Novelist Han Kang pens NYT op-ed on South Koreans’ view of tensions between US and North Korea : North Korea : News : The Hankyoreh

Novelist Han Kang pens NYT op-ed on South Koreans’ view of tensions between US and North Korea : North Korea : News : The Hankyoreh

Novelist Han Kang pens NYT op-ed on South Koreans’ view of tensions between US and North Korea



Posted on : Oct.9,2017




Han Kang’s article that appeared in the New York Times on Oct. 7th, along with the accompanying graphic. (New York Times website)

Despite outward appearances, people are genuinely concerned about potential for new Korean War“Even as the North tests nuclear weapons, even amid reports of a possible pre-emptive strike on North Korea by the United States, the schools, hospitals, bookshops, florists, theaters and cafes in the South all open their doors at the usual time. Small children climb into yellow school buses and wave at their parents through the windows…and lovers head to cafes carrying flowers and cake. And yet, does this calm prove that South Koreans really are as indifferent as we might seem? Has everyone really managed to transcend the fear of war? No, it is not so.”



This passage appears in an op-ed titled, “While the US Talks of War, South Korea Shudders” by South Korean novelist Han Kang, 47, that ran in the New York Times on Oct. 7. Amid the war of words between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that has been raising fears of war on the Korean Peninsula in recent months, Han argues that the foreign press is right to suspect that South Koreans are not as nonchalant as they might seem.







Korean novelist Han Kang
“Rather, the tension and terror that have accumulated for decades have burrowed deep inside us and show themselves in brief flashes even in humdrum conversation. Especially over the past few months, we have witnessed this tension gradually increasing. People began to find out where the nearest air-raid shelter from their home and office is. Ahead of Chuseok, our harvest festival, some people even prepared gifts for their family — not the usual box of fruit, but ‘survival backpacks,’ filled with a flashlight, a radio, medicine, biscuits,” Han wrote.



In the op-ed, Han emphasized that, for South Koreans, war is a reality that threatens those who are closest to them. “We are afraid of a gradually escalating war of words becoming war in reality…because there are loved ones beside us. Because there are 50 million people living in the south part of this peninsula, and the fact that there are 700,000 kindergartners among them is not a mere number to us,” she wrote.



Han also asked whether the No Gun Ri Massacre – an incident during the Korean War in which American troops slaughtered Korean civilian refugees – would have been possible if those troops “did not perceive the South Korean refugees as ‘subhuman.’” The news that has been coming from the US recently sounds “perilously familiar” to Han, who quoted a remark reportedly made by US President Donald Trump: “Don’t worry, war won’t happen in America. Only on the Korean Peninsula.”



Referring to Trump’s recent remarks that [North] Koreans “only understand one thing,” Han said that Trump was right: “Koreans really do understand only one thing. We understand that any solution that is not peace is meaningless and that ‘victory’ is just an empty slogan, absurd and impossible.” After defining the Korean War as “a proxy war enacted on the Korean Peninsula by neighboring great powers,” Han said that “people who absolutely do not want another proxy war are living, here and now, on the Korean Peninsula.”



By Kim Hyo-jin, staff reporter

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