ID :
28924
Fri, 11/07/2008 - 15:57
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://www.oananews.org//node/28924
The shortlink copeid
WWII repatriates changed image of defeated Japan: scholar
By Kim Young-gyo
SEOUL, Nov. 7 (Yonhap) -- Once lauded as heroic empire builders, Japanese colonialists led in the drastic change of Japan's image as a defeated nation upon their return following World War II, said an American scholar Friday.
"Pursuing the repatriate story through government discourse, media and popular
cultural representations and self-depictions show one of the ways that Japan
refashioned itself from the Empire of Japan into a 'peaceful nation of culture,'"
said Dr. Lori Watt, assistant professor of history at Washington University.
Watt was in Seoul Friday to speak at an international conference on the
Korea-Japan Normalization Treaty, which addressed a conflict with South Korea
over Japan's failure to atone for its colonial and militaristic expansion in the
early part of the 20th century.
Under the normalization agreement signed between Seoul and Tokyo in 1965, South
Korea received grants and loans in return for abandoning its demand for
compensation from Japan for its colonization of Korea between 1910 and 1945.
Critics said the agreement did not provide adequate compensation for South
Koreans forcibly taken to Japan or frontline areas to serve Japanese soldiers
during World War II.
"(The Japanese media) created the image of the pitiable and pathetic repatriate
or war victim. Novelists and film-makers found the repatriate story irresistible.
In popular cultural representations, repatriates are marked as misfits and
mavericks," Watt said.
"Repatriates themselves bristled at all of these categorizations and held their
own with a barrage of memoirs, documentaries, and educational materials about
their experiences," she said.
This process of deconstructing Japan's imperial legacy has had a lasting impact
on the country's postwar relations with its Asian neighbors as well as on the
course of Japan's domestic social and political history, she explained.
Watt's new book, "When Empire Comes Home: Repatriation and Reintegration in
Postwar Japan," is to be published next year by Harvard University's Asia Center.
SEOUL, Nov. 7 (Yonhap) -- Once lauded as heroic empire builders, Japanese colonialists led in the drastic change of Japan's image as a defeated nation upon their return following World War II, said an American scholar Friday.
"Pursuing the repatriate story through government discourse, media and popular
cultural representations and self-depictions show one of the ways that Japan
refashioned itself from the Empire of Japan into a 'peaceful nation of culture,'"
said Dr. Lori Watt, assistant professor of history at Washington University.
Watt was in Seoul Friday to speak at an international conference on the
Korea-Japan Normalization Treaty, which addressed a conflict with South Korea
over Japan's failure to atone for its colonial and militaristic expansion in the
early part of the 20th century.
Under the normalization agreement signed between Seoul and Tokyo in 1965, South
Korea received grants and loans in return for abandoning its demand for
compensation from Japan for its colonization of Korea between 1910 and 1945.
Critics said the agreement did not provide adequate compensation for South
Koreans forcibly taken to Japan or frontline areas to serve Japanese soldiers
during World War II.
"(The Japanese media) created the image of the pitiable and pathetic repatriate
or war victim. Novelists and film-makers found the repatriate story irresistible.
In popular cultural representations, repatriates are marked as misfits and
mavericks," Watt said.
"Repatriates themselves bristled at all of these categorizations and held their
own with a barrage of memoirs, documentaries, and educational materials about
their experiences," she said.
This process of deconstructing Japan's imperial legacy has had a lasting impact
on the country's postwar relations with its Asian neighbors as well as on the
course of Japan's domestic social and political history, she explained.
Watt's new book, "When Empire Comes Home: Repatriation and Reintegration in
Postwar Japan," is to be published next year by Harvard University's Asia Center.
