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RAS Korea kicks off lecture program with look at Allied POWs in WWII Korea
Matt VanVolkenburg leads a tour of southwestern Seoul's Mount Gaehwa for Royal Asiatic Society Korea, April 13, 2019. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar
By Jon Dunbar
VanVolkenburg leads walking tour of Sindang-dong
After its half-year in limbo, Royal Asiatic Society (RAS) Korea announced its return in May and presented a full slate of upcoming lectures and excursions.
Most of the names are RAS Korea regulars, which should come as no surprise, as RAS Korea seeks to reestablish itself and work with some of its most reliable figures representing the world's oldest English-language Korean studies organization.
As RAS Korea restarts its activities, VanVolkenburg, one of its remaining officers, took on the task of organizing lectures and cultural excursions. “It’s great to see the hard work of president Denny Park and office manager Joanne Hong in securing funding and legal registration pay off and bring the RAS back to life, though it took longer than expected," he said. "We wanted to have a list of upcoming activities when we relaunched, so it was a rush to find speakers and excursion leaders. I’m thankful to those who committed so quickly, but the short notice for the first lecture made it difficult to schedule, so I decided the easiest solution was to dust off and expand a presentation I gave in grad school.”
VanVolkenburg will give RAS Korea's first lecture of 2025 on Allied prisoners of war who were interned at POW camps on the Korean Peninsula during World War II when the country was occupied by imperial Japan. The Japanese sought to weaken Koreans’ positive perceptions of Westerners, mainly Americans and British soldiers who had been captured far from the peninsula. The POWs were brought to Korea in September 1942, paraded before the public and forced to do hard labor. One of the POW camps stood on the grounds of today's Shinkwang Girls' Middle School, and traces of it still existed until the early 2010s.
"The experiences of the POWs in Korea provide a lens through which to view the final years of the Japanese empire, the attempts of the Japanese to convince Koreans to join the imperial cause and the opening weeks of Korea’s occupation by the U.S. and USSR," VanVolkenburg, a Canadian originally from Havelock, Ontario, said in an online invitation.
RAS Korea offered a lecture on a similar topic in 2013, delivered by Jacco Zwetsloot with assistance from VanVolkenburg.
This time around, VanVolkenburg will focus on more recent findings from his own research, which was published in Vol. 97 of RAS Korea’s journal Transactions as “The use of Allied POWs for propaganda purposes in Korea during World War II,” as well as sketchbooks, films and more recent books on the topic, such as Chris Given-Wilson’s “You Must Endure: The Lancashire Loyals in Japanese captivity, 1942–1945.”
Matt VanVolkenburg gives a lecture for RAS Korea on Korea's experimental art scene of the 1970s in central Seoul, Jan. 16, 2024. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar
This weekend VanVolkenburg will also lead the inaugural excursion, “East of Gwanghuimun: Alleyways, Forests and Gentrification.” Intended as a sequel to his tour last year of Sindang-dong, or "Hipdang-dong" as the gentrifying area is sometimes nicknamed, this one leads the way through narrow alleyways, food streets, a former reservoir accessible by monorail, an ex-president's house, a Central Asian neighborhood and a city gate that used to lead out of the city to a large cemetery.
“Some of these spots are my favorite places to walk around, and over a period of three hours we’ll explore a variety of urban environments and park spaces,” said VanVolkenburg, who has lived in the area for over six years.
VanVolkenburg first arrived in Korea in 2001, and created his blog, Gusts of Popular Feeling, in 2005, where for 20 years he has written about modern Korean history, including film, music, urban redevelopment and depictions of foreigners. He received a master's degree in Korean studies from the University of Washington and is the co-author of “Called by Another Name: A Memoir of the Gwangju Uprising.” He has also been a history columnist for The Korea Times since January 2018, tracing history through newspaper archives. His current research interests include 1970s youth culture, the history of Itaewon, Korea-U.S. relations and the Gwangju Uprising.
The POW camp lecture on Wednesday at 7:20 p.m. is in the basement of the Seoul Public Activities Center near Exit 8 of Samgakji Station on Seoul Metro lines 4 and 6. Entry costs 10,000 won, or 5,000 won for students of all ages with valid student ID, and is free for RAS Korea members.
The Sindang-dong excursion starts at 2 p.m. on Saturday, and costs 25,000 won for RAS Korea members and 30,000 won for nonmembers.
Visit raskb.com for more information.