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ENGELSE TAAL EN CULTUUR
Teacher who will receive this document: Dr. N. Mykoff
Title of document: Comfort Women Narrated: A Literary Study of Sexual
Slavery in Korean American Literature
Name of course: BA Thesis
Date of submission: 7/3/2020
The work submitted here is the sole responsibility of the undersigned,
who has neither committed plagiarism nor colluded in its production.
Signed
Name of student: Bente Schramowski
Student number: 1008291
Bente Schramowski
s1008291 BA Thesis
Dr. N. Mykoff
7/3/2020
Table
of Content
Introduction............................................... 4
Literature on
“Comfort Women”.............. 6
A Brief Overview
of “Comfort Women” History....................................................... 9
Summary of
Stories................................. 11
The Power of
Language.......................... 15
Relationships........................................... 18
Conclusion............................................... 21
Works Cited............................................ 23
Comfort Women
Narrated: A Literary Study of Sexual Slavery in Korean American Literature
Abstract: During
World War II, many young women were made into sexual slaves by the Japanese military.
These so-called “comfort women” stayed silent for close to five decades,
finally breaking their silence in the 1990s. This has led to many people taking
up the subject and discussing it. The topic has made its way into Korean
American literature. This paper will discuss three novels on the topic of
“comfort women”: Comfort Woman by
Nora Okja Keller, White Chrysanthemum
by Mary Lynn Bracht, and Sunday Girl by
Kalliope Lee. These novels reveal how the “comfort system” stripped the girls
of their identities and voices, how the girls found space to create their own
narratives, and how the “comfort women” issue has been passed on to subsequent
generations.
Keywords:
Korean Comfort Women; Korean American Literature; Trauma and Memory
Introduction
Histories untold
are often relegated to memoires unspoken. Trauma is usually at the heart of
both. This paper gives voice to a traumatic past by examining the stories of
Korean
“comfort women”[1]
told in contemporary Korean American literature. The approach rests on the
assumption that cultural expressions provide a means to remember and understand
silenced pasts. Works of fiction based on history can provide insight into
current issues, like the gendered experience of war, and the history of human
trafficking. Additionally, they can tell us something about the creation of
identity and history.
“Comfort woman” is
the euphemistic term that refers to the girls and women that served as sexual
slaves for the Japanese army from 1932 until 1946. Since most records
pertaining to “comfort women” have been destroyed by the Japanese army, there
are merely estimates when it comes to the number of women forced to become
“comfort women” (Yoshimi 34). The numbers are assumed to lie somewhere between
50.000 and 200.000 women (House of Sharing). While there were women from many
different nationalities, the
majority were Korean (Yoshimi 95). Because of this, and the
refusal of the Japanese government to take legal responsibility, the “comfort
women” issue has become an important one to Koreans, as well as Korean
Americans. As a result, the topic has made its way into Korean American
Literature.
This
paper focuses sharply on three literary works on “comfort women” written by
Korean American women. They are Comfort Woman by Nora Okja Keller
published in 1997,
White Chrysanthemum by
Mary Lynn Bracht published in 2018, and Sunday
Girl by Kalliope Lee published in 2013. Analyses of these works draw from
theories of gender, colonialism, subject
and narrative formation, and memory. This paper argues that cultural
expressions like literature provide insight into social constructions of gender
and military history, the politics of remembering, and how trauma passes from
one generation to another. It does this by spotlighting women’s experiences of
war, and how nationality constructs gender. Literary renditions of ‘comfort
women’s’ histories reveal that the girls and women lost their identities and
voices, regained them, and shaped the identities of younger generations
Keller, Bracht, and Lee identify as
Korean American [2].
In interviews, they mention growing up not having known about “comfort women”
(Keller, Choi; Bracht, Cowdry; Lee, Williams). Why then did they choose to
write about this topic? Each states that when they learned about the “comfort
women”, their stories resonated. Both Keller and Bracht mention they felt the
need to tell the story so current generations would know about this part of
history. Lee thought it was important to give “comfort women” a voice (Keller,
Johnson 97;
Bracht, Kidd; Lee, Williams). [3]
Keller
and Bracht provide two perspectives. One of the characters speaks from the
past. The other speaks from the present. Lee’s story is told from a
contemporary perspective, but is interwoven with images from the past. This
brings the “comfort women” issue into a more contemporary setting, showing the
connections of the past with now, and how these issues inform younger
generations. By choosing these formats, the three authors show just how
interwoven the past and present are.
The presence of the past is especially
important in Korean American literature, which often deals with trauma. The importance
reflects in the concept of han[4].
Han is the notion that trauma is
passed down from one generation to the next. It is not something that merely
affects the individual, but the whole nation of Korea (Soh 81). Just because
the generation who suffered them has now mostly gone, does not mean that the
horrible events are simply erased from public memory. As Kalliope Lee explains,
“wounds that are not dressed and healed will recur and get passed down” (Lee,
Williams).
Currently, only 18 of the registered former Korean “comfort women” are
still alive, a number that will keep on decreasing in the coming years. This
makes novels about them that much more important. When these women, lovingly
called halmonis5, are not
there anymore to tell their stories, these novels will. This is not just
important for the halmonis themselves,
but it is important for everyone. This is because history does not just stay in
the past, but very much shapes our contemporary world.
The following
analysis begins with a discussion of the current debates about “comfort women”.
