{"id":4499,"date":"2023-11-21T11:52:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-21T18:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/?page_id=4499"},"modified":"2023-11-21T11:52:00","modified_gmt":"2023-11-21T18:52:00","slug":"peace-japan-korea","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/peace-japan-korea\/","title":{"rendered":"Building peace between Japan and Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

United Methodist Women bring young women together to better understand the past, work for a different future<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Paul Jeffrey<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Published in <\/em>response magazine in 2017<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a child, Eunsoo Kang heard all the reasons why Koreans should not trust the Japanese. But as a teenager, pop music began to suggest an alternative reality. When the Korean pop star BoA released her song Meri-Chri <\/em>in 2004 (the title is short for Marry Christmas), she sang two versions, one in Korean and one in Japanese. That a celebrated K-Pop diva would cross over into the Japanese market seemed to shrink the world a bit for her Korean fans like Ms. Kang. The song\u2019s lyrics, which were of course about love, might also have broken down some walls that history had built between the two countries: \u201cBecause we\u2019re under the same sky and feeling the same moment, we\u2019re becoming more like each other. . . Now that painful wound is healing. Because you\u2019re by my side I\u2019m free.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan and Korea are not far apart geographically, but Ms. Kang, who\u2019s now 25, says it was a struggle to accept her Asian neighbors. \u201cMy parents\u2019 generation doesn\u2019t like the Japanese, and I learned in school that our history with Japan was bad, so I struggled with my feelings toward the Japanese,\u201d she said. \u201cAs I grew older and finally met some Japanese, I found them to be good people with open minds. Now I just want to be their friends, despite our history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That history is long and troubled, with Koreans usually coming out the losers. Certainly in the 20th<\/sup> Century, with Japan\u2019s occupation of Korea from 1910 to the end of World War II, Koreans have reasons to resent Japanese brutality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
In the Seodaemun Prison in Seoul, South Korea, a woman views photos from the prison records of some of the 5,000 independence activists who lost their lives in the struggle for the liberation of Korea from Japanese control.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A major symbol of that mistreatment is a group of several dozen aging Korean women who were forced into sexual servitude by Japan before and during World War II. Dubbed \u201ccomfort women,\u201d more than 200,000 women from several Asian countries were forced to become sexual slaves to Japanese soldiers. The vast majority of the women were Korean. Of the 238 Korean women who came forward in recent years to identify themselves as former comfort women, only 44 remain alive, and their average age is 89. They continue to demand an official apology and reparations from the Japanese government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such historic tensions have a widespread effect on interpersonal relationships. So when Ms. Kang told her parents last year that she was going to participate in a United Methodist Women-sponsored peacebuilding seminar with young women from Japan, they panicked. \u201cThey were concerned about me being with the Japanese, and they kept asking me if I was ok. When I left for the seminar, they told me they would pray for me every day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Young women from Japan and South Korea participate in a peacemaking seminar in Seoul in August 2016. The seminar, which encouraged participants to confront the historic tension between their two countries, was sponsored by United Methodist Women, the Wesley Foundation in Japan, the Scranton Women’s Leadership Center, and the Methodist Theological University.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Kang not only survived her encounter with her Japanese counterparts, she found new common cause in the struggle against sexual abuse and human trafficking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve decided I have to do something for the comfort women and women in similar situations in other countries. I want to be a missionary, and work with women who are survivors of sexual violence,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon\u2019t marry a Korean!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The peacebuilding seminar has taken place for several years, but always included participants from the United States. According to the Rev. Hikari Kokai Chang, a United Methodist Women regional missionary based in Japan, in 2016 sponsors decided to include just Japanese and Korean women as a way to target the specific history the two countries share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese two countries are so close, yet we don\u2019t know each other well enough,\u201d said Ms. Chang, who was born in Japan and admits that ignorance and enmity have long combined to discourage breaking down the walls of division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The Rev. Hikari Kokai Chang, a United Methodist Women regional missionary, speaks to young women from Japan and South Korea gathered for an August 2016 peacemaking seminar in Seoul. Chang encouraged participants to confront the historic tension between their two countries. The gathering was sponsored by United Methodist Women, the Wesley Foundation in Japan, the Scranton Women’s Leadership Center, and the Methodist Theological University.