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Life Onboard |
LAST UPDATE
July 12, 2005
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| site design imagesparkle.com |
| May 24, 2005 |
60 Years After the War – Mr. Sun Dyun Mo and Ms. Kim Mia Dia |
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| Ms. Kim and Mr. Sun (middle left and middle right) bringing to light the unresolved human rights and historical issues which Japan must face |
They speak three different languages and have three different names—Korean, Japanese and Russian. Peace Boat’s first guest speaker series began with a lecture by Mr. Sun Dyun Mo and Ms. Kim Mai Dia who both reside in Sakhalin, an island north of Hokkaido that was previously occupied by Japan and now held by Russia. Ethnically Korean, in 1940 the Japanese government forced their families to change their Korean names to Japanese names, and now Mr. Sun and Ms. Mai Dia are considered Russian people with Russian names. They often ask themselves, “Who am I?” and they came aboard to talk about war responsibility from their perspectives. |
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Most Japanese people, save for those who live in Hokkaido, are probably not aware of Sakhalin, let alone that the 35,000 Koreans residing there were not allowed to return to the Korean peninsula until recently. Mr. Sun, who works at a newspaper agency, explained that 70,000 Koreans were forcibly taken to Sakhalin by the Japanese army before World War II to work in mining and construction. After the war the Japanese people stationed in Sakhalin started to return to the mainland, but Koreans were forced to remain.
Talking about life after World War II on Sakhalin, Ms. Mai Dia said “just living was very hard and cannot be described with words.” Mr. Sun recalled that the Koreans and Japanese suffered and survived together in Sakhalin at this time. Soon after, the Japanese government passed Sakhalin to the former Soviet Union. Due to the turbulence from the aftermath of war, it was difficult enough for the Japanese government to return the Japanese living in Sakhalin to the mainland, and so the Koreans were left to the wayside once again. The Koreans even tried appealing, unsuccessfully, to the American government for help. Under a complicated treaty between Japan, the USSR and Korea, Koreans who were forcibly taken to Sakhalin were unable to return to the Korean peninsula. Even the Korean government continues to stray away from this issue, partly to avoid paying considerable monetary funds to the Korean people of Sakhalin if they return to the Korean peninsula.
Under Japanese occupation, Korean people in Sakhalin were forced to speak Japanese yet were still able to retain their Korean culture. But during the time of Soviet occupation, the Koreans could not openly express their culture. And, they were not allowed to insist on their return to the Korean peninsula as they had tried under Japanese occupation. They could not even receive passports or permission to leave Sakhalin.
After Perestroika, a forum dealing with foreigners living in Sakhalin was initiated and Japanese Diet members finally addressed this issue. However, although 100 million yen was spent on housing for 889 Korean families, these structures were built under humanitarian aid and not under war reparation, allowing for the Japanese government to ignore the real social and political issues concerning the Korean people in Sakhalin. In fact the Japanese government has taken a very soft stand on the issue of returning Koreans in Sakhalin to their ancestral land. Mr. Sun suspects that the discovery of natural gas and oil underneath the island has prompted this interest.
This issue is also generational since the 200,000 first generation and, to a lesser extent, second generation of Koreans desire to return home, whereas the third and fourth generations see themselves as Russian people and have little desire to live in Korea. Most of the first generation has already passed away, but five years ago 2,000 Koreans from Sakhalin successfully returned to the Korean peninsula. However, the policy that allowed this has its limitations; only couples are eligible to return. Many give up their wish to return, because they do not want to leave their children behind in Sakhalin to return to the Korean peninsula by themselves. Moreover, Korean families in Sakhalin rely heavily on the 1000 ruble pension of the elderly to cover rent and utilities, and many of the first generation wish to help support their children in this way. Mr. Sun and Ms. Mai Dia wish for the Japanese government to aid the living expenses of the Korean families in Sakhalin as a form of wartime compensation.
In conclusion, Mr. Sun and Ms. Mai Dia believe that history should be written correctly so that the next generations are taught correctly and that foremost, events that happened in the past should be recognized. Mr. Sun explained that they had come on Peace Boat because they wanted to the participants to know about their situation and the history between Japan, Korea and Sakhalin. . |
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