The historical context follows. Attention then shifts to brief summaries of the
novels. Analyses of the power of language and relationships follow.
Literature on “Comfort Women”
Scholarly treatment of “comfort women”
is extensive. Approaches differ. For example, some scholars focus on gender. In
The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and
Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan, Chunghee Sara Soh gives a historical
overview of the “”comfort system”, arguing that the “comfort women” issue is
one where multiple aspects intersect, such as colonialism, racism, and
patriarchy (Soh 227). This intersectionality is explored in other works as
well. Pyong Gap Min, for example, says that “Colonization had greater effects
on the forced mobilization of the Korean women to the military brothels and
their brutal treatment there, while gender hierarchy and patriarchal customs in
Korea had greater effects on their suffering after returning home” (953).
Yonson Ahn explores how
patriarchy, colonialism, nationalism, and militarism
created ideologies of gender and imposed those ideas on both men and women
(Ahn). Angella Son focusses on how the “comfort women” were “shamed into nonexistence”
(186). The violent means with which they were recruited, the way they were
treated in the “comfort stations”, and the scrutiny and disapproval they had to
face when returning to Korea dehumanized them, making them afraid to speak out
(Son, 188-190).
Other
scholars have focused on rape as a weapon of war. Shannon Heit, in her work
Waging Sexual
Warfare: Case Studies of Rape Warfare Used by the Japanese Imperial Army During
World War II, explains that war is a patriarchal construct, which means
that the ways war impacted women is often ignored (363). She then mentions that
women used to be seen as property of men, so raping the women that “belonged”
to the enemy was “the most humiliating symbol of defeat for the opposition”
(364). Women were often victim of rape warfare[5],
but these cases rarely lead to prosecution. (Heit 369).
As of today, Japan
has yet to take legal responsibility. This fits into a bigger discussion about
war crime, restitution, and apologies surrounding the issue of “comfort women”.
One person who deals with this topic is Yoshiaki Yoshimi[6],
the first person to find documents that prove the military involvement in the
planning and running of “comfort stations”, and their involvement in the
“recruitment” of “comfort women” (Suzanne O’Brien 7). In his book Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the
Japanese Military During World War
II, Yoshimi
provides a detailed account on the history of
the “comfort system”, with one chapter dedicated to the “violations of
international law and war crime trails” (152). He says that the “comfort
system” violated human rights, and that “the gravity of the issue lies in the
fact that it was by no means a contingent occurrence, but rather a government
policy promoted by the state itself” (207). He ends with a list of what steps
need to be taken in order to lay the issue to rest. These include increasing
transparency, acknowledgement of the responsibility of Japan, and compensation
(207-208).
The issue of restitution is the focus
of another body of works. For example, in When
Sorry Isn’t Enough: : The Controversy Over Apologies and Reparations for Human
Injustice, edited by Roy L. Brooks, several scholars discuss redress for
human injustices. Karen Parker and Jennifer F. Chew, for example, look at the
reasons why Japan seems reluctant to offer
compensation to the victims. Japan maintains that they have
already “settled all claims arising from World War II”, that it is something
that happened in the past, and that there are too many victims to compensate
(Parker and Chew 141). Parker and Chew, however, argue that Japan did not
settle all claims through treaties, because not all countries where “comfort
women” came from were included, nor did the treaties contain anything about
war-rape victims (141-142). Additionally, time should not play a role in these
cases, nor should the number of victims (Parker and Chew 143). They conclude by
stating that Japan should “undertake immediate action to redress all serious
wrongs committed in the course of Japan’s military operations in the World War
II period” (144).
The “comfort women” issue also speaks
to the creation of identity, history, and memory. Hyun Sook Kim explores how
“comfort women” have been represented in Japanese and Korean textbooks. She
found that Japanese and Korean textbooks either ignore the topic completely, or
mention it in passing (100). Kim explains that the stories of the “comfort
women” are a threat “because these women are new subjects who have stepped out
of their class-gender positions and who are revealing a partial truth about the
nations’ hidden past that has officially been rendered invisible” (100).
Because of this, the place of “comfort women” in history is denied
Testimonies, both written and spoken,
are another focus of “comfort women” scholarship. The testimonies of surviving
“comfort women” are considered historically accurate. Some do note that there
are inconsistencies, but most of the time this is handled in one of three ways:
they more or less ignore it, they say that the women cannot remember everything
correctly due to trauma, or they use the disparities to discredit the
testimonies (Kim, 95; Kimura 9). Maki Kimura argues against reading the
testimonies as the unequivocal truth. She says the stories “should be seen as
the moment of – and space for – subject formation, where subversive agency can
also emerge” (19). In other words, the narratives of the “comfort women” allow
them to shape the debate surrounding them, which enables them to regain agency
and form their own identity (Kimura 18).
One thing seems to be missing in the
conversation. Hardly anyone is talking about the effects of this traumatic
episode in history on subsequent generations. To me, the perfect way to
investigate this is through literature written by Korean American women. They
carry the
“comfort women” issue with them as a part of their han. By writing a novel about “comfort
women”, these authors are shaping part of their own narrative as well, by
exploring their own identities as Korean-Americans. The novels spotlight the
ways that colonialism and militarism play out on women’s bodies, by focusing on
rape, trauma and transnationality. They do so by crossing generations,
providing insight into the contemporary significance of “comfort women”
A Brief Overview of “Comfort Women”
History
In order to properly understand Korean American “comfort
women” literature, it is important to know something about the history. First,
the reason for the creation of comfort stations is established. Then, the life
of comfort women inside those stations will be discussed. Lastly, I will give
an overview of what happened when the first “comfort women” stepped forward with
their stories and trace the impact to the present.
