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Home , Chongryon, Japanese nationality law, Korean art, The Hankyoreh

Volume 13 | Issue 5 | Number 3 | Article ID 4263 | Feb 02, 2015 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Focus

Citizenship and North in the Zainichi Korean Imagination: The Art of Insook Kim 郷愁 キム･インスクの作品 における在日朝鮮人の表象

Young Min Moon

thousand years, many traditional homes can still be found in the narrow alleys around Nijo Young Min Moon with an Introduction by Castle, a World Heritage Site where Shogun Sonia Ryang Tokugawa Ieyasu is believed to have stayed. The house, bearing a nameplate reading "Ko Introducing Young Min Moon's Reflection Kang-ho/Lee Mi-o," was built about 90 years on the Photographic Art of Insook Kim ago[….]

Sonia Ryang "Welcome." The voice that rang out was high and gentle. This was Kang-ho's wife Ri Mi-oh, An article in a few months back 55. A doctor of respiratory medicine, she treats caught my attention. The story is about Ko patients with terminal cancer at a hospital in Kang-ho and Ri Mi-oh, a married couple of Kobe, a city in nearby Hyogo Prefecture. The Zainichi living in Kyoto. Recently Mr. date of the visit happened to be a national Ko had filed a lawsuit in City Court holiday: National Foundation Day, requesting that his South Korean be commemorating the accession of Japan's first annulled. Ko had become a South Korean emperor Jimmu. Other holidays include Showa national upon his parents' acquiring that Day, which honors the birthday of the late nationality after the 1965 normalization of emperor Hirohito, and the Emperor's Birthday, diplomatic relations between Japan and the for current emperor Akihito. Kang-ho, who has ROK. Now he has chosen to become stateless, run a dental clinic for over two decades in the option which in theory is available to Otsu, a city in Shiga Prefecture, did not take Zainichi, who were completely statelessthe day off for holidays connected with the between the years 1945 and 1965. Thereafter, Japanese imperial family. only those who acquired South Korean nationality (including Mr. Ko's family) obtained Similar round faces, similar friendly smiles - permanent residence in Japan, leaving a large the couple even had similar jobs. They almost number of Zainichi continuing to be stateless, looked like brother and sister. About ten years the situation only to be addressed in the 1990s. ago, a swollen-faced Ri was recommended to In 2012 this unprecedented request was denied Kang-ho's clinic by a friend after a bad tooth in the Supreme Court of . Mr. Ko's diagnosis. The treatment was good, but he action was inspired by his wife, Ms. Ri, who has didn't seem to know much about making lived all her life stateless: she has nomoney. He didn't recommend expensive nationality, retaining only theChōsen treatments like implants that aren't covered by identification in her Japanese alien registration. insurance. He didn't accept payment from Excerpts from the Hankyoreh: fellow Koreans, and he offered patients some of his own homegrown vegetables. On Jan. 1, In the heart of Kyoto, Japan's capital for a 2000, just three months after they met, they

1 13 | 5 | 3 APJ | JF were married. It was a wedding between two become self-sufficient right away, something foreigners living in Japan. she could do outside of Japan? A job where she could help others. She finally settled on Ko Kang-ho knows hardly any Korean. His becoming a doctor. father hadn't wanted to send him to one of the Chosun Korean schools operated by the"Chosun" isn't a recognized nationality. Mi-oh General Association of Korean Residents in has no , and people without Japan (pro- ). But the have a difficult time traveling from one country boy with the didn't spend much to another. One substitute for a passport is a time with Japanese friends either. Mostly, he document from the Japanese Ministry of Justice just read books and newspapers. He considered permitting "reentry," which serves as the going to university in his father's country, but necessary identification for border crossing. the household wasn't well-off financially. In Any overseas travel requires at least two or 1976, he enrolled in an engineering college to three months to prepare the necessary study ship-building. His plan was to get a job at documents. But it's a process that has allowed a South Korean shipyard after graduating and her to visit the US and the United Kingdom, join the labor movement. But caring for his although she was unable to travel to Ireland. widowed mother and younger siblings left him unable to study for the six years after he Traveling to South Korea is also a tall order. enrolled. He wondered if there was anything he She has to obtain a "travel certificate," a could do for the Zainichi Korean community. temporary passport issued by the South Korean Finally, he changed course and went to dental government. It was not until 1996, during the school. administration of President Kim Young-sam, that she was able to set foot in the country. The Mi-oh does speak Korean well, having attended authorities had permitted her visit after she a Chosun school. Her father was a Korean from explained that she wanted to visit her father's Jeju, while her mother was Japanese. Her grave in Jeju Island. After he passed away in mother had been resolute enough to leave 1991, it had taken four years for his remains to home where her father insisted, "women don't make their way home. Under the brutal military need to go to university." Her fateful encounter dictatorship, it was inconceivable for her occurred one day while she was studying at the relatives in Jeju to try to contact the family. Her house of her brother, an exchange student in father had once been a member of Chongryon, . In the yard of a friend's house, she saw though she claims he was forced out. a shabby clapboard home, barely fit for a dog. Inside lived a poor Korean teenager. This was In 2010, with the Lee Myung-bak the young man who would become Mi-oh's administration in office in South Korea, Mi-oh father. The grandfather objected, but Mi-oh's and a friend paid a visit to South Korea. [In mother went ahead with the wedding. Since 2014], Mi-oh was prevented from making they were of two different , they another trip. She made two consulate visits for decided to give their first child Japanese the necessary procedures, but her efforts were nationality and their second Chosun nationality. in vain. "The employee at the consulate told Mi-oh was the second daughter. Proud and me, 'You've been there ten times now. If you've assertive, she had hopes of leaving Japan seen what a good country South Korea is, why someday to live elsewhere. If she left the land don't you change your ? All it takes where she was born and raised, maybe, she is one procedure and you won't have to come imagined, she could be free. Was therehere every time anymore,'" she recalled. "And I something she could do that would let her said, 'I'm willing to come to the consulate

