Japanese Guide in Korea Shares Dark Truths About Her Homeland
By Shigehiko Togo
The Washington Post
March 19, 2001SEOUL
In this part of the world, where the past is so entangled with the present, Ikuyo Yamada has put herself squarely in a historical minefield.
Yamada, a 36-year-old Japanese woman who followed her husband and his job to Seoul, has volunteered to tell Japanese visitors about the dark history of Japan's occupation of Korea. She does so while guiding visitors around the grim Seodaemun Prison in Seoul, a symbol of Japan's harsh rule between 1910 and 1945.
The novelty of this Japanese woman saying publicly what Koreans believe most Japanese are reluctant to hear has made her a bit of a celebrity. She has been the subject of a flurry of articles and newscasts in Korea.
"They were surprised and asked me why I took on this task, the first Japanese to do it," she said. "I told them many Japanese still don't reflect enough about the past, and don't respect other Asians. So, serving as guide, I wanted to change that."
That charge is made routinely by Japan's neighbors, who still suspect that Japan has not faced up to its wartime past. The attention to Yamada has been heightened by the most recent squabble over Japan's history. At issue is the draft of a junior high school history textbook about Japan's conquests of Korea, Southeast Asia and parts of China that ended with Japan's defeat in 1945.
The draft, according to leaked excerpts, suggested Japan was coerced into attacking Pearl Harbor, cast doubt on the Nanjing Massacre in China, justified Japan's conquest of Korea as "legal" and omitted any mention of the system of prostitution of Korean and Chinese women for the Japanese army.
The draft prompted protests from Korea and China; Japanese education authorities have ordered 137 changes in the text.
Yamada said Japanese don't understand their own history. "Many Japanese who visit here have almost no knowledge of the past, she said at Seodaemun, where 40,000 political prisoners were incarcerated between 1908 and 1945, and hundreds were executed. "Only by being here, by seeing and feeling it, can one really understand the reality and meaning of what we have done to this country."
Relations between Japan and Korea have gradually improved since the end of the war. But issues such as the textbook controversy help explain why South Korea maintains places like Seodaemun, now a museum whose grim exhibits show the results of torture and execution of prisoners at the hands of their Japanese captors. One exhibit is devoted to Yoo Kwan Soon, a high school girl who joined a 1919 protest for Korean independence and was arrested, tortured and killed at Seodaemun. "There are many martyrs like her who are famous in Korea, but they are unknown in Japan," said Yamada.
About 8,500 of the museum's 400,000 annual visitors are from Japan. Yamada was one of them, after she moved to Korea in 1999. Her interest in modern history was triggered 10 years ago, when she was working as a clerk at a university in Japan and realized that students from elsewhere in Asia carried a negative view of Japan. She learned Korean and whenever she traveled, she visited sites related to the war.
"When I learned that Japanese can volunteer to be a guide here, I decided to take the challenge," she said. "We must make an effort to share the history between the two countries. If not, Japan will never be trusted by our neighbors."
Yoon Hyun Jung, director of the prison museum, said Yamada is helping to bridge the gap between Korea and Japan. The media attention has also attracted more Korean visitors, Yoon said. "Here, too, the younger generation does not necessarily have much interest in history."
The reaction to Yamada by Japanese visitors to Seodaemun has been mixed. A group of Japanese university students thanked her for teaching them a history different from what they knew. "I was happy to hear that. I told them history is not something that belongs to the past. It is a matter for today," she said.
But another Japanese visitor scolded her. "Japan is not the only country that did these kinds of things. Why are only Japanese blamed?" the woman complained. Yamada, then new to the job, did not argue. But "if it were today, I would tell her that even though Japan is not the only country that did this kind of things, it doesn't justify us. I would tell her, 'This is the truth. Please see it straight.' "