Koji Hayashi 'Biographies of Zainichi Korean Writers' 08: Kim Hak-yeong (Part 2)

*Korean War (UN/US troops landing at Incheon) Author: US Federal Government / 1950 / Public Domain / Korean War Montage 2.png

← Continued from Kim Hak-yeong (Part 1)

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Kim Hak-yeong: A Second-Generation Zainichi Writer Who Lived an Unfortunate Life (Part 2)

2. Conflict with Father

　My father was a sharp-witted, hardworking man who succeeded in managing businesses such as Korean restaurants and pachinko parlors, so the family was financially well-off.

　In the novel |'Chisel', the protagonist Gyeong-sun's father runs a yakiniku restaurant and a coffee shop, but because he could not attend school, he cannot read. However, he succeeded through effort and ingenuity greater than anyone else.

　Because Kim Hak-yeong's father was illiterate, he would have his eldest son, young Gwang-jeong, read to him when necessary or write documents when needed.

　When the Korean War broke out, Kim Gwang-jeong was in the sixth grade of elementary school. For the three years until the war reached an armistice, he had to read the newspaper to his father every morning and evening.

　In the novel 'Winter Light', the father, who supported North Korea (the Democratic People's Republic of Korea), would get into a bad mood whenever the UN forces gained the upper hand. When his father got angry, he would lose all sense of reason and beat to death the pet dog that young Hyeon-gil—a projection of Kim Hak-yeong himself—loved, and throw it away on the riverbank.

　The time spent reading the newspaper was a time of terror for young Gwang-jeong.

　It was a daily occurrence for Kim Hak-yeong's father to beat his mother when he was in a bad mood. The father, who worked with intense focus, would beat and drag around his wife, who had a more easygoing nature, whenever something displeased him.

　'Confusion' contains the following description.

　When something displeased him, my father would silently and slowly begin throwing the dishes from the dining table one by one onto the dirt floor of the kitchen. Even while the children were eating, he would throw and shatter the bowls containing side dishes and rice without a care. Once he had thrown everything, he would go to where my mother was standing at the sink and, while cursing in a sinister voice, subject her to beatings and kicks.

　Just like the protagonist of his novel, the primal experience for Kim Hak-yeong was his parents' marital quarrels.

　Lee Hoe-sung also writes about his father being violent and beating his mother. However, in contrast to the third son, Lee Hoe-sung, who grew up to be mischievous, Gwang-jeong grew up timid and fragile due to his father's constraints and coercive attitude. He could not express his own thoughts, and his stuttering worsened. It is impossible that the relationship with his father was unrelated to Kim Hak-yeong's stuttering.

　His father's hometown was in Gyeongsangnam-do, in the south of the Korean Peninsula, but he supported the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north and belonged to the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon). Kim Hak-yeong disliked his ignorant father and loathed the ideology his father forced upon him.

Kim Gwang-jeong finally left home around the time he graduated from high school. Going to university was a means to escape his home, a way to get out of that gloomy house and live in a boarding house.

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*The copyright of the main text belongs to the author (Mr. Koji Hayashi), and the publishing rights belong to Keikosha.

◆References

◆Author Profile

Koji Hayashi(Hayashi Koji)
Literary critic. Born in Saitama Prefecture in 1956. Former member of the New Japan Literature Society.
His latest book, 'Zainichi Korean Literature: Beyond the Literature of Antithesis' (Shinkansha, published November 2019), has been featured in media such as the Tosho Shimbun and has been well-received.
Other works include 'On Zainichi Korean Japanese Literature' (1991, Shinkansha) and 'On Post-war Non-Japanese Literature' (1997, ibid.), and 'Manimani' (2001, New Japan Literature Society Publishing Department).
In addition, he has written numerous papers.
'Gugin's Blog,' which he has been maintaining since 2011,http://kghayashi.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/ is a treasure trove!