While
there is much unclear when it comes to many of the details surrounding
“comfort stations”, due to the lack of documents, it is
generally accepted that they were created for a few reasons. One of the
explanations given by both Yoshimi and Soh is that the Japanese military wanted
to prevent their soldiers from raping other women. He uses the example of the
Nanking Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanking. On their way to Nanking,
Japanese soldier ran rampant, pillaging, killing, and raping Chinese citizens.
The Japanese army, afraid of international criticism and outrage, decided that
they needed to establish “comfort stations”, in order to stop the soldiers from
raping local women (Yoshimi 49, Soh 135).
Another aim of the military was to
stop the spreading of sexually transmitted disease. When Japanese troops had
been sent to fight in Siberia before, many soldiers were found to have
contracted sexually transmitted diseases, which the military traced back to the
brothels the soldiers had visited. “Comfort stations” were, in the eyes of the
Japanese military, a good way of preventing this from happening again. There
were many regulations in place in order to get the spreading of venereal diseases
under control, for example the regular medical examinations the comfort women
had to undergo (Yoshimi 47, Soh 135).
Yet another reason
was the “comfort” provided for the soldiers. Yoshimi paints the picture of a
merciless war, and the chances of winning were not very high for the Japanese
(72). Other than the “comfort stations”, there were no
facilities for the soldiers to relax and let off some steam. They were not even
permitted leave. As a result, the troops were restless, and the commanding
officers generally did not have them under control all that well. To boost
morale and to increase the authority over the soldiers, “comfort stations” were
established, so
as to offer the soldiers sexual comfort
(Yoshimi 73). This, according to Soh, proofs that the
“comfort system” was based on the idea that men have an
“uncontrollable “biological need” for sex” (140). As stated before, the
Japanese army felt the need to establish a way to resolve their problems. Thus,
the “comfort system” was born.
Even though there are hardly any
military documents about their lives in the “comfort station”, we do have a
fairly good idea of what their days looked like from various former
“comfort women’s” accounts. There were several kinds of
comfort stations and the conditions differed vastly. For this paper, however,
only one kind, houses of prostitution, will be discussed as the majority of
Korean women seemed to have served there (Soh 123). The “comfort women” were
subject to sexual abuse and violence. While the numbers vary, some women had to
service as many as 20 to 30 soldiers a day (Yoshimi 139). The women could not
refuse for fear of the men growing aggressive and forcing them. Indeed, they
often had to deal with drunken violence of the soldiers even if they acquiesced
(Yoshimi 140). While the guards could
protect the women from unruly soldiers, it seems more likely that the goal was
to keep the women from escaping (Yoshimi 144). The women worked every day, with
little to no time to rest (Yoshimi 141).
Although they were subject to routine medical
examinations, soldiers violated the safety measures by not using protection.
This naturally increased the chances of contracting sexually transmitted
diseases (Soh 123). Even if they did contract a disease, in mild cases they
were still forced to work (Yoshimi 148-149).
More severe cases, and unrelated illnesses, resulted in the deaths of many
“comfort women”. In addition to physical illnesses, the women also had to deal
with their mental health. Many coped by turning to drugs (Yoshimi 147).
Others attempted suicide (Yoshimi
149-150).
After the war, the “comfort stations”
did not immediately disappear. Some were used by Allied forces after Japan
surrendered. It was not until 1946 that the last comfort stations closed
(Yoshimi 184). After closing the “comfort stations”, there was a long period of
silence. This is not to say that people did not know about “comfort women”. On
the contrary, media such as documentaries and movies had addressed the topic
before the first testimonies. In fact, some survivors already made their story
public (Soh 172). However, up until the mid-1990s, Korean and Japanese
textbooks lacked information on the topic (Soh 145). Additionally, the Japanese
government denied that the military had any role in it and said the crimes had
been committed by private citizens (Heit 367).
There are several possible reasons why
the topic remained obscure for over four decades. First of all, there were many
women that did not survive. Many died because of disease, abuse, or suicide
(Heit 366). For the women that did survive, they had to deal with things such
as PTSD, lasting physical effects of illness or abuse, and discrimination on
account of having been a “comfort woman”, even from their own families (Yoshimi
193, 196). It was not until 1991 when the redress movement began, after former
“comfort woman”, Kim Hak-Soon, stepped up to give her testimony. The Japanese government
responded with an apology, but worded it carefully in order to not take legal
responsibility (Yoshimi 25).
While they did set up the so-called Asian Women’s Fund to
compensate the survivors, the fund relied on donations of private citizens,
which can be seen as yet another way to deny legal responsibility (Heit 367).
Until this day, the remaining victims are still demanding a sincere apology
from the Japanese government.
Summary of Stories
The following section provides a
summary of each novel. The summaries spotlight relationships between a mother
and a daughter; siblings and friends. Longing, anguish and love are at the
heart of the stories. Each speak to the constructions of girlhood.
Comfort
Woman by Nora Okja Keller tells the story of a mother and a daughter. The
mother, Soon Hyo, is born in Korea, into a poor family. At age twelve, she is
sold to the Japanese army by one of her sisters. Although she is first made to
think she will go to a factory to work, she ends up as a “comfort woman”.
