between Japanese and Korean spouses was at an increasing rate, so much
that in fact Koreans in Japan are more likely to marry a Japanese person than a Korean.71
This is hardly surprising since most Koreans attend Japanese schools72 and often know no
Korean people apart from their relatives. Another detail indicating the degree of their assimilation is that most Koreans in Japan have a Japanese alias which is used in semiofficial occasions such as employment and which many use almost exclusively.73
While assimilation continues and many legal barriers have been abolished – to conclude
from those facts that discriminatory practices and prejudice have vanished altogether
would be premature.74
2.1.1
The Situation in South Korea
In the following, I will give a rough outline of the development of South Korea after its
liberation which are relevant for an understanding of the novel‟s setting.
When the war ended, Korea was divided into two occupation zones along the 38th latitude. While the Soviet Union took charge for the northern half, the USA occupied the
south. Accordingly, in 1948 the Republic of Korea in the south under Syngman Rhee (gov.
1948-1960) and the northern Democratic People‟s Republic of Korea under Kim Il Sung
(gov. 1948-1994) were declared. This partition was sealed in the devastating Korean War
that took place between 1950 and 1953 and cost three million North Koreans, one million
Chinese, half a million South Koreans, and 70,000 UN-soldiers their lives, but did nothing
more than to confirm the existing border for the most part.75
In 1960, after twelve years of rule Syngman Rhee, who brutally took action against political opponents, was forced to resign from his post. A year later in the subsequent chaos,
the military performed a coup d‟état and Park Chung Hee (gov. 1961-1979) became leader
70
Ibid., pp. 19f.
The ratio has risen to 7:2 of Japanese-Korean marriages against all-Korean marriages, or around 80 percent in 1995 (ibid., pp. 35f.).
72
Both Ch’ongnyŏn and Mindan run schools, the former possessing far more. In Ch’ongnyŏn-run schools,
lessons are conducted in Korean and they are not recognized by the Japanese Ministry of Education. In
1986, however, some 86 percent of all Japanese Korean school children attended common Japanese
schools (ibid., pp. 25-27).
73
Ibid., pp. 27-33.
74
Ibid., pp. 19f.
75
Eggert and Plassen (2005), pp. 149-157.
71
12
of the country. Important posts were staffed with his intimates, the press was strictly controlled and a pseudo-democracy was formed. In 1971, when his political opponent Kim
Dae-jung (1925-2009; gov. 1998-2003) threatened to become too powerful, he proclaimed
a state of emergency, declared martial law in 1972, dissolved the parliament and arranged a
referendum for a new constitution that made him practically the sole ruler. Under this de
facto dictatorship, dissatisfaction grew among the people throughout the 1970s.76
When the popular opposition leader Kim Young Sam (b. 1927; gov. 1993-1998) was
arbitrarily removed from parliament in 1979, demonstrations flared up. In an argument on
how to proceed, Park Chung Hee was shot by his chief of intelligence. His successor was
quickly pushed out by Chun Doo Hwan (gov. 1980-1988) who in 1980 first took over the
military, then the intelligence service.
Demonstrations by students ended in a massacre by the military, as a result on 18-27
May revolts broke out in the southern city Kwangju. Those were defeated violently, which
served as the foundation of Chun Doo Hwan‟s power. He built another pseudo democracy
with manipulated elections in 1981 that authorized his military regime. Nevertheless, the
incident became a turning point in South Korea‟s movement for democratization. In the
1980s, several oppositional groups formed and demonstrations became an everyday occurrence. Fuelled by economic growth, the rising middle class claimed political participation.
In addition to this, an overall leftist tendency shaped the popular sentiment and North Korea often was regarded as a positive alternative model to South Korea. The authorities,
however, proceeded fiercely against all oppositional manifestations.77
When Chun Doo Hwan had come to power in 1981, he promised to hold free elections
in seven years time. Thus in 1986, when the opposition began claiming a revision of the
constitution he allowed open discussions, just to declare them finished a year later and
propose as his successor Roh Tae Woo (1988-1993), his associate since he had taken over
power. When Roh was elected as a candidate of the governing party in 1987, mass protests
broke out and could only be appeased when he proclaimed a reformatory program on 29
June that would not only grant direct election of the president, but also fundamental civil
rights to the populace.
Three main reasons are named for the astonishing success of the democracy movement:
First, in 1988, the Olympics were held in Seoul and authorities did not wish to risk their
international reputation or the right to host the games. Second, the USA indicated that they
wanted the conflict settled peacefully; and finally, the broad participation of the middle76
77
Ibid., pp. 159-163.
Ibid., pp. 163-167.
13
class ridiculed the argument that actions against the demonstrations served to fight communist spies – an assertion that before had been purported by the military regime. Thus, it
could no longer claim to act legitimately and therefore had to give in.78
In 1987, the first democratic elections were held. Roh Tae Woo won because of the inability of the two main opposition leaders to settle on a compromise. Although most government personnel remained the same and, contrary to what had been promised, Chun Doo
Hwan was not charged for his crimes, the South Korean democracy took its first steps. In
1988 the constitution was revised, cutting the government‟s powers and consequently
many who had been removed from the public eye because of their oppositional activities
returned to their posts.
With Kim Dae-jung winning the presidential elections in 1997, the first person not affiliated with the former military regime was made president and consequently, the constant
reign of this regime was eventually put to an end. Only at this point, could they begin to
come to terms with the country‟s military past.79
2.2
Literary Background: zainichi chōsenjin bungaku
After having outlined the historical developments and the conditions for the formation
of a Korean minority in Japan as well as the situation in South Korea in the previous chapters, I will now give an overview of Japanese Korean literary history. Ever since colonial
times, Koreans in Japan expressed their experiences literarily using the Japanese language.
“Literature played a key role”, Melissa Wender states, “in enabling these people to recognize their own agency. Fiction allowed Koreans to see their lives as having meanings, even
beauty; it gave Japanese insight into how it felt to contend with prejudice.”80
When labelling the literature of Japanese Koreans with terms like zainichi chōsenjin
bungaku or just zainichi bungaku as research on the topic usually does, one should be
aware of the danger of grouping together possibly very different authors on basis of their
„foreignness‟, as Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt points out.81 Especially with the emergence
of writers who cover a broader variety of topics or who refuse to be seen only as representatives of the Korean minority, a new definition should be considered, as Kim Hun-a con-
78
Ibid., pp. 166f.
Ibid., pp. 167-169; Iwata-Weickgenannt (2008), p. 167.
80
Wender (2005), p. 14.
81
Iwata-Weickgenannt (2008), p. 134./ In Japanese scholarship, however, the awareness of reading the
literature of Japanese Koreans in terms of both countries’ colonial past and before the background of postcolonial literature slowly emerges. This approach is able to deliver a fruitful way of dealing with the differences without assuming monolithically ethnic belonging (Iwata-Weickgenannt [2008], pp. 143-149).
79
14
cludes.82 Having pointed out the difficulties, I will now introduce the most prevalent topics
of zainichi bungaku, followed by the division into three literary generations generally acknowledged in current research.
In the literature of Koreans in Japan, there are several common themes. One of the most
important is the ubiquitous question of personal or ethnic identity, answered differently
depending on the particular literary generation. The issue of whether one belongs to Korea
or Japan or something in between and the estrangement from either one or both of the
countries is often pursued in view of language or place. Another important topic is the own
family as surrogate for the Korean ethnic „family‟. Thus, identity, language, place, and
family can be called the most prevalent motives in zainichi chōsenjin bungaku.
As Ashcroft, Griffith, and Tiffin note in their work The Empire Writes Back, which
comprehensively examines postcolonial83 literature in English:84 “Language becomes the
medium through which a hierarchical structure of power is perpetuated, and the medium
through which conceptions of „truth‟, „order‟, and „reality‟ become established. Such
power is rejected in the emergence of an effective post-colonial voice.”85 This pivotal feature of post-colonial literature in general also applies to much of the zainichi bungaku. For
example, the question of whether it is legitimate to write in the former colonial power‟s
forced language (during colonial times, Korean was forbidden in order to turn Koreans into
subjects of the Japanese emperor) was a much discussed issue and lost some of its relevance only recently.86 Another significant question is the relation to the perceived mother
tongue Korean87 which is a crucial topic for Yi Yang-ji as well, especially in her novel
Yuhi, as will be shown below.
In postcolonial literatures, as Ashcroft et al. demonstrate, there are generally several
linguistic strategies to appropriate the imperial power‟s language, distort it, and make it
one‟s own.88 The same is true for Japanese Korean literature. Very often Korean words are
integrated into the text, either in katakana or in Hangeul with the Japanese readings in
brackets or furigana. Further, the Chinese characters are frequently supplemented with the
Korean reading in furigana.89 Yet another way of creatively appropriating the Japanese
82
Kim (2004), p. 12.
Here, ‘postcolonial’ simply refers to anything that has been affected by the experience of imperialism and
colonialism in the broadest sense.
84
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffith, and Helen Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back: theory and practice in postcolonial literatures (London 2007b)
85
Ibid., p. 7.
86
Iwata-Weickgenannt (2008), pp. 52f.
87
Königsberg (1995), pp. 9-11.
88
Ashcroft, Griffith, and Tiffin (2007b), pp. 58-76.
89
Iwata-Weickgenannt (2008), pp. 159-163; Königsberg (1995), pp. 161-164.
83
15
language and moreover the Japanese culture is by means of traditional Japanese genres like
waka or the shishōsetsu, often to decry discrimination and injustice in the very society
whose figurehead those genres embody.90
Another major concern of postcolonial literatures is the issue of place and displacement.91 In zainichi bungaku, while the actual Japanese environment is usually treated as a
given and dealt with mostly in terms of naturalization, repatriation, discrimination, or simply everyday conflicts (mainly resulting from the special situation of Japanese Koreans),92
Korea, on the other hand, is described much more emotionally.93 However, the partition of
the country, both parts being ruled by oppressive regimes, as well as the absence of Japanese-South Korean diplomatic relations until 1965 (and to North Korea up to today) often
made it impossible for Japanese Koreans to travel to their home country or politically identify with it.94 Accordingly, Königsberg states:
Jedenfalls bleiben dem Schriftsteller letzten Endes zwei Wege, sich mit Korea zu identifizieren: Zum
einen erfolgt eine partielle Wahrnehmung und eine Verklärung jener Aspekte des koreanischen
Lebens, die nichts mit dem politischen Alltag zu tun haben. Zum anderen – was mit dieser
Verklärung wiederum einhergeht – wird in der Literatur nicht einer der beiden koreanischen Staaten
und auch nicht das Land Korea als Heimat verklärt, sondern der Landstrich, mit dem man sich
verbunden fühlt, entweder direkt oder über die Abstammung.95
Thus, Korea, often referred to by the emotionally charged expression sokoku [land of one‟s
ancestors], serves as a means for collective identity and is perceived as a place of freedom
in the sense of being free to be Korean.96 Accordingly, an (inner) return to the Korean origin is often depicted as a way out of the identity crisis which has to be faced when living in
Japan. This view changed a great deal since the 1980s (with Yi Yang-ji, as will be shown)
when the actual possibility of visiting Korea led to culture shock and estrangement. Now,
many felt homeless because of their inability to identify with abstract categories such as
„Japanese‟ or „Korean‟ and began to identify themselves as zainichi.
Another significant topic for Korean writers in Japan is the family, which often serves
either as an asylum from the discriminatory world of Japanese society or conversely is a
place of frustration where pain is experienced and the characters experience generational
conflicts. The depiction of either caring or brutal, dominant fathers is a constant as well.97
90
Iwata-Weickgenannt (2008), pp. 158f.
Ashcroft, Griffith, and Tiffin (2007b), pp. 8-11.
92
Königsberg (1995), pp. 59&74-115; Iwata-Weickgenannt (2008), pp. 164f.
93
At least by the second literary generation, see below.
94
Königsberg (1995), pp. 46-53.
95
Ibid., p. 53.
96
Ibid., p. 56.
97
Ibid., pp. 116-143.
91
16
After having outlined the most important issues around which zainichi chōsenjin bungaku revolves, I will now proceed to give an overview of Japanese Korean literature‟s history and developments.
There is little argument about the division of the literature by Koreans in Japan into
three literary generations, even if this distinction or the grouping of certain writers under
one or the other generation must not be considered absolute facts. 98 Even though there
have been writings by Koreans in Japanese before 1945, critics like Kim Hun-a and Isogai
Jirō set a precedent with the liberation in 1945 as the beginning of zainichi chōsenjin bungaku. The former laconically explains that since the term zainichi emerged only after the
war, so consequently did zainichi bungaku.99 This explanation remains hardly convincing
since, as Iwata-Weickgenannt critically remarks, labels very often only appear after the
phenomenon.100 Furthermore, Kim herself observes some of the most striking features of
Japanese Korean literature in Kim Sa-ryang‟s writings who she considers „pre-Japanese
Korean literature history‟, as will be shown below. Isogai, on the other hand, declares that
since writing in Japanese during the imperial period happened under force, literature that
appeared in that time cannot be grouped together with zainichi chōsenjin bungaku after the
war.101 Some of those writers, however, already anticipated the prevalent subjects of zainichi bungaku and must therefore not be ignored. With these critical demurs in mind, I will
now proceed to the commonly accepted chronology.
The very first piece of fiction written by a Korean in Japanese language is the short
story Ai ka [Is it love?, 1909] by the later famous Korean writer Yi Kwang-su (1892-1950)
under his youth name Yi Po-kyŏng. This progressive narrative melancholically deals with
the unanswered homosexual desire of a Korean adolescent towards a beautiful young Japanese man. Yi Po-kyŏng, however, returned to Korea and did not share the experience of
permanently living in Japan. The same applies for a handful of Korean writers in the 1920s,
who mostly came as exchange students to Japan and who published some pieces of fiction
in Japanese before leaving Japan behind and thereafter writing in Korean.102
Two writers of the pre-Japanese Korean literary period in the 1930s deserve special attention: Chang Hyŏk-chu (1905-1997) with his work Gakidō [The Hungry Ghost Realm,
1932] tried to convey the misery of the colonized peoples to a wider audience. Later however, he took on the Japanese name Noguchi Kakuchū and by the late 1930s began writing
98
Iwata-Weickgenannt (2008), p. 149; Isogai (2007), p. 32.
Kim (2004), p. 8.
100
Iwata-Weickgenannt (2008), p. 139, fn. 172.
101
Isogai (2007), p. 32.
102
Kim (2004), pp. 8f.
99
17
propagandistic novels on medieval Japanese warriors. The second author is Kim Sa-rayang
(1914-1950) who earned some attention with his piece Hikari no naka ni [Amidst the Light,
1939] and unlike Chang Hyŏk-chu attempted to demonstrate the pain of Koreans living in
Japan to his fellow Koreans at home. Thus, he was the first one to treat the issue of Koreans permanently living in Japan and to ask about the legitimacy of remaining in the colonial power‟s home country – one of the most important topics of the following generations.
Kim Sa-ryang went back to Korea and began writing in Korean. After he had to retire from
the army in the Korean War because of heart problems, his whereabouts become unclear
and it is assumed that he probably died. Both writers chose the language of their oppressors
to demonstrate the sufferings imposed on them by the Japanese, a contradiction that remained widespread for the following generations as well.103
As mentioned above, many critics set the year 1945 as the starting point for the first
generation of zainichi chōsenjin bungaku which dates until the mid-1960s. The members
of this generation shared the feeling of being full Koreans abroad and thus had to struggle
less with an identity crisis than the representatives of the second and third generation.
Since those writers were bilingual, their motivations to write in Japanese were mainly of
pragmatic nature (primarily, they wanted to reach a broader audience) and they sometimes
actually had to struggle to learn the Japanese language. For that reason occasionally the
first generation‟s pieces contain metaphors or expressions which sound slightly awkward
but this certain stiffness nevertheless broadened the horizon of Japanese literature and enriched the language. Most of those authors published in Japanese and Korean alike. Politically, this generation is marked by leftist tendencies and much of its literature is concerned
with overcoming the colonial experience as well as more general political issues.104
Kim Tal-su (1919-1997) is widely acknowledged as the initial and most important representative of the first generation of Japanese Korean writers. He was a rather political author and much of his literature explores the question of war responsibility. Another topic is
the difficulties between Japanese and Koreans, especially in his work Genkainada [The
Sea Genkai, 1952/53] which depicts a mixed couple. On the surface the Japanese spouse is
not prejudiced against her Korean partner but still unconsciously she shows a sense of superiority.105 Kim Hun-a states that what makes him the true representative of the first literary generation is that he chose neither side in the North-South Korean conflict which
103
Ibid., pp. 9f.
Iwata-Weickgenannt (2008), pp. 149f.; Kim (2004), pp. 11f.; Isogai (2007), pp. 32f.
105
Kawanishi Masaaki, Shōwa bungakushi (Tōkyō 2001), pp. 7-15.
104
18
parted the Korean community abroad as well, but instead embodied a „third way of living‟,
that is, being a zainichi Korean.106
The second generation of Japanese Koreans‟ literature began in the 1960s. Its representatives were mostly born in Japan or came there as infants and thus already had arranged
themselves with the prospects of staying permanently in the country. Nevertheless, they
displayed a strong affection towards Korea, their “fatherland‟s soil to which they cannot
return”.107 Their literature is marked by a strong sense of loss and having been robbed in
view of the partition of their home country as well as the difficult political situation in both
sub-states. It thus displays the constant hope of reunion. Derived from this hope the construction of a positive Korean identity is attempted, which, as mentioned above, serves as a
way out of the identity crisis. Another important topic for the literature of those authors is
the imperial period.
