재일 한인 생활사의 수필문학적 형상과 의미

The Representation and Implication of Korean Residents" Livelihood in Japan on Essay Literature

  This paper is designed to pursue the implications of essay writings portraying the lives of the Korean residents in Japan as well as the types of essays representing their lifestyles. Those essays on ethnic Koreans" lives in Japan are examined greatly through three different categorizations in terms of their respective representation and implication of the ethnic Koreans" life patterns, i.e. the life as a migrant and his/her nostalgic sentiment, the quest for his/her identity and the recognition of Japan as an existential being, and the realization of problems with homeland and his/her own will of the resolution.   First, the essays on those ethnic Koreans" migratory experiences strongly tingle with painful and endless nostalgia, not only of abductees with bitter lives but of those who voluntarily emigrated to Japan to escape from the exploitative reality in their native country. For them, home country served as the source of hope that enables them to stand against their difficulties. They bore their adversities with the only hope that they could return home someday, yearning more for home as their lives get harder. On this aspect, home is often portrayed not as a real picture of the life itself, but as a beautiful representation of their memory such as fragmentary but romantic picture. Ironically, however, the sense of loss sometimes transforms itself into the image of a desperate willingness for survival that they have no choice but to survive in Japan.   Second, the matter of identity that appears in the ethnic Korean"s essays is two-faceted. One is a contention that any korean descendent should be aware of the identity as Korean. These types of essays occasionally assume that both an attitude toward criticism and rejection of speech and action fail to show the identity. In other cases, they worry too much about an unanswerable problem of choosing between national awareness and realistic limitations to seize themselves with a great pity. The other is a concern with the process of an active quest for identity. While the essays mentioned above represent the mental superiority of Korean language and its traditional culture, these essays function both as an important clue to find their identity and a precious connector of them and their home country, and them and their family. They acknowledge that they are so-called "Korean-Japanese, who belong neither under Koreans nor Japanese; they exist "between" the two. This "between" is not a passive retreat, but an active boundary with its own value at a place rather than Korea or Japan.   Finally, the author will illustrate the remainder of essays mentioned earlier in this paper which was not discussed in detail. Those essays are works of the ethnic Koreans" active effort to break the fetters of the division in their native country and its political problems beyond the struggling issue of survival and discrimination they face in Japan. Though, further discussion on these essays will be presented on next dissertation.