2 13 | 5 | 3 APJ | JF twenty or thirty times if it means I can go to example, that all Zainichi Koreans renounce South Korea.'"(Park 2014; English original) their South Korean nationality and apply for Japanese nationality, given that their life exists I read it with particular interest, because the in Japan (see Ryang 2004). Stated with irony, wife in this story, Ri Mi-oh, is my old school such a view bears a modicum of validity in that mate from Chongryun's Korean high school. Mi- it is true that no Korean residents whose oh always had integrity and I could see that parents and grandparents came from southern even in marriage, or perhaps precisely in Korea to Japan during the colonial period would marriage, she exercised her integrity. While permanently return to live in South Korea, her husband, Mr. Ko, is trying to assert his although recently there has been a notable identity by renouncing his nationality, she is increase of Zainichi younger generations going asserting her own by notto study, work, and travel in South Korea. Yet adopting South Korean nationality. In fact, she to this day acquiring Japanese nationality, at a is even more consciously doing so, given that time when 10,000 to 15,000 Zainichi Koreans she is eligible to acquire Japanese nationality are being naturalized as Japanese annually, without a problem because her mother is carries political and a certain emotional weight Japanese. This option would have made her life, beyond techno-legal meaning. Unlike, for including professional life as a physician, much example, the US green card, the permanent less cumbersome. Yet, she is insisting on being residence to which Zainichi Koreans are stateless, being Zainichi of her own making. entitled does not automatically provide a basis From within this rather unprecedented quest for . While, culturally speaking, for statelessness emerges a Zainichi ontology, and laden with problematic racial inequalities, the state of being stateless. Their South Korean US public discourse may embrace being an nationality is not really a nationality – while American of other ethnic origins, Japanese testifying to the South Korean consulate that public discourse regarding national identity is they would not exercise any rights as a resident premised on the mono-ethnic presumption of of South Korea, including voting, they are Japanese being Japanese and nothing else. exempt from taxation and other dutiesThus, Korean Japanese, as opposed to Korean ofcitizenship including military service for American, is not a possible category in ethno- males eighteen years and above. Only after national identifications in Japan. Given the fulfilling such rituals and on these conditions, combination of the colonial past and are they granted South Korean nationality, that contentious postcolonial involvement with Cold is to say, it is not a birth right in either the War politics by Zainichi Koreans, which sense of or . virtually split the expatriate community into the North Korea-supporting camp and the South The fact that South Korean nationality held Korea-supporting camp (despite the fact that concurrently with permanent residence of the majority of first generation Zainichi Japan is inadequate as a nationality has long Koreans originated from southern provinces), been a contentious issue in Zainichi public naturalization continues to carry a certain discourse, especially during the intenseweight as a litmus test of one's allegiance and confrontation between North Korea and South integrity. Korea against the backdrop of the Cold War. More recently, Zainichi's South KoreanMr. Ko's request was rejected by the South nationality, concurrently held with a Japanese Korean high court on the ground that the permanent residence, was viewed with grave condition of statelessness should not be suspicion, to say the least. A Zainichi writer of created. For its part, the Japanese government rightist-inclination, Tei Tai-kin, insists, for was unconcerned about the mass production of