For this generation, the above-mentioned issues, like their inability to write in their perceived „mother tongue‟ Korean and the resulting frustration when being forced to express
themselves in Japanese to lament on Japanese colonialism remain a major concern, as well
as the question of the moral legitimacy of living in the former colonial rulers‟ country. The
best-known writers of this group received broad attention in the Japanese literary scene and
it is this generation‟s literature that is perceived as being most representative for zainichi
chōsenjin bungaku.108
The most famous Japanese Korean writers of that period are Kim Sŏk-pŏm (b. 1925), Ri
Kaisei (b. 1935), and Kin Kakuei (1938-1985).109
Kim Sŏk-pŏm‟s central topics are militarism and the liberation of Korea. Much of his
literature is set at his parents‟ place of birth, the Korean island Cheju. One of his central
motives is the Cheju-do uprising110 of 1948 which is depicted for example in his debut
Karashi no shi [The Crow‟s Death, 1957] and his seven-volume major work Kazantō [Volcanic Island, finished in 1997].111
Ri Kaisei is another political writer who expresses the hope of Korean reunion in his
work and deals with the topic of the South Korean democracy movement. His literature
also displays a certain nostalgia towards Korea, like for example in his short story Kinuta o
106
107
108
Kim (2004), p. 12.
帰ることのできない祖父の地 (ibid., p. 13).
Iwata-Weickgenannt (2008), pp. 150-152; Kim (2004), pp. 12f.; Isogai (2007), pp. 32&37.
Königsberg (1995), p. 195.
110
The incident occurred on April 3, 1948 when all remaining communists who had escaped to the island
where killed by the military, thereby three villages were destroyed and tens of thousands killed (Hiyoul Kim,
Koreanische Geschichte: Einführung in die koreanische Geschichte von der Vorgeschichte bis zur Moderne [St.
Augustin 2004], pp. 295f.)
111
Kawanishi (2001), pp. 17-30.
109
19
utsu onna [The Woman Who Beat Clothes, 1972], a requiem for his mother. Moreover, his
search for identity leads him to embrace an ethnic consciousness (minzoku). In addition, he
tries to overcome the ache and guilt he feels about having been forced to leave his birthplace Sakhalin as a child.112
Finally, in the highly elaborated fiction of Kin Kakuei some of the characteristics of the
third generation already prefigure.113 In contrast to Kim Sŏk-pŏm and Ri Kaisei, he does
not believe in the benefits of developing an ethnic consciousness or the affiliation to Korea
as a means of liberation; instead, his works display a deep sense of loss. Some of his central topics are a brutal father, violence, sadness and pain as human constants as well as the
inability to adapt to a discriminatory Japanese environment as symbolized in his stutter,114
another prevalent motive in his fiction. In 1985, Kin Kakuei committed suicide.115
The third generation‟s fiction began in the 1980s with Yi Yang-ji and Yi Ki-sŭng (b.
1952). Members of this generation tend to perceive the distance to Korean culture and the
Korean language no longer as an immediate loss, but rather consider being in Japan as
natural and thus see themselves as a fully-fledged part of Japanese society (still, the relationship with Japan is by no means described as unproblematic). Political questions such as
affiliating with North or South Korea, for example, have a tendency to lose their importance for this generation of writers. Rather than for a collective Korean identity they search
for an individual way of being and thus concentrate inward.
116
Kristina Iwata-
Weickgenannt summarizes: “Zusammenfassend lässt sich sagen, dass in der dritten
Generation die zuvor absolute Priorität der Etablierung einer Beziehung zum koreanischen
‚Vaterland„ abgelöst wird und stattdessen das Ringen mit der eigenen Position innerhalb
der japanischen Gesellschaft bzw. Familie in der Vordergrund rückt.“117
Many female writers define the image of the third generation. In fact, until the 1970s,
there were no zainichi woman writers and since Yi Yang-ji was the first to be recognised
on a broader scale, she was considered the first female representative of Japanese Korean
literature.118 Reasons for the late appearance of female writers among the minority may be
a male normative standard within the literature that did not value, for example, descriptions
of everyday problems of women who were generally not politically active. Moreover, strict
112
Königsberg (1995), pp. 195-223; Isogai (2007), p. 38; see also Kawanishi (2001), pp. 31-37.
114
For example, the protagonist in Kin’s short story Kogoeru kuchi [The Frozen Mouth, 1972], is unable to
speak the language of those who discriminate against him. Yet, he does not speak any other language and
this contradiction consequently leads to a stutter. (cf. Königsberg [1995], pp. 180-192).
115
Königsberg (1995), pp. 177-194; Isogai (2007), p 38; Kawanishi (2001), pp. 42-45.
116
Iwata-Weickgenannt (2008), pp. 152-155; Isogai (2007), pp. 32&41f.; Kim (2004), p. 13.
117
118
Ibid.
113
20
gender hierarchies as perpetuated by moral attitudes deriving from Confucianism, lesser
formal education, as well as the fact that women in the earlier years had to summon up all
their energies to support their families and as a result had little space for writing fiction can
be listed as factors that fortified this tendency. Hence, only with the overall Japanese economic upswing could women also afford writing. When lifting the second generation‟s literature to a zainichi bungaku-standard, as Iwata-Weickgenannt points out, women‟s experiences and literature are implicitly dismissed. When analyzing the third generation female writers‟ texts, gender and ethnicity cannot be regarded separately because those female authors are equally shaped by their belonging to the Korean minority and by living as
women within a patriarchal society.119
Apart from Yi Yang-ji, Yū Miri (b. 1968), whose characters often remain ethnically
ambiguous120 or Gen Getsu (b. 1965), who reports to never have been a victim of discrimination and who for example describes life within the Korean community, are representatives of the third generation. Kaneshiro Kazuki (b. 1968), who became known world-wide
through the film adaption of his novel Go (2000), should be mentioned as well. Go deals in
some ways with a similar topic as Genkainada sixty years prior, but while the wall between Kim Talsu‟s protagonist and his spouse remains insuperable and leads to the end of
their relationship, Kaneshiro Kazuki tears the wall down and writes a story about two individuals rather than being held captive in the narrow category of zainichi.121
Following the non-fictional as well as the literary background, a short outline of the author‟s life will be given to further understand the novel.
2.3
Yi Yang-ji: Biography
Yi Yang-ji was born on 15 March 1955 in Yamanashi prefecture as the middle child between two older brothers and two younger sisters.122 Her father came to Japan from the
southern Korean island Cheju-do at age fifteen and worked as a sailor and silk vendor near
Mount Fuji, her mother was a Korean born in Ōsaka.
When Yi Yang-ji was four years old, the family moved to the town of Fujiyoshida
where she would spend her childhood. In 1964, the family became naturalized. As a minor,
Yi Yang-ji automatically became a Japanese national herself and her official name henceforth was Tanaka Yoshie, using different characters than her Korean personal name Yang119
Ibid., p. 157./ The same applies for male writers, too, who are equally shaped by their gender – an often
neglected fact.
120
Ibid., p. 17
121
Kawanishi (2001), p. 53.
122
Dates are taken from the chronology in: Yi Yang-ji, Yuhi, Nabi t’aryŏng (Tōkyō 1997), pp. 376-382.
21
ji but with the same Japanese reading.123 Already at age ten, she discovered her love for
literature and wrote her first play which the girls of her class performed in front of the boys.
When she was 17, she dropped out of high school in her last year and escaped from her
parents‟ uneasy divorce trial to work in a ryokan in Kyōto. Encouraged by her boss, however, she re-entered high school and met a history teacher who roused her interest in her
Korean heritage. Upon graduating high school, she entered the prestigious private Waseda
University in 1975, only to discontinue her studies of sociology in the very first semester.
After having already started studying the koto and Japanese dance in high school, she began training in Korean dance and her fascination with the Korean equivalent to the Japanese koto, the kayagŭm, began. This would remain an important part in her life and her fiction alike. In the same year, she published her first text, the essay Watashi wa chōsenjin [I
am Korean]. In 1976, she engaged in political activities for Japanese Korean rights and
took part in the actions for another Japanese Korean who innocently had been convicted
for murder.
In 1980, at age 25, she visited Korea for the first time to study the kayagŭm, Korean
dance and chant. In short succession, she had to endure two personal blows when first her
oldest brother suddenly died of a sub-arachnoid hemorrhage, followed by her next brother
who a year later died of illness. As a consequence of her two brothers‟ deaths her parents‟
divorce was finally settled in mutual agreement. In 1982, she entered into the Korean literature department of Seoul University and immediately thereafter put it on hold. In the
same year, Nabi t‟aryŏng was released in the November issue of the literary journal Gunzō.
The following year, she published Kazukime and Anigoze [Dear Brother].
In 1988, at age 33, she graduated from Seoul University and entered the dance department of Ehwa Women‟s University in Seoul. At the same time, Yuhi was published, a work
that would win her the 100th Akutagawa Prize the following year. In 1992, she returned to
Japan and because of her sister‟s sudden illness stayed against her plans and rented an
apartment in the Shinjuku ward of Tōkyō.
On 20 May, she went to hospital with a headache and high fever, but when told that it
was merely a cold, she returned home. However, she developed pneumonia and had to be
hospitalized again the next day, where her symptoms rapidly grew worse until she fell into
a coma. In the morning of 22 May, she died from myocarditis. Her last work, Ishi no koe
[The Stone‟s Voice, 1992], was published only after her death.
Much of the zainichi chōsenjin bungaku is very autobiographical124 and when comparing stages in Yi Yang-ji‟s life to some of her works (this especially applies for Nabi
123
田中淑枝 vs. 李良枝.
22
t‟aryŏng) there are obviously many parallels. It might be for this reason that much of the
research on Yi Yang-ji, especially Japanese scholarship, does not distinguish between the
author and the fictional characters of her novels. Kim Hun-a, just to name one example,
jumps back and forth between the biography of Yi Yang-ji and her protagonists and applies
conclusions she draws from the novels immediately to the author.
Certainly, much of Yi Yang-ji‟s literature is heavily informed by her personal experiences and probably served as a means to deal with her struggle with identity and ethnic
heritage. Nevertheless, one should bear in mind that literature never immediately reflects
reality but is always artistically processed and must therefore not be read as a factual report
or even an autobiography, but as a piece of art. In addition to that, for the purpose of examining both the development and crisis of identity and the workings of discourse, I argue
that the degree of factuality in the novel is for the most part irrelevant. Hence, instead of
indulging in an exercise of comparing the author‟s life to the literary prose, I intend to read
the novel as standing for itself, bearing in mind that it was written in the context of the Korean minority in Japan.125
3.
Methodology: Postcolonial and Cultural Studies
Postcolonial theory studies the effects and consequences of colonialism and imperialism,
how they have shaped the world and which kinds of neo-colonialism are effective today.
Various discussions revolve around the „post‟ in postcolonial theory; instead of meaning
simply „after‟ and thereby implying that the period of colonial domination is over, in postcolonial theory (especially since the 1970s) the term has lost its purely temporal meaning.
Instead, it takes into account different cultural consequences of imperialism, as well as preand neo-colonial developments. For example, the situation in metropolises of the former
colonies and the „First World‟, where a high degree of cultural amalgamation constituting
everyday life is examined in highly elaborate theories.126 The „post‟ can also be understood
as a kind of resistance against all forms of colonialism and as a marker for the contradictions within a linear image of history that believes in absolute progress.127
124
Cf. Iwata-Weickgenannt (2008), pp. 198f.
126
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffith, and Helen Tiffin, Post-colonial studies: the key concepts (London 2007a), pp.
186-192; see also Michael Hofman, Interkulturelle Literaturwissenschaft: eine Einführung (Paderborn 2006),
p. 27.
127
María do Mar Castro Varela and Nikita Dhawan, Postkoloniale Theorie: eine Einführung (Bielefeld 2005),
p. 24.
125
23
The scholars Edward Said (1935-2003), Gayatri C. Spivak (b. 1942) and Homi K.
Bhabha are considered the “Holy Trinity”128 of postcolonial studies. The latter‟s theories as
laid out in his main work The Location of Culture (1994)129 will form the main theoretical
framework of the present study. Bhabha was born in Mumbai, India in 1949 as member of
the Parsee minority and is currently professor of the humanities at Harvard University.130
His theories are heavily influenced by the work of Frantz Fanon (1925-1961), a Martiniquais psychologist and resistance fighter in the Algerian liberation movement,131 as well
as by post structuralism and the theories of psychoanalysis as coined by Sigmund Freud
and Jaques Lacan. Bhabha is concerned with (social) spaces in-between and the complex
relationship between colonizer and colonized subject.132
To complement and broaden Bhabha‟s postcolonial approach especially in terms of the
concept of identity, I will draw on the writings on the matter by the cultural studies authority Stuart Hall. Stuart Hall was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1932 and last taught sociology
at Open University in Great Britain until he retired in 1997.133 In this thesis, I will use a
very small selection of Hall‟s thought and refer only to what he has theorized on identity,
thereby excluding for example his elaborations on Marxism or his engagement for the British „New Left‟.134
Postcolonial theory and gender studies, while having several common concerns like the
question of domination and subordination,135 are not necessarily allied and do not always
understand themselves as complementary theories.136 Gender and cultural studies, on the
other hand, bear a strong cousinship and gender questions are always of concern for cultural studies theorists.137 However, it is important to state that all three disciplines have
common grounds and overlap. Because of this and because, as mentioned above, gender
128
Robert J.C. Young, Colonial desire: Hybridity in theory, culture, and race (London 2006), p. 163, (cited in
do Mar Castro Varela and Dhawan [2006], p. 25)
129
Homi K. Bhabha, The location of culture (London 2007)
130
Do Mar Castro Varela and Dhawan (2006), p. 83.; http://aaas.fas.harvard.edu/pdf/Homi_Bhabha_cv.pdf
(accessed: 16 June 2010)
131
Ashcroft, Griffith, and Tiffin (2007a), p. 99.
132
Do Mar Castro Varela and Dhawan (2006), pp. 84f.
133
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/HIShallS.htm (accessed: 16 June 2010)
134
On Stuart Hall’s theories, compare Wolfgang Müller-Funk, Kulturtheorie: Einführung in die Schlüsseltexte
der Kulturwissenschaften (Tübingen 2006), pp. 270-285.
135
136
For example, there have been arguments on whether women in the (former) colonies are more severely
influenced by their ethnicity or their gender. Similarly, ‘First World’ feminism has been accused of not taking into account the particular experiences of Third World women when proclaiming a unitary female cause.
(Gaby Dietze, “Postcolonial Theory”, in Gender@Wissen: ein Handbuch der Gender-Theorien, ed. by Christina von Braun and Inge Stephan [Köln 2009], pp. 306-308)
137
Claudia Benthien and Hans R. Velten, “Cultural Studies”, in Gender@Wissen, ed. by Braun and Stephan,
pp. 345-366)
24
and ethnicity cannot easily be regarded separately, when analysing the female Japanese
Korean protagonist‟s crisis, I will rely on a concept of identity that is constituted by all discourses, including questions of gender conditioning, having an impact on the individual.
Postcolonial theory was received relatively late in Japan. Nevertheless, as Honda points
out in Kang‟s collected edition on the topic, considering that Japan was an imperial power
itself and taking into account the increasing number of immigrants from neighbouring
countries, it can be well argued that postcolonial approaches are a pressing matter for the
Japanese as well.138 Still, a great lack of awareness of having been a colonizing state has to
be noted. This is indicated for example by the use of the half-pejorative abbreviation “posukoro” and an attitude that dismisses postcolonial theory as merely the criticism of a small
minority who has been harmed in the past. This way, a dichotomy of “normal Japanese”
and the “harmed minority”, “us” and “them” is created, as Kang laments.139
The above mentioned collected edition published by Kang Sang-jung and the earlier
work of Komori Yōichi Posutokoroniaru [Postcolonial, 2001]140 draw on the idea of postcolonial theorists and apply it to the Japanese case as well as, in the case of Kang‟s volume,
to questions of more global dimension. Those two works are mainly politically motivated
and are concerned with overcoming the lacking consciousness of Japan as a colonial power
(shokuminchiteki muishiki).141 However, while some of the contributions to Kang‟s volume
deal with cultural phenomena from a postcolonial perspective, none is directly relevant for
the subject of this thesis. Because of this and since the Japanese publications as well primarily draw on Western research, I will rely on the thought of the above mentioned AngloAmerican scholars.
In the scope of this study I can by no means deliver a thorough picture of the vast field
of postcolonial theory. Instead, I will confine myself to a brief introduction of the major
concepts underlying the later literary analysis: Identity, hybridity, mimicry, and desire in
colonial discourse.
3.1
Identity
Recently, the Cartesian idea of a centred, essential identity has been criticized. In terms
of ethnicity, according to this assumption, there is one „true‟ ethnic Self underlying all superficial differences. From the postcolonial subject‟s perspective, this would mean that the
138
Honda Shinshi, “Sekai shisutemu, gurōbarizēshon, neo riberarizumu, jūyoku riron, kaikoteki kindaika”, in
Posutokoroniarizumu, ed. by Kang Sang-jung (Tōkyō 2001), 170f., p. 170.
139
Kang Sang-jung, ed., Posutokoroniarizumu (Tōkyō 2001), p. 3
140
Komori Yōichi, Posutokoroniaru (Tōkyō 2001).
