Originally published on October 17, 2019.
Continuing from the previous chapter, this article draws on a dialogue between Takayama Masayuki and Miyawaki Junko to discuss liberation from the status-based society during the Japan-Korea Annexation Era, the improvement of women’s status, the family registry system, education, South Korean anti-Japanese sentiment, and the psychological structure created when Koreans were forced after the war to deny their own past as Japanese.

October 17, 2019.
When one considers what kind of person is produced by the total denial of one’s own past, I feel that one can understand, at least a little, why today’s South Koreans are so inconsistent.
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Deprived of History and Culture.
Takayama.
Was not the greatest achievement of Japanese imperial rule that it released them from the yoke of a status-based society?
Japan created family registers and gave women names.
Cho Kuk, the “Onion Man” appointed as Minister of Justice, is about to be arrested over suspicions of his daughter’s fraudulent admission, but before the Japanese imperial era, Korean women ate poor meals by themselves in a corner of the kitchen.
Miyawaki.
Because they did not have even a fragment of human rights.
Takayama.
Even Queen Min was not a name.
It meant a woman who came from the Min clan.
When one investigates, it seems that she may or may not have had a childhood name.
Even a woman who entered the royal family was a “nameless Gonko.”
Miyawaki.
The era in which women who had been oppressed to that extent were most liberated was the Japan-Korea Annexation Era.
They were able to go to school, freedom of occupational choice was born, and names came to be given to them.
Takayama.
That is why the gap after Japan’s defeat was so enormous.
Miyawaki.
How would you feel if you were told that everything you had believed until then was a complete lie?
Disregarding logic and history, they had no choice but to live by a dichotomy in which Koreans were righteous victims and Japanese were evil perpetrators.
Takayama.
Japanese people also received the same kind of brainwashing from GHQ, did they not?
Miyawaki.
Yes.
But Japan had 2,600 years of Japanese civilization if counted from mythology, and even from the beginning of written records, 1,300 years.
It cannot be compared with Korean culture, which began in 1910.
Nevertheless, even though Japan has a place to return to, there are still many people whose brainwashing has not yet been undone.
They are the same as Koreans.
Takayama.
In the 1970s, I took my first and last trip to South Korea.
I looked inside the memorial hall for Ahn Jung-geun, who assassinated Ito Hirobumi, and went to Incheon, where the Allied forces landed.
I also rode a limited express train called the Saemaeul.
Because I was hungry, I asked an elderly conductor in English whether food would be sold.
He looked puzzled, so when I asked in Japanese, his face broke into a broad smile, and he guided me to the dining car, recommending in Japanese, “The Saemaeul bento is good.”
When I opened the lunch box, it contained barley rice and takuan pickles.
When I said, “There is takuan in it,” he corrected my pronunciation, saying, “It is takan.” (laughs)
Miyawaki.
In Taiwan, too, the word “biantang” — bento — remains, and its contents are white rice with a large piece of meat on the bone placed boldly on top.
Takayama.
That sounds like a beef bowl.
The Saemaeul bento was probably modeled on the makunouchi bento.
Miyawaki.
Even seaweed rolls are introduced as Korean cuisine.
Takayama.
The elderly people at that time gladly received me in Japanese.
However, they did not speak loudly.
It seems it would have been bad for it to become openly known that they could speak Japanese.
Miyawaki.
Because they completely denied themselves, who had lived until then as Japanese, the entire nation had no choice but to turn anti-Japanese.
However, no matter how much they speak anti-Japanese words, the scent of the homeland where they lived never disappears.
Takayama.
Electric lights even came on in the houses of their homeland.
Miyawaki.
Those who were born before the Japan-Korea Annexation Era know that, from a miserable situation, life became prosperous under Japanese rule.
But by the time of Japan’s defeat, more than half the population had been born after 1910.
That means they were Japanese from the moment they were born.
Therefore, the moment they ceased to be Japanese, they had no choice but to erase their entire past lives.
When one considers what kind of person is produced by the total denial of one’s own past, I feel that one can understand, at least a little, why today’s South Koreans are so inconsistent.
And according to Matsumoto’s book, even after the war they live intending to be anti-Japanese, but the moment Japanese popular songs are played, tears immediately flow.
When they set foot on Japanese soil, an irresistible feeling of nostalgia wells up.
Takayama.
I wonder if that is also the reason there are so many South Korean tourists.
This article continues.