The Apology, Which Disease and Abortions
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3 - CEO Message 6 - TV Listings 18 - PBS Hawai‘i Keiki Club 4 - Cover Story 10 - Evening Grid 17 - Daytime Grid PROGRAM GUIDE OCTOBER 2018 VOL. 37 NO. 10 THE APOLOGY PAGE 4 Courtesy of Icarus Films Former “comfort woman” Gil Won-Ok of South Korea demanding an apology to women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Army during WWII. | OCTOBER 2018 The Future of Work KĀKOU – Hawai‘i’s Town Hall Rescheduled for October 25 LIVE broadcast and live stream: Thursday, October 25 from 8:00-10:00 pm Encore: Sunday, October 28 from 1:00-3:00 pm As a statewide broadcaster, we care about what’s top One of the subjects of group conversation during this of mind among our fellow islanders. During the second town hall will come from local educators, many of whom week of September, it was Olivia – the storm, aftermath are quite passionate about giving elementary school and the public’s safety. students the tools they need to co-exist with machines That’s why we decided to postpone the September 13 in the workplace of the future. We want to thank Kailua live KĀKOU broadcast on preparing our children for the Elementary School on Windward O‘ahu for allowing us to automated workplace of the future. That town hall is now observe classroom instruction. scheduled for a live broadcast and live stream October 25 from 8:00-10:00 pm. Kailua Elementary School, Windward O‘ahu Stayson and Alize Rose work on their Elijah programs a mini-robot with sensors. The school’s Tech Coordinator, Greg Kent, looks on mini-robot. as Mariann and Ekolu and their classmates work in assigned teams of two. pbshawaii.org 2 CEO MESSAGE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Chair Leslie Wilcox Jason Fujimoto PBS Hawai‘i Vice Chair “Comfort Women” – President and CEO Joanne Grimes Secretary A Twisted Euphemism Bettina Mehnert Treasurer I remember exactly what I said resident Nora Okja Keller was in Kent Tsukamoto some three decades ago to a that audience. Muriel Anderson Honolulu news colleague, when Keller, born in Seoul and of half Susan Bendon we first heard the expression Korean ancestry, felt a “burden Jodi Endo Chai “comfort women” and learned of history” and embarked on a James E. Duffy Jr. what it meant. journey of research and writing. Matthew Emerson “How twisted is that?” I said. The result was a critically Jake Fergus Jason Haruki “A truly deceptive term to hide acclaimed first novel, Comfort Noelani Kalipi horrendous Woman. She recalled Ian Kitajima brutality against that before she Joy Miura Koerte the powerless.” heard Ms. Hwang’s Kamani Kuala‘au Of course, that’s account, she was Mary Ann Manahan Aaron Salā what euphemisms only aware of scenes Julie Shimonishi do. They mask in Korean soap Ka‘iulani Sodaro unpleasantness; operas: “There’d be Candy Suiso they blunt the this mysterious Huy Vo horror. woman, veiled in Bruce Voss This euphemism black, going through MANAGEMENT refers to young the background. women of little And the reference President and CEO means, mostly Honolulu’s Nora Okja Keller, author of would be, ‘Oh...do Leslie Wilcox teenagers, forced the acclaimed novel Comfort Woman you see that woman? Senior Vice President/CFO into sexual slavery Something bad Karen Yamamoto by the Imperial Japanese Army happened to her during the war.’” VP Content during the Sino-Japanese War and PBS Hawai‘i will air an encore Chuck Parker World War II. In filthy conditions, of my 2008 Long Story Short VP Advancement they were required to sexually conversation with Nora Okja Keller Christina Kanemoto Sumida service 20, 30, sometimes 50 on Tuesday, October 16, the week Japanese soldiers a day. before our October 22 premiere of Director, Integrated Media Jason Suapaia They endured beatings, infection, a POV film, The Apology, which disease and abortions. Most died. follows three survivors – from Director, Learning Initiatives At the end of World War II, China, the Philippines and South Robert Pennybacker survivors felt so much shame that Korea. (See interview with the Chief Engineer many didn’t go home. They sought filmmaker on pages 4-5.) John Nakahira new lives and didn’t speak of their Keller’s inspiration, Ms. Hwang, ordeal. One former captive was died in 2013, knowing she had PROGRAM GUIDE Keum-Ju Hwang, of South Korea, done her part to let the world Editor and Chief Programmer who finally resolved to tell her understand her soul-scarring but John Kovacich story before she died. She spoke freeing truth. Graphic Artist in 1993 at a University of Hawai‘i Randall Choo symposium – and Honolulu 3 | OCTOBER 2018 COVER STORY THE “I will never tell [my