LOST NAMES: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood

by Richard E. Kim ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1970

Japanese names for Korean, the Japanese language, religion, militarism imposed, and the Emperor: each morning the second grade bows toward Tokyo and young Richard Kim thinks, giggling, ""he may be in the toilet for all we know."" Kafkaesque, his father calls the schoolboys' carved wooden rifles; the map replaced at each political turn (as when Russia's Non-Aggression Pact with Germany makes her Japan's ally); the money penalty for speaking Korean, which goes to buy Kamikaze planes and the like, while each week the class that puts in the most gets a prize, ""so, when our class needs a new mop or a new bucket. . . ."" Richard Kim grew up at the end of thirty-six years of Japanese occupation; his father, a one-time resister, was esteemed in the town, and both suspected and respected by the Japanese. With the incident of the rubber balls, the sixth-grader renews defiance: asked to return the balls the Japanese had distributed to celebrate the capture of Singapore and Malaya, he punctures his groups' to get them into the bag, then stands up to the Japanese teacher infuriated by his reasoning that what was wanted was the rubber; beaten and tottering, he makes his way to the class play, assumes his role of a Japanese officer, speaks a few 'patriotic' lines and stands mute, tears running down his cheeks. Why the tears? ""Perhaps for wounded souls"" says his mother, ""everywhere."" But he loses patience with his elders' wailing for lost names, and at thirteen fumes at their inaction when the Japanese surrender: their liberation is a gift, they must at least secure the town. Which done the generation whose role was to survive bows out--""It is your world now."" For all the political thrust, in interludes of naive wonderment Isaac Singer might be speaking--an association underscored by the position of the Koreans as Jews within their own country. The author of The Martyred (1964) and The Innocent (1968) is absorbing in his own person.

Pub Date: June 1, 1970

ISBN: 0520214242

Page Count: -

Publisher: Praeger

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1970

Categories: NONFICTION