141
Kang (2001), p. 16.
25
Self had been disrupted by the experience of colonialism and thus needs to be restored, as
Stuart Hall explains in his essay Cultural Identity and Diaspora.142 However, he goes on to
elaborate a different contention of identity which will form the foundation of this thesis:
“Perhaps instead of thinking of identity as an already accomplished fact, [...] we should
think, instead, of identity as a „production‟, which is never complete, always in process,
and always constituted within, not outside, representation.”143 Collective as well as personal identities are narrated within different discourses and they are not fixed but fluid, and
undergo constant transformation.144 They are also shaped by how certain individuals or
groups are seen or represented, within society – which „image‟ they have. At another point,
Hall adds:
I use 'identity‟ to refer to the meeting point, the point of suture, between on the one hand the discourses and practices which attempt to 'interpellate',145 speak to us or hail us into place as the social
subjects of particular discourses, and on the other hand, the processes which produce subjectivities,
which construct us as subjects which can be 'spoken'. Identities are thus points of temporary attachment to the subject positions which discursive practices construct for us.146
In this way, identity is not something given, but something that is performed in view of
different values, opinions, codes of behaviour, etc. that are imposed on the subject. 147 Social positions determined by class, race, gender, etc. are highly relevant for the process of
identification.148 It is, however, a common mistake to believe that identities, because it is
said that they are not pre-given but narrated and performed, are random or arbitrary. Since
they come into being, as explained above, in the face of specific cultural discourses,149 they
are “[...] die produktive Auseinandersetzung mit divergierenden Ansätzen, die auf [den
Menschen] einwirken.“150 This might apply especially to the identities of diasporic individuals who are even more than other people subjected to different cultural influences,
those of their home countries and the various flows within the society they are living in.
In constituting an identity, the relationship with the „Other‟ has a profound impact. The
subject identifies itself in relation to what it is not, that which is left outside:
142
Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora”, in Identity: Community, culture, difference, ed. by Jonathan
Rutherford (London 2008), p. 225.
143
Ibid., p. 222.
144
Ibid., p. 225.; Stuart Hall, “Introduction: Who Needs ‘Identity?’”, in Questions of Cultural Identity, ed. by
Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay (London 2008), pp. 3f.
145
Interpellation as coined by Luis Althusser refers to the process in which subjects are called “into place”
by “ideological state apparatuses such as church, education, police” and make themselves subject to and
come to see themselves in terms of those ideologies (Ashcroft, Griffith, and Tiffin [2007a], pp. 221f.).
146
Hall (2008), pp. 7f.
147
See also Bhabha (2007), p. 64.
148
See e.g. also Claudia Breger, “Identität”, in Gender@Wissen, ed. by Braun and Stephan, 47-65, p. 57.
149
Bronfen and Marius (1997), p. 3.
150
Hofmann (2006), p. 29.
26
Above all, and directly contrary to the form in which they are constantly invoked, identities are constructed through, not outside, difference. This entails the radically disturbing recognition that it is not
only through the relation to the Other, the relation to what it is not, to precisely what it lacks, to what
has been called its constitutive outside that the „positive‟ meaning of any term – and thus its „identity‟
– can be constructed [...]. Throughout their careers, identities can function as points of identification
and attachment only because of their capacity to exclude, to leave out, to render „outside‟, abjected.
Every identity has its „margin‟, an excess, something more. The unity, the internal homogeneity,
which the term identity treats as foundational is not a natural, but a constructed form of closure,
every identity naming as its necessary, even if silenced and unspoken other, that which it „lacks‟.151
In this way, in the process of identification, the Other is essential, for it illustrates what one
is not. Therefore, identity can only be understood in negative terms.
In the (post)colonial context, it is the manifold relationship between colonizer and colonized152 in which both gain their identities by defining themselves in contrast to one another and through the multi-layered interplay of repulsion and desire. For the colonized
subject, Bhabha holds: “the very place of identification, caught in the tension of demand
and desire, is a place of splitting. The fantasy of the native is precisely to occupy the master‟s place while keeping his place in the slave‟s avenging anger.”153 In this way, the colonized subject is caught in the tension between contradictory desires. Bhabha further argues
that the colonized cannot deal with the contradictory identity inscriptions imposed on him
or her by the colonizer.154 He or she always experiences him- or herself as the Other from
the norm because they are represented as such in the dominant discourse.155
Diasporic minority groups in industrialized countries have to define their personal and
collective identity against the background of the dominant culture. 156 Since a perceived
home, that is, the possibility of coming back to determined structures, is constitutive to
identity,157 they hold on to tradition and a shared past. However, it must not be forgotten,
as Stuart Hall states, that “our relation to it [the past], like the child‟s relation to the mother,
is always already „after the break‟. It is always constructed through memory, fantasy, narrative and myth.”158 Even if those identities seem to be a continuation of tradition and a
common history, “actually identities are about questions of using the resources of history,
language and culture in the process of becoming rather than being: not „who we are‟ or
151
Hall (2008), pp. 4f., emphasis in original.
Respectively former dominant power and former colonial subject. In the following, I will stick with those
terms to imply generally unequal power relationships and to indicate that imperialism has not simply ended.
153
Bhabha (2007), pp. 63f., emphasis in original.
154
Ibid.
155
Ibid., p. 63./ This is, by the way, not an experience unique to those affected by colonization, but, as is
known since Simone de Beauvoir an inherently female experience as the “other sex” as well.(Breger [2009],
pp. 49-51) This proves once more the inseparability of ethnic and gender identity.
156
157
Ibid., p. 3.
158
Hall (1998), p. 226.
152
27
„where we came from‟, so much as what we might become, how we have been represented
and how that bears on how we might represent ourselves.” 159 Those communities are
shaped by diaspora and colonialism; there is no linear constant of history because both
colonizing and colonized societies are deeply affected by the experience of imperialism
which disrupted progress and is inscribed in their collective memories. The idea of a unitary origin as symbolized in a common place of descent, however, gives those groups a
feeling of community and a way of shaping an identity. In art and literature, many journeys
in search of this origin pursue this place of desire and fantasy, as explained by Stuart Hall
for the case of diasporic communities in the Caribbean.160 Those journeys must be circular
since the origin from which the people affected by diaspora once departed is no longer as it
was, it too has been shaped by colonialism and development, and thus they will need to
return. This observation strikingly applies to the work of Yi Yang-ji too, as will be shown.
One way for such diasporic communities to reassure their collective identity is through
music.161 Both identities and music are performed – what is expressed by music is an ideal,
an identity which one would like to represent. By taking pleasure in a certain type of music,
one takes part in a discursive identity. For social groups, cultural activity and aesthetic
judgment are constitutive means to experience themselves as communities in making some
kind of music (or other artistic expressions) their own and declaring it to express their
common sense of identity. This aspect is worth bearing in mind for the following literary
analysis.
Finally, it seems advisable to consider the influence of the nation in the process of identification. In his influential work Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and
Spread of Nationalism,162 Benedict Anderson explains that nations are only imaginary constructs since no member will ever meet all of his or her fellow members yet still are perceived as a coherent community. Furthermore, those communities are limited because none
aims to include the whole world population. Finally, nations are imagined as communities
tied together by an internal camaraderie that can even lead people to sacrifice their lives for
the nation regardless of internal differences.163 In the course of his work Anderson explores
how the image of the nation came into existence and how it gained that much influence.
For the case of Japan he points out that the political caste during imperial times advanced a
feeling of national belonging, especially in contrast to the colonized people like Korea,
159
Hall (2008), p. 4.
Hall (1998), p. 232.
161
Simon Frith, “Music and Identity”, in Questions of Cultural Identity, ed. by Hall and du Gay, 108-127.
162
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London
2003)
163
Ibid., pp. 5-7.
160
28
which should become subject to its policy of Japanification.164 In the light of Anderson‟s
thought, Bronfen and Marius hold that in modern times the imaginary construct of the nation has come to replace the religious community as point for identification and as support
in a world that is perceived as arbitrary. Since, as explained above, all imagined communities are limited and defined by their boundaries, the nation is constituted by the exclusion
of the colonial Other which is perceived as fascinating, threatening, or exotic. This has profound impact on the process of identification of excluded diasporic minorities (like Japanese Koreans) since even if the concept of nation has to be seen critically, social homelessness is dangerous for the individual.165
3.2
Hybridity
One of the major concepts in Homi Bhabha„s theory is that of hybridity. Ashcroft et al.
define it like this: “One of the most widely employed and most disputed terms in postcolonial theory, hybridity commonly refers to the creation of new transcultural forms
within the contact zone produced by colonization. As used in horticulture, the term refers
to the cross-breeding of two species by grafting or cross-pollination to form a third, „hybrid‟
species. Hybridization takes many forms: linguistic, cultural, political, racial, etc.” 166 Modern societies are inherently hybrid: they form a space where cultural differences are not
original but negotiated and may exist alongside each other while being quite incommensurable.167 This means that hybridity is much more than a simple amalgamation but instead
overcomes strict barriers defined by categories such as ethnicity, gender, class, etc.168 The
borders are by no means fixed and the subject has to undergo a constant placement within
the various hybrid options imposed on him or her. Bronfen and Marius hold that in such a
climate of cultural hybridity there cannot be one original national identity but instead there
are many.169
Cultural differences are negotiated in spaces in-between, or what Bhabha calls “the
Third Space of enunciation”: “It is that Third Space, though unrepresentable in itself,
which constitutes the discursive conditions of enunciation that ensure that the meaning and
164
Ibid., pp. 96-99.
Bronfen and Marius (1997), pp. 2f.
166
Ashcroft, Griffith, and Tiffin (2007a), p. 118., emphasis in original./ The term ‘hybridity’ itself has been
criticized since it derived from botany, and in colonial discourse it has been used in a racist context. It is
argued that in using the expression with a postcolonial background, those structures could inadvertently be
reproduced. (Ashcroft, Griffith, and Tiffin [2007a], pp. 120f.)
167
Bhabha (2007), pp. 2f.; do Mar Castro Varela and Dhawan (2006), pp. 94-98.
168
Doris Bachmann-Medick, Cultural Turns: Neuorientierungen in den Kulturwissenschaften (Reinbek 2009),
p. 200.
169
165
29
symbols of culture have no primordial unity or fixity; that even the same signs can be appropriated, translated, rehistoricized and read anew.” 170 This abstract phrasing describes
the emergence of something new, something hybrid within passed down culture and explains that ambivalences and contradictions within a society are not „smoothed out‟ but
continue to exist between different social groups or even within what is perceived as one
closed group. This way, social and cultural hierarchies are undermined and the dominant
culture becomes infiltrated when social groups come into contact with each other and the
difference between Self and Other is dissolved.171
Hybridity should not, however, be mistaken with concepts of multiculturalism or cultural relativism. The former is about assimilation into the dominant culture while the latter
still takes the dominant culture as a standard, whereas hybridity is about stating incommensurable differences within the dominant culture and thereby undermining it.172 It should be
noted, too, that while emphasising the subversive energy of hybridity the concept by no
means negates existing inequalities and hierarchical structures.173
In his essay Signs Taken for Wonders,174 Homi Bhabha illustrates the manifold effects
of hybridity on the example of the appropriation of the Bible by the colonized in India. The
colonizing power‟s cultural goods undergo a deep hybridization when being taken up by
the colonized people who do not understand those artefacts fully or ignore the full measure
of their implications and instead fill them with new meaning appropriate for their own
background. This way, the colonial authority becomes undermined as well in its ambivalent split between originality, repetition and difference because its cultural goods no longer
function to symbolize the cultural purity from which they draw authority.
Hybridity is the sign of the productivity of colonial power, its shifting forces and fixities; it is the
name for the strategic reversal of the process of domination through disavowal (that is, the production of discriminatory identities that secure the „pure‟ and original identity of authority). Hybridity is
the revaluation of the assumption of colonial identity through the repetition of discriminatory identity effects. It displays the necessary deformation and displacement of all sites of discrimination and
domination. It unsettles the mimetic or narcissistic demands of colonial power but reimplicates its
identifications in strategies of subversion that turn the gaze of the discriminated back upon the eye of
power.175
To the colonizer, the hybrid colonized subject bears an uncanny power because in appropriating the dominant culture, it breaks down the borders between Self and Other and be170
Bhabha (2007), p. 55.
Ashcroft, Griffith, and Tiffin (2007a), p. 118; Bachmann-Medick (2009), p. 203.
172
Do Mar Castro Varela and Dhawan (2006), p. 97.
173
174
Bhabha (2007), pp. 145-174.
175
Bhabha (2007), pp. 159f.
171
30
comes harder to take hold of. Thus, he or she turns into an object of paranoid classification
which is enforced by the colonizing power in order to control the colonized subject as a
reaction to his or her uncanny hybridity.176 It is here that the subversive power of hybridity
lies. Bhabha states accordingly: “[I]t is difficult to agree entirely with Fanon that the psychic choice is to „turn white or disappear.‟ There is the more ambivalent, third choice:
camouflage, mimicry, black skins/ white masks.”177
As will be shown below, this process of hybridization also takes place with the protagonist in Nabi t‟aryŏng or, speaking in more general terms, with Koreans in Japan.
3.3
Mimicry
A phenomenon closely connected to hybridity is Bhabha‟s concept of mimicry. Mimicry means that the colonized subject is expected to take on the colonizer‟s behaviour,
clothing, language, values, etc. However, since the colonized subject can never become
exactly like the colonizer mimicry is marked by “strategic failure”.178 The colonizer wants
to see him- or herself reflected in the colonized Other but still needs the difference between
them to retain a feeling of superiority: “[C]olonial mimicry is the desire for a reformed,
recognizable Other, as a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite.
Which is to say, that the discourse of mimicry is constructed around an ambivalence; in
order to be effective, mimicry must continually produce its slippage, its excess, its difference.”179
Because the attempt to imitate the colonizer is constantly doomed to fail, mimicry is
never far from mockery and can very easily turn into a parody of the colonizer‟s cultural
traits. Mimicry can therefore be very threatening since instead of stabilizing the colonial
power as intended, it returns the gaze of the colonized subjects back upon the colonizer and
lets them appear to be quite uncontrollable.180
For Bhabha, one important moment in the difference between colonizer and colonized –
that which never can be overcome – is the colour of skin. Even if the colonized dresses,
speaks, behaves like the colonizer, his or her black skin instantly gives him or her away as
the Other. Even if Japanese colonizer and Korean colonized subject do not differ externally,
this concept can still fruitfully be applied to the Japanese-Korean case. By enforcing Japanese language and culture, even nationality, on its colonies without granting colonized sub-
176
Bhabha (2007), pp. 162&165.
Ibid., p. 172.
178
Do Mar Castro Varela and Dhawan (2006), p. 91.
179
Bhabha (2007), p. 122., emphasis in original.
180
Ashcroft, Griffith, and Tiffin (2007a), p. 139; do Mar Castro Varela and Dhawan (2006), pp. 89-92.
177
31
jects full citizenship or permit them to participate fully in Japanese society, it can be said
that Japan forced them to perform a form of mimicry.
3.4
Colonial Discourse and Desire
The last concept to be introduced is that of desire in colonial discourse which is elaborated in Bhabha‟s essay The Other Question: Stereotype, discrimination and the discourse
of colonialism. 181 Discourse, as coined by Michel Foucault, “is a system of statements
within which the world can be known. It is the system by which dominant groups in society constitute the field of truth by imposing specific knowledges, disciplines and values
upon dominated groups.”182 The members of the latter group understand themselves within
the framework of knowledge provided by the dominant (for example colonial) power or at
least feel a contradiction between their view of values and that imposed on them.183
When discussing colonial discourse, Bhabha draws on Edward Said‟s concept of Orientalism184 but explains that the power relations between colonizer and colonized subject are
much more complex than Said suggests. Instead of a one-way colonial discourse and
power knowledge imposed on the colonized by the colonizer, the interaction is marked by
mutual desire, repulsion, and fractions.185
Colonial discourse employs stereotypes to ensure power and mark the opposition between Self and Other. However, those stereotypes appear to be quite contradictory and offer broad, opposing identity attributions ranging from „wild beast‟ to „noble savage‟.186
Those ambivalences or even contradictions are fundamentally needed for the stereotype to
remain applicable throughout history and in various different situations. To explain how
stereotypes can function while being inherently contradictory, Bhabha draws on Freud‟s
concept of multiple belief. Multiple belief enables the actor to hold contradictory opinions
without perceiving them as being at odds with each other in order to avoid the complicated
reality of multi-layered facts and truths.
181
Bhabha (2007), pp. 94-120.
183
Ibid.
184
Orientalism is, briefly said, Said’s world-famous examination in accordance with Foucault on how Western discourses construct an image of the “Orient” as their Other; images that actually tell a lot more about
the “West” (of course, this is a generalizing category as well) than about the so-called Orient (Ashcroft, Griffith, and Tiffin [2007a], pp. 167-169).
185
Do Mar Castro Varela and Dhawan (2006), pp. 85-89.
186
See do Mar Castro Varela and Dhawan (2006), p. 86.