3 13 | 5 | 3 APJ | JF stateless people, hundreds of thousands of broadly put, the insecurity of being human for them, in the aftermath of the San Francisco Zainichi, because they are merely humans, as Treaty of 1952 when Japanese citizens of in the words of Hannah Arendt (Arendt 1972), Korean origin lost their Japanese citizenship. has long been part of the Zainichi identity. In By this Treaty, Koreans and Taiwanese, Japan's my 1997 book, the first extended account in former colonial subjects, who remained in English of Chongryun, the pro-North Korea Japan at that time became stateless overnight, organization of Zainichi (Ryang 1997), I as the Treaty's specification that Japan no interpreted their self-identification as longer held any influence over its former ideological identification, while their legal colonial territories was interpreted by the status was unequivocally precarious, i.e. they Japanese government as meaning that Japan were stateless, being bearers ofChōsen was relieved of any civil and legalidentification in their alien registration responsibilities toward formerly colonized certificate, as in the case of Ri Mi-oh above. In populations. Fast-forwarding four decades, by itself Chōsen does not mean the Democratic the early 1990s, all Koreans who could trace People's Republic of Korea, or North Korea; it their residential origin to Japan during the simply denotes "Korea," this being the colonial period were granted special permanent terminology that was deployed during the residence, the stipulation of which has been colonial period (1910-1945), although this very modified several times, making it more secure name comes from one of the ancient states that for Koreans to stay in Japan as quasi-citizens of existed in the northeastern part of the Korean some sort. The qualification of the last phrase peninsula and extending to what is today part is significant, in that they are not Japanese of northeastern . WhereasKankoku citizens in the full sense of international law or identification, which is another option for Japanese : permanent residents Zainichi, clearly designates the carrier as a do not qualify for public service jobs, are not national of the Republic of Korea, or South entitled to receive national health insurance Korea, Chōsen is an ersatz creation of the (open only to Japanese nationals), and do not postwar Japanese immigration system, a receive national pensions, in addition to their bastard child of postcolonial haphazard clean- having to acquire re-entry permits each time up. As stated, it was only in 1965 that Kankoku they travel with their own passport outside nationality became available for Zainichi, as a Japan. However, Zainichi Koreans withresult of the normalization of relations between permanent residence in Japan do acquire a Japan and South Korea. Amidst intense Cold measure of security, including extendedWar confrontation, the North Korea-supporting property ownership, entitlement to certain Zainichi declined this option, along with the social security benefits offered by the local permanent residence privilege that governments, and nearly no possibility of being accompanied it, thus, self-consciously deported to South Korea.The point, however, is remaining stateless. In the early 1990s, both that security should not be equated with Kankoku and Chōsen identifications in Japan's nationality or citizenship. Japanese nationality alien registration earned the carriers special continues to be obtained either by birth or by permanent residence, which was granted only naturalization; not even marriage with a to the descendents of colonial immigrants. This Japanese gives a spouse Japanese citizenship; basically erased differences in residential not even multiple generations of residence in stability that had existed between the Zainichi Japan (as in the case of Zainichi Koreans) of the two camps. makes them Japanese. Yet, one clear difference remained, that is, the The insecurity of residential rights, or more possession of South Korean nationality. Those

4 13 | 5 | 3 APJ | JF who have it acquire a South Korean passport merely human-nationality-less, nation-less, and and can travel with it, albeit with an important state-less. Are they insisting on presenting caveat-they still need to apply for a re-entry themselves as testimonials to the colonial past, permit to Japan, since they are not "returning" postcolonial turmoil and decades of ethnic to South Korea, where they have established no discrimination, and more recent scenes of residence or social connection. Moreover, their globalization, which almost appear to have left South Korean nationality is only semi-valid: for Zainichi Koreans behind or in a space where example, the 13-digit national residenttime flows differently, given their continuing identification number that all South Korean statelessness, to the extent that, as in the case citizens are given, and is required when of Mr. Ko, their disenfranchisement does not applying for most civic registrations including even allow them to attain statelessness of their an internet account or bank account, is not own design? given to Zainichi South Koreans. In other words, their South Korean nationality may I have written elsewhere that Zainichi Koreans function in Japan as a proof that they arenot will cease to exist in less than forty years, given Japanese, but it does not function in South that currently about 400,000 Korea as proof that they are South Korean. On hold the afore-mentioned special permanent the contrary, as the holder of a Japanese re- residence on the basis of their colonial past and entry permit concurrent with a South Korean that currently each year 10,000 to 15,000 passport, the Zainichi South Korean nationality Koreans in Japan are naturalized as Japanese functions to prove that they arenot South citizens. The latter statistics may include Korean citizens. Hence Mr. Ko's plightKoreans from Korea who immigrated after the described above. Still, holders of this passport 1988 liberalization of overseas travels for South may enter South Korea, while individuals Korean citizens, but most are Zainichi (Ryang without it, including Ri Mi-oh, require a special 2010). While I did not mean to say that the end petition and repeated visits to the consulate for of this population would mean the end of that privilege. The statelessness of the latter is research on a group with a distinctive history, complete: they are stateless in Japan, South Moon's article reminds us that as far as we Korea, and globally. intellectuals have not figured out what it means to be human and yet not being merely human, In the following article, Young Min Moon the inquiry into Zainichi ontology cannot be captures this ephemeral nature of Zainichi considered complete. At the same time, I often existence through his reading of Insook Kim's wonder why we are still talking about Zainichi – photography. Moon's article is moving, yet after all it is almost twenty years since my first evasive, in that, while asking the reader many book, which sought to capture the last years of questions, it offers few clear answers. The Chongryun's strengths; since then, numerous same is true of the photographs of Kim, a Chongryun schools have closed and Chongryun Zainichi photographer: eyes (some smiling, even lost its headquarters building, while the some not), half-smiling mouths, motions, colors, newspaper office building that I worked in for and poses ask the reader to reflect on why the three years in the 1980s was sold, moving Zainichi exist to this day as stateless people. journalists to a two-room rented office. If this is Through Moon's encounters with Kim'sa lingering death, it surely is lingering long photographs, statelessness of Zainichi reaches given that the heart of Chongryun Koreans is the reader in dense expression, leaving the there no more; I have not sensed for some time interpretation lucid, yet at the same time that anyone, even among the current demanding that the reader think about them Chongryun workers that I encountered, truly not as fellow humans but as someone who is supports North Korea. And, needless to say,