There, she soon sees a woman stand up against the Japanese soldiers in the hope
that they will end her suffering and kill her. This has such an impact on Soon
Hyo that she will, until the end of her life, see the girl named Induk as her
personal guiding spirit.
After the girl’s death, Soon Hyo gets
assigned the name Akiko and has to take the other girl’s place, serving the
soldiers. She soon gets pregnant, but the baby is violently removed from her
womb, leaving Soon Hyo broken both inside and out. Eventually, Soon Hyo manages
to escape the camp and ends up in a home with American missionaries. She
marries one of them, and he takes her to America.
In
America, she struggles in her role of wife, as she is unable to trust men after
being a
“comfort woman”. Soon Hyo feels dead inside, but this
changes with the birth of her daughter, Rebeccah Bradley, or Beccah for short.
Soon Hyo is overprotective as a mother, wanting to shield her daughter from all
evil, but especially the evil of men and the evils she associates with
womanhood. For the reader, it is completely understandable knowing what we know
about Soon Hyo’s past. However, Beccah does not know about her mother having
been a “comfort woman”, and feels as if her mother is suffocating her.
While
Soon Hyo’s story is about her girlhood in Korea and how it shaped her life,
Beccah’s story is about trying to find her place in Hawaii,
as an Asian American girl whose father has died and whose mother is seemingly
insane. To support the two of them, her mother works as a shaman and talks to
spirits for other people. Beccah becomes more and more estranged from her
mother, as Soon Hyo seems to spiral out of control, falling into trances and
having strange fits. To Beccah, and many other people, Soon Hyo comes across as
insane. At the end of the story, Soon Hyo dies. While going through her
belongings, Beccah finds a tape addressed to her, left by her mother, as well
as some clippings of newspapers.
These little snippets of her mother’s past together with
the tape tell Beccah the true story of her mother. After finding out her mother
was a “comfort woman” and the hardships she had to face in life, Beccah feels
closer to her mother than ever, now also being able to communicate with the
same spirits her mother communicated with. Beccah gives her mother a proper
burial to make sure that her spirit can finally rest. She now understands the
importance of the past and will make sure to honor the spirits and their
memories, making their lives her own memories.
Like Comfort Woman, White Chrysanthemum written by Mary Lynn Bracht, is
also written from two perspectives. The book tells the story of two sisters,
growing up as haenyeo, female divers
of Jeju Island. Hana, the oldest sister, lets herself be taken away by Japanese
soldiers at age fourteen in order to protect her younger sister Emiko, also
called Emi. The soldier that captures her, Morimoto, takes Hana to be shipped
off to Manchuria to be a
“comfort woman”. He then goes on to rape her, and leaves
Hana at a brothel. Here, Hana is continuously raped by soldiers.
Morimoto seems to be quite taken by Hana, as
he returns to the brothel for her. There, he offers Hana a chance to escape
with him. Hana does not want to stay in the brothel as a
“comfort woman”, but she does not want to leave with
Morimoto either, as he has become the face of the soldiers that have used her
against her will. Hana manages to run off on her own, trying to go home, but is
found by Morimoto a few days later, and gets captured again. Morimoto
takes Hana to Mongolia and leaves her with a family there, so he can take care
of business, while she cannot run off. Hana starts doing chores for the family
and, despite being weary of them at first, warms up to the family. They treat
her as one of their own. The youngest son of the family, Altan, and Hana start
to develop a friendship. Soon, they fall in love. This is when Morimoto
returns.
Morimoto makes it clear he wants to
take Hana away. After abusing her, Hana wants to end her misery by killing him.
She tries to cut his throat in his sleep, but is stopped by Altan, who then
helps Hana to flee. The two get caught by Morimoto, who once again captures
Hana, while Altan is forced to leave them. Morimoto, heartbroken by Hana’s
betrayal wants to leave her behind, but the two of them get captured by Soviet
soldiers. The Soviets force Morimoto to kill himself, and Hana herself is
almost killed as well, but survives. After a few days, she is released by the
Soviets, as the Mongolian family returned and made a deal for her release. Hana
joins the family again. She knows that she has to give up on trying to go home
to Korea. However, having been accepted and taken into a new family, she feels
at peace.
Whereas Hana’s story takes place
entirely in 1945, Emi’s story takes place in 2011. Emi is an old woman,
travelling to Seoul. She has two purposes for this visit: to see her children,
and to join the 1000th Wednesday Demonstration. This is a weekly
demonstration calling attention to the story of the “comfort women” and asking
Japan to address the problems it created. Emi goes there in hope of seeing her
sister again. A new statue is unveiled to commemorate the comfort women, and it
is revealed that this statue was sculpted after a picture of Hana, whose
photograph miraculously came into the hands of the sculptor.
Shocked from seeing her sister’s face
again, Emi collapses and is rushed to the hospital, where it is revealed that
she suffers from a heart condition and does not have very long to live. Despite
her state, Emi insist on seeing the statue of her sister again. She sits next
to the statue, holding her hand, and finally feels that her sisters has
returned to her. She can now stop searching for her and die in peace. Emi’s
story ends with her passing away, and her daughter returning to Jeju island, to
honor her mother’s life as a haenyeo.