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGrowing up in Japan, I didn\u2019t know anything about Korea, much less what happened to the comfort women. As a student we did not learn about the Japanese army invading Korea. We were taught simply that World War II happened and we needed to move on,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThen I met the man who became my husband. He is Korean. I wasn\u2019t sure the marriage would work, because there is so much prejudice and misunderstanding. All my friends said, \u2018Don\u2019t marry a Korean!\u2019 But I wanted to know more about Koreans, so before I accepted his proposal I went to Korea to study the language and culture. And I came to realize that we are very similar. Although the language is different, the mannerism and culture are similar. We are almost cousins,\u201d said Ms. Chang, who went on to marry her Korean husband. \u201cAnd I felt God calling me to foster at a larger level what we had come to embody in our own family.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Ms. Chang, who directs the Wesley Foundation in Japan, began leading the seminars six years ago, she encountered considerable resistance from Japanese participants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen the Japanese came to Korea for the seminars and began to hear others\u2019 stories, there was strong resistance from some people. They refused to believe it, said it never happened, because Japanese people don\u2019t do such bad things. One woman resisted and wanted to go back to Japan right away,\u201d Ms. Chang said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Seohyun Choi from Korea (left), Risako Mimura from Japan, and Yeji Han from Korea pose together following their exploration of the Third Infiltration Tunnel in the Demilitarized Zone along the border between South Korea and North Korea. Their visit to the DMZ came during a peacemaking seminar for Japanese and Korean young women sponsored jointly by United Methodist Women, the Wesley Foundation in Japan, the Scranton Women’s Leadership Center, and the Methodist Theological University.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s youth may have greater access to information because of the internet, she said, but their views \u201care nonetheless still distorted because inside Japan we only hear the Japanese side of the story. So some of them think that the comfort women willingly cooperated, that they were so poor that they willingly agreed to sexual exploitation without being forced by the Japanese. Some people actually believe that. So our seminar is one opportunity to open their minds and their eyes to real history. It\u2019s up on them how they will react to that. Our job is just to present them with the experiences of real people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Chang says Koreans and Japanese were drawn closer by pop culture over the turn of the century, but as conservative politicians took over\u2013current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe first took office in 2006\u2013the country took a turn toward xenophobia. Some Japanese politicians even claimed the comfort women were willing prostitutes who grew rich from their services. Such fact-free rhetoric conveniently allowed the Japanese to shake off any sense of national shame or guilt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe began to see hate speech against the Koreans and Chinese living in Japan. More and more people began talking the same way some do in the United States, that we had to make Japan great again. They said we had done it once, so we could do it again,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have to teach our young people to listen to many views, not just what they\u2019re told by one strong leader.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Girl\u2019s statue bothers Japanese embassy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As human rights advocates pressured for some kind of resolution before the last of the comfort women die, in late 2015 the Japanese and South Korean governments announced a diplomatic resolution. Prime Minister Abe offered remorse for \u201cimmeasurable and painful experiences,\u201d but did not acknowledge the extent of official Japanese military involvement in the forced prostitution program, nor did he detail the specific atrocities committed by the Japanese military. And while the agreement committed Japan to pay $8.9 million to a foundation to support the surviving victims, it was termed a donation rather than any sort of official compensation. The surviving comfort women were outraged, and many Koreans accused their own government of once again giving in to Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
People participate in the demonstration held every Wednesday in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul, South Korea. Officially dubbed the “Wednesday Demonstration demanding Japan to redress the Comfort Women problems,” the gathering, which began in 1992, continues to demand justice for the victims of sexual slavery practiced by the Japanese military during World War II. People gather around a statue–Pyeonghwabi–of a teenage girl who symbolizes the comfort women. Created for the 1000th vigil in 2011, the statue has a bird perched on the girl’s shoulder, signifying peace and freedom. The statue sits permanently at the demonstration site, within constant sight of Japanese diplomats, a day and night reminder of the women’s suffering.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Japanese officials also insisted that the agreement required Koreans to remove a statue of a comfort woman which had been installed across the street from the Japanese embassy in Seoul. Yet the bronze teenage girl, seated on a chair with a small bird on her shoulder, has remained there, day and night, bearing silent witness to the horror that many women experienced in wartime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Japan, the government said the agreement closed the books on a difficult chapter of history. Ms. Chang, however, was outraged by the announcement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was just a small item in the newspaper. We were told that the two governments had agreed and there was no longer any need to talk about it. They said that the money was not compensation for any wrong-doing, but rather just a way to help those women. There was no official apology. It was obvious that the governments did not listen to any of the comfort women or their advocates. It was a diplomatic solution that solved nothing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Yue Takada from Japan reads messages posted on the outside wall of the War & Women’s Human Rights Museum in Seoul, South Korea. Takada visited the museum with other participants in an August 2016 peacemaking seminar for Japanese and Korean young women. As they confronted historic tensions between their two peoples, they learned about the thousands of women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II–the so-called “comfort women.” Visitors to the museum were encouraged to write their own messages to leave on the wall. The seminar was sponsored by United Methodist Women, the Wesley Foundation in Japan, the Scranton Women’s Leadership Center, and the Methodist Theological University.