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North Korea is no longer the same as it was in Kim Jung Il as their leaders. Kim Insook has the 1960s and 1970s. If their existence is attended Chongryun schools, and is intimately guaranteed only by the negative pressure from familiar with their environment. the Japanese government and its rightwing allies, by forcibly associating them with North But why Zainichi Koreans, especially Zainichi Korea, as has been witnessed in repeated raids North Koreans in Japan? I am compelled by the in Chongryun offices in recent decades, what is profound paradox of their existence. To begin there to represent or interpret? Or perhaps, as with, the term itself is a contradiction. North Moon's article does below, perhaps we can Koreans living in Japan consider themselves continue asking questions: what did this to "overseas nationals" of North Korea, when in them and how do we start talking about redress fact the vast majority of Koreans in Japan were and then, hope? born in Japan. Moreover, virtually all of those who originally came from Korea during the Yearning for Home: TheJapanese occupation trace their roots to what is Representation of Zainichi North now South Korea. As the Chongryun- and Koreans in the Work of Kim Insook Cambridge-trained scholar Sonia Ryang succinctly puts it, "There can be no North Young Min Moon Koreans in Japan, for the Japanese government makes no diplomatic acknowledgment of North Let us imagine the following situation: One day Korea,"1 and "North Korean identity in this you learn that you have three fathers. Each of sense is not geoculturally pre-given; it is them insists that he is the true and only father, Chongryun's political projection."2 The and demands that you choose him over the Japanese government sees Chongryun Koreans other two. The status of Zainichi, or Koreans in as resident aliens, rather than North Korean Japan, may be compared to such an unlikely nationals. Moreover, in case of an emergency, and even absurd situation, but this scenario of Chongryun Koreans could not expect protection having three fathers may be a plausible from North Korea.3 condition that will enable us to articulate the multiple identities we find in the work of Kim Zainichi Koreans have undergone a radical Insook, a third-generation Zainichi Korean transformation, from being stateless, having artist who now divides her time between South overnight lost their citizenship in the 1952 Korea and Japan. postwar peace treaty and being subject to pervasive discrimination for decades, to The important context of Kim Insook's early assimilation and successful integration into work is Chongryun, which is the Korean mainstream Japanese society today. Although abbreviation for the General Association of Koreans in Japan continue to face Korean Residents in Japan. Chongryun,discrimination in both legal and civil matters, founded in 1955, is its own umbrellathe identities of the younger generation of organization that oversees a multitude of Zainichi have become rather diverse. Korean ethnic organizations in political, social, commercial, and educational sectors. Among its Kim Insook's photography articulates identities myriad functions is to operate its own schools, other than those of her predecessors, who from to university. In contrast to faced constant systemic discrimination or found , the pro–South Korean organization themselves vulnerable under the threat of Chongryun has made public its allegiance with deportation. Her work represents the North Korea, and taught children about North postcolonial identity of Zainichi Koreans in its Korea as their fatherland and Kim Il Sung and diversity and individualities that are "fractured