The final novel is Sunday Girl by Kalliope Lee. The story,
set in the early 90s, follows Sybil and Jang-Mee, two Korean American girls
living in Seoul to discover their roots. Sybil, the daughter of an American GI
and a Korean mother does not know much about her Korean heritage, due to her
mother’s early death. After discovering the affair between her best friend and
boyfriend and struggling to finish college, Sybil decides to take a sabbatical
and move to Korea. There, she lives with her friend Jang-Mee. At age four,
Jang-Mee was adopted and brought to America. Her motivation for moving back to
Seoul is to find her birthmother. Early
on in the novel, Jang-Mee receives a letter from her adoptive mother which
seems to upset her greatly. In order to cheer her up, Sybil suggest they go out
dancing. Unfortunately, the night does not go as planned. On their way back
home, the girls stop by the river to wind down a bit. There, they are attacked
by a man, who first robs them and then attempts to rape Sybil. Jang-Mee tries
to stop him. In the struggle, Sybil ends up unconscious, while the man turns to
Jang-Mee and rapes her instead.
After returning from the hospital, Sybil finds
Jang-Mee gone, and hears nothing from her for weeks, until she suddenly returns
one day. Sybil, trying to understand why Jang-Mee left, asks Jang-Mee why she
has returned. Jang-Mee reveals that during her rape she had a vision of a girl
being raped by Japanese soldiers, later revealed to be a “comfort woman”.
Jang-Mee feels the girl appeared to her “so she could be
released from the past, from history. So she could finally speak of the
atrocities that she and other girls had to endure” (Lee 91). Jang-Mee says she
came back so she can reconnect with the girl again. This results in her seeking
out increasingly more dangerous situations, including prostituting herself. At
one point, she ends up in a coma.
Sybil desperately wants to understand
Jang-Mee, and tries to find out what happened with the help of her neighbor,
Min. However, when Sybil meets Min’s brother, Greg, her objective of finding
out the truth turns into trying to experience what Jang-Mee did, and trying to
find the “comfort woman” as well. After some violent sexual encounters with
Greg, Sybil has some of the visions as well. Feeling like she now shares her
experience with Jang-
Mee, and feeling a connection with the “comfort woman”
seems to release Sybil, who slowly returns to her senses.
At
the end of the novel, Sybil prepares to go back to the United States. Her and
Jang-
Mee’s role as mouthpiece for “comfort women” seems to have
failed, with Sybil moving and Jang-Mee still in coma. However, right before
leaving, Sybil watches a press conference on tv. In this press conference, Kim
Hak-Soon tells the story of how she was forced to be a sexual slave for the
Japanese army. With her testimony, Sybil and Jang-Mee are released from their
burden.
The Power of Language
The
term “comfort women” obscures the history of the sexual enslavement of girls.
The term “military comfort woman”, a
direct translation of the Japanese jūgun
ianfu, means
“following the military”. It implies that the girls and
women followed the troops willingly (Soh 70). This supposed voluntary behavior
contradicts how most girls were actually rounded up. Most girls were either
deceived by false promises of employment or abducted (House of Sharing). The
word “comfort” also hides the truth. The word refers to the comfort offered to
the Japanese soldiers. This ignores the fact that the “comfort women” were put
into situations that were anything but comfortable. By focusing on the pleasure
of the soldiers, the true pain the girls had to endure is masked. The word “woman”
masks the youth of those providing the comfort. Most were pre-adolescent and
adolescent girls. The term distorts the facts. By distorting the facts, the
identity of the girls is distorted as well. The term “military comfort women”
makes them come across as women, not girls, that voluntarily offered comfort to
soldiers, when in reality, “Comfort women” refers to sexually enslaved girls.
Another way in which the girls
were denied their identity comes from their names.
Most “comfort women” had their names
changed into Japanese names, “thereby losing the
Korean names that had constituted an important part of
their personal identities” (Soh 74). This is clearly illustrated in the
character of Soon Hyo. Throughout Comfort
Woman, the reader only knows her as Akiko, the name given to her at the
comfort station. After receiving her new name, Akiko claims that she was
‘murdered’ (Keller). By taking everything from her, including her name, Soon
Hyo ceases to exist. She regains a sense of self by becoming a mother, an
identity and title she embraces. Unfortunately, this is the only part of her
identity she has as other people still call her Akiko, not knowing what that
name means to her, so Soon Hyo starts clinging to her identity as mother, in
order to “stay alive”.
Soon Hyo’s real name is not revealed
until the end of the novel, when Beccah finally discovers her mother’s past.
Acknowledging Soon Hyo’s past means that she no longer is forgotten. Her story
is known now, which gives her back her identity. After learning about Soon Hyo,
Beccah now has gained the ability to communicate with the dead, like her mother
before her, meaning that she is in a position to lend her voice to those who
cannot speak, including her mother. This ensures that her mother and the other
ghosts do not just get lost in history, but that their stories can be continued
to be told.
The novels also speak to the power of
language. During the Japanese occupation, “comfort women” were not allowed to
speak their mother tongue. They were expected to speak Japanese (Ahn). The
reason was that “every effort to retain Korean culture was suppressed in order
to destabilise the identity of the women and weaken the foundations of
solidarity amongst them ” (Ahn). The power of language was strategically used
to oppress the girls, using language as a weapon against them.
