New York Review of Books Introduces Emily Jungmin Yoon

Maya Chung illustrates the experiences of comfort women during World War II and outlines how their stories informed Emily Jungmin Yoon's poetry collection, A Cruelty Special to Our Species (Ecco, 2018), in an article published recently at New York Review of Books. Chung explains that "[o]n August 14, Korea and Taiwan unveiled two statues commemorating the 80,000 to 200,000 'comfort women,' primarily from Korea, but also from Taiwan, China, and Southeast Asia, who were forced into prostitution by the Japanese army during World War II. The two statues marked South Korea’s first 'Memorial Day for Japanese Forces’ Comfort Women Victims.'" From there: 

“My hope is that this issue will not lead to a diplomatic dispute between South Korea and Japan,” South Korean president Moon Jae-in said in a commemoration speech, knowing that if history has anything to say about relations between the two nations, this may well be impossible. Japan and Korea have had a vexed relationship since Japan first established colonial rule in Korea in 1910, which ended after World War II, in 1945. While Koreans were officially considered the “Emperor’s children,” they were denied many civil rights, including voting for the Diet’s Lower House, unless they were permanent residents of Japan.

Since the bronze “Statue of Peace” was constructed in front of Seoul’s Japanese Embassy by Korean activists in 2011, other monuments have gone up in Busan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and elsewhere—met with protests by those Japanese who feel that the statues overstep a 2015 deal, whereby the Japanese government apologized to Korean victims and set up a one billion yen fund to support them. Many believe this agreement finally, irrevocably resolved the issue.

The history of comfort women is complex, not least because in the years following the war, many of the women fell into obscurity. Former comfort women struggled to reintegrate into Korean society, suffering from psychological trauma, abuse, and infertility, and no victims spoke publicly until the Nineties. Records from wartime are limited to written documentation by the men who supervised the comfort women system. There are few official records chronicling how these women were drafted into labor; those that do exist have been vague enough that Japanese officials have been able to deny evidence of forced recruitment. This contentious history has continued to reemerge over the decades since World War II: with every monument that’s raised by still-grieving Koreans, the debate is reopened.

Former comfort women experienced acute shame when they returned home after the war. Kim Hak-sun, who in 1991 became the first woman to speak publicly about her experience, revealed protracted abuse she suffered from her husband. “I had to suffer the hurt and indignity of being debased by my own husband who, when drunk, would abuse me in front of our son by calling me a ‘dirty bitch’ who prostituted herself for soldiers,” she said. Korean women were often considered traitorous and dirty for sleeping with the enemy; those who returned home struggled to recover and reintegrate as they rejoined the families they had left behind or tried to start their own.

Read more at New York Review of Books.