Barefoot Gen and the History of Korea Under Japanese Occupation
Joonsang Jeremy Yu
Jjyu4@wisc.edu
Lit Trans 231
May 16th, 2014
Adam L. Kern
Back in the early 1900s, Japan had colonized many different Southeast Asian countries. Taiwan and Korea were few of the colonized country. I am a Korean student and I have witnessed a lot of hatred toward the Japanese government from the older generation in Korea. But, it is also interesting to see how manga became so popular in Korea and Taiwan. Both of these countries were colonized by Japan but these two countries were one of the first nations to have manga over in their country and many of their art-works were similar to those of Japan. Barefoot Gen is a story during the World War II and it tells us the story of survivors of Hiroshima and the aftermath of World War II. Keiji Nakazawa wrote Barefoot Gen and it has been translated to more than 30 different languages. Are there differences between the English and Korean translations? If there are, do these differences help to think through the question about why manga are popular in Korea when the Japanese had colonized Korea?
Koreans were under Japanese rule for a long time. It was officially signed as a colony on August 22, 1910, but Japanese had been planning this annexation from 1876 the Japanese-Korea treaty of amity. Japanese plan of annexation started with this treaty. This treaty allowed Japanese to come to Korean harbors freely and this marked the end of Korea’s status as a protectorate of China. Also later on October 8th, 1895, Japanese minister Miura Goro plotted the assassination of Empress Myeongseong. With the assassination, Japanese were able to control the economy and military power and made the Koreans sig...
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