In addition, limited knowledge of
Japanese meant that women and girls did not fully understand the soldiers. In Comfort Woman, Soon Hyo mentions and
sings snippets of the Korean River Song. Most of the song is not translated
into English. The result is that readers who do not speak Korean do not fully
understand its meaning. This helps readers empathize with the “comfort women”
whose limited knowledge of Japanese resulted in limited understanding.
Sunday
Girl connects this to the current generation of Korean Americans and speaks
clearly to the connections between past and present. Sybil is Korean American,
but grew up speaking English. As a result, while she is mostly fluent in
Korean, she does not understand every nuance and quite often is not fully able
to grasp what is said to her. This gives her some trouble in regard to her job,
as she is tasked with translating documents from Korean into
English. Her boss explains that “translation is not just
about connecting one language to another” and “it requires a special skill in
interpretation, an inspiration. I would go as far as to say, a certain
imagination. You must have a talent for it – be able to read between the lines”
(Lee 77). This fragment shows us just how difficult it is to translate
language, even for people that speak a language fairly well. This knowledge
underscores the “comfort women’s” inability to clearly express themselves.
This limited knowledge of a certain
language was used against the “comfort women”, in order to limit their chances
of escaping. Many Korean “comfort women” were brought to China. Since they did
not speak the language of the country they were stationed in, they were
completely isolated from the local community. Therefore, receiving help from
that community would be very difficult (Ahn).
Speaking a foreign language can be empowering. Speaking a different language
could help “comfort women” escape. Additionally, it increases the number of
people you can reach with your story. In White
Chrysanthemum, Hana, when staying with the Mongolian family, mentions that
“words are power (…) The more words you know, the more powerful you become.
That is why the Japanese outlaw our native language. They are limiting our
power by limiting our words” (Bracht 215). Hana takes her father’s advice to
heart and sets out to learn more Mongolian words, so she can grow more powerful.
In her own way, she is empowering herself. Other than being able to reach more
people, speaking more languages could also give Hana a sense of agency, and
perhaps even a new identity. While she had no choice in having to speak
Japanese, it is her own choice to learn Mongolian. She has decided that she
wants to be a part of the Mongolian family.
Language, like the term “comfort
woman”, is used to deceive. Comfort Woman
extensively deals with this topic of deception. Soon Hyo had repeatedly
been lied to and deceived by various people. Like many other girls, she was
told that she was merely being taken away to work in a factory, but instead
ended up as a “comfort woman”. Soon Hyo eventually realizes that she cannot
trust language, so she shows her daughter love in the only way she knows how:
by using her body and body language. For Soon Hyo, actions really do speak
louder than words. Her daughter Beccah, in turn, shares a distrust of language.
She does not realize that her mother tries to show her love through actions
instead of words. Instead, Beccah ends up not trusting her mother, dismissing
everything her mother says as crazy. This distrust in language leads to
different ways of communicating. As mentioned above, Soon Hyo starts to rely
more on actions rather than words, which is true for Hana as well. Even though
Hana tries to learn Mongolian and keeps improving, she is not able to freely
communicate with anyone besides one member of the family, who happens to speak
Japanese. In order to communicate, she and the other members of the family rely
mainly on gesturing and actions. For Hana this seems somehow freeing. She knows
that words can be empty and deceiving, while actions speak for themselves. For
example, Morimoto promised her many beautiful things, yet these words always
followed after he raped or beat her. She realizes Morimoto’s true nature
through his actions rather than through his words. This makes her relationship
with Altan that much more meaningful, as he can only show actions and is sincere
in them, saving her from her captors.
While Sybil in Sunday Girl does not necessarily rely on actions, she does realize
that there are different ways to communicate. At one point in the novel, she is
talking about the Korean War with an older woman. The older woman tells her
about the scarcity of food during the war, and how much more she appreciates
food now (Lee 42). This makes Sybil think about how her own mother, who never
talked about the war, always made sure to stock their fridge and pantry. She
than says: “I understand that she’d been telling me about the war in a
different way. I’ve been blind to it, this silent language of objects” (Lee
43). This, again, reflects the lives of many “comfort women”. While for a long
time others tried to silence them, they still found their own ways to speak out
in the hopes of being heard.
Relationships
A shared theme in all novels is how being a “comfort woman”
shaped relationships that, in turn, provide insight into how their histories
were told. Two types of relationships are central. The first is familial
relationships, and the second the relationship between the “comfort women”
themselves.
In
both Comfort Woman and White Chrysanthemum, the bond between
family members is the bond that is most central to the story. Comfort Woman very clearly is about the
relationship between mothers and daughters. Soon Hyo and Beccah have a
difficult relationship, partly because of Soon Hyo’s silence about having been
a “comfort woman”. This dynamic is one that is present in White Chrysanthemum as well, between Emi and her daughter, Yoon
Hui. While Emi herself was not a “comfort woman”, her sister was, which she did
not tell her children. This has to do with how Korean society treated comfort
women. Angella Son mentions that “they were indoctrinated by the Confucian
teaching elevates chastity to the highest virtue for girls and women” (190) .
In fact, survivor Lee Young-Ok, in an interview with Pyong Gap Min, stated that
the virtue of a woman was considered to be more important than her life (Min
950).This made it incredibly hard for “comfort women” to step forward and tell
their story, as they had been “stained”. According to Son, they were “rejected
and abandoned as damaged goods and denigrated as prostitutes, i.e., impure
girls and women” (190). Most women were terrified of telling their families
(Min 949) but in the novels, sharing their stories with their daughters results
in a knowledge that strengthens family ties, respect, and individual
identity.
