Jason Lim is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture.
Who's criticizing Japan collaborators?
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By Jason Lim
My father, who grew up in Pyongyang during and after Japanese rule, remembers how people would suddenly show up and sweep the lane from the main road to his childhood home clean a day before the younger brother of his grandmother would come to visit. And when he would come, he was accompanied by all the pomp and circumstance, including a police escort, as befit a member of the local government council whose select members were appointed by the Japanese governor.
My father’s grandfather, on the other hand, was an ardent supporter of the Korean independence movement in Manchuria, selling all of his property, except for the main house, to fund the fledgling movement. He even left behind his wife and children to permanently relocate to Manchuria to participate directly. Since he was the third-generation descendant of the great Ginseng merchant of Joseon, Lim Sang-ok, who was at one time the wealthiest man in the peninsula (whose trade exploits were so legendary that a popular Korean TV drama in 2001, called “Sang-do,” was based on his life), he must have had some significant property left to sell off.
On the surface, it might seem strange that a member of a Japanese collaborator family would be married off to a Korean independence movement supporter. However, if you consider that marriage in Korea was one of convenience between families of similar means, then it’s not so strange after all to see a politically powerful family marrying into old money.
To summarize, my dad’s grandmother was from a prominent Japanese collaborator family, and his grandfather was a Korean independence movement supporter. What does that make my father?
When my father escaped the advancing Red Chinese army in the winter of 1950 and found himself, alone, penniless, hungry and not able to understand the thick accent of Busan, was he a Japanese collaborator or an independence fighter? When he was a South Korean soldier shooting at North Korean soldiers during the war, was he a Japanese collaborator or an independence fighter?
I use my family’s example to illustrate that the labeling of someone as a Japanese collaborator solely based on family history is not so simple.
Let’s take another example. Say you were born to a poor, rural family in 1920. But you had brains, ambition, and the work ethic to graduate from the top of your class and pass the exam qualifying you as a judge. Say that this happened in 1944. Did you achieve success? Yes. Now forward a year and it’s now September 1945. What about now? You are now a traitor to your country and people. You are a Japanese collaborator, probably waiting to be arrested or killed. Luckily, the Americans and Seung-man Rhee’s administration in the South not only allowed you to keep your job but depended on you to administer the country. In the North, you weren’t so lucky.
The same goes to all the bureaucrats, administrators, businessmen, and other so-called elites from the Japanese colonial era. They did what they could to survive in a hostile environment. Did some victimize their own people for personal gain? Undoubtedly. Were some of them more predatory toward their own than the Japanese overlords? Absolutely. Should they be judged by history for their behaviors during this era? Inevitably.
But should their descendants be criticized and penalized for having such grandfathers and fathers? Absolutely not.
Why should any child be responsible for the sins of his or her father? Critics point out that the children of Japanese collaborators had an unfair advantage in their lives because of the power and wealth of their forefathers. True, but inequality of opportunity based on family background exists in every society. How is this different from the descendants of American industrial barons and slave-owning plantation owners who were similarly advantaged? Further, family it’s not an absolute variable in one’s success; I am sure there are many children of Japanese collaborators who are not successful, and vice versa.
I believe that the underlying cause of South Korea’s obsession with Japanese collaborators is today’s socioeconomic inequality. Publishing names of Japanese collaborators seems less an exercise in historical research but more naming and shaming. Attaching the emotionally-laden Japanese collaborator label to successful people in today’s Korea seeks to delegitimize the success achieved by the elite while telling yourself that it’s not really your fault for not doing well because the deck is stacked against you. The fact that people tell you that descendants of Japanese collaborators are the ones stacking the deck makes you feel the sense of morally righteous indignation that’s so satisfying.
And it can be so destructive because it can victimize others unfairly while distracting South Korea from having a real discussion about the lack of opportunities and the widening gap between the rich and poor.
Jason Lim is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture. He has been writing for The Korea Times since 2006. He can be reached at jasonlim@msn.com, facebook.com/jasonlimkoreatimes and @jasonlim2012.