182
32
Stereotypes need to be repeated to stay effective but for this reason are in constant danger of slipping, changing. The stereotype functions to produce an Other of the colonizer
that is completely knowable (and thereby controllable):187
The stereotype, then, as the primary point of subjectification in colonial discourse, for both colonizer
and colonized, is the scene of a similar fantasy and defence – the desire for an originality which is
again threatened by the differences of race, colour and culture. My contention is splendidly caught in
Fanon‟s title Black Skin, White Masks where the disavowal of difference turns the colonial subject
into a misfit – a grotesque mimicry or „doubling‟ that threatens to split the soul and whole, undifferentiated skin of the ego. The stereotype is not a simplification because it is a false representation of a
given reality. It is a simplification because it is an arrested, fixated form of representation that, in denying the play of difference (which the negation through the Other permits), constitutes a problem
for the representation of the subject in significations of psychic and social relations.188
The colonizers use stereotypes to distinguish themselves from the colonized subject and to
assume a pure origin from which to develop their own specific identity. Therefore the
Other is needed to represent what they are not. When it comes to marking the Other, the
colonized woman, in contrast to the colonized man, is inscribed upon twofold: as the ethnic
Other as well as the other sex. In addition to that, she is caught in both patriarchal as well
as colonial discourse.189
The colonized Self, however, in the face of the stereotype turns away from him- or herself towards an ideal white190 Self which it never can be.191 While there is a strong repulsion from the colonized Other on the part of the colonizer towards an assumed own, pure
identity, it is also subject of desire. As Ashcroft et al. put it: “The idea of colonization itself
is grounded in a sexualized discourse of rape, penetration and impregnation, whilst the
subsequent relationship of the colonizer and colonized is often presented in a discourse that
is redolent of a sexualized exoticism.”192 There is always the desire to possess the Other,
compromise it and make it one‟s own. Colonial discourse is further destabilized by this
implicit desire because it breaks down the assumed static border between colonizer and
colonized.
187
Bhabha (2007), p. 101.
Ibid., p. 107, emphasis in original.
189
Breger (2009), pp. 49-62.
190
Again, for Bhabha black skin is a marker for cultural difference. However, I contend that the fetishistic
power of stereotype and the Other holds in the Japanese case as well. The Korean Other might appear to be
even more uncanny since it is not physically distinguishable from the colonizing power.
191
Bhabha (2007), p. 109.
192
Ashcroft, Griffith, and Tiffin (2007a), pp. 40f.
188
33
As Bhabha explains, the stereotype can be seen as a fetish in the Freudian sense. Like
the fetish, it functions in a metonymic way to represent the unaltered, pure origin of white
identity and attempts to justify the multiple belief which constitutes colonial discourse.193
3.5
Critique
The concepts of Homi Bhabha have been the target of various criticisms of which I will
give a rough outline in the following.194 First, it has been said that since his theory relies
heavily on Western thinkers it is unable to formulate a powerful counter-discourse to
Western colonialism and is in danger of reproducing old binaries and hierarchies. Secondly,
his concept of hybridity has been subject to critique since the term originally derived from
racist discourse, as mentioned above. Moreover, it is a completely heteronormative category.
One further powerful objection is that Bhabha‟s hybrid subject appears to be male and
classless and that he generally treats categories like fetishism of colonial discourse or mimicry as if they were gender-neutral and thereby overlooks the very different situation of
women who have been affected by colonialism. Finally, the factual political potency of his
theory is questioned. They appear to go too soft on harsh economic dependencies and political hierarchies that render large parts of the population simply chanceless. Whether the
colonial power is seriously affected by strategies like mimicry or hybridity is debatable.
While I agree that Homi Bhabha‟s theory is hardly able to change real-life inequalities,
it provides powerful means to analyse the multi-facetted relationship between former colonizer and former colonized subject and the situation of minorities in modern industrialized
states‟ metropolises. Since, as mentioned above, the gender dimension cannot be ignored, I
will consider ethnic and gender perspectives alike when it comes to the construction and
crisis of identity in Nabi t‟aryŏng.
4.
Literary Analysis
4.1
Nabi t’aryŏng: Placing the text
Nabi t‟aryŏng was published in 1982 as Yi Yang-ji‟s debut novel and was nominated
for the 88th Akutagawa Prize, but did not receive it. 195 Between the appearance of Yi
Yang-ji and the literary activity by most writers of the second generation lies a time span
193
Bhabha (2007), p. 106.
On the criticism do Mar Castro Varela and Dhawan (2006), pp. 100-109.
195
Ch’oe (2002), p. 31.
194
34
of almost twenty years196 and she thus was perceived as novel: “One could think that here a
fresh scene has developed which differs slightly from the zainichi chōsenjin bungaku we
knew so far. That is to say, in this generation about twenty-four years after Ri Kaisei and
Kin Kakuei authors with a new perception (kankaku) have grown up. This is the impression I gain from the appearance of this newcomer.”197
Yi Yang-ji has written ten pieces of fiction in which the last one, Ishi no koe, remained
a fragment. Most, but not all, of her works pick up the topic of being Korean in Japan and
of feeling torn between the two cultures. However, since Nabi t‟aryŏng shows the protagonist‟s difficulties both in Korea and in Japan and has her identity crisis as the main theme,
it seems especially suitable for the purpose of this work. While mainly treating the issue of
identity in one or the other way, Koku and Yuhi, for example, depict the situation in Korea,
while Tobiiro no gogo [A Beige Afternoon, 1985] deals with the death of the protagonist‟s
brother and her relationship to her father.198 Kazukime takes place exclusively in Japan199
and Ishi no koe is written from a male perspective.200 Certainly all of those pieces constitute valuable research objects in their own right.201 However, the different discourses considering family, ethnicity, and gender imposed on the individual; the clash between the
Japanese place of birth on the one hand and the imagined homeland as well as the real Korea on the other; and finally the protagonist‟s development over a longer period of time as
depicted in Nabi t‟aryŏng are especially interesting to look at from a postcolonial perspective.
Yi Yang-ji‟s fiction is marked by a general withdrawal from questions of politics and
the search for an overall common ethnic identity as represented in the literature of the generations before. While her characters certainly suffer from discriminatory structures within
Japanese society, those problems are no longer formulated as a public lament.202 Instead, in
her literature she pursues an individual identity by means of art and language.203 Her literature does not portray Korea as an ideal place to gain identity, but makes the negative aspect
of the ethnic consciousness a topic, an aspect which was taboo in the generations before.204
196
197
Kim (2004), p. 102.
ここにはこれまでわれわれが知っていた在日朝鮮人文学とはすこし違った生の場面が展開されているよう
に思われる。つまり李恢成や金鶴泳の年代から二周りくらい下の年代に新しい感覚をもった作家が育ってき
た。この新人の登場にはそうした印象がある。(Kawanishi Masaaki in Subaru, as quoted in Ch’oe [2002], pp.
31f.).
198
Nakamura-Methfessel (2007), pp. 509f.
199
Wender (2005), pp. 131-146.
200
201
For a list of all of Yi Yang-ji’s literary works, see kanji-glossary in the appendix.
202
Kim (2004), p. 105.
203
Kim (2004), pp. 107f., Nakamura-Methfessel (2007), p. 500.
204
Ch’oe (2002), pp. 41f.
35
She also refuses to have her works read as being representative for all Japanese Koreans,
but rather is concerned with matters of personal or overall human dimensions.205 Those
features make her an important author of the third literary generation of zainichi chōsenjin
bungaku.
In particular on the ground of allegedly being apolitical, Yi Yang-ji was exposed to
criticism. Some scholars complained that she supposedly did not emphasise the zainichi
point of view strongly enough and had been absorbed into Japanese mainstream literature.206 Other critics put her in the same camp as emerging non-political, pop-cultural writers like Murakami Haruki.207 This kind of criticism is highly normative in that it is expectant of a certain way of writing that instantly marks „foreign‟ writers, who are thus denied
any topic that is unrelated to their status as „foreigners‟.208 In addition to that, it is also unjustified209 since while not directly confronting Japanese politics or society, Yi Yang-ji‟s
works certainly bear a socio-political depth and address the issue of being marginalized
within a dominant society. Moreover, as Kin Katsumi emphasises, with the changing circumstances for Koreans in Japan and their greater degree of assimilation, questions of ethnic belonging and of resistance against political structures are not as easy to answer as they
were for the generations before.210
In her work, Yi Yang-ji rejects a simplistic image of cultural identity and reportedly
even reacted irritably when pegged as a stereotypical ethnic writer.211 For example, her
contribution to literature from the female perspective is just as significant as her ethnic
point of view: “Not Korean womanhood but sexuality as experienced by women is one of
the most prominent features of her works.”212 Wender further explains that in this respect,
Yi Yang-ji bears strong resemblance to Japanese female authors and can be regarded a
feminist writer.213 Another feature of Yi Yang-ji‟s work is, as implied above, that much of
it tackles universal human concerns: “Her fiction is not so much about where the characters
end up (which is not at any time Korean identity, strictly speaking), but about their journey
to that point, about their feelings, their interpretations of images, their often frustrated at-
205
Wender (2005), p. 130.
Kin (2000), pp. 156f.
207
Wender (2005), pp. 126f.
208
Iwata-Weickgenannt (2008), pp. 133f.&142.
209
Wender (2005), pp. 127f.
210
Kin (2000), p. 157.
211
Wender (2005), p. 129.
212
Ibid., p. 128.
213
Ibid.; see also Nakamura-Methfessel (2007), p. 499.
206
36
tempts to communicate with others.” 214 It is this journey, which chases the protagonist
Aiko through three metropolises, that this paper will examine in the next chapters.
Ch‟oe purports that most of Yi Yang-ji‟s fiction is a quarrel with the homeland in form
of the characteristic Japanese literary genre of the shishōsetsu (I-novel).215 It seems worth
investigating whether Ch‟oe‟s passing remark concerning the literary genre of Yi Yang-ji‟s
work is plausible and why it would be claimed to belong to that category. For this purpose,
I take as a basis Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit‟s definition of shishōsetsu as put forward in her
standard work Selbstentblößungsrituale:
Der Shishōsetsu lässt sich durch zwei Elemente charakterisieren, die wir Faktizität und Fokusfigur
nannten. Faktizität bezeichnet das supponierte Verhältnis von Werk und Wirklichkeit, die
Fokusfigur kennzeichnet die Organisationsweise des Textes. Wichtige Merkmale der Fokusfigur
sind die Perspektive „mit“, ein „mitgehender“ Erzählerstandort und die zentrale Stellung, die der
Ich-Erzähler und Protagonist in der Welt des „Romans“ einnimmt. Er bildet nicht nur die
Längsachse, an der die Handlung sich entwickelt, sondern er verfügt auch die impliziten Wertungen.
Seine Erlebnisweise ist affektiv; kognitives Erfassen wird als Störfaktor empfunden, denn es
zerbricht den Eindruck der Unmittelbarkeit, der für die „Echtheit“ und damit die Qualität des
Shishōsetsu von entscheidener Bedeutung ist. Dem emotionalen Verhältnis zu Welt entspricht eine
sentimentale Grundstimmung, die in einer lyrisch-impressionistischen Darstellungsweise ihren
Ausdruck findet. [...]216
When applying this definition on Nabi t‟aryŏng, some resemblances to the shishōsetsu are
certainly striking, most importantly the first-person perspective which does not distance us
from the protagonist and describes her emotional setup (“‟mitgehender‟ Erzählerstandort”)
rather than to indulge in rational discussion on why her situation appears so desperate.
In the case of the shishōsetsu, the average Japanese reader is quite informed about the
author‟s biography and automatically assumes that I-narrator and author are identical
(“Faktizität der Fokusfigur”).217 Thus, background knowledge on the author‟s life is used
to bridge gaps in the narration. In this way, a close factual accuracy in fiction is expected
(jitsu- or makoto-principle) which in Western literary tradition in many cases would be
considered harmful to the artistic value of the piece.218 Interestingly enough, this applies
strikingly to the reading behaviour of Japanese researchers on this topic, as mentioned
above.219 Another similar feature is the characteristic melancholic mood prevalent in the
shishōsetsu which certainly can be considered the key tone of Nabi t‟aryŏng as well.
214
Wender (2005), p. 130.
Ch’oe (2002), p. 31.
216
Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit, Selbstentblößungsrituale: Zur Theorie und Geschichte der autobiographischen
Gattung "Shishōsetsu" in der modernen japanischen Literatur (München 2005), p. 199.
217
Ibid., p. 175.
218
Ibid., p. 178.
219
It must not be overlooked, however, that the articles of Hayes and Nakamura-Methfessel both rely on Yi
Yang-ji’s biography as well. Still, as a general tendency one can state that the four Japanese pieces quoted
215
37
Nevertheless, the novel differs too greatly from the most prominent characteristics of
this genre to be easily labelled a shishōsetsu in the narrow sense. First and foremost, the
temporal makeover: while the shishōsetsu usually deals with a short section of the Inarrator‟s life, Nabi t‟aryŏng covers a span of several years. In opposition to the
shishōsetsu it is also not narrated chronologically – a fact that actually constitutes one of
the novel‟s most prominent formal characteristics. Furthermore, the piece is written in the
past tense which increases temporal distance (although there are no hints as to what might
happen later in the course of the story) and thus counters the typical immediacy of the
shishōsetsu. Another difference is that while a sentimental mood prevails in Nabi t‟aryŏng
and the shishōsetsu alike, the latter‟s almost poetic style cannot be found in Yi Yang-ji‟s
novel which is plain prose for the most part. Those differences make it hard to group together Yi Yang-ji with „traditional‟ writers of shishōsetsu such as Tayama Katai.
Whether one regards Nabi t‟aryŏng as a shishōsetsu or not, the example exemplifies the
unbroken power of this genre as a reading behaviour. Even today, decades after the advent
of traditional shishōsetsu-writers, autobiographically informed fiction is read in the same
way as those novels and a close coherency between fiction and reality is assumed even in
scholarship. In this light, the approach of Japanese research that might appear unusual from
the Western point of view appears to be rooted in the literary tradition of the shishōsetsu.220
The example also proves that Yi Yang-ji‟s way of writing is heavily influenced by Japanese literary traditions and in this way deeply hybridized. This is probably what critics like
Ch‟oe hint at when they imply that in Yi Yang-ji, a Japanese Korean has mastered this
genre which is perceived as being inherently Japanese.
4.2
Nabi t’aryŏng: Summary
Nabi t‟aryŏng is written from a first-person perspective, telling the story of the time
roughly between the I-narrator Aiko‟s 17th and 26th year of life,221 supplemented with
several childhood-flashbacks. Aiko is a Japanese Korean who was naturalized as a child.
The story jumps, while roughly pursuing the chronological order of events, back and forth
between different periods of time and delivers flashbacks to earlier stages of the narration
in this work on Nabi t’aryŏng all do not make a difference between fictional character and author at all and
readily jump back and forth between reality and fiction.
220
See also Iwata-Weickgenannt (2008), pp. 180-185.
221
Ch’oe (2002), p. 33./ Ch’oe sets the span from between 18 to 26 years of age. In my opinion, however,
the text suggests that she should be around 17 when leaving her home. Those numbers are of course only
roughly concluded from the text and merely serve to deliver a general framework to which period of the
protagonist’s life the novel deals with.
38
as well as to the pre-narrational past, which sometimes makes it hard for the reader to follow the plot and to reconstruct the chronological order of events.
The novel begins in medias res when Aiko is around 19 (or at any rate, a minor) and
calls her older brother Tecchan222 to meet up. The two of them go to a bar to have a drink
and during the course of their conversation the reader learns how Aiko dropped out in her
last year of high school two years earlier. She then escaped to Kyōto from her home which
is shattered by the parents‟ divorce trial, a fact that has made all the children suffer from a
young age. Tecchan is the oldest brother, followed by frugal Kazuo and after Aiko, Michiko is the youngest of the four siblings.
The plot then jumps back to Aiko‟s time in Kyōto. Here, she works in a ryokan named
Kazuto run by a Japanese family whose manners are rather rough. One of the other employees, a woman named Ochika, is described in more detail and her repellent manners
like eating the rests of the customers‟ meals are emphasized. Several of the novel‟s characters wonder whether Ochika might be Korean, but Aiko and the reader never discover if
she really is. During her time at the ryokan, Aiko continuously fears being discovered as
Korean. This fear is fuelled by several discriminatory remarks by the ryokan‟s staff which
are, however, basically never targeted at her. When she learns that her Korean identity was
never secret, she escapes again, this time back to Tōkyō.
In Tōykō, she suffers greatly from the on-going divorce trial which splits the family and
forces Tecchan and Aiko to stand on opposing sides – he has to testify for their father, she
for the mother. In several flashbacks the reader learns how she was torn between her parents as a child.
Aiko‟s relationship to her father is especially difficult; she blames him for having naturalized the family when she was a child and for having had a Japanese lover. In her constant pain, she starts drinking excessively and indulges in self-destructive behaviour until
she develops a paranoid belief of being killed by „the Japanese‟. It is then that she starts to
learn the kayagŭm and comes to think that this is the sound of her homeland. Only when
practicing the kayagŭm does she find peace. Once she steps out of her teacher‟s house,
however, her pain overcomes her anew.
She starts an ambivalent love affair with a Japanese man twenty years older than her,
Matsumoto, who is a husband and a father. On the one hand, she is highly dependent on
him; on the other, she is driven by the desire to possess that „Japanese man‟. When she
222
Throughout the novel, this character is referred to as “Tecchan”, being a abbreviation for probably Tetsuo, as Hayes transcribes the name. However, since other readings such as Tetsuya as well seem possible, I
will stick with what the novel provides. The suffix –chan indicates that this is a term of endearment.
39
meets his wife and realizes that she herself is like the woman her father had an affair with,
thus breaking the family apart, she ends the relationship but is not able to stay away from
him for long.