Another central familial relationship
is the one between sisters, most notably between Emi and Hana in White Chrysanthemum. When it comes to
Emi, we once again see the connection to shame. Emi admits that she does not
talk about Hana because she was ashamed.
However, she was not ashamed of the fact that her sister
was a “comfort woman”, but rather of the fact that she let it happen. Emi
stayed quiet while Hana protected her. While Emi herself was never a “comfort
woman”, the fact that her sister was taken still caused her trauma. Afraid of
what others would think, she remained silent about her sister. By eventually
telling her children, she is able to pass on her sister’s story to the next
generation, leaving them with the responsibility of carrying the story forward.
The bond between “comfort women” is
complicated. First, the situation they were forced into also forces them into a
relationship in which the decisions and fate of one girl informed the fate of
the other girls, which could have deadly consequences. This dynamic can clearly
be seen in Comfort Woman. When Soon
Hyo was taken to the “comfort station”, she was too young to be a “comfort
woman”, so they made her do chores instead. This changes when Induk, the former
Akiko, decides to put an end to her misery by goading the soldiers into killing
her. By getting herself killed, Induk finally obtains some form of peace, but
this comes at the cost of Soon Hyo, who is made to replace Induk (Keller).
In
White Chrysanthemum, Hana discovers
this dynamic too. The first time she does is when she is transported to
Manchuria. Two soldiers come in to choose a girl. They first pick Hana, until
they realize she just wet herself. Disgusted, they choose SangSoo instead, a
younger girl that reminds Hana of her sister (Bracht 50). The next time Hana
encounters her friend again, SangSoo has been assaulted to the point she
succumbs to her wounds (Bracht).
Hana blames herself for SangSoo’s death, whishing that she
could have protected the girl, while at the same time feeling relieved that she
was not chosen (Bracht 52). She feels the responsibility of the lives of other
“comfort women” again when she is offered a way to escape by Morimoto. Hana
knows that if she decides to leave, the other girls will be punished for her
decision (Bracht 151). In the end, her own survival is more important to her
and she leaves, betraying the other girls.
Sunday
Girl brings the dynamic of the relationship between “comfort women” to a
contemporary setting. The two central characters, Sybil and Jang-Mee share the
same type of relationship as the one between “comfort women”. When the two
women are threatened by an unknown man, the man has the intention of sexually
assaulting Sybil (Lee 27). In a turn of events, Jang-Mee tries to protect
Sybil. In the skirmish, Sybil falls and loses consciousness, and the man rapes
Jang-Mee instead (31). Like in the other novels, the fate of Sybil decides the
fate of Jang-Mee.
“Comfort women” also supported each
other. When Hana first arrives at the brothel, she is unable to form a bond
with the other girls, with the exception of Keiko. She acts strong and does not
want the other girls to pity her, but she later realizes that that is exactly
what keeps the girls from bonding. She admits that “lost in her own misery, she
has failed to notice that the other girls are experiencing the same miseries
too” (Bracht 125). Once Hana admits that she suffers as much as the others, a
bond develops. Hana mentions that, after opening herself up, the girls start
talking to her. The conversations result in Hana smiling for the first time
since arriving at the “comfort station” (Bracht 126).
Camaraderie requires bravery and
provides comfort. Keiko risks punishment, for example, by going to Hana and
comforting her after she has just arrived (Bracht 114). Comfort Woman also illustrates ways that the women and girls
comforted each other. Before
Soon Hyo becomes a “comfort woman”, she does chores in the
camp, including taking care of the women. She even passes messages between
them, which is not allowed (Keller). Like Keiko, she risks a lot, potentially
her life, by helping the other women. These actions speak to agency within
captivity.
Albeit in a different way than in the
other novels, Sybil and Jang-Mee form a bond with “comfort women”. Jeongyun Ko,
professor at Dong-A University explains that “Lee creates Jang-Mee as a rape
victim and Sybil as a witness to the crime to make them female successors of
comfort women: the only way Jang-Mee and Sybil become spiritually connected to
the ghost of a comfort woman is by facing physically extreme sexual violence”
(107). They do not know any actual
“comfort women”, but instead are linked to their ghosts.
When Sybil watches Kim Hak-Soon testify on tv, Sybil has a
vision. In this vision, Sybil, Jang-Mee, the ghost of the “comfort woman” they
have been seeing, and Kim Hak-Soon all turn into the same girl, showing the
connection between them (Lee 284). At this point, Sybil acknowledges that while
she might not now the “comfort women themselves”, she can feel what they are
feeling. This is not merely because she was sexually abused, but because they
belong to her ancestry:
“I had shared myself, opened myself to the spirits of
ancestors whom I had not been allowed to know.
Those who had beckoned me back to the land where my mother was born and
the generations who had come before.
They had been within me, within my blood. I had let them come, colonize me, rape and
pillage me with their fury, their bitterness, their han. I had let them have their say, those who
never had a voice. And they had etched
their trials on my flesh, leaving traces of their stories for me to remember”
(287).
The relationship that Jang-Mee and Sybil have with the
“comfort women” show how the “comfort women’s” history still lives on in
subsequent generations.