6 13 | 5 | 3 APJ | JF and even ephemeral," set in the context of characterized as an "outsider's school," which diasporic nationalism and a yearning for the has been sustained in part by aid from North homeland. She portrays the subjects in her Korea, at the same time subject to trepidation photographs not as victims of ideology, but and even contempt from mainstream Japanese rather as ordinary people whose lives are full of society. The students, however, are primarily ambiguities and complexities.4 Indeed, the lives descendants of South Koreans. In the case of of the third and fourth generations of Zainichi Kim Insook, her mother is Japanese and her cannot be explained simply in terms of the first father is a second-generation Zainichi whose generation's experience of "bare life" in the homeland is Jeju Island, South Korea. Most colonial period and during the Cold War. third-generation Zainichi, including Kim, learn Instead, their lives and identities were always "our language,"7 which is the Chongryun complex and in flux. Thus, Kim Insook resists version of Korean, but speak Japanese as their reception of her work solely in terms of her mother tongue. Since their inception, identity as a Zainichi, or as a Japanese woman, Chongryun schools have implemented a as some Koreans tend to see her, for she curriculum that prioritizes North Korean considers the "three fathers" of Japan and two ideology and history. Within Kita Osaka Korean to be equally important parts of her School, there are students with nationalities of complex identity. South Korea, North Korea, as well as Japan. The first two are descendants of Koreans who In some sense, Kim's work is a yearning for came to Japan during the colonial era, and hold home, however provisional that may be. The the status of Special Permanent Resident. The succession of her projects reveals the artist's latter, although not too common, are children increasingly sophisticated awareness of the whose parents are either naturalized or ethnic intricacies of diasporic subjectivity. Her work Japanese. Thus there coexist multiple ethnic seems to follow a complex trajectory inorigins as well as cultural, linguistic, and correspondence with her own changingideological elements of Japan, North Korea, and understanding of diaspora: initially as aSouth Korea. It is precisely for this reason that celebration of her Chongryun school as what Kim identifies the school as the true and only she regards to be her true and only home, then "homeland." That is, her origins are diverse, as a way "to overcome the crippling sorrow of and for many Chongryun students, like her, to estrangement," or "the condition of terminal be coerced to choose a single motherland or loss"5 of home when she fails to locate home in nationality would be nothing short of absurd. her journey, and, subsequently, reflecting on the Zainichi society from a long distance after As Kim emphasizes, photography for her is "an having settled in South Korea. In short, the act of connecting" with others. She shuns what sense of loss of homeland gradually changes she considers the ethically irresponsible mode into a recognition that one simply moves on, of "documentary" photography in which making home where one can. This enables her representation of human subjects can easily to reassess her home left behind. And it result in their exploitation, especially when appears that she would like to move again.6 they are vulnerable. Instead, she steadfastly maintains her principles: she makes sweet hours (2001–) photographs only through empathic solidarity with others. While sustaining sweet hours for sweet hours, an ongoing project the artist the past thirteen years, Kim has been began in 2001, takes place at Kita Osaka documenting the young students at Kita Osaka Korean School, one of many ChongryunKorean School during relaxed, ordinary schools. The context of the work may be moments of the everyday.

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Kim Insook intends to show her photographs in Insook recalls no significant fights or bullying the form of installation art, in which she will during her school years. However, Kim admits present multiple images of many students that there may have been fights with students simultaneously, as if to underscore thein Japanese schools that she was not privy to. If significance of individuals who make up a the Chongryun students are like children "community," that is, if somewhat literally, as elsewhere, they must also experience at least an accumulation of individualities.8 Presented some challenges and pain. The Chongryun as accumulations of memories, they are an schools are ghettoized, and, as such, insulated invocation of collective memory, a "gift" from outside pressures, which can also yield of collected memories to be offered to the next negative experiences. It is well known that generation. Chongryun teenagers, especially female students donning traditional Korean dress as Interestingly, Kim Insook for the most part their uniform, were targets of violent attacks in represents the children in upbeat moods in 2002 after North Korea's admission of the their daily life at the Chongryun school. She abduction of Japanese citizens. Hence,sweet does so despite the fact that the double hours appears to romanticize the long-ago portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il years of childhood memories. dominate the front wall of the classroom. Her intention is to portray the children as ordinary Thus, the complexities of historical and political contexts seem understated in Kim's work, to school kids who exude an enthusiastic sense of say the least. In fact, the artist adamantly curiosity and wonder and like to play with their rejects reading of her images in terms of friends, rather than as victims of ideology and politics and ideology. racial discrimination. But in this age of nationalism, is it possible to If there is an aspect that was initially see portraits of people completely free of their challenging for me to accept in Kim's work, it is ethnicity, nationhood, and the social context in her representation of the children almost which they are taken? I think not. As Étienne exclusively in a positive light. But because of Balibar writes, "All identity is individual, but the negative image of North Korea pervasive in there is no individual identity that is not the media and in the public psyche, it is historical or . . . constructed within a field of refreshing to encounter the positive images of social values, norms of behavior and collective children in a North Korean school in Japan. symbols," and one never obtains an "isolated Universally shared experiences of childhood identity." Balibar then suggests, "[T]he real bliss must also exist in Chongryun schools. It is question is how the dominant reference points through Kim Insook's photographs that we of individual identity change over time and with finally get a glimpse of children's genuinely the changing institutional environment."9 cheerful personalities. The image of happiness one sees in Kim's work is quite different from So how do we interpret the artist's insistence the contrived look of happiness one finds in that her images be viewed without politics? In picture-perfect children in Pyongyang. some sense, she is asking for the impossible: to see the children under the Kim Il Sung and Kim But, then, there still remains the risk of Jong Il double portraits but free of North Korea exploiting the children, for children are actually and to see them simply as children when the not innocent. Most people would agree that school teaches them that they are overseas school experiences are not always happy; nationals of North Korea. bullying, for example, is common in Japanese schools. In the case of Chongryun schools, Kim One can speculate about factors that may have