Her brother Kazuo falls mysteriously ill into a persistent vegetative state, leading to a
kind of family reunion in his hospital room. This leads to the parents eventually divorcing
in mutual agreement. One night, Aiko drinks excessively and loses control over herself.
She calls Matsumoto to fetch her and while waiting for him she imagines hearing the
sound of the kayagŭm and suddenly sees a white butterfly dancing in front of her.
Shortly after that, she decides to go to Korea to learn traditional music. Only when she
has already arrived in Seoul does the reader learn in yet another flashback that her brother
Tecchan died suddenly prior to her leaving Japan. She is convinced that Tecchan is in urinara (literally: “our country”, Korea).
Aiko does not, however, easily adapt to life in Korea. She is very embarrassed because
of her bad Korean pronunciation at her singing lessons, she is told by the girl of the guesthouse she is living in that to her, Aiko is Japanese, and she even gets robbed. At the same
time, her fascination with traditional Korean dance stirs and she starts taking lessons. At
her teacher‟s performance the faces of her family members appear one after another before
her inner eye and she sees the butterfly again. When she is told by Michiko on the phone
that Kazuo too has died, she climbs the roof of her pension to sing and dance for her brothers. Suddenly, she is able to easily produce the difficult high sounds she could not sing before. Only now she is able to write a farewell letter to Matsumoto.
The last scene of the novel is Aiko, walking the busy-as-ever streets of Seoul, loudly
singing. When a passerby insults her as „idiot‟, she smiles to herself, thinking that even the
word for „idiot‟ sounds warmer in Korean than in Japanese.
4.3
Nabi t’aryŏng: Analysis
To start the literary analysis, some general remarks seem advisable. First, Nabi t‟aryŏng
is the only one of Yi Yang-ji‟s works that has a Korean title, which probably puzzles Japanese readers who cannot imagine what the novel is about by simply looking at its title. 223
The step of choosing the Korean Nabi t‟aryŏng on the one hand can be understood as an
act of provocation, but on the other constitutes a commitment to the positive Korean identity as put forward in the novel‟s ending, a turn to the Korean language. Still, this title has
to be understood as profoundly hybrid since it is written in Japanese katakana. Conse223
Nakamura-Methfessel (2007), p. 508.
40
quently, neither a Korean nor a Japanese reader could make sense of the words without
some familiarity of the respective other language. This choice thus outstandingly demonstrates Bhabha‟s word on the process of hybridization and the parallel existence of several
cultural fragments which may be in themselves incommensurable. Hence, it is not too
much to conclude that this title emerged from his Third Space of enunciation.
As mentioned above, the temporal composition of the novel appears to be rather disorganized and in some places seems to just follow the protagonist‟s pained storm of emotion.
Current situations are ruptured by flashbacks and at one point one of those flashbacks is
breached again by yet another flashback. In this way, the novel follows the protagonist‟s
chain of thought and underlines her state of agitation.
Places are, as Kin Katsumi points out, very important in Nabi t‟aryŏng.224 The three
main settings of the novel – Kyōto, Tōkyō, and Seoul – respectively bear symbolic value
and stand for a different stage in the protagonist‟s development. For this reason, I will
structure the analysis in three parts corresponding to the main locations. In each chapter the
major issues of the respective stage are discussed, keeping in mind that some themes, like
that of music, are present throughout the text. Finally, to round up my discussion, Yi Yangji‟s novel Yuhi will be comparatively drawn upon in a further chapter.
4.3.1
Kyōto
Not being able to cope with the ongoing domestic disturbance, Aiko escapes from Tōkyō to Kyōto to work in a ryokan. However, she is not able to find peace here either.
Driven by a blind fear of being discovered as Korean she behaves highly subordinately towards the people around her, for which she hates herself, and is never able to calm down
from.225 Constantly she wonders, “What should I do if I‟m discovered, if I‟m discovered I
cannot stay here any longer either” (27). At another point she contemplates: “One fear hit
me without cease: the fact that, even if I quit this ryokan, I would be followed by myself
being Korean no matter where I went” (33). This constant dread of being discovered distresses her and puts her in an unvarying state of panic despite the fact that she is naturalized226 and is not immediately recognizable as Korean. Interestingly enough, while a general discriminatory attitude against Koreans can be felt in a few of the character‟s utterances, Aiko herself is at virtually no point a direct victim of discrimination.
224
Kin (2000), pp. 142f.
Yi Yang-ji (1997), p. 33./ All translations of Nabi t’aryŏng and Yuhi are my own. Scans of the respective
original passages can be found in the appendix. When referring to the novels Nabi t’aryŏng and Yuhi from
now on, the according page numbers of the novels will be given in parenthesises following the reference.
226
Kim (2004), pp. 104f.
225
41
One immediate link to colonial aggression is narrated in a flashback when Aiko at a
later point remembers the kitchen-assistant Katsura. He used to demonstrate to the students
who worked at the ryokan with a stick how to chop off a person‟s head like he did in the
war. Repulsed, she thinks: “Katsura washed rice with the same hand he cut off Chinese
heads. He served cooked rice with the same hands that shed blood” (51). In this way she
feels the effects of colonial structures are still intact. Consequently, she performs a kind of
mimicry, imitating the people around her and behaving as inconspicuously as possible. But
she is also aware of her mimicry‟s „strategic failure‟, since behaviour like that of Katsura
or dismissive comments about Koreans by other members of the staff appear to prove the
impossibility to fit into the imagined nation-family, which is why she feels constant unease.
Even if she does not experience discrimination personally, the image of the united Japanese community is so strong that it puts immense psychological pressure on her.
She does, however, learn that her ethnicity was not a secret all along. On New Year‟s
Eve, Aiko has a conversation with the receptionist Machie: “Sipping her tea, Machie said:
„Ai-chan, you‟re from there, aren‟t you?‟ „Eh?‟ „Never mind, it‟s nothing.‟ Machie moved
her gaze towards the television screen. The sudden tremble caused by the shock threatened
to expel what had been retained. Machie knew...” (34). Aiko then learns that the owners of
the ryokan also were aware she was Korean from the very beginning. Now that she knows
her ethnicity is not a secret, she reacts highly sensitively:
Neither the atmosphere in the kitchen, nor the attitude of the younger boss‟s wife or the ryokan‟s
owner‟s attitude had changed. But the unexpectedness of having been discovered all along added
meaning to the guileless behaviour of the other employees and there were moments when I stood
paralyzed. I was so upset that I almost thought that being criticized or met with open contempt
would still be better. Nothing had changed. (35)
Thus, even though she now knows that she does not need to fear being treated differently,
instead of relaxing she remains in agony. This proves how her pain is actually not inflicted
from without (since nothing has changed) but results from her internal attitude and from
what she has learned or perceives as the proper place for Koreans in Japan. She finds it
ironic how the image of ethnical difference she embraces and the reality around her differ.
She decides to leave Kyōto. When she tells the younger and the older bosses‟ wives that
she wishes to resign, they insult her: “‟You don‟t know such a thing as obligation, you!‟
„We tolerated you were Korean and kindly hired you!‟ [...] „Koreans don‟t know obligation
by nature, they don‟t know shame. Really, she doesn‟t even say anything!‟” (37f.). The
fact that the bosses‟ wives only turn against her when she quits her job and only then also
refer to stereotypes about Koreans shows how they expected Aiko to take the subordinate
42
role and to keep up the mimicry. Only when she refuses to do so and in this way constitutes a problem for them, they turn against her in terms of ethnicity. They are displaying a
high degree of multiple belief which allows them to „tolerate‟ her Korean-ness as long as it
serves them. The novel does not explain how everyone actually knew she was Korean and
this seems to suggest that even a naturalized Korean is recognizable as such.
Why does she suffer that much even though she is not a victim of discrimination up to
the very end? We remember that identity is constructed within representation. Hence, even
if discriminatory remarks are not targeted directly at her, she takes on the offered image of
identity, which is the role of the inferior, excluded Korean as represented in discourse advanced by for example the staff of the ryokan or in Japanese society in general. Furthermore, the hint to the colonial past in the scene with kitchen-assistant Katsura clarifies her
feeling of being Korean as something inherited. The stain of the violent past apparently
cannot be shaken off even if she is superficially assimilated into Japanese society. This
way, the experience of having been colonized constitutes the foundation of a perceived
common identity for Koreans in Japan even forty years later.
Of all the staff as well as the owners of the ryokan, she is the only one who speaks standard Japanese while everyone else communicates in Kansai dialect. While on the surface
resulting from the simple fact that she was born in Tōkyō, this detail creates another gap
between her and the other employees. Dialect certainly can be a means to create a feeling
of community and this applies to a high degree to the dialect of the Kansai region which is
regarded as quite prestigious in the area as well as in the rest of Japan. Ironically enough,
the fact that she speaks standard Japanese serves to further ostracise her from the Japanese
nation-family.
Aiko appears to feel that she is the Other outside of Japanese society which receives its
image of identity by excluding her. This becomes very evident at a scene with her superiors:
It was custom that the staff went every night to the space inside the house before going to sleep and
bid the ryokan‟s owner‟s family goodnight through the sliding door: “If you allow, I will go to rest
early.” When I raised my head, I could see a picture of the tennō family through the slightly opened
door. I always felt an unpleasant dizziness then and heard the sound of the joints creaking inside my
body. This was the moment when I keenly felt another me in a dark hidden chamber because they
were different from my own family. (30)
As O Ŭn-yŏng explains, while reacting physically to the mere sight of a picture could be
considered an overreaction, the photo of the tennō family actually bears a very strong symbolic value. The tennō as the head of the Japanese nation-family is the ultimate symbol of
43
the Japanese community and with the unbroken lineage of the imperial family since ancient times also underpins the myth of Japanese homogeneity. Furthermore, his person is a
reminder of the imperial period when Koreans were via kōminka forcefully assimilated into
Japanese society. As mentioned above, this remembrance is inherited by the later generations and makes it impossible for them to be truly integrated into Japanese society. Thus,
Aiko feels that the owners are not simply another family but a whole different ethnic
community and this realisation strikes her so hard that she even feels physical uneasiness.227
The owner‟s family is not depicted as ideal at all. They behave vulgarly and the younger
boss‟s wife regularly beats up her son Kenji (29). In view of this domestic violence it is
surprising to see how Aiko still feels inferior because of the simple fact that she is Korean.
But, as we have seen above, identity is constructed by that which is left outside. By seeing
the picture of the tennō family, Aiko is reminded that the exclusion of the colonized Other
was fundamental to the construction of a Japanese collective identity and she resigns herself to the subordinate, excluded role. Like what was said above about the colonized Self,
she turns to the ideal Japanese Self, represented by the tennō, which becomes object of desire. Since the photo representing the idealized Japanese community is set into direct relation to the owner‟s disturbed family and thereby seems to place them above Aiko, the
novel strikingly demonstrates the perversity of the Japanese colonial and postcolonial
situation.
Two characters in the Kyōto-section of the novel are especially interesting to look at in
terms of power structures as determined by ethnicity and gender. The first one is the employee Ochika who seems to be slightly mentally handicapped:
Ochika lived in a mezzanine at the house‟s tradesman‟s exit. If one approached the small staircase
that led to her mezzanine, the smell of something rotten, something rancid of which one couldn‟t
even say what it was, hit the nose. Half-eaten bread, mouldy steamed fish pastry, egg-shells –
Ochika was always munching. At lunch time, she mixed the customer‟s left-over side dishes one after another in a bowl, doused it with soup and cracked an egg over it. Then she stirred it with her
chopsticks until it was all squashed and ate it. “Ochika, go over there and eat where no one can see
you. One cannot help but feel disgusted.”, when the head clerk Yamada said this, Ochika held her
bowl protectively and went to the doma [floor without planks]. That was the walk of a crawling infant that at last had begun walking. “This idiotic Ochika, is she any different from a Korean?” Yamada had the habit of spitting out phrases like this. (28)
Neither the reader nor Aiko learn whether Ochika really is Korean or not. However, it
changes nothing in the way she is represented, nor to the function this character fulfils.
Kim Hun-a holds that the fact that Ochika with her repellent eating behaviour is called Ko227
O (2005), pp. 171-173.
44
rean proves the employees‟ discriminatory attitude. 228 While this is certainly true, by
means of having a deeper look at this character the way stereotypes work in the postcolonial context can easily be examined. Whether Ochika really is Korean or not, she represents „Korean-ness‟ to the ryokan‟s staff. The fact that she might not be Korean at all
merely underlines the arbitrariness of stereotypes. Someone with eating habits like Ochika
serves as an ideal parameter for identification ex negativo and thus the needed ethnic difference is constructed discursively.
Ochika is exposed to extreme violence by the boss‟s wife: “The older boss‟s wife castigated Ochika at every opportunity. She came with the wooden sword of her grandson
Ken‟ichi and struck her down in front of everyone. Ochika didn‟t know an expression like
crying. Whatever was done to her she just raised a hand to her mouth and laughed: „Is that
so?‟” (28f.). Ochika in this way corresponds to the stereotype of Korean women that behave submissively and muted endure the violence imposed on them. Interestingly enough,
this violence is exercised by Japanese women, not men. This example shows the manifold
overlaps on the one hand and contradictions on the other between ethnicity and gender.
While being described as disgusting and thereby serving as the „ideal Other‟, Ochika‟s
sexuality is also emphasised:
“Ms. Ochika, do you have a date with Mr. Naitō for the first time in a long while?”, like this Ikeda
teased her. Naitō was gesokuban [keeper of footwear]229 in a nearby ryokan and Ikeda‟s card game
partner. “Ms. Ochika, if you have sex again after a long time, wash yourself before doing it, otherwise you‟ll stink!” The people present in the kitchen laughed. “We have a very beautiful woman
here in our house.” (30f.)
This focus on Ochika‟s sexuality while she simultaneously is repelled can be seen as an
instance of the operations of colonial desire. The Japanese „regular people‟ distance themselves as far as possible from Ochika and see in her everything they are not. For that reason,
they call her Korean, virtually the perfect symbol for difference from Japanese identity. At
the same time, there is an inexplicable attraction and interest in Ochika. This also leads the
boss‟s wife to use violence on her to reaffirm her own superiority, to possess her and to
bash out any confused desire she might have for Ochika. This physical violence probably
also serves to prevent the inferior from turning her gaze onto the owner‟s less than perfect
household which then would force the boss‟s wife to realize her own unsatisfying position.
The male employees, on the other hand, focus on Ochika‟s sexuality in a voyeuristic way
228
Kim (2004), p. 105.
Translations or explanations in square brackets are mine, translation given in parenthesises are as such
in the original text by Yi Yang-ji.
229
45
and make jokes about her to confirm their male and ethnic superiority. Here we see how
colonial and postcolonial domination is exercised via discourses of sex and the fantasy of
domination.
An alternative draft to the female, sexualized, submissive, slightly mentally handicapped „Korean‟ woman Ochika is another character named Kanemoto:
The electrician Kanemoto, who came regularly to the ryokan Kazuto, was obviously Korean. Kanemoto spoke Japanese with a broad Korean accent. Sometimes he struck his head through the
kitchen door without any special cause and chatted with the head clerks Yamada and Ikeda or even
repaired a guest room‟s door when he was asked to. As soon as Kanemoto showed his face in the
kitchen, I held my breath and carefully listened to his conversation with my fellow employees.
Maybe because they had known each other for over ten years, no one in particular bragged on the
fact that he was Korean. There was no change in their expression; on the contrary, there was a feeling of intimacy. (32f.)
The different ways in which Ochika, Kanemoto and Aiko before and after she quits respectively are treated show a high degree of multiple belief among the Japanese owners and
staff. Ochika, the female, is expected to endure the physical violence imposed on her by
the „colonizing‟, dominant woman. Aiko is accepted as long as she goes along with the
role imposed on her. Kanemoto, on the other hand, is treated in a whole different way despite the fact that he is Korean and does not make a secret of it. His masculinity seems to
enable male bonding with the ryokan‟s staff. (Generally, the men depicted in the novel
seem to better adapt to Japanese society as will be shown with the example of Aiko‟s father as well.) This illustrates how the employees‟ stereotypes on Koreans are by no means
fixed but fluctuate according to situation and that women are pushed into an inferior position which the factors of gender and ethnicity are mutually aggravated.
To sum up, the Kyōto section of the novel ostensive demonstrates Aiko‟s perceived
place as a Korean in Japan where she is expected to perform a mimicry and moreover illustrates the arbitrary ways in which colonial discourse and stereotypes work.
4.3.2
Tōkyō
Since her schooldays, Aiko has suffered tremendously from her parents‟ ongoing divorce trial. As Ch‟oe points out, it seems contradictory that her mother‟s lawyer asks her to
appear in court in her school uniform since through this she is supposed to mimic a cheerful daughter, when in reality her family is deeply shattered (62).230 That is, one point to her
identity crisis is that she feels unable to take on the role which she is expected to play, an
ideal family‟s happy daughter and this is why she eventually escapes to Kyōto.
230
Ch’oe (2002), p. 34
46
However, when she comes back to Tōkyō her brother Tecchan says: “I guess it‟s so. No
matter where we went, it was the same. It‟s the same, we try and try, but we cannot escape”
(13). What is it they cannot escape from? Ch‟oe argues that one cannot assume that all of
Aiko‟s trouble simply stems from her parents‟ divorce since firstly, the family sticks together after all and the family members care for one another and secondly, she is now an
adult and consequently no longer dependent on her parents. He therefore suggests that her
pain is actually caused by her ethnicity and the discriminatory attitude of Japanese society.231 While one generally can agree with this observation, it should be pointed out that
this conflict is highly multilayered and questions of how the parents treat their children
(since the conflict certainly is present and of course affects the adult children as well), ethnicity, and gender all add up to her crisis to a similar degree and are not easily separable.
