The Clan Records: Five Stories of Korea

The Clan Records: Five Stories of Korea

Toshiyuki Kajiyama

Language: English

Pages: 186

ISBN: 0824815327

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


Although little known in the West, Kajiyama Toshiyuki was one of Japan's most prolific and popular writers. Celebrated for his crisp, fast-paced style and incisive analysis, Kajiyama's popularity may be attributed to his finely tuned sense of what many Japanese felt but could not articulate: the feeling of irreplaceable loss that lay beneath post-World War II Japan's highly successful economic recovery. The son of a civil engineer, Kajiyama was born in Seoul in 1930 and remained there until his family was repatriated to Japan at the end of the war. The Clan Records: Five Stories of Korea not only offers a sampling of Kajiyama's work in English for the first time but also represents the first English translations from the Japanese that deal with Korea under Japan's harsh military rule, which lasted from 1910 to 1945. Kajiyama intended these tales to be one of the components of his "life-work," a trilogy that remained unfinished at the time of his death in 1975. Kajiyama had outlined a tour de force that was to have focused on three interlocking landscapes - Korea, the place of his birth and childhood; Hawai'i, his mother's birthplace and the setting for the Japanese immigration experience; and Hiroshima, his father's birthplace and the site of the atomic bombing. The Clan Records includes five of Kajiyama's Korea tales, among them the title story "Richo zan'ei," winner of the prestigious Naoki Prize and the basis of a highly acclaimed movie made in Korea in 1967. Laced with local expression and accurate descriptions of Korean culture, Kajiyama's narratives infuse his Korean protagonists with dignity and courage. They depict sensitive subjects in an unusually subtle and emphatic manner without being too patronizing. In these stories, too, Kajiyama avoided the temptation to soften the often brutal consequences of the inhumanity of the Japanese occupation.

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unbearable. I learned to relieve boredom by directing amorous glances at the girls of F Girls High School or by discreetly chewing roasted peas drawn from my bag. What annoyed me most about those suffocating rides was the stink of garlic that wafted from the lunch boxes of the many Korean laborers who were bound for Noryangjin Station. It was less nauseous in winter, but very potent during summer days. When someone shoved an odorous lunch box under my nose, while another kicked my legs and

much time along the way, was practically in my backyard—on the map, that is. With a ruler, I measured the distance and found that it was less than four kilometers from my home on the map. I had been going the long way around, when I could have gone directly to the factory! My surprise at the fact completely discouraged me. But then reality put everything back in scale. Namsan Park, squatting blatantly in the central part of Seoul, was one sinister cause of my wasted time and effort. Mount Taeyôn,

now: that forbidden release was for boys, not for grown men. Not for us who were about to die. I felt that my body was flying away to Paradise Slope, dyed crimson by the rays of the setting sun. When I left the movie house, I was transformed into a wild man, a hunting animal. Repeatedly I had to control the urge to shoulder aside anyone passing near me. Just like a soldier heading toward the front, I marched with my shoulders squared. But my hand gripped the hundred-yen note that would buy my

whispered to Shinkichi, “She speaks good Japanese. Talk to her.” “Please remember me,” she said, handing Shinkichi her small name card, bowing formally. She was beautiful, with fine features. Since first he saw her, Shinkichi associated her with the hibiscus blossom, whose beauty seemed to be so transient, so touched with sadness. She was nineteen years old. He wondered if her family’s poverty forced her to be a professional kisaeng. After they left the Myôngwôlgwan, Mr. Cho put the principal in

According to their original plan, the declaration would be read by Son Pyông-h∆i, the head of Ch’ôndogyo, and the demonstration march would begin after participants raised three shouts of “Mansei!” However, at sight of all those excited young students in the park, the adult members of the movement feared a riot, changed their plan at the last moment, and moved to the Myôngwôlgwan in Insa-dong. There they read the declaration, SHADOW2 Page 149 Wednesday, October 3, 2001 4:38 PM kajiyama

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