8 13 | 5 | 3 APJ | JF informed or influenced the way Kim represents Edit Delete the children. For example, her position may be symptomatic of the third-generation Zainichi Korean's (dis)regard for her tie to North Korea, In the end, it may be Kim's internalized or of its weakening, and may reflect the diverse diasporic nationalism, or long-distance individualities that are formed in negotiation nationalism, that explains her representation of with tidal changes. children always in a positive light. Believing in national history allows people to establish a As it turns out, the children in Kim'sradically different form of "reality" in the midst photographs were not officially taught to be of dire hardships, so as to redeem themselves 10 Kim Il Sung's loyal children. Importantly, after through faith.14 For Kim, whether or not she four decades of strict dogmatism in instilling accepts it, North Korean national history and the ideology of North Korea, from 1993 curriculum seem to have performed such a to 1995 Chongryun schools initiated a major role. The Chongryun school was the curriculum reform, which coincided with the "homeland," a haven removed from the tyranny death of Kim Il Sung. The new curriculum of prejudiced and at times hostile Japanese broadened the knowledge base bymainstream society - which is also, incorporating subjects other than Chongryun paradoxically, part of her home - that enabled and North Korea, such as spoken Korean such a mechanism to materialize. Kim seems to language, Chinese folklore, Japanese fairy have found empowerment, even if tales, American literature, and Greekinadvertently, through national history. mythology.11 In the shifting geopolitical climate, the near simultaneous loss of Kim Il Sung and Journey Home the Chongryun decision to deemphasize his legacy not only meant "the sense of social loss," Letter to you (2004) comprises hundreds of but also brought about identity crises among photographs and a video, documented and Chongryun Koreans, who began to express presented in a diary-like, somewhat skepticism about the relevance of Chongryun confessional, even "selfie"-like manner. In ideology in Japan.12 In short, the de-emphasis of 2004, Kim Insook embarked on a journey to Kim Il Sung signaled the loss of fundamental locate the "essence" of her motherland by values of Chongryun identity. visiting her parents' hometown in Jeju Island, as well as Yanbian, in Northeastern China, and The new curriculum helped students prepare the demilitarized zone that bisects the two for Japanese universities and integration into Koreas. Not surprisingly, she failed to locate an Japanese society. In addition, now Chongryun "essence" of Korea. schools' implementation of ideological indoctrination is much more lax than it had For a person who has long regarded the two been. They have stopped screening propaganda Koreas and Japan as her homeland, one can films in praise of Kim Il Sung, they now control imagine the palpable sense of her students only within school, no longer interfere disillusionment when she confronted the brutal in after-school activities, and even takereality: the divided homeland, which she has of Japanese holidays.13 But that is not to say that course "known" cerebrally but witnessed and Chongryun schools halted their nationalist felt in person as her schizophrenic self. fervor. Indeed, while they have downplayed the Juche ideology and the glorification of the two But I must ask: Is it not possible to regard Kims, the schools continue to inculcate a sense South Korea, North Korea, Yanbian, and of pride and patriotism for North Korea. Zainichi society in Japan - however imperfect

9 13 | 5 | 3 APJ | JF and incomplete each of these may be - as However, the kohyang–choguk separation, or variants of the "essence" of the motherland she hometown–nation dichotomy, failed to have longed for? significant meaning for the next generation. "It was simply impossible," writes Ryang, "for the Sonia Ryang offers an insightful comparison of second generation to think of Kyongju, Seoul, the Chongryun generations. For members of Pusan, or Jeju in South Korea as their the first generation, there was a sensehometown when they were actually born in of kohyang and choguk separation: that is, Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka."15 The second generation between homeland and nation. Even if their saw a clear distinction between North Korea as hometown was in a southern province, they the fatherland and Japan as their living space. regarded North Korea as their nation proper, Today, most Chongryun Koreans who consider as they saw South Korea as a collaborator with themselves "overseas nationals" intend to and protectorate of US imperialism, hence remain overseas.16 deemed not legitimate as the rightful fatherland. The first generation harbored a For Kim Insook to set out on a journey to locate utopian dream of repatriating to North Korea her homeland in South Korea, then, may be after reunification. considered unusual in that her generation has little interest in returning to either Korea; they Indeed, one of the truly extraordinary but regard Japan as their home. But Kim voluntarily relatively little known tragedies of the Cold migrated to South Korea and has been living in War is the repatriation of over 93,000 people, Seoul for more than a decade, thereby giving most of them ethnic Koreans living in Japan, to up the psychological stability that comes with North Korea from 1959 and onward. Promoted being part of her generation. Kim has explained to the world as a humanitarian endeavor and that her decision to live in South Korea was to executed under the auspices of the"redress the balance of Korea and Japan inside International Red Cross, the scheme was me."17 The founding premise of Chongryun may actually the result of political stratagem be likened to "diasporic nationalism," that is, to involving the governments of Japan, North uphold North Korea as overseas nationals.18 Korea, the former Soviet Union, and the U.S. Though most left willingly, persuaded by Kim's journey, however, was a search for home, propaganda that a better life awaited them in or homeland. For her, the distinction between North Korea, the historianTessa Morris- the two, kohyang and choguk, or nation and Suzuki's work on recently declassifiedhomeland, was not so clear cut. What she was documents in the International Committee for looking for, perhaps, was for her true diasporic Red Cross in Geneva reveals how the Japan self. But "[w]hat is the true self of a diasporic government and Red Cross pressured to hasten subject?" asks Ryang. "Is there such a thing as the departure of this unwanted ethnic minority an authentic diasporic subject?"19 in Japan. While those who left for North Korea were welcomed and given special treatment, Edit Delete most of them faced poverty and hardship, while thousands were subject to brutal persecution and death. In short the massive migration SAIESEO (in between), 2008–2012 amounted to "exile to nowhere." The repatriation signals the significant ruptures in The emotionally shattering awakening brought the continuation between nativity andon by her initial journey eventually helped Kim citizenship in the era of modern nation-states. realize that the "essence" of her motherland is to be found in the everyday, the immediate