A hypothesis that founds the basis of this paper is that conflicting identity discourses
follow her everywhere which much more exist in herself, than resulting from outer factors.
She understands all of her problems as a result of her Korean ethnicity; this is why she
cannot escape. Of course, as we have seen in the attitude of the ryokan‟s staff, for example,
those fears are not without basis. But it is much more the internalized discourse she struggles with than directly imposed discrimination or violence of any kind. This appears to be
one key to understand the novel.
Through the divorce trial, Aiko feels her family is paraded in front of a Japanese audience:
Even after I came back to Tōkyō, the awful sight of the autopsy room hadn‟t changed a bit. No, even
more than before mother and father spit into each other‟s flying gore and open wounds and it looked
as if they maintained their vitality through it. In an autopsy room called court all members of our
family were send to sleep completely naked. [...] The process of our autopsy was collected in an indifferent tone in a file. (40)
She feels the gaze of the dominant Japanese society on her and her family and suffers from
the way their pain is exploited in a voyeuristic and cold-hearted way. To Aiko‟s perception
it is Japanese society that tears her family apart232 and she especially blames her father‟s
lawyer, as can be seen from this utterance towards Tecchan: “It‟s better not to forget that
this lawyer Y, before being father‟s lawyer still is Japanese” (26). In the conflict between
her parents she tends to support her mother and to blame her father, but the gap in her family to her is not as deep as the unbridgeable abyss between the Japanese and Korean ethnic-
231
Ibid., pp. 34f.
Ibid., pp. 35f.
232
47
ity. At one point in court when she has to testify in favour of her mother, her father‟s lawyer questions her on why she went away to Kyōto. The interrogation then proceeds:
“Then, when you came back from Kyōto, you seem to have fairly changed. As I heard from your father, you apparently came to be interested in political issues after you went to Kyōto, isn‟t that so?”
At that time, I glanced at the chief justice‟s face. He had also unconsciously lifted his glasses and
looked back at me. “Excuse me, but what has that matter to do with this divorce trial?” “Please answer by all means only to the raised questions; I hear you often argued with your father about the
question of naturalization.” “Yes, well, that‟s...” “You don‟t think it‟s good that your father naturalized... isn‟t that so?” I firmly shut my mouth and looked down. I wanted to blast everything into
splinters. Beneath the witness stand, I clenched my fist. “Chief justice, I think that this matter has
absolutely nothing to do with my parents‟ divorce.”, as I daringly said so, the lawyer Y sharply
turned to the side and said: “Chief justice, I would like to continue with the questions.” “Go ahead.”
“Witness, you appear to have said again and again that you cannot forgive your father who has naturalized.” Father sat behind me in the auditorium. I suppressed the impulse to turn around to him. If I
turned around I would expose myself becoming emotional. “Well, um, I guess such things also happened, but...” “This matter apparently became a constant cause for argument with your father.”
“Couldn‟t you please stop the record; there is not the least connection between the problem of naturalisation and this divorce.” “Chief justice, I would like to continue.” “Go ahead.” “Witness, you advanced the thought of resident Korean‟s independence and also engaged in political activities, this is
pretty radical.” (64-66)
This scene shows how the ethnic gap appears to be more profound than the discord within
the family. Like Aiko, the reader is inclined to wonder what the divorce trial has to do with
her political activities (which are not mentioned a second time and thus are not constitutive
to the course of the story).233 Yet, they become a disadvantage to the mother‟s side. In this
way, the novel seems to suggest that engagement with the Japanese Korean cause is met
with such hostility by the Japanese environment that it is blamed on the agent even in
completely unrelated situations. The main incentive for the Japanese seems to be protection of their nation-family, a concern that stands above all personal involvement. This is
how Aiko perceives it, at least. It is questionable whether a divorce trial in Japan would
seriously be affected by one daughter‟s political activities, but it is important to note in
which kind of framework Aiko understands the world and society.
Aiko feels tied down by the process and in its course by her parents and Japanese society, thus, only when the trial ends (as a result of the parents settling matters after their sons‟
deaths), the family steps out of the autopsy room and she is free to go to Korea (87). This
shows how much Aiko‟s crisis is also caused by her familial problems instead of only resulting from the discriminatory attitude of Japanese society concerning her ethnicity, contrary to what Ch‟oe purports.
One way of reading the parents‟ conflict is by looking at the mutuality of ethnicity and
gender. Aiko‟s father who is described as dominant and in hold of the family‟s finances (he
233
Ibid., p. 36.
48
appears to be the head of some company) had the family naturalized, had a Japanese lover,
and generally adapts to Japanese society quite well. In one of Aiko‟s flashbacks, she remembers how he fetched her from school to drive around Lake Kawaguchi. While he tells
her his point of view on the parental conflict, she stares without interruption at Mount Fuji,
which blurs in her vision (20f.). Her mother, on the other hand, is depicted as financially
dependent and, as she suffers from facial nerve palsy, clumsy and insecure (67). In the way
both parents are presented they can be regarded as symbolizing Japan and Korea respectively. Aiko‟s father, naturalized, dominant, financially superior, who takes her to Mount
Fuji (the ultimate symbol of Japan) clearly is closely connected with the images that apply
to the former colonial and now economic dominant power Japan. The mother just as much
symbolizes with her submissive and dependent behaviour the former colonized country
Korea. Although Aiko tends to support the side of her mother, she does not really know
who is to blame for the misery and thus remains in an ambivalent space between her parents and, in the figurative sense, between Japan and Korea (21). This is why even far from
them in Kyōto she feels exposed to the opposing powers of both her parents tearing her in
different directions (27). She wants to live out a pure Korean identity but still feels tied to
Japan as represented by her father.
Throughout the novel, there is the underlying assumption that it is the Korean women‟s
role to sacrifice themselves, as we have already seen with Ochika. One can understand that
this also applies to Aiko‟s family because after she comes back from Kyōto, Tecchan tells
her: “Michiko always suffered in your place!” (13). For this reason, he asks her not to run
away again and from her behaviour, the reader understands that Aiko really feels guilty
(11). Furthermore, she behaves highly auto-aggressively and tries to kill herself halfheartedly in curious ways such as eating too many leaves of tobacco (44). At one point, she
tries to strangle her mother (45), but she never shows that kind of aggressiveness against
her father although she mainly blames him. Here again we see an image of Korean femininity as a continuation of imperial hardships. Korean women suffer differently from Korean men, which might be considered an implicit link to the ianfu-problem during the war.
Another reason for Aiko‟s aggressive outburst towards her mother might be an unconscious hate for the Korean part in herself which causes her so much suffering in Japan and
which is represented by her mother.
However, Aiko does not feel able to live up to this normative image of femininity which
in consequence further aggravates her pain. Apart from the implied expectation of selfsacrifice, she struggles with the fact that Korean women at several occasions are described
as too wild and emotional. For example, the lawyer Y says to her father: “President, the
49
women from your country are like this, even in front of other people they cry and scream
with a furious look; men cannot bear that” (26). Aiko‟s own father reaffirms such stereotypes about Korean women: “The women on Cheju-do are uncultured. In the end they do
not see men as men [...]” (20). This statement indicates his subliminal claim on clear gender hierarchies.
Not only did her father have a Japanese lover when she was a child, her dear brother
Tecchan also decides to marry a Japanese woman. Aiko is enraged about that and feels insufficient as a Korean female: “Like father had wanted a Japanese woman, Tecchan probably wanted a Japanese woman as well. I, as a familiar Korean woman, was too passionate
and graceless” (74). This way, she develops a deep feeling of inferiority towards “Japanese
women” and feels that she cannot help but be a passionate Korean female. Kin Katsumi
points out that this feeling of inferiority haunted Aiko ever since her childhood when Korea was representative for her parents‟ argument, for example in her father‟s abovementioned utterance about the women from Cheju-do.234 Aiko thinks that on the one hand
it is her fault that her father and Tecchan turn to Japanese women, but on the other hand,
she blames them and seems to believe that they betray their Korean heritage. Contradictory
enough, she starts an affair with a Japanese man herself, as will be discussed below.
While ethnicity and gender greatly contribute to her identity crisis, her class and the fact
that her family seems to be relatively wealthy is not made a topic at all. Since she does not
have to endure any financial hardships or exclusion based on class-hierarchical grounds,
class does not add to her identity crisis like ethnicity and gender do.
Aiko perceives a strong dichotomy between her Korean Self and her Japanese environment, certainly triggered by her sensation of Japanese society pushing into the privacy of
her family235 which she feels actually broke apart on the question of whether or not to assimilate into Japanese society. She fails to acknowledge her own hybrid position inbetween both cultures and with all her might tries to restore something which she perceives
as her original ethnic Korean identity. This is why she is startled when she goes to her father‟s room to confront him and to accuse him of loving Japanese women so much that he
had betrayed his Korean heritage by naturalizing. But she realizes: “[In father‟s room,]
there wasn‟t the smell of a woman. There wasn‟t a woman” (53). This indicates that the
family‟s conflict is not solely to blame on Japanese society or a “Japanese woman” who
broke the family apart, since the woman has long gone but still the family is not intact.
234
235
Kin (2000), pp. 139f.
Ch’oe (2002), pp. 35f.
50
Nevertheless, after she returns from Kyōto, Aiko‟s hate on “the Japanese” increases.
She is haunted by a paranoid fear to be killed by “the Japanese”:
I am killed by the Japanese. It was that day that this kind of hallucinations began. When I was riding
the train, I got off at every station to make sure I was unhurt and got on the train again. Pushed by a
swarm of people like a flood, I descended the stairs of the station. I was killed there and all over
covered with blood, I died at the roadside. Even if I somehow had managed to descend the stairs
safely, I had to climb them again. Behind me a wave of people hasting up. The moment I climb up
the stairs one step, someone from below slashes my Achilles tendon. I am buried under the Japanese
and my breathing stops. I also feared dark movie theatres. I was convinced knifes would be stabbed
into the back of my head that protruded the seat and that it would be cut off, so occasionally I rushed
outside without even having seen the movie. (50)
This scene is directly followed by the above-mentioned description of the kitchen assistant
Katsura demonstrating how to chop off Chinese heads. The novel seems to suggest that
even though Koreans in Japan today no longer have to fear being killed they still feel the
Sword of Damocles of a possible new outburst of violence. At least, the experience of extreme violence and humiliation seems to be engraved in the collective Korean memory.
Still, Aiko‟s overreaction with such paranoia (even though she never has been victim to
physical violence or other forms of discrimination on the part of the Japanese) underlines
yet again how she sees the world in a binary framework. Accordingly when Tecchan tells
her he decided to live as a Japanese, she replies: “Tecchan, even if naturalized, a Korean is
a Korean. You don‟t become Japanese that easily” (39). Here we clearly see her essentialist
view on ethnic identity which denies any form of hybridity and how she takes a certain
pride in her Korean heritage but at the same time feels excluded from Japanese society.
However, Aiko not only develops fear but also an exuberant hate of “the Japanese”:
“The fear of being killed and its counterpart, a lust to kill, heaved inside me” (51). Here
again it becomes clear how she refuses to be the victim as a Korean.
Her highly contradictory relationship towards Japan is best shown in Aiko‟s affair with
Matsumoto, a white-collar employee and father of a family in his forties. At that time, she
herself is twenty-three (54). In her relationship with Matsumoto, Aiko is torn between two
sides of herself, one that is highly dependent on Matsumoto and one that wants to possess
and destroy that „Japanese man‟: “Undecidedly I was attracted and about to let my feet be
entwined while at the same time there was a part of me that wanted to push Matsumoto
aside and get up” (54). This kind of phrasing, two parts of her or two „herselves‟ (jibun or
watashi), can be found throughout the novel and sheds light on her almost schizophrenic
disposition and the inner contradictions tearing her apart. She feels unable to form a unity
of those different „identity-fragments‟. Concerning her affair with Matsumoto, she wonders: “I shook my head. Where had the part of me that thought I wanted to violate „Japa51
nese men‟ gone?” (55). But instead of pushing Matsumoto away she increasingly becomes
dependent, to a degree that she is afraid to take a bath alone (54) or feels that another her is
exercising her daily practice when he is not around (60). Aiko‟s feelings towards the
„Japanese Other‟ are highly contradictory. She feels dependent and perceives herself only
in relation to him but at the same time dreams of taking on the superior role. Her life revolves around Matsumoto and she can only be herself when he is there to determine her in
her identity role. But on the other hand Aiko feels that he is completely hers: “After all,
Matsumoto‟s body belonged only to me. Even when he stroked his children‟s cheeks, I was
certain that he always thought of me, felt me” (60).
While she blamed her father and Tecchan for associating with Japanese women she now
on her part falls back into the role of the submissive colonized female while still feeling an
ambiguous hatred.
However, when looking at Matsumoto, too, their relationship is much more contradictory and complex than it might appear at first glance. On the one hand, he appears very
dominant and self-assured when he says: “That night, when I caught a glimpse of you I
thought „this girl belongs to me!‟” (54) or asks her whether she will be a good girl (57).
When he tells her that they cannot meet for a while she feels devastated while he acts
coolly (61). This hierarchy of dominance of course is further exacerbated by the considerable age gap.
But Matsumoto actually does not always live up to the dominant „colonizer‟s‟ role. His
feelings towards Aiko appear extremely ambiguous, for example when he is corrected in
how to pronounce her name: “‟Sensei, I want you to call me Eja; I am Kim Eja, not Aiko.‟
„Oh yes, I forgot, I correct myself.‟ This kind of obedience on Matsumoto‟s part also irritated me” (55). She apparently is annoyed when he does not enact the stereotypical dominant male role. Furthermore, this Japanese man‟s way of showing understanding for her
Korean roots seems to irritate her because she might feel he does not have the right to have
an insight into Korean culture. Here again, she wants the borders between ethnicities intact.
At another point he sighs in his sleep like a woman (56), through which the blurring of
boundaries between the genders is emphasized. His dependence on Aiko becomes clearest
when they spend one last night together in a hotel before she goes to Korea:
In the hotel Matsumoto, who had hidden the watch, lay on his stomach. I pressed my lips on his big
back and totally as if to soothe a spoilt child I asked for the time. [...] „Don‟t worry, sensei!‟ It was
the first time that I heard words of jealousy from Matsumoto. [...] Matsumoto still lay on his stomach
and there was no indication that he would stand up. My lips continued to move on his back. Really
like soothing an unmanageable child I tenderly asked for the time. (83)
52
It is clear how Matsumoto needs Aiko to act out his identity role as the male, dominant,
„colonizing‟ part. His desire is to possess her while disavowing the fact that he, too, is
highly dependent on her. When Aiko leaves and in this way refuses to support his male
Japanese superiority, he cannot help but act childishly. Also when she tells him to pronounce her name the Korean way, he willingly gives in to this kind of „exoticism‟. Matsumoto‟s behaviour can be interpreted as an instance of colonial desire. He wants to possess
the colonial, exotic Other but at the same time is in desperate need of it to perform his
identity and to perceive himself as superior. This way, we see the complex relationship between „colonizer‟ and „colonized‟ which is marked by mutual interdependence and charged
with contradictions which are not apparent at first glance.
Though Aiko tries earlier in the course of the novel to distance herself from Matsumoto,
she can write a goodbye letter only after she found her own way of being in Seoul (90).
Now, she finally is able to emancipate herself from this dependent relationship which assigns her the twofold inferior role as female and as Korean.
To summarize, in the Tōkyō chapters of the novel, it becomes evident how Aiko perceives all of her problems, including her family conflict, in terms of Korean versus Japanese ethnicity. A gender dimension is added to the issue as Japan is marked as masculine
and Korea as feminine with the underlying assumption of Korean femininity as selfsacrificing and exposed to violence. Finally, in Aiko‟s relation to Matsumoto, the multilayered interplay between „inferior‟ and „superior‟ part is demonstrated.
4.3.3
Seoul
Aiko is convinced that her dead brother Tecchan is in urinara (96), which for her appears to be an ideal place where she can find a way out of her identity crisis and where her
suffering can be eased. She goes to Seoul to find the stability she lacked in the relationships with her family and Matsumoto and in search of a unified Korean identity, which is
her first step towards emancipation.236 She explains to Matsumoto how she hates that Japan
is too complicated and that she thus feels she needs to go in order not to die (80). For her,
who feels the incompatibility of her Korean ethnicity with Japan is the source of her trouble, going to Korea would solve the problem. Soon, however, she learns that the actual nation-state of South Korea is very different from the image she held and that she cannot easily run away from her problems because they do not vanish simply by crossing a stateborder. She is still exposed to the expectations she has in herself and to contradictory dis-
236
Ch’oe (2002), p. 38; Kim (2004), p. 112.
53
courses: “But I began to fear urinara as well. It didn‟t take long until I realized that I was a
curious foreigner whose naked body strongly smelled of „Japan‟” (88). Yet again she sees
herself as the Other, this time not because of her Korean affiliation but because she is of
Japan.