Conclusion
The novels by Keller, Bracht, and Lee
demonstrate the loss of identity “comfort women” had to endure. The novels
speak to a variety of issues surrounding the history of the “comfort system”.
All of them explore the intersection of gender and war, and look at what role
nationality and colonialism played as well. Perhaps most importantly, though,
is that the novels are about the construction of narrative and memory.
The story of “comfort women” is a
story that, for a long period of time, was ignored. After the war, years of
silence followed. For years, the women were “perceived as shameful to Korea as
a nation” (Son 190). After they came forward, people had the tendency to paint
them as helpless women who were victims of sexual exploitation by the Japanese
military (Kimura 16). What is often overlooked is that by speaking out, the
women have become active participants in shaping history, and have created
their own narrative. At the end of Sunday
Girl, Kim Hak-Soon gives her testimony for the very first time. She decided
that she would no longer let others define her life. By breaking their silence,
“comfort women” did not just shape their own story, but they began to play a
role in knowledge production as well. They redefined “the limits of who can
speak and whose memories matter in dominant accounts of the war throughout
Asia” (O’Brien 4). They stepped forward to rewrite history.
The novels by Keller, Bracht, and Lee
speak to the creation of one’s own narrative. They show that “comfort women”
were able to create a space in which they could speak out, and regain their
identities, even while captive. While language was weaponized by the Japanese
military, the girls found ways to use it to their own advantage. The same holds
true in the relationship between “comfort women”. There were obstacles put in
place to prevent the girls from bonding, but the girls overcame this, too. In
the limited space they had, the girls were still able to control a bit of their
lives.
Despite the years of silence, “comfort
women” still became part of the story and identity of Korea, and mainly Korean
women. The novels demonstrate that the history of “comfort women” transcends
generations. The past and present are connected through han.
The trauma runs so deep that it does not only transcend
generations, but nations as well. Korean American Seo-Young Chu says there is a
specific way in which memory plays a role in Korean American identity, which
she calls “postmemory han” (97).
According to anthropologist and feminist Hae-Joang Cho[7],
Korean-American women seem to have great interest in the problem of comfort
women”. She continues, saying that “they explained that it was because they
were living in a racist society as Korean descendants and this problem is
really close to their hearts”. The fact that the novels used in this paper were
all written by Korean American women speaks to her point.
Unfortunately, sexual slavery is not
something from the past. For example, in 2014, thousands of Yazidi women and
children were kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery (Ochab). This makes the
“comfort women issue” that much more important. The issue can be used to
uncover the inner workings of organized sexual slavery, as well as predict the
aftermath. By looking at the “comfort women”, we can learn from the mistakes
that were made, for example how the women were treated as culprits and shamed
into non-existence. The debate about restitution can help victims of sexual
slavery and exploitation get the justice “comfort women” were denied.
History is often told by one dominant
group. The stories of people that fall out of that group are ignored. The
“comfort women” issue tells us what happens when people are erased from
history. Some of these women were brave enough to take matters into their own
hands and tell the world what had happened. Unfortunately, there are not many
survivors left. As it is still not widespread, the story of the “comfort women”
runs the risk of disappearing from history, despite the effects it had on
subsequent generations. History shapes the present, but the present has the
ability to decide what history gets told. Therefore, it is our responsibility
to speak out on behalf of those who cannot anymore, and pass down the history
of “comfort women”. That way, these women will not become invisible again. They
will live on in our history and memory.
Works Cited
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[1] I am aware that the term
“comfort woman” is controversial. However, the same goes for other terms used
to describe these women. For the lack of a better alternative and the sake of
clarity, I will use the term “comfort women”, but add quotation marks to highlight
that the term is problematic. I will do the same for terms like
“comfort system” and
“comfort station”.
[2] Nora Okja Keller was born in
Seoul, Korea to a German father and a Korean mother, but grew up in Hawaii,
where she still lives (Birnbaum, Keller). Mary Lynn Bracht, born in Stuttgart,
grew up in Texas with an American father and Korean mother (Lang, Bracht).
Kalliope Lee was also born in Korea, but moved to New York when she was four
years old (Kwon, Lee).
[3] Other novels dealing with the
same topic include A Gesture Life by
Chang-Rae Lee and A Gift of the Emperor by
Therese Park. Comfort Woman, White
Chrysanthemum, and Sunday Girl, however,
are all unique in that they explore how the past haunts the present.
[4] Han “takes the form of a painful, invisible knot that an individual
carries in her heart over a long period of time, made of a complex of
undesirable emotions and sentiments such as sadness, regret, anger, remorse,
and resignation” (Soh 80). Han developed
because of the turbulent history of Korea. Think for example of the Japanese
occupation and the Korean War, which divided Korea in two. According to
Seo-Young Chu, han is passed on from
Korean mother to Korean American daughter (100). This means that even though
younger generations might not have experienced traumatic events themselves,
they still carry scars with them. 5 Halmoni
is the Korean word for grandmother.
[5] According to Heit the term
“rape warfare” is “rape used in a conscious effort by a military or government
to affect the outcome of war” (364).
[6] As a Japanese man, he uses
his family name first, and then his personal name. For clarity, I have
rewritten his name in a “Western” fashion: personal name first, followed by his
family name.
[7] As a Korean woman, she uses
her family name first, and then her personal name. For clarity, I have
rewritten her name in a “Western” fashion: personal name first, followed by her
family name.
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