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THE LATEST PROGRAMME |
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The BBC's former Asia correspondent, Chris Gunness, uses the region's traumatic past to explain its troubled present. |
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In the second of four programmes, the BBC’s former Asia correspondent, Chris Gunness, uses the region’s traumatic past to explain its troubled present. Each programme examines a single historical phenomenon which still reverberates today. Through oral history, archive recordings and lively narrative, Chris brings the past to life.
In 1910, Japanese troops invaded Korea and declared that the Korean nation no longer existed. From now on, it would be part of Japan. Thus began a 35-year-rule which still stirs hatred. Hundreds of thousands of Koreans were pressed to forced labour as the country became a military state, serving the needs of the Japanese forces.
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At that time, at that place The first of three paintings displayed on this page by Kim Soon-deuk, a Korean woman who was a 'sex slave' for Japanese troops.
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Women were recruited as sex slaves for the Imperial troops, serving as “comfort women” for soldiers. The Japanese attempted wholesale ethnic cleansing: not by killing people, but by destroying their language and identity. From the late 1930s on, the Korean language was severely repressed. Schoolchildren were taught in Japanese and all official business was conducted in Japanese. In a final act of humiliation, the Japanese forced all Koreans to take Japanese names. Attempts to create an independence movement - as happened in 1919 - were brutally crushed.
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Kidnapped
by Kim Soon-deuk.
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Most Koreans have forgotten, or never knew about another side of Japanese rule. That the Japanese introduced modern education, industry and transport to the country. And that many leading Koreans happily collaborated with their overlords and benefited greatly from the system.
Many of this Japanese-educated generation - notably President Park Chung-Hee - also benefited from using Japan as a model for postwar reconstruction. They consciously imitated Japan’s “economic miracle,” creating structures for rapid growth in manufacturing industry. These lessons helped South Korea become the first baby tiger economy, vaulting rapidly out of poverty. But while Korea admired Japan’s economy, it feared its culture. Japanese movies, singers and television were banned until the late 1990s.
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Kidnapped on a boat
by Kim Soon-deuk.
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Slowly, these Asian economic powerhouses have moved towards rapprochement. The 2002 World Cup - despite spats between the two hosts - marked a high point in cooperation between them. But suspicions remain. Many Koreans, both young and old, feel Japan has never taken its historical responsibilities seriously and accuse it of whitewashing its past. The two countries have become allies. Not yet friends.
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