Or more precisely, no land for the descendants of traitors. That’s the message in today’s Hankyoreh, in which we find an editorial castigating descendants of pro-Japanese figures during the colonial period for seeking to retake possession of certain pieces of property that will be freed up once USFK redeploys to bases south of the Han River. Apparently, a number of the descendants of pro-Japanese Koreans have submitted law suits against the state calling for the return of properties that were taken away from their families following Korea’s 1945 liberation, and interestingly enough, some of those lawsuits were successful. The list of individuals reads like a veritable who’s who of your favorite maegungno - we’ve got descendants of the late pre-colonial Prime Minister Lee Wan-yong, who was made a count by the Japanese Emperor for signing away the nation’s independence in the Treaty of Annexation of 1910, and descendants of Song Byeong-jun, who was awarded a viscountship for his efforts to promote what we’ll kindly refer to as “closer Japanese-Korean ties” as a minister in Lee’s cabinet and later made a full count after he joined the Japanese colonial government as an adviser. Needless to say, the Hankyoreh is taking a dim view of these developments, especially since it’s likely that Song’s descendants will not only win their case, but then turn around and use their land to build apartments and/or move into the real-estate business. Anyway, the Hani calls for the court system to take a good look at itself and called for the National Assembly to pass a law that will open investigations into those who engaged in pro-Japanese and anti-Korean activities during the colonial period.
As always, these matters tend to be more complex than they would first appear. I, for one, would look upon any attempt by the government to start determining property rights based upon the political pasts of the families of the individuals involved with a fair amount of skepticism. This is doubly so in cases involving the Japanese colonial period, a time in Korea’s history that was much more complicated than many people would like to believe. There are too many skeletons in way too many families as far as collaboration with colonial authorities is concerned, and should the National Assembly seriously attempt to discover the truths of those painful 35 years, I doubt very highly that it would like what it finds. More than likely, such an exercise would degenerate into a horrifying display of political mudslinging because - let’s face it - many (if not most) politicians, regardless of their party affiliations, come from families with money, and we all know how and when many of those families made their dough.
This is not to say that Korean society should not try to discover the truth about its colonial past. If Korea is ever going to move past that period psychologically, it first needs to honestly confront some of the period’s ugly truths, many of which have been avoided in conventional South Korean historical discourse (and horribly manipulated in conventional North Korean historical discourse). Coincidentally, Korea’s not the only country that has to do this; it goes without saying that Japan needs to more honestly confront its imperial past, and the United States needs to be much more honest with both itself and Koreans in discussing the policies enacted by the post-Liberation American occupation government in South Korea (a government which, as is commonly known, relied heavily on the support and cooperation of pro-Japanese collaborators). What I do mean to say, however, is that the mission to uncover those truths should rest with academia, or more to the point, it should be kept as far out of the hands of the politicians as is humanly possible.
UPDATE: BTW, the photos above are of Min Young-hwan (left), who killed himself in protest of the Protectorate Treaty of Korea, and the afore mentioned Song Byeong-jun. There’s an interesting piece (from which I stole the photo) on Song in today’s OhMyNews, dealing with not only the same topic of the Hani editorial, but also with suspicions that Song unfairly seized Min’s land (which just so happened to be the land Song’s descendants are claiming in Inch’eon) after his death. The Song clan’s claims to the land are diminished somewhat by claims that Song Byeong-jun had already sold the land prior to his death in 1925. Very fascinating stuff - now go read the piece on your own.
Oh, and before I forget, let me wish you all I very happy and healthy holiday season!
10 Comments
There certainly are lots of fuzzy areas in colonial history, and much about that period is as painful to admit now as it was painful to endure then - a lot more people at least went along with Japanese administration than one would like to think.
One will not hear the Chosun or the DongA mention this development in any big way, because the owning families of both didn’t hold back much when it came to collaboration with the Japanese.
