Richard Kim's Lost Names

Richard Kim's Lost Names Scenes From A Korean Boyhood is said to be a semi-autobiographic account of growing up in Korea during the Japanese colonization of the Korean Peninsula.

Several aspects of life under Japanese domination were depicted.

Such as how rice were scarce and expensive not because rice harvest was poor, but because farmers were forced to sell their rice to the government at a low price. The rice were then shipped to Japan.

Meat and fowl in Korea were also purchased through a process known as "voluntary contribution to the national war effort for the glory of the Emperor." They were then, naturally, shipped to Japan, otherwise known as the "mainland."

Rather than have their produce shipped to Japan, many Korean farmers reportedly stopped farming and grew only enough to live on. As one farmer complained, "the Japanese are requisitioning everything, even our apples."

In schools, students were not allowed to keep their hands in their pockets. That was because it would "harm your posture and weaken your constitution, resulting in your becoming weak men, unfit to serve the Imperial Cause."

At least once a week, students were required to visit the imperial shrine for an hour of meditation and prayer - so as to pray "for the victory and prosperity of the Empire."

And when the Japanese troops occupied all of Malaya and Borneo, Korean children were given a rubber ball each to celebrate the capture of "these vital rubber-producing areas from the British and other enemies of the Empire." The rubber balls bore stamped letters that read "Ten Thousand Years for the Occupation of Singapore and Malaya."

But the most touching aspect of the book was the chapter on how Koreans were forced to change their family names to Japanese ones. Many Koreans were depicted as wailing and hitting their heads on the ground in front of their ancestors' graves - in the depth of winter.

As Kim wrote: "All are shrouded with white snow; now, some are kneeling before graves; some, brushing the snow off gravestone; some, wandering about like lost souls."

As one sympathetic Japanese noted, it was unthinkable for one Asian people to inflict such a humiliation on another Asian people, "especially we Asians who should have a greater respect for our ancestors."

And as the Korean father - wearing a black armband - said to his son, "I am ashamed to look in your eyes", "someday, your generation will have to forgive us" and "survival, son, that's what my generation has accomplished, if that can be called an accomplishment."

Oh, what is a people without its name? The tragedy of the Korean people.

What was even more tragic was the thought uttered by the protagonist in the novel.

He said: "What I am really ashamed of is that our liberation was given to us, Mother. We didn't get it ourselves. It just dropped from the sky. Just like that. A present! That's what we ought to be really ashamed of."