'Snowy road'
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By Choi Tae-hwan
Two girls who had been taken to a ``comfort station” set up by the Japanese military escaped from the Japanese soldiers who had opened fire and had to take a long, snowy road to get back home. On that snowy road back to their hometown, Young-ae lost her life after asking her friend, Jong-bun, to leave her behind. Arriving back at her hometown, she found that her mother and sister were gone or had died. In addition, the rumor that she had been a comfort woman forced her to eventually leave.
This is the story of a special drama, ``Snowy road,” produced in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the restoration of Korea’s independence, which is said to describe the stark reality that there are only 238 comfort women who registered in Korea, of whom only 53 still survive.
That is to say, this special drama is thought to describe the reality that the young girls who were full of dreams are extorted of their youth and purity and then forced to live a terrible life worse than death.
In the latter part of the drama, an old woman, Jong-bun, lives her poor life with government support in a single room in a basement, where she is seen knitting. She couldn’t use her own name, because she had been taken away to a Japanese military camp while sleeping, and lived the rest of her life under the name of Young-ae.
Personally, news of “Snowy road” made me happy and sad, because I have been looking forward to the production of this kind of drama or movie dealing with the atrocities of sexual enslavement committed against Korean girls by Japanese military forces during World War II.
There have been many kinds of dramas or movies that dealt with lots of social issues, such as sexual violence against the disabled, racial discrimination against foreigners in Korea and historical issues, which are thought to have great influence on changing of the thoughts and opinions people have about those issues. Unfortunately, we have only had a few dramas about the comfort women, perhaps because there is a reluctance to dig up the truth and stark reality of the sexual slavery of young Korean girls for Japanese soldiers during the war.
What an atrocious sexual crime and violation of human rights it was for those girls to be forced to be sexual slaves! Compounding that has been the Japanese government’s continued refusal to properly acknowledge and apologize for its atrocious deed.
I am looking forward to seeing wonderful movies about all kinds of historical issues between Japan and Korea such as Dokdo, the comfort women and 36 years of Japanese colonial rule. In my opinion, that cultural approach to historic issues will have great influence on changing the thoughts and opinions of people, much like the movie “Pearl Harbor” did about the Japanese military’s surprise attack that brought the U.S. into WWII.
The best way to tackle the distortion of the history between Japan and Korea by the Japanese government is to reveal the truth by releasing an exceptional movie about the atrocity and misery of the young Korean girls forced into sexual slavery.
I really hope the government and art authority concerned will leave no stones unturned to have great influence on the truth of history, so that the Japanese government can no longer distort the story of what happened to the comfort women when it educates Japanese youths.
The writer is an English teacher at Jeonnam Middle School in Gwangju. His email address is cth0707@hanmail.net.