This article republishes a chapter originally posted on February 28, 2019.
It discusses the extreme status hierarchy on the Korean Peninsula, the cruelty of Yangban rule, the roots of the anti-Japan mentality symbolized by figures such as Kim Gu and Syngman Rhee, and the post-GHQ rewriting of history that shifted Korean realities onto Japan.
By critically examining modernization under Japanese rule, postwar anti-Japan propaganda, and the spread of fabricated narratives through manga and exhibition spaces, it calls for a reconsideration of the basic premises through which the Korean Peninsula is understood.

2019-04-20
If you think that the abject poverty that existed on the Korean Peninsula as a result of evil conduct and folly…。
And the remnants of it…。
Are somehow something meaningful…。
Then it is a hopeless matter.

I am reposting here the chapter I published on 2019-02-28 under the title,
As symbolized by manga such as Kamui Gaiden, written by Japanese who had been brainwashed by GHQ and who replaced the cruelty of the Yangban on the Korean Peninsula with the Japanese.

If I remember correctly, Kim Gu was a man who belonged to the Yangban class.
In other words, Kim Gu’s abnormal hatred toward Japan and the Japanese…。
In 1910, when the Korean Empire was on the verge of national collapse, it resolved on annexation with Japan and requested it of Japan…。
Japan accepted this…。
And for the following thirty-six years…。
Every year, it投入 over twenty percent of the national budget into the Korean Peninsula…。
In the process of rapidly modernizing Korea, which had been one of the poorest countries in the world…。
Japan discerned that what had left the Korean Peninsula in the condition of an ancient despotic state…。
That the root of all their evils lay in…。
A status discrimination system even more subdivided than India’s caste system…。
One of the worst status systems in human history…。
And Japan at one stroke smashed Korea’s status discrimination system.
As a result…。
The Yangban, that discriminatory class which had utterly trampled the Korean Peninsula…。
Was dismantled…。
That resentment is probably the cause of Kim Gu’s abnormal hatred toward Japan.
In any case, he was a rotten man from beginning to end.

Moon Jae-in, who publicly says that he respects such a man more than anyone…。
Is a president and a human being even worse than Kim Gu, one of the very lowest in history.
The world must recognize this through this chapter and never forget it again.

Syngman Rhee, who began an anti-Japan education no different from Nazism itself, also…。
Was a man from a fallen Yangban family.
That is to say, he too was a rotten man from beginning to end.

Until 1910, women on the Korean Peninsula had no names…。
Because women were the property of the Yangban.
The Korean Peninsula was a region where only the king and the Yangban, as privileged classes…。
For almost the whole of its history…。
Had utterly ravaged the country.
The most highly subdivided status discrimination system in the world…。
Even scholars belonged to the discriminated classes.
Even prostitutes were divided into official female slaves and private female slaves…。
The Yangban made it their principle not to work…。
And continued to commit every kind of outrage against the discriminated classes on their lands.

After the war, Koreans who did not obey GHQ’s orders…。
Who did not return to the Korean Peninsula…。
And remained in Japan…。
And Koreans who fled to Japan during Syngman Rhee’s repeated acts of repression and massacre…。
During the Jeju Island incident, which was a great massacre…。
And Japanese brainwashed by GHQ…。
As symbolized by manga such as Kamui Gaiden…。
Which rewrote the cruelty of the Yangban on the Korean Peninsula…。
As though it were the cruelty of the Japanese.
Or again, the massacres now depicted in facilities in South Korea…。
Installed as anti-Japan propaganda for children and foreign tourists…。
Are all…。
Nothing other than modes of conduct that Koreans themselves, throughout recorded history, have inflicted on their own people…。
On the people of the discriminated classes, exactly as they pleased.
All people throughout the world…。
Must recognize this through this chapter and never forget it again.

Le Clézio, who is another self of mine in this world, also…。
In order not to stain his final years…。
Must immediately correct his mistaken assumptions about Korea.
Your assumptions about the Korean Peninsula…。
Are no different from the commercialism in the name of tourism…。
Of the Westerners whom you criticized…。
And you ought to know that they are foolish and shallow things.

If you think that the abject poverty that existed on the Korean Peninsula as a result of evil conduct and folly…。
And the remnants of it…。
Are somehow something meaningful…。
Then it is a hopeless matter.