Her greatest problem is to adapt to the Korean language. As a national, she is convinced,
she should be able to speak Korean as her mother tongue. For this reason, she feels an
enormous pressure to properly learn the language and thus takes relatively minor mistakes
very seriously. This becomes evident in a situation in her singing class when she is unable
to pronounce the Korean word for “waterfall” correctly and the students watching her cannot help but to burst into laughter (88f.). As Kim Hun-a points out, the student‟s behaviour
is probably not meant to offend her but she feels highly self-conscious and embarrassed
since she is not able to live up to the standard of Korean language supposedly expected
from a „real‟ Korean.237
Aiko feels estrangement as well in the busy cityscape of Seoul where she even gets
robbed. She walks the streets and feels repulsed by the noise, the sight of begging people
and strange medical adverts when a young man wrests away her purse. Stunned, she is not
even able to shout or react in any way (95).
While she feels alienated in Seoul and has a strong inferiority complex concerning her
inability to adapt to the Korean way of living, at the same time a sullen pride to be zainichi
stirs inside her:
As soon as I had thoughts like wanting to approach urinara or becoming able to master urimal [“our
language”, Korean] well, a strange pride of being a fellow zainichi lifted my head and things like
imitating, approaching, becoming good, felt as if I was forcibly pushed into a dead end – as if I was
always in a disadvantage and had no chance. This standpoint where there was nothing from the beginning made me angry. (89)
While before, she could escape through her one-dimensional belief in ethnic purity and
was convinced that all her trouble stemmed from being Korean in Japan, she only now understands her hybrid disposition. Again, she feels the need to perform a kind of mimicry
and again, she is torn between feelings of inferiority and of hate. She might even feel a
sentiment of Japanese colonial superiority considering Korea at the time the novel is set
still was vastly underdeveloped in comparison to Japan and shaken by political upheavals.
In a dialogue with Misugi, the daughter of the family who runs the guesthouse she lives
at, her distance to Korea becomes evident and Aiko sees herself being put in the situation
237
Kim (2004), p. 117.
54
of defending Japan. Misugi appears to be an almost stereotypical student with more interest
in going out than Korean tradition. She admits to never having seen a kayagŭm at close
range before Aiko came to the guesthouse (89). One evening, they have the following conversation:
“Misugi, do you hate Japanese?” Misugi, who had turned around seemed puzzled. I didn‟t know
whether she hesitated because of the suddenness of my question or because like always she had to
pay close attention due to my weird pronunciation. “I hate them”, Misugi said and turned to look at
me. “Well, Misugi, do you reckon the Japanese government and each single Japanese person are the
same?” Her surprised expression which looked as if she wondered why I had to bring something like
that up today didn‟t change. Misugi stammered for a moment and lifted her face. “I guess one can
say it‟s the same.” I resolutely began to speak: “Misugi, am I after all a fellow zainichi Korean, no, a
Japanese?” “...” “It‟s okay, Misugi, just try and say it.” “In your room, ŏnni [big sister], there is a
smell.” “Eh, which kind of?” “How can I say it, the smell of makeup, like perfume.” Because I kept
quiet, Misugi said mildly, as if to comfort me: “You intend to study all the time here in urinara from
now on, don‟t you?” “... this is what I plan to do!” “Ŏnni, if you‟re in urinara, you certainly can become an urinara saram [Korean] one day!” “...I can become an urinara saram?” (91f.)
This scene shows the arbitrariness of what is perceived as national or cultural unity. One
question that comes to mind is how Misugi who appears to be an „all-universal‟ young
woman with no affiliation to her national tradition is „more Korean‟ than Aiko who studies
traditional Korean arts and feels a deep desire for urinara. Furthermore, the smell of cosmetics, while indicating a certain economic prosperity, nevertheless seems to be a weak
marker of national belonging. Aiko herself, by stating the difference between single Japanese citizens and the Japanese government illuminates how the perception of a unitary nation is imagined and arbitrary. Still, even if Misugi‟s perception of national belonging appears to be assailable, it serves again to exclude Aiko. However, for Misugi the primary
criteria for members of the nation-community appears to be proficiency in the shared language. Thus Aiko might be able to become an urinara saram if only she studies the Korean language hard enough. Aiko herself, however, seems reluctant and not quite convinced she really can become a Korean when she hesitantly repeats Misugi‟s words.
One major motif in Yi Yang-ji‟s fiction is music. In Nabi t‟aryŏng, it fully unfolds in
Seoul, but the theme runs through the whole novel. Her crisis is strongly associated with
the absence of music. Accordingly, to her, her childhood memories have neither sound nor
colour.238 In another significant scene Tecchan tells Aiko how he considered killing himself and taking his younger siblings with him at one point as a teenager. Aiko remembers
that she was stunned the previous day because he broke all of his vinyl albums.239 Tecchan
apparently was so devastated that he felt that not even music could ease his pain or he per238
239
Ibid., p. 19.
Ibid., pp. 41f.
55
ceived the vinyl albums as mockery since in their life, there was no music, no relieve.
Moreover, upon coming back to Tōkyō, Aiko states: “Tecchan, one day as I was in Kyōto,
I noticed that my life doesn‟t have sound” (14).
On the other hand, music is strongly associated with Aiko‟s balanced moments. During
her time in Tōkyō, she often visits a jazz-club with Tecchan and while they are listening to
the music together and occasionally singing, too, she feels well. Only when she is with
Tecchan can her life which might be unorganized or even chaotic come to a harmony and
the different strings form a whole, as much can be said about jazz-music which at first
seems disharmonious but then forms a melody. Most of the time, however, there is no music and she feels lost. Likewise, she comes to play the kayagŭm only for Matsumoto with
who she can feel temporarily at ease.240 When she starts learning the kayagŭm, she feels
that this is the sound of urinara, her inner home:
Anti-despotism, anti-foreign influence, anti-opportunism – there was sound in urinara (motherland)
which I had only known from words like that. The tone colour of the kayagŭm was deep. [...] That
urinara inhabited an instrument that was only as tall as myself made me feel proud. Whenever I
touched the kayagŭm that had been played for a thousand-five-hundred years, it was not the far urinara of words that didn‟t feel real, but the sound became a solid, thick rope that connected urinara
and myself. The few hours in Han-sensei‟s house, that was urinara for me. There I was allowed to
sing in a voice however loud. Two hours, three hours – even when practice was over, I didn‟t return
home. The faint smell of garlic, a nuance of kim‟chi that lay over her room; while gazing at the kayagŭm that was leaning on the wall I relentlessly indulged in the changdang (rhythm). But the practice was over and I stepped outside. I traversed a cross-walk. I hang heavily in the straps of the Yamanote-line. Before I knew it the changdang, as well as the sanjo [a solo she had started to learn]
and the melody had vanished. [...] The sound had faded. My voice had faded as well. (45-47)
For Aiko, her teacher‟s house is a kind of hideaway where she can be herself completely,
by for example singing in a loud voice. She enjoys playing the kayagŭm very much, directly connecting the freedom she feels in her teacher‟s room and when playing the instrument to Korea, from where it came. She affectionately speaks about Korea as urinara and
esteems that she can be free there and would be allowed to be herself the same way as in
the house of her teacher Han. As mentioned, urinara for her is an ideal and imaginary
place which at first she believes to be identical with the real Korea. As we have seen, music is an important tool for performing a collective identity and Aiko feels that by playing
the kayagŭm she can participate in the Korean community and that she finally is able to
find a place to be. In her everyday-life in Tōkyō, however, she cannot experience the same
ease she feels when playing the kayagŭm and as soon as she steps out of her teacher‟s
house, all of her problems bear on her anew.241 She does not even have a voice anymore;
240
241
Ch’oe (2002), p. 37.
See also O (2005), p. 173.
56
she is silenced by Japanese society. In hope of finding the same peace she felt when practicing she departs for Korea and, as mentioned, is confronted with the language barrier.
After her initial difficulties, she discovers the Korean dance salp‟uri and is in raptures
when she sees the performance of a dance teacher. She visits the training afterwards, but
does not intend to join actively: “‟Eja, try to dance it once!‟ The teacher held the sugŏn to
me. „No, I‟m fine with just watching‟, as I automatically said so Kim-sensei looked at me
with a serious expression” (100). At first, Aiko does not feel like a fully-fledged member
of the dance class in the same way she feels excluded from the Korean community, but
then she starts dancing and accordingly finds a new way of approaching her inner urinara.
Without speaking and having to choose between either Japanese or Korean, she can relate
to her motherland through her body.242
Her teacher explains to Aiko the deeper meaning of salp‟uri: “The sal of salp‟uri means
worldly grudge, p‟uri is to release it. Eja, look, in the distance something is visible. We
don‟t know what it is but we can surely see it. We dance while staring at it” (101). While
dancing the salp‟uri, Aiko is able to release her pain inflicted by both her brothers‟ deaths,
her hatred towards Japan and her estrangement from Korean society. Afar, she can see her
place to be where she can find a balanced identity.243 Kim Hun-a understands the dance to
connect this world with the world beyond and as a means to appease the brothers‟ souls. 244
When she dances on the roof of her guesthouse towards the novel‟s end she is even able to
sing and use her voice from which she had felt estrangement, and which was silenced before.245 Via dance she is eventually able to make peace with those aspects of herself that
troubled her and to find an access to a unified, whole identity that can furthermore „speak
out‟.
The symbol for Aiko‟s troubled search for a way out of her identity crisis is the butterfly which gives the novel its name. It appears three times during the course of the plot, always when she is particularly troubled or at a crossroads in her life. The first situation occurs in Tōkyō when one night she drinks excessively and lets herself go before calling Matsumoto to fetch her. While waiting for him, she thinks of the kayagŭm:
The melody of kayagŭm sanjo came back. As I put weight in my index finger and pushed the string
down, a subtle overtone oozed out from my knees. But I reconsidered that still my way of pushing
wasn‟t good enough. [...] In my eyes that followed the melody, a white butterfly reflected. Within
the darkness, a white butterfly flew. Surely, it fluttered in a dark rift. I stood up and went in direction
of the butterfly. I blinked. As I did so, it vanished in the dark and then showed its tiny shape again.
242
Kim (2004), pp. 132f.; O (2005), p. 174.
Ch’oe (2002), p. 40; Kim (2004), p. 113.
244
Kim (2004), p. 113.
245
O (2005), p. 173.
243
57
As its outline began to blur through my tears, it slowly danced up. As soon as the butterfly abruptly
vanished from my sight, I was embraced by Matsumoto. (78f.)
At this point, which can be said to be her darkest hour in Tōkyō, Aiko sees the butterfly
and in the very next scene, she tells Matsumoto that she has decided to go to Seoul. It thus
induces her to change her life.
She encounters the insect again when she is watching her teacher‟s salp‟uri performance. This time, the faces of her family members alternately appear before her inner eye
and it feels to her as if the butterfly wants to pull out her memories (98).
Finally, it appears in the climax scene. After Aiko has put on her white salp‟uri suit, she
climbs onto the roof and dances in view of the Seoul skyline:
The landscape that hadn‟t changed in a year – no, it was only that I hadn‟t noticed although it had
changed. Ten years later, twenty years later – certainly it would change so much that I wanted to
sigh. Urinara lived. The scenery was going to move. Amidst that, I would go on playing the kayagŭm, sing the p‟ansŏri, and dance salp‟uri. I had nothing but to go on living that way. To live, that
was the same everywhere. The kayagŭm began to play a melody. The white butterfly began flying.
While following the butterfly with my eyes, I danced the salp‟uri. Relentlessly, the kayagŭm played
a melody and the sugon [a belt made of fabric] fluttered in the blowing wind. A few days later, I
wrote a farewell letter to Matsumoto. (103)
In this scene, she finally is able to let go of her grudge and to step into a new life in the
ever-changing Seoul cityscape. Only her connection to her inner urinara through traditional dance and music is permanent. The break from Japan is indicated by the fact that she
finally is able to part from Matsumoto conclusively.
In the literature on Nabi t‟aryŏng, two opinions exist on how the butterfly should be interpreted. Ch‟oe writes: “The pure, beautiful, and feminine butterfly which furthermore
symbolizes freedom is nothing but „me‟ after the grudge is solved. Moreover, that urinara
is at the tip of the song‟s rhythm and the fluttering sugon is easily recognized.”246 Carol
Hayes, on the other hand, holds that the butterflies “symbolize Aiko‟s repressed memories,
and [that] their flight is a sign of Aiko‟s inability to shut them out. Only by accepting their
existence, by accepting the pain they represent, can she set out on the road to the selfawareness she seeks, and only then will the healing essence of the music envelope her.”247
Both authors do not explain in more detail how they come to their conclusions and I would
like to contrast a third, though related, interpretation with their views.
246
純潔で美しく、女性的で、なおかつ自由を象徴するナビは、｢恨｣を解きほぐした後の｢私｣にほかならない。
また、歌のリズムの先、翻るスゴンの先にあるのが｢ウリナラ｣であることは周知の通りである。(Ch’oe
[2002], p. 41).
247
Hayes (2000), p. 125.
58
Concerning the butterfly as symbol in Japanese cultural history, Merrily Baird notes:
“Chinese and Japanese alike view butterflies (chocho) as souls of the living and the dead as
well as symbols of joy and longevity.”248 Seen this way, the butterfly which always appears when she is about to make a step towards a new life is her guide to a unified soul or
identity. Certainly finding her way means accepting her repressed memories and letting her
grudge go but one can say that the butterfly represents what she perceives as her soul. All
the time before she goes to Seoul, her identity is torn between various influences (this is
why the butterfly laments), but by and by, the butterfly guides her and thus becomes a
symbol of joy as well.
For Aiko, the scene on the roof means that she has found her inner urinara, a place from
where to act out her identity in harmony with her ethnic roots:
Aiko‟s acceptance of her past allows her access – through the movements of her dance – to the spirit
of her homeland. Her dance makes her part of the historical continuum of her people and fills her
with a sense of spiritual peace. Aiko believes this spirit will now stay with her, whether in Korea or
Japan, for she has succeeded in uniting the dual consciousness which had been warring within.249
Much of her acquired peace seems not only to stem from her new-won affiliation to (a
however-perceived) Korea but from the fact that she eventually found the strength to
emancipate herself from the restraints imposed on her by her family, Matsumoto and even
herself, when she had deemed that she had to speak Korean perfectly. Her newly found
emancipation is also indicated by the strong wind that blows when she ascends the roof
and which seems to wipe the restraints of the past away (102).
The very last scene reads as follows:
On the large road nearby, the city buses departed and as if sewn together, in-between the taxis roared.
While I was walking I began to sing sarang-ga (the song of love) which I had just finished learning.
My frozen hands were full of energy and my shoulders started moving. As I sang “sarang, sarang”,
an unfamiliar passer-by threw a “pabo” at me as we went past one another. It probably looked less
like I was happily humming while walking than as if I was moving my head and muttering something. But I didn‟t mind at all. I was happy about myself not caring. Less than the sound of the Japanese baka, pabo in urimal had a lot more warmth. The stonewall continued. My voice did a round
dance. (103f.)
The cityscape of Seoul is as busy as ever, but Aiko can bear it now and even take joy from
it since her attitude has changed. Her soul was cleansed and she regained her voice. She
248
249
Merrily C. Baird, Symbols of Japan: Thematic motifs in art and design (New York 2001), p. 101.
Hayes (2000), p. 126.
59
finds that Korean sounds much warmer than Japanese and through this makes Korea her
home where she can live in line with her ancestors.
In this way, the novel‟s ending confirms the essentialist worldview Aiko held before.
This becomes evident in the image of the butterfly which guides her to a supposedly unified identity in accordance with her ancestors and Korean tradition and in her thought that
Koreans sounds warmer than Japanese. Between Japan and Korea, she seems to have made
her decision in favour of Korea.
One indication that in her search for identity the process of emancipation is very significant is the fact that she does not care about being called an “idiot”, hence, that she has
learned independence from discourse and expectations. However, interestingly enough,
pabo still is an insult. This leaves the question whether she really found permanent salvation by turning her back to Japan and whether the Korean community is as warm and loving as she deems. Ch‟oe and Kim Hun-a doubt a reconciliation as depicted here is possible.
Ch‟oe explicates that the idea of salvation as represented in Nabi t‟aryŏng is a mere illusion and Kim Hun-a states that if one views the novels from Nabi t‟aryŏng to Yuhi as consecutive, they depict the protagonists‟ eventual failure.250
However, the essentialist image of identity Aiko holds and the claim that the novels are
the story of an ultimate failure both seem too simplistic. As was shown throughout the discussion of the novel, identities are fluid and sometimes even inherently contradictory. It is
not a question of either Japan or Korea but an oscillation in-between both imagined communities.
To summarize, the Seoul-section of Nabi t‟aryŏng depicts an initial estrangement from
Korea which Aiko had imagined as an ideal place to be. The protagonist‟s hybrid disposition due to her affiliation to Japan becomes evident before she is able to connect herself,
guided by the white butterfly, through dance to her inner urinara which for her becomes
identical with the real existing Korea.
One of the questions informing this study is how the apparently opposing endings of
Nabi t‟aryŏng and Yuhi respectively have to be evaluated and whether they really are a
contradiction. When taking the above-discussed definition of identity as a basis, both novels prove the fluidity in the process of identification. To illustrate this assumption, I will
shortly draw on Yuhi.
250
Ch’oe (2002), p. 41; Kim (2004), p. 119.
60
4.4
Yuhi
Yuhi was published in 1988 and received the 100th Akutagawa Prize.251 The story is
narrated by a Korean woman in her late thirties, niece of the landlord of the young Japanese Korean woman named Yuhi. The plot centres around her, a twenty-seven year old
student of Korean literature at Seoul National University (referred to as S-University) and
the first-person narrator‟s mixed feelings of her leaving after six months of living together.
