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Ponta,

Applying your “there is no real root cause” logic to Japan’s entry into WWII, I could argue that the US embargo is no more a cause of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor than the very fact that Japan existed. I would not argue this, but that is your logic. You, for some reason, are unable to connect the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910-1945 to the August 1945 Soviet-US agreement to divide the peninsula for the purpose of accepting the surrender of Japanese troops.

“To me the major players of the division were Koreans and the US, Russia and China. If you call Japanese occupation a cause for the division, I would say it is a remote cause, if it is a cause at all. But you are picking only Japan in this context ignoring apparent players just as Korean ultra-nationalists would when they blame Japan, though they sometimes shift the blame to the US depending on their convenience.”

I would agree with the contention that the Koreans, US, and Russia were the major players. Japan was not a player; it did not participate at all in the decision to divide the peninsula. However, its occupation set the stage for the division, and that is why is correct to identify it as a cause. The reason I mentioned Japan only is because the original topic was comparing Korea’s resentment of Japan to the feelings of other formely occupied Asian nations. Korea’s feelings towards Russia or the US are irrelevant. You are correct that Korean nationalists tend to shift blame between Japan or the US, whichever suits them.

Not all causes are volitional – that is to say that some actions or decisions lead to unexpected or unintended outcomes. Let me give you an example. Suppose I buy a new house with an expensive mortgage. Then the housing market crashes and my home is worth much less. I get a job transfer and have to sell the house at a loss.

cause-effect chain: lose money – sell house – market crashed – bought house with expensive mortgage

Now I didn’t have to buy that house. I could have bought a cheaper house, but I chose to buy the expensive one. I didn’t cause the housing market crash that robbed me of the value of my house.

Japan didn’t intend nor participate directly in the division of the Korean peninsula. Its occupation set in motion the chain of events that led to the division. It is a cause. It is not the main cause.

As for the comparison with Hawaii, if you really want to compare, go ahead. Maybe you can google some survey data and get back to us.

You guys are only focused on 1880 to 1945 as far as the relationship goes between Korea and Japan. The relationship between these countries goes all the way back to Japan’s origin. Read the book “From Paekche Korea to the origin of Yamato Japan”, you might get a little bit of a better understanding. Also, read all the written work in Japan between 4th century AD and 8th century AD. They are written in Korean. Historians are still debating why the Japanese wrote in Korean for 4 centuries, so until that is resloved you can figure out your own views. Think about why Japan was so obsessed with eradicating Korean culture, but not as obsessed with Taiwans. If you think about how similar the two cultures are in terms of pottery making style, sword making, grammar, silk production, sports, heirarchcy system, etc. Also, when they introduced these new things to Taiwan the culture was distinct enough that they didn’t think it was identical to their own even if the culture had its roots in China. But when they tried to introduce the Japanese culture in Korea, the Koreans would resist cause it was the same way they had been making pottery or swords for thousands of years. The Japanese were just asking the Koreans to pronounce the technique with a Japanese word and say it is Japanese culture. This caused alot of resistance. Even the words for the the techniques sounded similar, they were basically ancient Chinese root word, which the Koreans were using already with a Korean accent, now the Japanese were asking them to use it with a Japanese accent. The problem was that information from Asia flowed mainly from the contenint to the peninsula to Japan. Japan and Korea had very similar ways of doing things, different enough from Taiwan/China but nearly identical to each other.

Remember when the Japanese started opening the Imperial tombs in Japan they pulled out all Korean artifacts and distinctive Korean products such as horse culture at a time in Japanese history when japan didn’t have horses. This lead to a statement by the Imperial family to state that the tombs were holy and should not be disturbed by archeologists. They closed it from the public, but put in an all Japanese archeology team to dig up the tombs. They would let the world see what was coming out of the tombs. In the 1980′s Prince Aikito(when he was still prince, not yet the emperor) make an odd comment stating he felt a kinship to the Koreans cause of Japans Imperial families ancestory to them. These actions made alot of people wonder and many people wanted to explore the tombs archeologically. It wasn’t until recently that Japan stated they may open it up for international scholars to study in a controlled manner.

If you take their long historical relationship in to account you can see the difference in reaction to events. If the Japanese were to get upset at the Koreans cause of history they are not as direct about it. But when the Koreans are upset their is much more emotion associated with it cause they are still living with the aftermath of Japan’s WWII aggressions. You can even see similar reactions in modern day courts, the victims of a family murder/robbery will usually be screaming at the criminal and hope they get the maximun punishment, the criminal will usually be silent and angry at the people for screaming at them or if they do apologize they will make it vague in order not to incriminate themselves further. Always hoping for a lessor sentence and stating he/she has paid enough for the crime. Usually the victim will scream you haven’t paid enough what about the family member you killed, when will that victim come back, what is he/she paying for why is my family member still dead while you are now free and your family had been living of the money you stole from the victim getting a good education living well, while the victims family was starving and had no money for an education, etc.

You also have to look at the similarities and differences between Nazi Germany and Facist Japan. More than 26 million asians died, 6 million from Korea alone in WWII. Japan still pays tribute to the 2.5 million soldiers from WWII (including class A war criminals)
That would be like the head of state in Germany praying and paying tribute to Hitler and his generals for their sacrifice in WWII, then expecting no reaction from other countries stating it is a internal Japanese affair. (more than 26 million non-Japanese died (civilians, children, women etc)

Japan in the international setting states certain atrocities happened, but then when back in Japan the apology or statement is retracted and they say it was stated for political reasons. This causes a lot of confusion internationaly, especially when the apology most of the time are statement of general regret for a tragic past without any specifics for details. This is a complete contrast from the Germans.

WWII didn’t really end yet for the Koreans, they are still divided in two the reason being traced back to Japans aggressions in Asia.

This is just a bare glance at the relationship between these two countries, but these are the 2 points that they argue most about which are Japan’s origin and Japan’s invasions. Now taking that in to account you can see why it is so important for the book
“So far from the bamboo grove” to have a historical context. This book is usually introduced in english class and not a history class, most english teachers do not know enough about world history to properly set the historical context.

Historical context can explain the different reactions the two countries have, why one country more vocal and the other silently antagonistic.

While I applaud the fact that we are trying to include more asian literature in school for younger children, this is not the one.

I don’t want my child to be introduce to rape at such a young age.

The book also, is misleading cause even though it is suppose to be a fictional autobiography, it has enough real elements to it to make it distort history. The communist soldier in uniform do not appear in Korea until 1948, if their were soldiers in uniform in 1944 they were not Korean. The Japanese are not disarm immediately after their surrender. They still have their weapons long after Yoko’s family flees Korea, who the armed Japanese were getting raped by unarmed Koreans is questionable.

The United states and the Soviets state they did not bomb Northern Korea, there was little resistance, they came rolling in with out a major battle, so what bombing of Korea, Yoko Watkins is talking about is questionable.

With all these fictional insert embedded in to real countries with real histories makes things too confusing for a child.

No matter what, I don’t want rape to be introduced in this way cause the only way to make this book balanced would be to introduce Sex slaves (comfort women), Unit 731, and Nanking massacre. I don’t want these things to be introduced to a child in english class by a teacher who may not have the proper knowledge base for world history.