Still, the cases of Yi Wan-yong and Song Byeong-jun are about as clear as can be. Both were as guilty of treason as anyone, anywhere.
Different countries at different times in modern history have seized property, frozen assets, etc, to correct similar wrongs. One of the reasons many Koreans are still appear oversensitive about these things is because these wrongs were never properly dealt with, and doing so is only recently becoming possible. Even if when all is said and done it is decided that no action can or will be taken, it is still right and reasonable to try.
Still, I imagine that in regards to this case as well, many a foreign observer will belittle any move to take action on this as typically childish nationalism, and do so in a manner no less predictable of that kind of foreigner than the cases in Korean society that truly are examples of that kind of nationalism.
I suppose one could argue that it speaks well of Japanese colonial administration that those two traitors were granted such positions, but even if it does, that is another matter.
Very little argument with much of what you have to say, although I would point out that so much has changed since Liberation that trying to sort something like this out becomes a pretty complicated task - as Cumings points out, the biggest beneficiaries of the colonial period were probably Korean land owners, and many of their holdings were lost when the South Korean government enacted land reform measures (OK, refused to overturn land reform measures put in place by the occupying North Korean authorities) during the Korean War. The other thing that worries is me is that I generally do not trust the Korean political sphere with properly handling this sort of thing, and as much as I like to bash Korean academics, they seem much more qualified to look into this matter than do the politicos, many of whom come from collaborationist families in any case.
One last thing, and perhaps this is unfair because it deals with a hypothetical situation, is that I doubt very highly that the Hani and OhMyNews would support similar measures against those who collaborated with the Korean Workers Party - in both North and South Korea - following unification. Now, of couse, the Chosun and Dong-A are equally guilty of hypocracy here - they’d love nothing more than to fry Communist collaborators (like Song Du-yul) but avoid going after pro-Japanese collaborators like its the plague - but I’m just pointing out that it’s not a case of unilateral hypocracy on the part of the Korean right.
The government should go tell the families to stick it and turn the area into a park. The Legislature really needs to pass a law saying that all land claims from before the Korean War are null and void. First so that the city doesn’t lose this golden opportunity to establish some much needed public green space in Seoul (as pictureseque as Samsung’s and Hyundai’s concrete boxes in the sky are … I think Seoul has more than enough of them.)
Second to head off the North Korean land claims that will come flooding in after re-unification. North Koreans are going to have a hard enough time adjusting to life in the real-world without a bunch of Southern carpet baggers coming North to reclaim “their land.” What a disaster that’s gonna be … after tong-il, 90% of North Korean men are going to become day laborers and 90% of North Korean women are going to end up working in the “entertainment” industry.
I think that it is a good point to consider the situation after unification.
I agree that the ownership of real estate in North Korea will cause a big problem to the unified one Korea if South and North Korea would be re-unified under the present condition.
Before unification, there should be a great effort to establish the basic principle of treating this problem, including the prior investigation and law-making.
But, the real problem is that the power group of Korea is mainly composed of the decendents of landlords in the colonial period and don’t want to take those measures.
Now, it’s time for the ordinary citizens to do something powerful regarding this matter.
Rodent boy!
May I educate you in the ways of the mysterious East? I think I must, since your naivite is embarassing.
Get honest with themselves? Are you sillier than I am?
Both Japanese and Koreans are governed by the Asian principle of “face”. This exotic and mysterious Eastern way is just another word for ethnic-narcissism.
Neither Korea nor Japan are interested in “getting honest with itself”. They are both shame societies, where self-esteem is a highly prized commodity and not to be easily squandered by “honesty” for the benefit of another race.
This is the guiding ethos of both societies: the survival and gratification the race above all other values.
Both Koreans and Japanese know “group self-esteem” is a psychological neccessity for healthy functioning as a society.
Loss of face for an Asian is literally physically debilitating: they experience loss of soul — and wither away becoming sick and listless. Like the Australian aborigines’ and American Indians’ loss of soul when they lost their culture, way of life, and thus — pride.