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Chang says that within Japan\u2019s churches there has been minimal attention to the issue, except among the congregations of Koreans living in Japan. These are the third and fourth generations of Koreans to be born in Japan, but because their grandparents or great grandparents were brought by force to Japan to work as slave laborers, they have not been granted Japanese citizenship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That treatment of Koreans inside Japan is another motivating factor for the peacebuilding workshop, according to Ms. Chang. She says Japanese participants return home each year to make presentations in their schools and join advocacy efforts about comfort women coordinated by the country\u2019s YWCA. But she also hopes they return more open to the non-Japanese living in their midst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cToday there are many foreigners living in Japan. How can we open their hearts and minds to these people? Japan is part of a globalized world, not a specially set-aside place. We are part of one big human family,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Korea is more than MASH<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rev. Dr. Hea Sun Kim, who directs the United Methodist Women-sponsored Scranton Women\u2019s Leadership Center in Seoul, agrees that many Japanese have a blind spot when it comes to their attitude toward Koreans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey like to talk about how they are the victims of the nuclear attacks by the United States, attacks that killed hundreds of thousands of people, but they have told me that what they did to Korea and other Asian countries doesn\u2019t appear in their textbooks,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Young women from Japan and South Korea form a circle to pray at the Memorial Altar in Imjingak, a park located on the banks of the Imjin River in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas. The women were participants in a peacemaking seminar in August 2016 that encouraged participants to confront the historic tension between their two countries. The gathering was sponsored by United Methodist Women, the Wesley Foundation in Japan, the Scranton Women’s Leadership Center, and the Methodist Theological University. Participants spent one day traveling to the DMZ and discussing the war and possibilities of Korean reunification.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Yet Koreans have their own problems with history, Ms. Kim says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome Koreans know as much of their own country\u2019s history as people in the United States know from having watched the television show MASH,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople in the Korean government are still arguing about what should be put into the history textbooks, and some people are simply ignorant. There are many Koreans who say that the north never attacked the south, that it was the U.S. who drew them into the war.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until they traveled there with the peacebuilding seminar, several of the young Korean participants had never visited the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cToo many young people today don\u2019t know about the war, they don\u2019t know about the armistice and the DMZ, nor do they understand the lasting effects of the war, and how we\u2019re facing even more dangerous times with the U.S. military buildup in the region and the expansion of the Chinese military presence. As China and Japan, a U.S. ally, argue about whose island is whose, there is greater potential for military conflict, and Korea as always will be stuck in the middle,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Pam-soo Kim puts a hat on Pyeonghwabi, the statue of a teenage girl who symbolizes the \u201ccomfort women\u201d who were victims of Japanese sexual slavery during World War II. The statue, which sits permanently across the street from the Japanese embassy in Seoul, South Korea, is dressed warmly for the cold winter by her supporters.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Against that background, Ms. Kim said the seminar focused on equipping women to understand the complexities of building peace in a tense region. \u201cFor young women to be peacemakers in Asia, they need to understand that it\u2019s not just a matter of politics. Peace is related to the behavior of multinational corporations and has significant economic and environmental aspects,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Churches in Korea are energetically sending missionaries to other countries in the region, but Ms. Kim says that whether the young women leave home to be Christian missionaries or tech entrepreneurs, \u201cthey need to be educated about the blessings of diversity and how we can create peace together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy heart wasn\u2019t big enough\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2016 seminar, held at Seoul\u2019s Methodist Theological University, brought eight young women from Japan and eight from South Korea, along with several staff members from the Wesley Foundation