One of my section mates from 1L went to Seoul, Korea this summer for
the Korea Summer Program. Having been fascinated with Korean culture
and society, he has asked me further questions on Korea from time to
time after his return to the States. Because I spent most of my
childhood in Korea, I was always able to give him satisfying answers
instantly. However, one day, he asked me a question that I could not
readily answer – why can’t Korea and Japan get along?
Japan invaded Korea in 1910 and dominated Korea for 35 years. During
the Japanese occupation, a great deal of atrocities took place.
Korean girls and women were kidnapped and sent to Japanese military
camps as comfort women. These ladies were forced to sleep with
approximately 30-40 Japanese soldiers a day. Koreans were
experimented on in a secret military medical experimentation unit
called “Unit 731.” They were subjected to vivisection without
anesthesia. Their limbs were amputated and parts of their brain,
lung, liver, etc. were removed. Weapons were tested on Koreans to
figure out how the weapons could kill humans most efficiently. These
are only few of the many, many atrocities that Japanese committed
against Koreans during the Japanese colonial period.
Japan apologized to Korea after they withdrew their military forces
from Korea. Fifty-five years have passed since. Yet Koreans still
shudder when the Japanese colonial period is brought up. A lot of
Korean people, including the survivors of the Japanese colonial period
and the young people who were born after the colonial period like
myself, have animus against Japan. Why is it that Koreans are unable
to forgive Japan, put the past behind them and move on?
It is because appropriate acknowledgment has not been made. It is
because sincere apology has not been given. In Professor Rosenbaum’s
class, we have learned that appropriate acknowledgement and apology
should be made in order for the victims to be restored and move on.
Most importantly, the apology should not be perfunctory. It should be
sincere. It should be more than just saying “I am sorry.” If the
perpetrators are sincerely sorry for what they have done, their
actions should also reflect their remorse.
Although the Japanese government had said “I am sorry” to the victims
of the war crimes many times, their actions thereafter have been quite
contradictory. One of the most criticized events is the Japanese
Prime Minister’s annual visit to Yasukuni Shrine. Yasukuni Jinja is a
Shinto shrine to war dead who served the Emperor of Japan during wars
from 1867-1951. Of the 2,466,532 people contained in the shrine’s
Book of Souls, 1,068 were convicted of war crimes by a post World War
II court. Korea has protested against various visits to the shrine by
Japanese Prime Ministers, because it appears that they are
unapologetic about the events of World War II. How can they
commemorate the war criminals who have committed such heinous
atrocities?
Another much criticized issue is the distortion of Japanese history
records. The Japanese government has systematically distorted their
historical records and conveniently omitted their atrocities
(including setting up military brothels full of Korean comfort women)
from history textbooks, in the hope of whitewashing their actions
during World War II. The Japanese children nowadays grow up, not
knowing that their country was once the perpetrator of the World War
II.
Merely a week ago, the Japanese government showed another unapologetic
behavior that left the Koreans feeling dumbstruck, appalled, and hurt.
The comfort women who have survived the Japanese colonial period have
been protesting in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, Korea for
the last ten years, asking for an appropriate remedy. On December 24,
just before Christmas day, the Japanese government finally responded
that it will reward the comfort women with appropriate remedy, which
will be JPY 99 (equivalent to USD 1) per person. The comfort women
wailed at this ridiculous result and protested against the Japanese
government fiercely. The Japanese government responded by saying that
if we take into account the monetary value back then, JPY 99 is indeed
an appropriate award amount. I could only laugh at Japan’s shameless
behavior.
In class, we learned that acknowledgments and apologies are extremely
valuable. They are both remedial and compensatory to the injured
party. When appropriate acknowledgment and apology is made by the
perpetrator, the spirit of the injured party will be healed. However,
if appropriate acknowledgment and apology is not made by the
perpetrator, the injured party’s spirit will be harmed further and his
animus towards the perpetrator will be aggravated.
How can Korea forgive Japan, put the past behind them, and move on
when Japan fail to show sincere remorse and apology (that is
uncontradicted by its actions) time after time? After all that Japan
has done to Korea during the Japanese colonial period and thereafter,
I don’t think it is too much that many Koreans still have certain
animus against Japan.