10 13 | 5 | 3 APJ | JF surroundings, without relying on the master School. In Sisters and I, the sleeve cuff of the narrative of the Korean race or reunification of black is noticeably colorful. While the the peninsula. Sometime after her journey, Kim cuff may have been devised to lighten up the Insook began to document Zainichi Koreans in hanbok, and the visual accent given to the cuff their private spaces, that is, outside the is a distinct feature of hanbok, but such colorful influence of the Chongryun sphere. These cuff is unusual for blackhanbok . The detail portraits are of individuals, or of familyregisters as culturally Korean but also seems gatherings, in their everyday situations, as well somewhat contrived to accentuate the ethnicity as on traditional Korean holidays.of the garment Whereas sweet hours was set in a space isolated from mainstream Japanese society, in On the day of the Seijinshiki, or Coming-of-age SAIESEO (in between), the effects of both Ceremony, Japanese women who turn age 20 Korean and Japanese cultures and customs don traditional furisode, a type of kimono with permeate and influence each other. Sometimes extra-long sleeves and exquisite patterns in one sees culturally specific objects - a tatami bright colors. In the photograph Coming-of-age (mat), a Korean screen, or traditional garments, Ceremony, the young woman dons what for example - but one cannot always tell the appears to be western dress instead. In reality ethnicity of the homeowners simply by looking she is wearing a "dress-jogori," which is a at the décor and the objects that occupy the westernized, hybrid version of hanbok made in space. Japan. Her mother's hanbok bears floral and geometric patterns that appear to be closer to Indeed, the photograph entitledGreat- Japanese than Korean. This is certainly not grandmother and I shows a modest and spare exactly the most common image of coming-of- interior that is almost exclusively Japanese, and age to be found in Japan. In the past, some it is the little girl'shanbok outfit that hanbok used to be made out of garments underscores the subjects' ethnic identity. The imported from North Korea, some of which photograph of five men dressed in white would be worn for the occasion of Japanese garments before or after the Confucian ritual of ceremony such as Seijinshiki. If the children is revealing: By focusing on the traditional depicted in sweet hours seem to be carefree Japanese décor, one may assume there is a despite the ideologically charged space they tatami beneath the Korean-style floor inhabit, SAIESEO presents Zainichi Koreans mat, which they have placed for thesituated between cultures as they negotiate commemorative occasion. In anotherwhat it means to be Korean in Japan. photograph entitled Everyday life, which shows In SAIESEO, Kim seems to explore whether a an old woman sitting in the center, a Japanese hybrid identity is possible for Zainichi wardrobe and a stack of Korean-style bedding Koreans.20 occupy the geometric spatial divisions often found in Japanese . The kitsch Diaspora and "True Home" comforter on the floor bears an image of two tigers, unmistakably derived from anSimone Weil, in 1943, made a prescient anonymous folk painting from the observation about exile that is especially dynasty, effectively turning the woman into a relevant to the experience of Chongryun stand-in for the missing deity who oversees the Koreans: "To be rooted is perhaps the most beasts. In yet another photograph with the important and least recognized need of the 21 same title, a map of the Korean peninsula human soul." Edward Said reflects on this and hangs on the wall. The boy is wearing a jersey elaborates: "[Although] most remedies for with the emblazoned logo of Kita Osaka Korean uprootedness . . . are almost as dangerous as

11 13 | 5 | 3 APJ | JF what they purportedly remedy . . . the state is diaspora entails. one of the most insidious, since worship of the state tends to supplant all other human The homes that Kim depicts inSAIESEO are bonds."22 As mentioned earlier, Kim's practice never "authentic," rather they bear indices of begins as a way of connecting with others, and what I will call cultural impurities. Writes her photographs emerge out of long-term Ryang: "Singular authenticity is a luxury that relationships. It is human relationships that only people with a secure homeland can afford . Kim is committed to represent, beyond the . . . People without a homeland by contrast are confining frame of nationality and ideology, and forever in exile, wandering, in search of home, 25 to position them within what she regards as her land, and security." Diaspora, she writes, "is homeland, in lieu of the state worship she had an ongoing search for self, and as such, the 26 learned in her Chongryun years. journey of self-creation knows no end."