in Tokyo and the Scranton Center in Seoul. Over five days, they read scriptures together, looked at the two countries\u2019 long history with each other, visited the DMZ, toured a Seoul museum dedicated to comfort women, participated in an every Wednesday demonstration in front of the Japanese embassy to demand an apology for that government\u2019s policies, toured a former prison where independence activists were tortured, and visited Ewha Womans University, a school founded by a Methodist woman missionary in the 19th<\/sup> Century that has grown into the country\u2019s largest university for women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Led by the Rev. Hikari Kokai Chang (center), a United Methodist Women regional missionary, young women walk through the campus center of Ewha Womans University in Seoul, South Korea, which was designed by French architect Dominique Perrault. The university grew out of a school for women founded in 1886 by Mary Scranton, a Methodist missionary from the United States. The women are from Japan and South Korea, and came to Seoul for a peacemaking seminar in August 2016 that encouraged participants to confront the historic tension between their two countries. The gathering was sponsored by United Methodist Women, the Wesley Foundation in Japan, the Scranton Women’s Leadership Center, and the Methodist Theological University.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Just as Eunsoo Kang, the Korean participant whose parents were worried about her hanging out with Japanese, so too some of the Japanese participants in the seminar faced their own fears in the gathering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I came to Korea I tried to hide the fact that I am Japanese. Even at the Wednesday demonstration, I didn\u2019t speak in Japanese because I didn\u2019t want people to stare at me and wonder why a Japanese person was there. I tried to speak only Korean or English, but not Japanese, because I was scared,\u201d said Fuyuka Kiyonaga, a 21-year old university student from Tokyo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Ms. Kiyonaga says she discovered that Koreans can distinguish between ordinary Japanese and their government. \u201cWhen I was younger, I thought all Koreans hated all Japanese, but then when I went to the museum about comfort women, where things were so shocking that I felt like my heart wasn\u2019t big enough to take it all in. And I realized that they don\u2019t hate the Japanese people, but instead hate those people who started the war and who herded the women around like animals during the war. They hated our military,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Kiyonaga doesn\u2019t understand why her government can\u2019t apologize for the military\u2019s wartime crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s totally messed up,\u201d she said. \u201cEven if they apologize, the hurt won\u2019t go away, the wound will still be there, but the victims will feel more dignity. When the government approved the money last year but refused to apologize, that was our top leaders speaking. If the younger generation had a right to speak about this, we would decide differently.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another Japanese participant, Yue Takada, wants to work in her country\u2019s diplomatic service after university, and she said her experience at the seminar in Korea, especially the disgust she says she felt at the museum about comfort women, makes her more determined than ever to look for ways to end war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWars turn people into brutes, and women get treated like animals,\u201d she said. \u201cBut our government is too proud to admit any of that, to admit that Japan did bad things to our enemies. And our politicians don\u2019t know much about our own history. I don\u2019t think Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has studied history much. Otherwise he would see what needs to be done to build reconciliation with our neighbors in Korea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
SolBin Sung from South Korea and Tomoe Suzuki from Japan nap together in a bus in South Korea. Their nap came as the two women returned from a visit to the Demilitarized Zone with other participants in a young women’s peacemaking seminar in August 2016 that encouraged the women to confront the historic tension between their two countries, and look for paths toward peace and reconciliation. The gathering was sponsored by United Methodist Women, the Wesley Foundation in Japan, the Scranton Women’s Leadership Center, and the Methodist Theological University. Participants spent one day traveling to the DMZ and discussing the war and possibilities of Korean reunification.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the absence of her government\u2019s response, Ms. Takada says it\u2019s up to her to make change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGod calls us to practice love toward each other, especially where there is animosity. God calls us to hear each other\u2019s stories, especially the painful ones, and then work to restore life where there is death, and trust where there is lack of understanding. That\u2019s my call as a peacemaker,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rev. Paul Jeffrey is a photojournalist and senior correspondent for <\/em>response. He lives in Oregon.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

United Methodist Women bring young women together to better understand the past, work for a different future By Paul Jeffrey Published in response magazine in 2017 As a child, Eunsoo Kang heard all the reasons why Koreans should not trust the Japanese. But as a teenager, pop music began to suggest an alternative reality. When […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4499"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4499"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4511,"href":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4499\/revisions\/4511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kairosphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}