The story starts with the narrator receiving a phone call from Yuhi. The reader learns
later that in this phone conversation Yuhi told the her that she is about to leave Korea. The
narrator hastily drives home where in Yuhi‟s former room she finds, as she had been told
by the young woman on the phone, an envelope, which contains a bundle of pages written
in Japanese. In several sequences, partly by contemplating in view of the pages Yuhi had
left (which the narrator is unable to understand since she does not speak any Japanese),
partly in dialogue with her aunt, the narrator recalls the six months they spent together.
Yuhi could only come to Korea after her father, who was highly prejudiced against his
fellow Koreans, had died. The shy and introverted girl had lived in a number of guesthouses where she could not feel comfortable, until she came to live with the narrator and
her aunt. Despite the fact she is a student of Korean language and literature at the prestigious Seoul National University, her Korean is quite flawed and the narrator blames her
lacking progress in speaking-proficiency on the fact that she only reads Japanese books.
Yuhi loves the Korean flute, daegŭm, and feels its sound to be urimal, although she
does not play the instrument herself.
However, the narrator learns of Yuhi‟s growing aversion to the Korean language. First,
the young woman breaks down on a bus because she cannot stand the Korean noise around
her, and in a second scene the narrator catches Yuhi drunk in her room feeling apparently
devastated by her inability to love Korea. This inability, the narrator and her aunt think,
caused her to escape back to Japan only one month before her graduation from university.
Much has been written about Yuhi. However, in the following analysis I will confine
myself to the points directly relevant to the present thesis.
The first striking difference between Yuhi and Nabi t‟aryŏng is the narrative perspective.
While Yuhi is recounted from a first-person perspective too, the reader soon realizes that,
as Carol Hayes puts it, the narrator is a mere “vehicle” to tell Yuhi‟s story. 252 Thus, even
more than Aiko, Yuhi, who does not get to articulate her own story, appears to be the Other
251
252
O (2005), p. 181.
Hayes (2000), p. 127.
61
not only to the Japanese, but also to the Korean Self.253 Though told in Japanese the reader
has to assume that the story is translated in some way due to the narrator‟s lacking ability
to speak Japanese. The only time „real‟ Japanese is spoken by Yuhi it is written in katakana and thus indicates its degree of exoticism to the narrator. 254 At many points she
speaks of Yuhi as a hurting lump inside her chest which represents her memories of the
young woman. Yuhi thus becomes the Other within the narrator that even causes physical
pain.255
Like Aiko, Yuhi feels the pressure to turn into a „real Korean‟ and to love her perceived
motherland. One night, the narrator is woken by the loud sound of a tape of the daegŭm
coming from Yuhi‟s room. As she goes looking for her, she finds the young woman drunk
and agitated:
Yuhi stretched her right hand, took another notebook that lay on the edge of her desk, and opened it.
She pulled out a ball-point pen from the pencil-holder and began to write something.
Ŏnni chŏnŭn uisŏnja imuni da
chŏnun kŏjinmaljangi imuni da
(Ŏnni, I‟m a hypocrite
I‟m a liar)
[...]
u ri na ra
(motherland)
Yuhi wrote. Her letters were big and because of her drunkenness her hand shook which made them
disorderly. Yuhi turned over the pages and wrote in even bigger letters urinara filling both pages.
Her ball-point pen cut into the paper and with an impetus that almost ripped it she wrote down the
four letters. “Did something happen? Yuhi!” I finally opened my mouth. [...] Yuhi turned some
pages at the same time and began to write again on the blank sheet that appeared.
saranghal su ŏpsŭmni da
(I can‟t love it)
[...]
daegŭm choha yo
daegŭm sorinŭn urimal imnida
(I like the daegŭm
the sound of the daegŭm is urimal) (319f.)
It is easy to see how Yuhi suffers from her inability to fulfil the self-imposed duty to see
Korea as her homeland and to love it accordingly. 256 Like Aiko, she envisaged an imaginary, ideal urinara, which she now fails to see in the actual state of South Korea. Again,
the connection to this perceived urinara is via traditional music.257 However, a major contrast between the two novels‟ protagonists is that Yuhi remains a spectator who expresses
no desire to learn the daegŭm (321f.). Therefore, she can never take part in her imaginary
253
Ibid.
Ryu (2007), p. 317.
255
Ibid., p. 322.
256
Kin (2000), p. 151; Nakamura-Methfessel (2007), p. 514.
257
Nakamura-Methfessel (2007), pp. 513f.
254
62
urinara and link it to the real world. In this way, Yuhi rejects the ethnic reconciliation with
Korea via music as described in Nabi t‟aryŏng and also undermines the hope of an easy
way to act out an identity in accordance with an imagined pure origin.
The conflict between Korea and Japan appears as a problem of the two languages in
Yuhi.258 Yuhi is particularly devastated because she cannot speak her perceived mother
tongue properly or even love it and on the other hand turns to Japanese for “emotional relief”.259 Her inner strife becomes clear in a conversation with the narrator which is depicted
towards the end of the novel:
“Ŏnni” “What?” “In the morning, after you wake up, what is the first thing you think?” I couldn‟t
think of a reply right away, so I asked the question back: “What do you think?” I also wanted to hear
Yuhi‟s answer. “I said „thinking‟ myself, but actually it‟s something different”, Yuhi said and suddenly stopped talking. She had an expression as if she hesitated whether to continue to speak. After a
moment, she opened her mouth again. “How can I say it? I can‟t remember very well whether I
dreamed or what I thought until immediately before waking up. I use my voice. But is that a voice;
can you call it a voice or is it just a breath?” “What does that mean?”, I asked. “‟A‟ - it is not really a
clearly articulated voice and not a long sound, either, but it comes out of my mouth.” [...] “A stick of
language.” “...” “It feels like in the moment I wake up I try if I can grab a stick of language.” “...” “Is
it 아 or is it あ? If it is 아 I would grab a stick that continued 아 (a), 야 (ya), 어 (ŏ), 여 (yŏ). But if it
is あ the stick would continue あ, い, う, え, お. But there never was a day when I clearly knew
whether it was 아 or あ. I cannot grab the stick. (358-360)
Yuhi can never know which language comes naturally to her. Hence, even if she returns to
Japan, she will be neither Korean nor Japanese, but always in-between the two languages,
the two cultures.
When one takes Nabi t‟aryŏng and Yuhi together, the circular structure of diasporic narratives as argued by Stuart Hall becomes apparent. Aiko leaves for Korea, which she believes the key to finding an originary identity when linking herself to the tradition of her
people. But urinara, the original Korea from where her ancestors once came, has changed
as does not exist as such anymore. While Aiko succeeds in making Korea her own and in
creating a new identity, Yuhi seems to suggest that Aiko‟s salvation is only temporary,
through Yuhi returning to Japan. There, she has to establish a new identity in view of various conflicting influences.
Will Yuhi continue to suffer? Certainly both novels suggest that nowadays (or already
from the 1980s on) the wish of a unified, pure, original ethnic identity is illusory. However,
a certain delicate balance within hybridity is undoubtedly possible, although it has to be
negotiated everyday anew. In Japan and elsewhere, something like a pure culture does not
258
259
Hayes (2000), p. 126.
Ibid., p. 132.
63
exist anymore (or rather, has never existed).260 Hybridity is a fact and both novels show to
which problems it leads and how to deal with them.
5.
Conclusion
The experience of imperialism and colonial oppression has deeply shaped the societies
of Japan and Korea alike. The repercussions of this period can be felt until the present day,
most prominently in actions like the former ianfu‟s protests or the overall situation of Koreans in Japan. Korea as the Other to Japan and the Korean minority living on the archipelago as the uncanny Other within both served the process of identification within the imagined community Japan.
Yi Yang-ji‟s work is a powerful example of the hardships a single postcolonial individual in diaspora has to endure. But her literature tells us more than simply the story of one
female with a troubled life. It demonstrates how inclusion into and exclusion from a dominant group and the process of the minority‟s (and majority‟s) building of identity work. It
reveals invisible barriers within society that can still have psychological and even physical
effects on the excluded subject. And finally, it proves that hierarchies and relations within
society are much more fluid and multilayered than appears at first glance. In this way, her
literature takes up questions that reach beyond the range of the issue of Koreans residing in
Japan and has an appeal to a broad audience.
I would like to quickly summarize my findings to demonstrate those claims. First and
foremost, we found that discrimination and feelings of in- or exclusion cannot easily be
overcome by legal actions such as naturalization. Yi Yang-ji‟s protagonist Aiko is put in
her place by discourses and representation – stereotypes on Koreans, the myth of Japanese
homogeneity, or the belief in a pure Korean origin – that shape how she perceives her identity. The incommensurability of those images with her real hybrid disposition in addition to
her feeling of exclusion cause her identity crisis. She is made the ethnic as well as the female Other, the margin from which Japanese society is defined.
The complexity of the process of identity building became obvious in Aiko‟s relation to
her family. The familial conflict revealed connections to the issue of ethnicity when females were associated with Korea while men generally better adapted to Japan and when
one stumbling block was the question of whether to assimilate in Japanese society or not.
However, the novel also exposed that there was more to the quarrel and that an understand-
260
64
ing of the problems merely in terms of ethnicity does not acknowledge the intricacy of the
matter.
The various discourses especially as represented in stereotypes are, as we have seen in
the case of Ochika and Kanemoto, highly arbitrary and marked by multiple belief which
enables the individual to perceive a complicated reality in simple, binary terms.
I have also shown, following Homi Bhabha, how the relationship between the dominant
(Japanese, male) and inferior (Korean, female) part are much more arbitrary than they appear at first glance. This was especially striking in Aiko‟s liaison with Matsumoto where
we learned that the relationship between both agents is marked by desire, repulsion, distrust, mutual dependence and that the dominant part is in desperate need for his or her
Other to support their supremacy.
In the chapter set in Seoul we saw how the modern subject is massively exposed to hybridity when Aiko had problems fitting into Korean society just like before into the Japanese which proves the idea of an original, pure ethnic identity as illusionary. However, the
protagonist herself suggests a kind of ethnic reconciliation through music, which serves, as
we have seen, to sustain a collective identity.
Finally, the comparison to Yuhi demonstrated the circular shape of diasporic stories in
how they deal with the place of origin (Stuart Hall) and proved how identities are fluid and
constantly changing. Therefore I came to the conclusion that the two novels must not be
understood as being at odds with each other but prove many even contradictory influences
in the process of identity-shaping. Yuhi and Aiko are two characters in different phases of
dealing with their relationship with their home countries Japan and Korea. The way to a
fulfilled being in Korea in line with a common tradition by shutting out the protagonist‟s
affiliation to Japan as suggested in the end of Nabi t‟aryŏng can be considered too simplistic and is ultimately rejected in Yuhi. While Aiko clings to the ideal of an original identity,
the novel itself implies the manifold fractions in the process of identification.
In contrast to Japanese Korean writers before her, Yi Yang-ji‟s world was moulded by a
deep hybridity that eventually forbade the nostalgic clinging to a whole Korean individual
and collective identity. With proceeding globalization, cultures become increasingly hybrid
and are influenced by their minorities – which is not to claim that there ever was such a
thing as a pure culture. In this respect, the idea of a homogenous Japanese society ultimately starts crumbling.
To my knowledge, postcolonial theory has so far not been applied to the work of Yi
Yang-ji. This paper was an attempt to bridge that gap and hopefully provided an insight
into the copiousness of those concepts for the case of literature written by Japanese Kore65
ans and came to more general conclusions that are applicable even beyond the case of Yi
Yang-ji.
This thesis could only provide a short insight into the concepts of postcolonial studies
applied to the case of Japan. Certainly, there is still much room and need for further research on the effects of imperialism in a postcolonial Japan from various disciplinary angles. Another fruitful approach might be a broader comparison between Japanese Korean
literature and that of other countries‟ (postcolonial) minorities in order to learn more about
global as well as specific Japanese postcolonial characteristics. I hope to pursue this path at
a later point.
66
Appendix
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Böhlau 2009).
Bronfen, Elisabeth, and Benjamin Marius, "Hybride Kulturen: Einleitung zur angloamerikanischen Multikulturalismusdebatte," in Hybride Kulturen: Beiträge zur angloamerikanischen Multikulturalismusdebatte, ed. by Elisabeth Bronfen, Benjamin Marius,
and Therese Steffen, 1–29 (Tübingen: Stauffenburg-Verl. 1997).
Bronfen, Elisabeth, Benjamin Marius, and Therese Steffen, eds, Hybride Kulturen:
Beiträge zur anglo-amerikanischen Multikulturalismusdebatte, Stauffenburg discussion,
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DeVos, George A., and Changsoo Lee, eds, Koreans in Japan: Ethnic conflict and accommodation (Berkeley, Calif.: Univ. of Calif. Press 1981).
________, "Koreans and Japanese: The Formation of Ethnic Consciousness," in Koreans
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deVos, 3–30 (Berkeley, Calif.: Univ. of Calif. Press 1981a).
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and accommodation, ed. by Changsoo Lee, and George A. deVos, 31–57 (Berkeley,
Calif.: Univ. of Calif. Press 1981b).
Dietze, Gaby, "Postcolonial Theory," in Gender@Wissen: Ein Handbuch der GenderTheorien, 2., überarb. und erg. Aufl., ed. by Christina von Braun, and Inge Stephan,
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Einführung, Cultural studies, Vol. 12 (Bielefeld: Transcript-Verl. 2005).
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4 / general ed. John W. Hall … (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press 1997).
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70
Kanji-Glossary
Persons (in order of birth date)
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
1536-1598, Japanese military, one of the
country‟s “Three Great Unifiers”
Chang Hyŏk-chu,
1905-1997, Japanese Korean writer
later Noguchi
Kakuchū
Kim Sa-rayang
Kim Tal-su
Kim Sŏk-pŏm
b. 1925, Japanese Korean writer
Ri Kaisei
Kin Kakuei
Yi Ki-sŭng
Yi Yang-ji
Gen Getsu
Yū Miri
Kaneshiro Kazuki
Literary Works
By Yi Yang-ji (in order of date of publication)
Watashi wa chōsen-
I am Korean; essay, 1975
jin
71
Nabi t’aryŏng
A Butterfly‟s Lament; Yi Yang ji‟s debut
novel, 1982
Kazukime
The Diving Maiden, 1983
Anigoze
Dear Brother, 1983
Koku
Core, 1984
Kagee no mukō
Behind the Shadow Image, 1985
Tobiiro no gogo
A Beige Afternoon, 1985
Raii
Why She Came, 1986
Aoiro no kaze
A Blue Wind, 1986
Yuhi
Yuhi; won the 100th Akutagawa Prize,
1988
Ishi no koe
The Stone‟s Voice; fragment, 1992
By Other Writers (in order of appearance in the thesis)
Gakidō
The Hungry Ghost Realm, 1932; by
Chang Hyŏk-chu (1905-1997)
Hikari no naka ni
Amidst the Light, 1939; by Kim Sa-ryang
(1914-1950)
Genkainada
The Sea Genkai, 1952/53; by Kim Tal-su
(1919-1997)
Karashi no shi
The Crow‟s Death, 1957; by Kim Sŏkpŏm (b. 1925)
Kazantō
Volcanic Island, 1997; by Kim Sŏk-pŏm
72
Kinuta o utsu onna
The Woman Who Beat Clothes, 1972; by
Ri Kaisei (b. 1935)
Kogoeru kuchi
The Frozen Mouth, 1972; by Kin Kakuei
(1938-1985)
Concepts, Places, Organisations, and Other (in order of the Japanese alphabet)
ianfu
“Comfort Women”, women forced into
prostitution in military brothels during
WW II
kayagŭm
a traditional Korean string-instrument
Kyōwakai
“Harmonization Association”, a government-run organisation for Koreans during WW II
kōminka
“turning [colonized subjects] into the
emperor‟s people”, a measure by the
Japanese colonial power to turn colonized subjects into loyal subjects of the
emperor during the imperial period
zainichi chōsen
“Koreans residing in Japan”, official
kankokujin
term for the Korean minority who has
established a living in Japan
zainichi chōsenjin
“Literature by resident Koreans”, a
bungaku; zainichi
branch of Japanese literature by Japanese
bungaku
Koreans that deals with their experiences
in Japan
shishōsetsu
“I-novel”, a genre of literature which
emerged out of Japanese naturalism and
which is marked by a strong focus on the
first-person narrator
shokuminchiteki
“colonial unawareness”, refers to the lack
muishiki
of awareness in Japan of having been a
colonial power
73
Sōaikai
“Mutual Care Association”, an organisation for Koreans during the imperial period
sokoku
“land of one‟s ancestors”, affectionate
expression often used by Japanese Korean writers when referring to Korea
sōshi kaimei
“make a surname and change one‟s forename”, a devise under which colonial
subjects during the imperial period where
forced to take on a Japanese surname
naisen yūwa
“Domestic Korean harmony”, a slogan
proclaimed in 1920 which served to
tackle radical tendencies among Koreans
Fujiyoshida
The city where Yi Yang-ji spend her
childhood
minzoku
“people”, “race”, “nation”, or “nationality”, an important theme for many Japanese Korean writers, in this context often
best translated as “ethnic consciousness”
ryokan
traditional Japanese inn
74
Scans of the Original Manuscript Nabi t’aryŏng and Yuhi
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
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84
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89
90
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Reading the Work of Yi Yang-ji from a Postcolonial and Cultural

Transcription

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