Edit Delete Young Min Moon's photographic essay is a revised text of an article that appeared in Volume 5, Issue 1: Photography and Diaspora, Sonia Ryang posits that there are two models of Guest Edited by Anthony W. Lee, Fall 2014. diaspora. The first is the politico-classical Permalink: Trans Asia Photography Review model - the Jewish and Armenian diasporas, for example-in which ethnic persecution, and, in Young Min Moon is an artist, critic, and many cases, annihilation, results in the loss of a Associate Professor in the Department of Art at homeland. The second model, the personal- University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His modern, arises, Ryang says, from "ontological work has been exhibited in the U.S., Canada, insecurity and an ongoing crisis of identity." In and South Korea. He has published numerous reality, though, these models are not entirely essays on contemporary , and was distinct, and most diasporas have components Guest Editor of Issue 3.1 of the TAP Review, of both.23 The plight of the first generation of entitled The Aftereffects of War in Asia: Zainichi Koreans in Japan may perhaps be Histories, Pictures and Anxieties (Fall 2012). considered to be the politico-modern type; the journey of Kim Insook exemplifies the personal- Social anthropologist Sonia Ryang is the modern model, representing voluntarydirector of the Chao Center for Asian Studies transnational migration. and T.T. and W.F. Chao Professor of Asian Studies at Rice University. She is an editor of However, people continue to move from one the Asia-Pacific Journal. Her books include place to another, voluntarily or due to "North Koreans in Japan: Language, Ideology circumstances that necessitate a move, and and Identity," "Writing Selves in Diaspora: never cease to evolve as human beings. The Ethnography of Autobiographies of Korean trajectory of a diaspora, or narratives of Women in Japan and the United States" and transnational itinerant lives, cannot be mapped "Reading North Korea: An Ethnological out neatly in conventional Inquiry". cartography.24 Diasporic subjects continue to oscillate between their yearnings for homeland Recommended citation: Young Min Moon with and their desire to make their current place an introduction by Sonia Ryang, "Citizenship home. In the process, they develop multiple and North Korea in the Zainichi Korean identities, and learn to feel at home with Imagination: The Art of Insook Kim," The Asia- themselves and how to live with uncertainties Pacific Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 5, No. 2, and all the complexity and ambiguity that life in February 2, 2015.

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Notes 10 Ryang, North Koreans in Japan, 205.

1 Sonia Ryang, "Introduction," inDiaspora 11 Ibid., 56. without Homeland, Sonia Ryang and John Lie, 12 eds. (Berkeley: University of California Press, Ibid., p. 204. 2009), 9. 13 Ibid., p. 180. 2 Sonia Ryang,North Koreans in Japan: 14 Language, Ideology, and Identity (Boulder, Pride and Prejudice: Dialogue between Naoki Colo.: Westview Press, 1997), 3. and Jiehyun Lim [Omangwa Pyungyeon] (Seoul: Humanist, 2003), 373. 3 Ibid., 124. 15 Ryang, North Koreans in Japan, 172. 4 John Lie, Zainichi: Diasporic Nationalism and 16 Postcolonial Identity (Berkeley: University of Ibid., 204. California Press, 2008) 17 Kim Insook, "The Start of Individuality." 5 Edward Said, "Reflections on Exile,"18 in Reflections on Exile and Other Here I borrow the title of John Lie's book, Essays (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, mentioned above. 2002), 173. 19 Ryang, Diaspora without Homeland, 13–15 6 In August 2014, during a conversation with 20 Ryang, "Introduction," in Diaspora without the artist after she returned to Seoul from a Homeland, 18. In the same volume, see three-month residency in Germany, she Youngmi Lim's chapter, "Reinventing Korean expressed her desire to move to another Roots and Zainichi Routes," which probes the country to live for a period of time. I interpret micro-politics of everyday life of naturalized this wish to be not only her desire to develop Zainichi her artistic career but also to gain deeper insight from living in places away from her 21 Edward Said, "Reflections on Exile," adopted "home," encountering other diasporic in Reflections on Exile and Other subjects Essays (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), 183. 7 The artist explained that the reason it is appropriate to call the language Zainichi taught 22 Ibid. at Kita Osaka Korean School "our language"- as opposed to Korean - is that it is a hybrid 23 Ryang, Writing Selves in Diaspora: language of South Korean, North Korean, and Ethnography of Autobiographics of Korean that which has been used for translating Women in Japan and the United States Japanese (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008), xv.

8 Kim Insook, "The Start of Individuality," in Go- 24 Ryang, ibid., 164. Betweens: The World Seen Through Children (Tokyo: Mori Art Museum, 2014). 25 Ryang, Diaspora without Homeland, 15.

9 Étienne Balibar and Immanuel26 Ibid., 14 Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities (: Verso, 1991), 94. References

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Arendt, Hannah. 1972.The Origins of Ryang, Sonia. 2004. "Japan's Ethnic Minority: Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt & Brace. Koreans." In J. Robertson ed., Companion to the Anthropology of Japan, Oxford: Blackwell. Pp. Park, Hyun-jung. 2014. A" Couple Living 89-103. without Nationality," Hankyoreh April 13, 2014. Ryang, Sonia. 2010. "To Be or Not To Be-In Ryang, Sonia. 1997. North Koreans in Japan: Japan and Beyond: Summing up and Sizing Language, Ideology, and Identity. Boulder, CO: down Koreans in Japan," Asia Pacific World 1 Westview Press. (2): 7-31.

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