Minjok And Ho-Chang

The ideas about nationalism – that it wasn’t always there, that it may be as oppressive by using the same discourse as the oppressor as it is liberating – Henry Em brings up in his chapter “Minjok as a Construct” are intricate and well argued. There is always the need to look at concepts in relation to other political and social policies, assumptions and histories of that time, which Em attempts to do by outlining all that was happening before and during when forms of minjok started appearing in writings. If ideas are not critiqued and examined from a different perspective when its legitimacy is questionable, serves to further confuse and disguise the truth.

Ho-Chang’s trajectory seems to parallel the belief that nationalism didn’t exist before, as stated in the Em’s article. Its understandable to a certain extent why people weren’t about nationalism at first and more about their own areas and provinces – they didn’t have to care until influences and policies could be stretched far afield, which modernization and colonialization did. Ho-Chang shifts from only playing his games and figuring out how to deal with his father to becoming passively involved in the politics and outside world, finally ending up being an activist involved in the guerilla assassin group – the Anti-Eulsa 50, which I gather from the last scene of the movie where he wears the same mask worn by the assassin sent to kill Kwang tae’s father. Furthermore, outside influences and modernization wrought the changes for Ho-Chang’s direction. Nationalism was brought into his life through outside influences: first, a western influence, to bring him into contact with Jung-Lim and Dae-Hyun and second, his activist friends, who had lived abroad and were involved in fighting against Japan’s colonialism, who increasingly involved him in nationalistic activities. Kang Kyong-Ae seems to have been similar too in that she was introduced to nationalistic movements and then helped further by acquaintances as described in the introduction to Wonso Pond.

Ho-Chang was brought into direct conflict with Japanese control which helped fostered his feelings of nationalism and this too can be seen as similar to Kang Kyong-Ae’s life in that she became more and more involved the more she resisted against colonial powers. Having something to fight against brings people together and the national identity is one of the most useful identities in that it brings the whole nation together transcending provincial or district identities. That’s probably one of the reasons why Shin Ch’aeho tried to “subvert weak and limited conceptions of Koreas national space” (345); which, mirrors what Perry says about Kang Kyong-Ae in the introduction in that she was trying to expand the spheres of influence of women and bring their struggles and importance to the forefront. In any case, nationalism’s significance and wide spread influence can’t really be ignored which just makes all its possible facets and reasons for propagation that much more important.