children]. They would be ashamed of me.” GRANDMA ADELA APOLOGY Philippines Monday, October 22, 9:00 pm All photographs courtesy of Icarus Films Adela Reyes Barroquillo and her son Fimmaker Tiffany Hsiungspoke with us by phone from Toronto, Canada about the film: Courtesy of Icarus Films PBS Hawai‘i: Could you take us through the process of deciding to make this film and how it became, as you say, a film you “needed” to make? I was appalled and shocked when I first heard about comfort women, mainly because I was already turning 25 and had never heard about them before. Bits and pieces of stories about WWII in Asia would be told by elders and family members, but they never talked about the sexual Interview with filmmaker Tiffany Hsiung slavery that occurred. by Emily Bodfish, PBS Hawai‘i I was invited by educators in North America to document teachers in Asia who were survivors. It was through that two week tour that I realized there was so much more to During World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army learn. I wanted to learn, not just about what happened to kidnapped approximately 200,000 young women and the grandmothers when they were comfort women, but forced them into military sexual slavery as “comfort about the aftermath. So many war stories focus on the act itself, when I think the six decades of surviving better women.” The Apology follows three of these women – illustrates the gravity and the impact of what they lived Adela Reyes Barroquillo in the Philippines, Cao Hei Mao through. I knew we wanted to let the grandmothers take in China and Gil Won-Ok in South Korea – in the ongoing us on their journey. I knew I didn’t want it to be saturated with archival footage or scholars and historians talking movement pressing the Japanese government for a formal about “the facts.” apology that has never come. Seventy years after their I realized working on the project that my own silence imprisonment, and after decades of living in silence and and shame from my experience as a survivor of sexual violence was something I was still holding onto, and the shame, these once invisible women (culturally referred to grandmothers gave me the strength to come to terms as “grandmothers”) give their first-hand accounts of the with that. It was an organic process, and the film ended truth for the record in hopes that this horrific chapter of up being something I needed to make. history will not be forgotten. pbshawaii.org 4 “I don’t want to be reborn as something else… I want to be reborn as a woman. I want to be someone’s precious daughter, married into a precious family and have my own family. How wonderful that “I couldn’t get married, but not would be.” by choice, because I am not GRANDMA GIL intact, not whole.” South Korea GRANDMA CAO China Cao Hei Mao and her daughter Gil Won-Ok reading her speech in China, supported by activist Meehyang Yoon. What kept you going, and what perspective can you What are the newest developments for the give viewers to help them digest this emotional film? Grandmothers’ and their movement? It was difficult. I remember trying not to cry in front of Even though she says in the film that she wants to just the grandmothers, and when we filmed in locations they eat and sleep from now on, Grandma Gil is still traveling had been taken to, I had nightmares. There was only one to spread awareness for the cause. The grandmothers time I felt like I couldn’t go on, and that was the passing have also started the “Nabi” Fund (Korean word for of Grandma Adela. I was closest to her, and we had “butterfly”), which they contribute to themselves to help dreams of traveling with the film together. My greatest women currently enduring sexual slavery or violence regret is that I wasn’t able to finish the film in time for around the world. her to see it, and the amount of love and support she got The new Korean government is standing behind the from audiences around the world. I know that would have grandmothers, aiming to create a new agreement with made her so happy and proud. the Japanese government that listens to the grandmothers’ What was important to me to bring across in the film demands – mostly having to do with education. The was the human spirit of the grandmothers, the levity they “One-Million Signature” petition highlighted in the film brought to everything they were doing. There is so much is also still available to sign. life in them, and that is what got me through the hardest moments. What would you like viewers to come away with after seeing the film? And where do you think their strength of spirit and levity comes from? I hope viewers will be inspired by the grandmothers, their resilience.