REPRESENTATIONS OF COMFORT WOMEN IN TRANSNATIONAL LITERATURE By MIN JI KANG A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2018 © 2018 Min Ji Kang To my family ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank the many people that who have inspired and supported me on this journey. This project would not have been possible without the invaluable guidance of my committee chair Dr. Malini Schueller and the helpful advice of Dr. Leah Rosenberg. I am thankful to my colleagues Lauren Cox, Alyssa Hunziker, Bharati Kasibhatla, and Dr. Yen Loh, for their valuable feedback. My work is also fueled by the insight and energy from my students. I am immensely blessed by the support of my family: Dr. Jin Ho Kang, Kwang Yeon Kim, and Tae Wook Kang, who inspire me more than they know. I also thank Ian Cho, who encouraged me ceaselessly. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................4 ABSTRACT .....................................................................................................................................6 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................8 2 WOMEN AND NATION: REIMAGINED CHASTITY IN A GESTURE LIFE BY CHANG-RAE LEE, COMFORT WOMAN AND FOXGIRL BY NORA OKJA KELLER, AND DAUGHTERS OF THE DRAGON BY WILLIAM ANDREWS ................19 Former Comfort Women’s Involvement in Kijich’on prostitution ........................................28 Intersections of U.S. Imperialism and Japanese Imperialism .................................................33 Transnational Connections .....................................................................................................39 3 RESISTANCE IN TRANSLATION: TRANSLATING ILBON'GUN WIANBU, A TRILOGY ON COMFORT WOMEN ...................................................................................42 Women in Base Camps ...........................................................................................................44 Collective Resistance ..............................................................................................................54 4 CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................60 LIST OF REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................63 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .........................................................................................................67 5 Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts REPRESENTATIONS OF COMFORT WOMEN IN TRANSNATIONAL LITERATURE By Min Ji Kang May 2018 Chair: Malini Schueller Major: English Literary depictions of comfort women, an estimated 200,000 women taken from parts of East Asia to serve as sexual slaves during World War II, largely emphasize the victimization of women by the state. While there are many historical accounts and testimonials on comfort women, as well as fictional accounts, there is certainly more work to be done on the ways that these women have been depicted in regard to literary and cultural studies. I move beyond previous notions of victimization by focusing on how individual women deploy strategies of resistance, not by conforming to American and Korean masculine notions of chastity, but by subverting these concepts through advancing their own ideas of womanhood and national cause. I explore notions of Korean nationhood and the symbolic elevation of comfort women as figures of the nation by arguing that elite male nationalists chose the female body as a productive site onto which to project traditional conceptions of chastity. Using the theoretical framework of political and literary scholars Katharine Moon, Chunghee Sarah Soh, and Chungmoo Choi, I explore how the notion of chastity was constructed and disrupted in Foxgirl and Comfort Woman by Nora Okja Keller, A Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee, and Daughters of the Dragon by William Andrews. I also extend my analysis in translating Ilbon'gun Wianbu, a trilogy of Korean texts, 6 which differs from American texts by emphasizing how some women resisted and critiqued imperial conquest through their political cause, individually and collectively. 7 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION In 2017, new negotiations opened between the Japanese government and Moon Jae-in, President of South Korea, to dispute the “irreversible” deal regarding comfort women that Park Geun-hye, the former Korean president who was impeached in 2016, signed with Japan in 2015. This continues a long dispute between South Korea and Japan, over the occurrences during Japan’s occupation of Korea throughout WWII, when an estimated 200,000 women across South Korea, China, Indonesia, Philippines, and the larger part of Southeast Asia were subjected to years of torture and sexual slavery in military base camps. The deal issued a new apology and gave South Korea $8.3 million in funds for the comfort women, after which South Korea could not bring up the issue again. Former president Park was highly criticized for taking the deal, as she ignored women’s wishes to reject it. Surviving women demanded that Japan take legal responsibility for the injustices that occurred. A major issue in the new negotiations was that Japan demanded that the South Korean government not use the term “sexual slaves.” Under the undisclosed terms of the agreement, South Korea would formally refer to the women as “victims of comfort stations of the Japanese military” (Choe). While a reminder that the dispute surrounding comfort women is still ongoing, this debate points to how these women continue to be nationally remembered as “sexual slaves” or victims. However, these terms do not fully show their complex roles during and after WWII. I note the historical trajectory in the victimization of Korean comfort women, mainly tied to concepts of purity and chastity. Ilaria Maria Sala’s article1 in the New York Times notes how “Public discussion about the issue seemed to return, again and again, to the notion that the purity 1 Why Is the Plight of ‘Comfort Women’ Still So Controversial?” (2017). 8 of comfort women had been violated.” More recently, cultural denotations of comfort women have shifted slightly towards portraying the women as martyrs of the nation, seen in public memorials, as well as movies such as I Can Speak (2017), a movie that focuses on a former comfort woman who struggles to learn English in order to speak of her experiences to the Japanese government. Kim Ye Won from YS Times reports2 the move by South Korea’s Department of Foreign Affairs to replace the term wianbu (comfort women) to chonggun hŭisaeng yŏsŏng (woman sacrificed for military service) in labeling the new statues commemorating the women. Kim Min Joo also writes3 in the International Newspaper about a public event, put together by a Young Adults Association in Busan, commemorating comfort women. Public leaders of the association openly referred to the women as hŭisaengja (sacrifice) as well as victims. This shows how, even though there are recent developments in the portrayal of former comfort women, there is still a large focus on them as violated victims and martyrs who were sacrificed. Sala notes how, “Any account that strays from exalting the purported purity of comfort women remains controversial.” By putting the emphasis on comfort women as violated victims, Korea frees itself from blame in the trajectory of exploitation. As Sala states, “This is why for some, comfort women must be represented as having been young and pure, virginal, sex slaves: Anything else would mean wrestling with the far more challenging notion that some of South Korea’s women did sleep with the enemy, literally and metaphorically, and that the rest of the nation may have had something to do with that.” 2 Kim, Ye Won. “Wianbu kirimbiin'ga chonggun hŭisaeng yŏsŏng ch'umobiin'ga? ilbun'gun wianburŭl karik'inŭn myŏngch'ingdŭl” (‘위안부 기림비’인가 ‘종군 희생 여성 추모비’인가? 일본군 위안부를 가리키는 명칭들) 3 Kim, Min Joo. “Ch'ŏngnyŏndŭl chaenŭnggiburo wianbu p'ihaeja ch'umo” (청년들 재능기부로 위안부 피해자 추모) 9 A further look at the ideology behind Korean women’s chastity reveals the hypocritical use of the term by the Korean government. Deliberate forms of exploitation of women by Korea can be traced back to the early Goryeo period (935-1394) of Korean history. Katharine Moon notes how certain women have been trained by the government to perform as entertainers or, kisaeng, for kings and high government officials. Korea’s use of women extends to diplomatic causes in The Comfort Women, as Sarah Soh notes how Korea sent kongnyo˘ (tribute women) to “Mongol rulers of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) in China…[and] Chinese rulers of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1662), [continuing] until around 1521” (204). Even in the present, Katharine Moon notes the continued use of women for diplomatic and economic reasons by noting female entertainers in the modern day used for businessmen, politicians and scholars. She says how, “not only kisaeng, but other women also have served as a collective sacrifice for governmental priorities” (40). This is seen through the continued use of Korean women as prostitutes in kijich’on, or American base camps, in Korea after the Korean War.