When they have a choice between “truth” or “self-esteem” — they will choose the virtue conferring the greatest survival and gratification value.
Japan simply cannot afford to “fess up” to its past “sins”. Why? Because they would lose their necessary pride. Furthermore, they know the Chinese and Korean “grudge factor” is an insatiable rage; this rage ( Koreans call it Han) will never be quenched with concessions, compensations, and humility. Koreans are a black hole of narcissistic rage.
Likewise, Koreans don’t need “self-esteem destroying truth”. They need to NOT be judged in their desperate attempts to maintain racial pride.
Haven’t you learned anything, when you were educated in the West?
We have learned in the United States that what “victims” need more than anything is –MORE SELF-ESTEEM — not, pride destroying facts.
Leave them alone. I suggest you adjust your intolerant attitude, and re-align your energies towards compassion, love, and peace. That way you will not contribute to another spiritual holocaust
perpetuated against non-whites.
Silly Sally
Interesting… you’re the one who just characterized Koreans as being self-pitying, racist, “black holes of narcissistic rage,” and I’m the racist. If I didn’t know better, I would have assumed you were Kevin at IA, because truth be told, so much of the rhetoric is surprisingly similar. In your valiant efforts to defend Koreans against a “cultural holocaust,” you’ve managed to attribute to them some rather nasty cultural values (oh, I’m sorry - not nasty, but different) in a manner which just smacks of Orientalism (as Edward Said defined it) and, ironically enough, colonial-era European academia. Trust me, there are more than a few Koreans who are genuinely interested in finding “the truth.” The fact that they have generally been prevented from doing so is not so much due to culture as it is to political conditions in post-Liberation South Korea. And like in many societies, those political conditions have been determined less by issues of “face” and “racial pride” than they have by the contingencies of power and money.
BTW, if it means anything to you (and I doubt it does), while I did my undergrad work in the States, I did my grad work in Korea. I figured you might want to know that since you so pointedly refered to my education in the West.
Mr. Mormon,
Ok, I take note of your grad. studies in Korea.
That explains how you have been left behind.
Your underlying assumptions speak of a bastardized Christianity that I call — Progressianity. Essentially, Christianity twisted into an Oprah Winfrey pantheism motivated by white guilt; and, mixed with white paternalism: the white-saviour complex.
You exude an optimism in the eventual enlightenment of others: all your “yellow-primitives” need is just a little more time and education: gently coached by Western values and the development of “correct institutions” — such as a legal-rational culture.
You, therefore, claim the Asian preference for “self-esteem” over “truth” is an historical post-traumatic stress syndrome: Post-liberation political abuse through bad institutions and misrule.
You are a believer in the primacy of the institution molding human nature; not the quality of the individual’s unique relation to his universe that takes place within the conscience.
In other words, the Korean doesn’t need to develop a “conscience” according to your bastardized Christianity– he just needs to live esconced within a correct institution. Are you a Catholic?
You are quite the totalitarian.
You are essentially a humanist confused that he is a Christian. Quit your hypocrisy and come out of the humanist closet — and embrace the truth openly: there is no truth, just self-esteem.
Silly Sally
“there is no truth” I say “there is no spoon.” Marmot I think Sally is messing with you/pulling your chain. Sally’s posts are pretty darn funny … not be taken seriously, I think.
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Hahahah…way to go, man. That guy’s blog is lame. I like your new layout by the way.
Signs of desperation when being faced with the truth?
All signs point to yes…
PING:
TITLE: Chinese suzerainty over Korea in the late 19th century
BLOG NAME: Flying Yangban
I’m currently reading The Clash: U.S.-Japanese Relations Throughout History by Walter LaFeber. I’ve just gotten to the part which briefly goes over the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-95. That combined with some history pieces at the Marmot’s Hole (on some K…